Seasonal Cooking with Rita Calvert~The Local Cook

Consider the onion, the allium. The generic name Allium is the Latin word for garlic. The genus, includes the various edible onions such as garlic, onions, pearl onions, chives, scallions, shallots and leeks. Many of us begin our growing repertoire simply with  scallions and yellow onions. The more adventuresome will also grow shallots, garlic chives, tree onions, everlasting onions and welsh onions (Japanese bunching onions). These aromatics have played a pivotal role in cooking worldwide, as the various parts of the plants, either raw or cooked in many ways, produce a large variety of flavors and textures. In some cases, onions are the focus of many dishes, in others they complete the flavor.

Onions come in different colors, sizes and tastes. There are two types of round onions. One is the large, round type referred to as spring/summer onions, which are grown in warm weather. These are the Maui Sweet onion, Vidalia and Walla Walla. They have a sweet or mild taste.

The other type of onion is referred to as the storage onion. These onions grow in colder climates with a flavor that is more pungent. They are called the red, white or yellow onion. Spanish onions are one form of storage onion.

Great Kids Farm onion field

 Health Benefits of Onions

The Institute for Cancer Research has stated that Allicin, found in onions, is apparently a good cancer-fighter.

The chromium in onions works to improve the cell’s response to insulin. Studies of diabetics show that onions lower insulin levels and improve tolerance for glucose.

The combination of sulfuric compounds, chromium and vitamin B6 in onions work together to lower blood pressure, prevent atherosclerosis and heart disease. Onions help to reduce the risk of stroke and heart attacks. They also help to lower bad cholesterol and raise good HDL-cholesterol.

 Caramelized Vidalia Onion Tarte Tatin

The Vidalia onion was first grown near Vidalia, Georgia, in the early 1930s. It is an unusually sweet variety of onion, due to the low amount of sulfur in the soil in which the onions are grown. 

Serves 6

 If you’re wanting to try something elegant yet simple, you have to make this! I took it to a party where it got rave reviews although folks had a hard time figuring it out at first. A Tarte Tatin is a dish of French origin which uses apples for the upside-down concoction. Upside down, meaning the apples are caramelized first in butter and sugar. When they are golden, a layer of puff pastry is draped over the top. Now the dessert is baked in the oven until the puff pastry is fluffy and golden. Immediately the warm dish is inverted on to a serving platter. Southern Living Magazine inspired this savory version and how sweet it is. Vidalia onions are in season so go for it!

• Notes:
•  Make sure the pastry stays chilled.
• Try to plan to finish baking and then serve immediately so the pastry stays crisp.

• 3 tablespoons butter 
• 1 scant tablespoon sugar 
• 8 small sweet onions (about 1 1/2 lb.)or 3-4 large Vidalia onions, halved crosswise
• fresh lemon thyme leaves
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 frozen puff pastry sheet, thawed
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• Garnishes: fresh lemon thyme sprigs, freshly ground black pepper

 Preheat oven to 375°. Melt butter in a 12-inch ovenproof skillet over medium-low heat; swirl to coat bottom. Sprinkle with sugar.

 Place 12 to 14 onion halves in skillet, cut sides down, with sides touching. Cut remaining onion halves into quarters, and place, cut sides down, in gaps between onions in skillet.

 Cover and cook onions 10 minutes, adding salt and 1 tablespoon water halfway through. Add vinegar; cover and cook 3 to 5 minutes or until onions are caramelized. If there is a lot of liquid, pour off most of it. Remove from heat.

 Roll pastry sheet into a 12-inch square on a lightly floured surface; spread with the Dijon mustard and cut into a 12-inch round. Place pastry round (with mustard side down-touching the onions over onions in skillet.

 Bake at 375° for 30 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven, and using oven mitts, immediately but carefully, invert onto a serving plate.

Fresh Pea Soup with Leeks and Mint

Leeks are just one of many vegetables in the onion family. Cultivated from wild leek , it is closely related to elephant garlic and Kurrat (from Egypt) (all these are Allium ampeloprasum subspecies) and further related to chives and ramsons.

