On Organization

I took 6 weeks off of blogging.  I’ll blame it mostly on winter, though one can still plan and contemplate gardening and certainly cook in the cold.  I’ve felt a definite slowing down as the temperatures drop.  When it’s dark by 4pm I find it difficult to do much in the evenings.  Perhaps it is the primal aspect of our evolution?  Did any of our predecessors hibernate?  Because I feel a pull towards my couch and blanket.  I make several cups of tea and read or watch movies.  My energy is tied to the light.  (I suppose these evenings would be good times to write as well.)

            I’ve been meaning for a several weeks to write about a winter gardening topic: organization.  K, myself and a dear friend were framing a deck in our backyard.  Our vision is to enhance our kitchen’s connection to the garden, and give ourselves a perch to enjoy our southwest exposure.  I was the helper, the errand runner, the lunch maker in this operation.  I busied myself organizing our potting area in the basement to stay available for when tasks arose.  This provided a welcome excuse to do something I ought to do every year.  I recycled ripped and torn pots and neatly stacked usable 6 packs and seedling trays.  It felt good to organize this disorganized corner that called to me each time I went to the basement.

Beans 'n Greens

The first winter storm of the season sent me hurrying out to the garden at 6:30 on a Sunday morning to cover fall crops.  The rain began to turn into sleet, and I picked a basket of greens before heading inside.  Stormy weekend days call for something cooking slowly in the oven.  Today, I quick soaked some navy beans hen folded the beans with herbs, tomatoes, onions, stock, kale, mustard greens and beet greens.  I brought the mixture to a boil before tucking it into a 225 degree oven for a few hours.  The recipe is based on Martha Shulman’s Slow-Baked Beans with Kale.  I don’t bother blanching the greens as Shulman specifies in her recipe.  This basic method is flexible and works with a variety of ingredients, so don’t be deterred if you don’t have the exact components.  Slow-Baked Beans with Kale is one of my favorites for nestling inside on chilly winter days, with the oven on low.

Hands in the Dirt

I debated the pros and cons of starting to clean up the perennial gardens versus staying inside on a rainy 40 degree day to clean closets and the oven.  Ultimately, I remembered a phrase a dear friend told me yesterday, “It was good because I got my hands in the dirt.”  Her mother is dying and now in hospice care.  My friend is an avid gardener, a true artist.  Gardening is therapy for her.  I thought of her throughout the damp, chilly morning as I trimmed perennial tops, pulled annuals and raked leaves.  

What is it about getting in the dirt that comforts us?  Is it the dirt itself, a physical reaction, primal, like putting toes in sand?  Is it spiritual, “from dust to dust?”  Is it therapeutic, like cleaning and organizing, only outside?  I recently listened to an “On Being” broadcast featuring an interview with Bessel van der Kolk.  He talked about the importance of action when dealing with trauma. He said, “as long as you move, you are going to fight.”  He discussed the importance of action in dealing with trauma, and how humans naturally want to help, move, and act when dealing with a difficult situation, such as hurricane damage.  This action keeps trauma moving through bodies, keeps it from getting stuck.  So maybe digging in the dirt helps us deal with whatever is happening in our lives, helps us keep things moving, keep things from getting stuck.

    It felt good to be outside, even through the day was cold and wet.  When I came inside, my skin was so chilled that the shower water burned as I began to thaw.  Here’s to friends, to mothers, to gardens, to dirt.

White Bean Dip with Roasted Garlic

95 cloves of garlic in the ground: an investment in the future.  This sign of fall comes amid our “peak foliage weekend” here in midcoast Maine, a fitting Sunday afternoon activity.  I pulled out the last odds and ends from the bed, added a layer of compost, worked it into the ground, raked it smooth and poked holes with my rake handle.   “Does garlic grow over the winter?” asks K.  Good question, I think.  Why do I always plant the garlic around Columbus Day?  (Because that’s when my garlic guru friend tells me to!)  But K. got me thinking, and I consulted Growing Great Garlic, by Ron L. Engeland, my second favorite garlic resource.  

