Garden Porn ("Winter vs. two but's" final installment)

The mailman came the other week and delivered a fantasy. The seed catalog is 98 pages of wishful thinking and undreamed-of self confidence. Gorgeous images of vegetables - voluptuous, dewy and thrown together in opulent piles - promise themselves to me, if only I am skilled enough.

There's the rub. The produce is one sort of taunt, the obvious one. But the real fantasy here is that I could be the sort of master gardener to coax these beauties from the earth. That I could pop a seed, maybe two, check in the morning and wham, I'm a garden goddess. Gone would be the memories of puny carrots, short as erasers and equally tasteless. Forgotten is that dreadful August day when I accidentally cut the main vine of the winter squash. And I'd no longer feel so inadequate when faced with the mountains of robust produce at each farmers' market.

The etymology of the various vegetables listed in the catalog could be a study in itself. Some names are plainly descriptive: (ie, the albino beet)

some are mildly offensive:
(the "lazy housewife" bean),

and some are straight to the point: ("Jacob's Catle Gassless" bean - which is "Reported to have half the flatulence of regular Jacob’s Cattle." FYI).

I think two of my favorite names (given that I've think this whole magazine is a greener, dorkier version of porn) are "Kentucky Wonder Bush" and "Kentucky Wonder Pole." I am not making this up.

I guess Kentucky really is for lovers.

Moving on - let's talk about carrots. And my very, very inadequate, puny carrots that fed only the ants. I have hope for this year, though, for several reasons. First, now that the soil has had a year to assimilate all the compost I've added, I think it will encourage more downward growth (longer carrots). I think that last season, too many nutrients near the surface encouraged the carrots (and some beets, too) to hang out close to the soil surface.

So I'll try again with my Danvers Carrots, but a new bull's in town. Meet Oxheart:

"Hard to find heirloom introduced in 1884. Uniquely shaped short, very thick roots are 5-6" deep by 3-4" in diameter and grow over 1 pound very rapidly."

I like that they're already short, so when I pull up short carrots, I'll know they were meant to be that way. Also, I'm a Taurus and feel an affinity for anything stubborn and purposeful. Those veggies look pretty fierce. My money's on them.

Corn came next. I almost skipped this chapter because I don't really want to grow any corn in the space that I have. Besides, I'm getting chickens this spring and 8-foot-tall rows of corn may just push my neighbors over the edge.

But let me show you the pictures that nearly changed my mind. Meet Japonica Striped Maze:"Blue Jade":. . . and "Strawberry Popcorn:"The jury's still out.

Have you ever heard of ground cherries? I came across "Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry" and now I can't think of a more perfect plant."Ground cherries were recorded as early as 1837 in Pennsylvania. This outstanding variety originated in Poland and is prized for its clean flavor. Fruits are ½ to ¾" in diameter and are encased in a papery husk that turns brown when the fruits ripen. Stores 3-4 weeks in the husk. Extremely productive plants have a sprawling habit and grow 18" tall and 24" wide. Excellent citrus flavor, can be used for preserves, pies, over ice cream or in fresh fruit salads. Starts fruiting by the end of July and continues until frost and a little beyond, extremely productive."

To summarize the rest of my notes:

Definitely going to plant eggplants. Looking at Florida High Bush ('cause they produce lots of sturdy little eggplants),Lista de Gandia (because they're gorgeous) and Thai Green (because I like to eat them).

As for lettuce, I'm totally confused. I wasn't happy with last season's variety (I picked up some seeds at a grocery store), and I don't know where to begin.

I'll plant as many peas as I possibly can, especially the Amish Snap Pea.

Ditto for sweet bell peppers such as Wisconsin Lakes.

Tomatoes, OMG. SO many. Mostly Brandwines, because they are divine, and lots of yellow pear-shaped miniature ones such as Beam's Yellow Pear Tomato.
I have to stop here or this post will go on an on and on and...

Bottom line: I'm staying away from the monocrop seed packets at the hardware store. This season, it's all about genetic heritage, hope and luck.

We interrupt this message...

...because there was a cookie emergency.

A chocolate emergency. A low-energy on a Friday night emergency. A what-am-I-doing-with-my-career emergency. An "it's a recession," "the middle east is exploding again," "my car battery died today" and "I'm out of eggs" emergency.

You know, an emergency. So I made some really great vegan chocolate chunk cookies.

(Yup. I just confirmed. They are really good.)