 Growers bury the sets (little plants) deep to blanch as much of the stalk as possible, but all parts of the leek are edible. They are usually about 1 inch in diameter, but can be eaten smaller or larger. They taste like a mild onion and garlic mix. They often have a sharp bite when raw, but are sweet when cooked.

Serves 6

 Mild and sweet, leeks are the perfect allium for this delicate soup with a hint of Asia. Delicious hot or cold. This soup can be made with fresh peas or frozen baby peas,

• 2 teaspoons coconut oil 
• 1 cup washed leeks (white part only), diced
• 4 cups shelled green peas (about 4 pounds unshelled)
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk (see photo)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1-2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint leaves
• Extra mint sprigs for garnish

 Melt coconut oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add leeks to pan; cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add peas, broth, and coconut milk; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 8-10 minutes or until peas are very tender, but still bright green, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; let stand 15 minutes. Stir in salt, pepper and mint leaves.

 Place half of pea mixture in blender; process until smooth. Pour pureed soup mixture into a large bowl. Repeat procedure with remaining pea mixture. Stir in lime juice (to taste), Ladle about 3/4 cup soup mixture into each of 6 bowls;  Sprinkle each serving with a mint sprig and more pepper. Serve rice crackers with the soup.

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Above, blossoms of Wisteria go with anything but here they’re paired gorgeously with the peach-colored blooms of a native deciduous azalea.  The arbor-type structure the Wisteria is growing on is, I should note, very strong, which any structure supporting Wisteria had better be.

Brookside goes all out for Wisteria, as evidenced by this block-long arbor.   There were so many bees swarming all over those blooms, I wish I’d been able to capture the sound somehow.  Of course the bees are no threat us humans, as they’re far too busy to bother us (which is the case with bees generally, unless we step on them or disturb their nest) 

I’d never seen a Wisteria with white blooms before! 

I love this bench, especially in its aged state with lots of character.  Looks like it was donated in someone’s honor – great idea!  Flower-wise, the Alliums blooming in back of it make a wonderful contrast with the quiet greenness all around them.

The scene above illustrates several garden design ideas in a not-too-showy way.  First, that rustic bench draws us into the scene.  And even under large trees, it’s possible to have lots of color – here azalea blooms and the season-long color of Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ ).  And a simple gazing ball is a wonderful addition.  Finally, a strip of lawn does a great job of showing off more exciting parts of the garden – the borders.

Above, the bench is shown from the other direction to illustrate a design principle the folks at this public garden use to great effect – massing!  I love blue Hostas anywhere but especially this many of them all together.  In the background is another impressive mass – of Epimedium.  Who says we can’t make gorgeous gardens under trees?

Above, could a garden scene be more calming than this?  And inviting too – thanks to that simple bridge.  The river of ferns, Hostas and Primroses planted in pebbles are part of a functional element that manages to be stunning, too – it’s a dry streambed.  Thus, the bridge.

Finally, another massing of Hosta, this time a variety we don’t usually see.  I remember the sad, bad old days when Brookside was invaded by deer every night and their poor Hostas were chopped off at the base.  Thanks to deer fencing, their shade gardens are fabulous again.

A note about the English ivy climbing up the tree in this photo:  it stops a few feet above this portion of the tree.  Ivy is harmless enough when it’s kept low and isn’t allowed to climb high enough to envelope the tree or produce berries, which can then be spread far and wide by birds.  The gardeners here know what they’re doing!

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Azalea maze at the Getty Museum Garden – not for the home gardener!

To Correct Misshapen Azaleas

Renewal or renovation pruning is the technique that brings old shrubs (not just azaleas but also viburnums, forsythias, mock oranges, spireas, and cherry laurels, among others) back to the attractive and healthy form they were in when you bought it – over time.  That disclaimer about time is because we gardeners can only remove limbs and encourage new growth and then wait; we can’t make it all happen at once. 