Tomato’s Last Stand

On this sunny, breezy October afternoon I pulled the tomato plants.  Their yield has been markedly down, with nights dipping into the 40's and days that don’t often break the mid 60’s.  This past week’s harvest basket is more or less empty of tomatoes.  With several weekends of travel on the horizon, I completed the first right of passage, the first step in admitting summer’s end.  The chore was bittersweet; it was a spectacular afternoon.  The kind of afternoon where I could lose myself in the garden.  It felt good to clean up the place, to pull, rake, compost, then tuck in the bed for winter under a blanket of yellow straw.  I love the heat of summer, and sometimes question why I have chosen to live in such a northern state as Maine.  But then I think of cozy Sunday afternoons on the couch, tired from a morning of winter outdoor activity, now wrapped in wool with warm hands surrounding a mug of tea.  I love to be cozy, and winter is the perfect season for practicing this pastime.  (Not to mention the beauty of the four seasons) Nevertheless, I had to capture the last of the tomatoes, the gleanings of a seemingly empty bed that will ripen on the window sill until they become one last BLT, or one last batch of tomato sauce.

First Days of Fall Soup

Molly Katzen, one of the chefs behind the Moosewood Collective, has several versions of lentil soup, and this is my favorite.  The lentil soup base is spiced with paprika, cinnamon, allspice and cayenne, full of late summer vegetables and accented with a secret ingredient: dried apricots.  The dried apricots swell during the cooking and burst with sweetness while you eat.  It’s simple, satisfying and nourishing, and will always remind me of my husband, who first introduced me to the recipe.

Moosewood Lentil Soup

1 1/2 cups dried lentils (I prefer French lentils)

6 cups vegetable stock (or water)

1/2 cup chopped dried apricots

3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped onions

2 to 3 cups eggplant

1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes, fresh or canned

1 green pepper, chopped

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1 tablespoon paprika

1 1/2 tablespoon salt

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

Rinse the lentils, then bring them to a boil in the stock or water. Reduce the heat and simmer covered for 20 minutes. Add the chopped apricots and simmer covered for another 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, saute the onions in the oil until translucent, then add the eggplant and 4 or 5 tablespoons of water. Cook covered on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the eggplant is almost tender. Add the spices and salt, toast to release the flavor.  Add the tomatoes, stir and scrape any bits off the bottom of the pan.  Add the peppers, cover and cook until tender, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

Add the cooked lentils and apricots to the vegetables and simmer for 15 minutes.  Add the parsley and mint, top with parmesan cheese if desired and serve with crusty bread.

Garden MVP 2014

I know it’s a little early to start thinking about next year, but I can’t help it.  I always say my garden is a work in progress; each year I seek to improve it, change it, shape it into a landscape. I also recognize what I like, what I don’t want to change.  Garlic, sungold tomatoes, zinnias, kale, fava beans are on this favorites list.  My new favorite thing to grow: lunchbox peppers.  

This year I bought several lunchbox pepper seedlings at our farmers market.  They come in yellow, orange and red, and yield precious little peppers, perfect for 1.  Their walls are crisp and lush, with juice practically spurting forth when you slice them with a knife.  These peppers are so good I have eaten one whole, right out of the garden.  Perhaps due to their small size, they are relatively quick to develop color, unlike some larger bell peppers which seem to take awhile to develop reds, oranges and yellows.  Anyhow, if you like peppers, consider adding these to your garden roster in 2015.

Maximizing the End of the Season

The time has come to pick the rest of the basil and every tomato with color.  Our temperatures have been dipping dangerously low, which some vegetables don’t appreciate.  Generally speaking, the more heat a vegetable needs to grow, the more sensitive it is at the end of the season to frost.  With this in mind, I just picked lots of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and basil.

Dinner Tonight

Dinner tonight: pesto potato salad over arugula with salmon.  Thanks Cucina Nicolina, you inspire yet again!   