Here - you make them too:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• dash cinnamon and nutmeg, if you wish
• 5-7 ounces dark chocolate, chopped up coarsely
• 1/3 cup coffee, cold (you can use water if you want)
  
• 2 tablespoons agave nectar or honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional, but good)
  
• handful of raisins or dried cherries
  
• 1/2 cup (dash more) canola or olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, sugar and baking soda. Add chopped up chocolate
3. Steep raisins or dried cherries in 1/2 cup boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Drain and set aside
4. Mix together wet ingredients in separate bowl: coffee, oil, agave nectar (or honey), vanilla and almond extract, and drained raisins/cherries.
5. Combine wet and dry ingredients. The batter will look very strange - sort of piece-mealy and a bit oily. If it looks like there's no way it will come together, add a dash more coffee or oil, but don't go too much over 1/2 cup total oil.
6. Form by hand into balls, about 1 1/2 inch in diameter. Squish slightly, and space relatively close together on an ungreased cookie sheet (16 to a cookie sheet). They won't spread much.
7. Bake for 10 minutes. If you bake them longer, they will be thoroughly crunchy, but I like mine soft.
8. Cool on cookie sheet for 2-3 minutes (they're delicate at first), them move to cooling rack until firm.

Eat, and enjoy the cholesterol-free and chocolate bombs!

Winter vs. "two but's" (part 1.7 of 2)

Back to business.

So as I was saying, the plants in the coldframes? Not dead. In fact, they're startlingly alive considering how brown the landscape is around here.

I dusted the snow off one window, took it off and braced myself for the pile of ex-plants inside. Instead, this:
(turnips and an occasional radish)

And this:
(lettuce and chard)

And this!(baby turnips!)

Of course, the lettuce has pretty well checked out. That's fine with me, though, because I was never a huge fan of the variety I planted anyway. Too limp and wussy.

And the garlic - it continues to try to sprout through the 6 inches of compost I piled on top of the original sprouts.
I nervously went back and re-read the planting instructions for German Extra Hardy organic garlic. Indeed, I planted it none-too early (October 25), and the instructions warned me that the cloves would try to sprout before winter and advised to pile on the compost or mulch. But it's January, and they're still poking through? All in the name of experimentation.

Oh, yeah! I pulled up a couple turnips to prove to myself that there's action going on below ground too.They're small, but tasty. I put them in soup.

And did I mention that it's freezing outside? I bring this up only to brag about my new outfit, courtesy of my mom. She custom embroidered a very warm pair of cover-alls for me for Christmas. Though not flattering (won't be wearing these to any cocktail parties), they are WARM. Plus there's a chicken.
They're lined. In hot pink.Just what every city-farmgirl needs. Thanks mom!

Now to the "part 2" portion of "Winter vs. 'two but's".

The mailman cometh. And he bringeth - garden porn.
The seed catalog.

Not to be a major tease here, but I have to go to work - again. So though I have pages of notes for this next post ready to go, it will have to wait - again.

Back soon!

Winter vs. "two but's" (part 1 of 2)

Mini-feed in reverse chronological order:

It is Sunday. I sit here with my coffee.
House guests left yesterday. Before that, New Years, and with it, a large, fun, messy party. Before that, Mom's visit for 8 days, during which was Christmas. Before that, Ireland for a week - the entire magical island - and a wedding. (That's Newgrange)

And before that, I stated in a whining post that it was cold outside.

It is still cold outside, it is still that season where nothing grows and everything is asleep. At times, several feet of snow have blanketed the cold frames outside, and the back garden receives no light at all this time of year. My garden is a colorful memory like that of an old love, walled off by snow and time.

But . . . well, two "but's" . . .

Number one but: Something is growing. Inexplicably, slowly, but very certainly, the plants in the coldframes are actively growing. When we left for Ireland in mid-December, I had saluted the coldframes as we walked out the door, thanking them for our late-late crops of lettuce, radishes and turnips. Since our return, Boston has been pummeled by winter storms and arctic cold. On a walk the other night, both my coat, made moist by breath, and my eyelashes froze.

So yesterday, after our final guest took to the road, I grabbed a broom and a camera to investigate how dead everything was.- So very not dead, is the verdict.

Here's a peek:
- but I have to go to work right now. So the big "reveal" as well as the second "but" will have to wait a day.

Be warm, and Happy New Year!

It's cold, and I'm being a baby.

Cold outside. How unusual for New England in December.

So why does this somehow shock me each year? We built cold frames to anticipate, what? July? Well, this blog post was supposed to be a blog boast about how friggin' cool the cold frames are because my lettuce and radishes and turnips are all still growing! And it's 16 degrees out there!

Last night, we had dinner with friends, and brought a spinach salad. Before getting in the car, I pulled up three gorgeous radishes and brought them with us for dinner. They were a hit.

Next year, now that I know that these cold frames work pretty well, I'll try to plan better and plant more winter crops in early October. That way, they have 2 full months of good growing weather before it gets beastly outside, at which point they can just hang in until their dinner time cometh.

When I'm feeling like less of a baby, I'll go out there and take some pictures.

But for now, I'll just change the subject.

Argentina, anyone?

I just wanted to share two pictures I liked from my reunion with black and white film and my Leica. (You can click on them to enlarge them.) The first is of the caregiver of a vineyard and her son right before nightfall. The sky was dynamic and forbidding, and this child was so full of light and love.