If your azaleas are old, overgrown or badly misshapen, here’s what to do this year and the next two years:  Simply  remove one third of all the stems down to their origin (close to the ground).  This is counter-intuitive to most of us because really, who’d ever imagine doing it?  But honestly, I’ve done this to dozens of old shrubs over the years and and seen it work wonders.  It stimulates the plant’s own growth hormones exactly where we want new growth to happen – at the base of the plant, rather than at the perimeter.  Sadly, we see too many examples of azaleas and other multi-stemmed shrubs being pruned (or worse – sheared) at the ends of the branches, which only makes more new growth happen at the perimeter of the shrub, where there’s already too much growth.

The following spring, the shrubs should have produced lots of new growth at the base.  Just reduce the number of shoots per stump to two or three, leaving only the strongest and best placed ones.

Full, right-sized azaleas

Azaleas Too Large?

Of course the best policy is to choose plants whose ultimate size is exactly right for the spot they’re growing in, but mistakes are made, and selecting the wrong size shrubs is a common one.  Besides mistakes in plant choices, sometimes we make changes in our gardens that make down-sizing of certain plants a great ideas.  Whatever!  Some plants that are too large for their site are hopeless cases because they can’t be pruned back to the correct size – especially many conifers but with azaleas there’s usually an available fix – the renewal pruning described above, which reduces the size of the plant.  For the purpose of keeping the shrub smaller,  this renewal pruning will probably need to be performed every year, indefinitely.    

Regular Pruning is Minimal

All that said, azaleas look best when minimally pruned, allowing them to retain their naturally graceful form.  Here’s what they need to maintain their good health and beauty.  

• Removing all dead, dying and diseases branches and stems – back to where they start.  (Never cut just anywhere, leaving a stump.  Cut a half inch above a branch.)  This can be done any time.
• Every year or two, removing at least one of the oldest stems back to the ground or close to it.   This is often the tallest of the stems, and almost always the thickest and showing age in color – usually grayer.
• Often, azaleas look best in borders when they’ve been limbed-up.  That means removing the low-lying limbs, especially ones lying on the ground or on top of groundcovers.  Too much limbing up can ruin the natural shape of the plant, so keep a light touch.
• Finally, removing or shortening branches that crowd out other plants that aren’t as amenable to pruning (especially conifers, whose shapes are so easily destroyed by pruning).  Same goes for branches growing over sidewalks and paths.  

Azaleas carefully pruned to keep the path clear

Tools for Pruning Azaleas

Hand pruner and loppers should easily do the job; I’ve never had to resort to my pruning saw for an azalea.  Just remember that if you’re using your favorite hand pruner (mine is the #2 Felco) and straining to make the cut, the branch is too large for hand pruners and it’s time to step up to the lopper.  Never mind that the hand pruner MAY cut that branch if you use enough muscle; hand pruners can be irreparably damaged by doing that.  

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Seasonal Cooking with Rita Calvert~The Local Cook

“Growing Your Own Food is like printing you own money.”

       -by Ron Finley who describes himself as a “renegade gardener.

 Michael Pollan, whose book The Omnivore’s Dilemma changed America’s thinking on eating meat, now has a new book, Cooked, which argues, “Cooking may be the single most-important step anyone can take to help improve the American food system.”

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about the importance of growing your own food, learning to cook and teaching people to cook; who better than to explain the growing and cooking of the vegetable world than Deborah Madison with her stellar new book and the excerpt I’ve included from her beautiful article, “Food for Body and Soul“. Lastly you’ll find another recipe from Vegetable Literacy employing any variety of zucchini squash along with herbs and nuts to lift it to new heights.

“Growing your own leaves a deep, lasting imprint on your body, psyche, and memory.

Imagine it’s before dinner and you’re on your knees in front of a squash plant that has weathered the summer. Your hands part its big leaves, then slide over the sleek, shiny bodies of the ribbed ‘Costata Romanesco’ zucchini, assessing their natures and deciding which ones to pick.