Inspired by Nicole’s Roasted Potato-Pesto Salad:

10 red or new potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half

olive oil

1 clove garlic

small handful of walnuts (about a ¼ cup)

Bunch of basil, stems removed

large handful grated parmesan (about ½ cup)

salt and pepper

bunch of arugula

Bounty

August and September are the peak of Maine’s growing season.  One can go to the farmers market/into the garden and pick such variety of vegetables (and fruits!).  This time of year, I love eggplant.

I have loved eggplant since childhood celebration suppers of eggplant parmesan served alongside heaps of round tubes of spaghetti at Anthony’s Italian Restaurant.  Now I love eggplant because of my husband, K.  He lived in Greece for a year, and I joined him for a summer.  We ate Eggplant in the Oven whenever we could get it.  Tavernas routinely had large menus, of which generally a handful of items were actually available.  When Eggplant in the Oven was offered, we always accepted.  Slow cooked eggplant with tomatoes, oregano and chunks of salty feta, best after hours in a low oven.  

On Mulching and Micromovements

Well, my ambitious to-do list backfired.  Generally I feel peaceful while gardening.  I am connected to the system of life, part of something bigger.  Things don’t work out, it’s a learning experience.  Not today.  I was mad at the cabbage worms, mad at the irregular fall crop germination (due to cats and groundhogs), and overwhelmed by how to deal with my compost system.  

    So, I did what a good friend and mentor calls, “take micromovements.”

Garden To-Do’s

A dear friend (and inspiration for starting this blog) occasionally asks me what she should be doing in her garden.  Here’s what’s on my garden to-do list this September Saturday:

1. Take pictures of my garden beds for reference during winter planning.  Every year I mean to do this.  Every year I don’t and regret it in the middle of winter or early spring, when I’m trying to figure out what was there, and if that green growth is a beloved bulb, sprouts from a perennial root ball, or weeds.  

2. Research cabbage worms.  These pests are decimating my kale, (my blood boils just to write this) and are beginning to take bites out of turnip leaves.  (See evidence below)  After some preliminary research, it seems I must remove and destroy all plant matter as these troublesome caterpillars overwinter.  More coming on this matter.  If you have any suggestions, please share.

3. Weed and mulch fall vegetable beds.  A month ago I planted beets, spinach, chard, radishes, kale and mustard.  This bed desperately needs weeding and mulching.

Small Pleasures

Eating outside elevates any meal (one of the reasons I love camping).  Greens/rice/egg/turkey/tomato/cheddar/salsa-skillet + sunshine + ice water with lemon = rejuvenation.  How nice to take time to appreciate, to taste, to breathe, to give thanks (even if you’re not camping).

Beneficial Parasite

What is that foul picture you say?  It’s a tomato hornworm’s death by parasite.  Yes, that’s right, gardeners.  Let out a cheer because you have a natural ally in the war on tomato hornworms: the Braconid Wasp.  These beneficials are parasitoids, a type of parasite which generally kills their host.

Cat Baffle

Neighborhood cats.  Need I say more, town gardeners?  To be clear, I love cats.  I am guilty of treating my cat like a beloved family member, feeding him treats, cooing him, letting him sleep on my bed.  I do not love when he makes my garden bed one of his beds.  He has a sixth sense for knowing when I planted a new seed bed, which in turn becomes his prefered location for an afternoon nap and nest, sending my germination rates plummeting.  For years I have experimented with different techniques.  For a long time mulching well with straw seemed to do the trick.  Apparently, his tastes (and the taste of our neighbors’ cats) have changed.  The straw is no longer a deterrent.  

My new favorite trick is this simple fence.

Flower Cutting Tips

A few simple tips for extending the life of your garden's cut flowers

The sun is setting early, the morning is coming later.  The garlic is dried and trimmed, waiting for planting.  Apples have arrived in the market.  The air is still thick with summer, humid; the sky is dark.  My stand of zinnias is at it’s peak of fullness and color, and I’m picking the blossoms before the thunderstorms.  A good friend and colleague admired my zinnias the other day, lamenting the fact her garden didn’t get enough sun for such flowers.  I’m arranging this bouquet for her.