And this picture is from the 106,000 acre estancia where Erik and I stayed for two glorious days with Walter and his incredible family. This is his daughter, Delfina, asleep on a sunny and perfect summer afternoon, in her father's pickup truck. I took this picture to try to capture something - that the world, this existence, is caring for us in each moment. It holds us, and holds up life's richness, and we are all, throughout our lives, just children.

Triumph of (or over) the Brussels sprouts

I don't know whether to declare victory or defeat. Perhaps, I should borrow a phrase from Jon Stewart, and declare the Brussels sprouts experiment a "Mission Accomplicated." Because that's what it was. Those 'sprouts were such a pain in my ass, they took forever to grow, they threw off the design of my neato cold frames, but oh.

oh,

they were so delicious.

((Disclaimer here is that the story of this harvest is slightly used news in that I've been sitting on this post (chewing on this post?) for several weeks now and have not had the time to put cursor to monitor. Forgive and forget, if you please.))

Remember this guy?And the cute little sprouts? (that only toward the end ceased to look like the nipples of a pregnant dog and more like veggies?) Well, on a dark and stormy night, a monster emerged from the shadows wielding sharp blades, a blinding light emanating from it's menacing brow.The monster swung, and hacked, and chopped.But nothing happened.

So the monster handed the terrifying blades to its co-monster, who swung and hacked and chopped.Again, to no avail. With an angry roar, both monsters grabbed the 'sprout and ripped it from the earth intact.

And then they washed it off and scratched their heads at what to do next.OK. Enough with the third-person.

Then we snapped off the leaves and determined that it would not fit in the oven to roast.It was enormous, and we soon discovered that cutting it was impossible.

Except, that is, with a table saw.The stalk of the Brussels sprout is amazing.That ring you see has the texture and density of wood, and no kitchen knife or garden shear could dent it. It's damn impressive.

So impressive, we had to eat it.

But first, I brushed it with some olive oil and garlic,and stuck in in the oven, whole, to roast at 420 degrees for about 10 or 15 minutes.

Sprinkled it with salt, served it on a platter and cut each sprout off with a paring knife.

It's the vegetarian's version of eating meat off the bone.

And it was de-lish.

Travels, part 1

I'm back.

Or somewhat back. I'm in that half-way state of mind that descends during a transition. To my right, the washing machine is humming along, trying to process an epic amount of dirty clothes, this here teabag is doing triple duty with yet another refill of hot water, and I'm sitting in a silent house, listening to the wind tickle the wind chimes and feeling the chill of November 23 in the Northern Hemisphere.

Many thousands of miles south, November 23 is very different. Having just returned from Mendoza, Argentina, I'm happy to testify that early summer exists somewhere right now. Baby pears are budding in endless orchards, tiny nibs that will someday turn into wine are sprinkled through a sea of vineyards at the foothills of the Andes. And though my lettuce out in the coldframes isn't so sure about this Yankee 20-degree spell, it is currently wiltingly hot and dry on the desert roads, way down there, at three in the afternoon.

Circadian rhythms notwithstanding, I'm experiencing a sort of biological whiplash. Not two weeks ago, I wrapped up the somewhat mournful process of tucking my autumn garden into its cold, dark bed, and was beginning to accept ever fewer hours of daylight each day. And suddenly, by technological and petroleum-fueled magic, it became June all around me.

This must be, I thought, how a recent divorcee feels at a wedding. Wistful, and a bit ironical, and jealous. Babies everywhere - baby grapes, baby basil plants, fistsfull of chicks, a mewing orange kitten - all in their earliest season. And I walked among them full of awareness of the difference time makes to the living thing, to my own garden, to myself and my loved ones. I am prone to this melancholic way of thinking anyway, but there at the feet of the Andes, where snow melt meets desert and earth gives way to crazy sculptures of rock and dirt, I felt at the bleeding edge of this thought, for days on end. And each night, as if to reinforce this mantra, came the stars, zillions of them, blinking unblinkinlgy, to frankly scare the hell out of me.



Some context is necessary, I realize. We were near Tupungato which is about 2 hours (not quite) southish of Mendoza - on the far west part of Argentina. Erik and I were fortunate to stay for a spell at Estancia San Pablo, an enormous (106,000 acre) ranch run by Walter and his wife, Karina (and their two knee-high babes). Walter deserves a blog entry to himself. If the Bible were rewritten in today's time, he would appear as a character in its pages.



My fuzzy brain is beginning to fail me and is crying out for a nap, but I'd like to get to my main point first. Out there on the ranch, life swirling around backed by huge mountains and an even bigger sky, I felt that I had stepped into an alternate universe. Everything felt so raw, imposing, indigestible and dangerous, and it felt foreign, unsafe, different, gorgeous. But this raw world, at the edge of comprehension for my urbanized sensibilities, is so much closer to the truth, ecologically speaking, than my own reality day-to-day. Which completely turns me on my head. I say I want that reality, that intimate closeness with the cycles of life.

What does it say about me if, when faced with what I revere, I am a bit afraid?