Meanwhile, in a supermarket somewhere, a woman is turning over a shrink-wrapped package of dull-skinned zucchini. With distance, our relationship with food weakens. Those of us who garden are ecstatic about finding the first shoots of asparagus in the spring.

But having no intimacy with asparagus flown here from Peru, we consequently recall little about eating it, even though it has made a rather astonishing journey, one that few asparagus spears have made before.

 I believe that it’s contact and memory, both of which increase as distance decreases between the soil and the table, that mark the difference between merely feeding and really nourishing ourselves.

Grow Your Own!
We seem to be in a collective state of anxiety about our food. Knowing that trucks and planes must roll and fly if you are to eat, and seeing the rising prices at the pump, you may suspect that there’s a downside to your long-distance food and that food could get very costly. You might well wonder if indeed it makes sense to fly a few ounces of easily grown arugula from one end of the country to the other in indestructible plastic clamshells.

Should you rely on Big Organic, or support local farmers? Shop at high-end groceries, or at Wal-Mart? Are expensive organic vegetables as pure and wholesome as the stores would have us b Ask elieve? yourself any of these questions, and you might be tempted to throw up your hands and say, “Forget it, I’m growing my own!”

And that would be a good idea.

Whether you are a seasoned gardener or a neophyte, I’m confident that the most important reason you have for filling your backyard with trellises, hills, and beds for vegetables is that growing your own leads you to an experience—first of all, of real food; but also of your connection to the earth, the seasons, the weather, and other people.

You may have started gardening to correct problems in your own world, but the correction has surely enlarged your life. Garden, and you know where you are.

The signs a garden gives us to look at are many. Is the soil hard and dry with drought, or moist and full of worms? Did the lettuces sprout a month earlier than usual? Was it that late-spring rainstorm that kept the pollinators away from the fruit blossoms so that this will be a year without fruit, or was it that untimely freeze?

Be in the garden, and you learn firsthand about the large and subtle shifts in the world around you—about climate change and global warming, about migration and survival, and about the astonishing ability of tender seedlings to push out of rough ground each year and grow.

Ultimately, your garden gives you a real experience of plenty and even diversity. Your garden gives you tasty little fennel and beet thinnings to add to a salad, or tiny zucchini attached to big yellow blossoms that are begging for fillings. Creeping purslane nourishes you with good omega-3s, and your luscious purple amaranth sprouts make a gorgeous garnish, as will the violet sage blossoms.

Imagine having enough sorrel to use it by the fistful, instead of having to buy just eight sad leaves at a time. At last you can make a stupendous sorrel soup. You may discover that cauliflower greens are delicious, and that those small heads that come on at the end of the season lend great charm to a meal. A lovage leaf for your sandwich? No problem if you have a plant. Same with chive blossoms scattered on ricotta cheese or arugula sprouts adding bite and charm to a hard-cooked egg.

When you grow your own, you can see the possibilities your garden offers, and not only when things are at the stage—the only stage—that the supermarket shopper knows, but in all of their growing stages and, most important, the moment of their greatest flavor. An heirloom tomato grown in Belgium and sold in Texas simply can’t rival even the most mundane variety grown (organically) by you. Kale punctured in a summer hailstorm can still be cooked; it need not be thrown away because of some visual standard created by a market.

There should be a warning: Cooking out of the garden will ruin you forever for anything less.

It’s not surprising that the garden is the ultimate inspiration for those who go inside at the end of the day to cook dinner. And what you make from what you grow becomes part of who you are, so that over time, without effort, you begin to catalog your tastes; remember what was exciting from years before, be it a platter of vibrant ‘Green Zebra’ tomatoes glistening under a scattering of sky blue blossoms or a gorgeous ‘Triamble’ squash. Recipes rush to suggest themselves from your harvest, flavors sparkle, vegetables shine, and fruit is truly sweet the way it can be only when picked ripe. Even when things are a struggle, it’s still utterly rewarding to grow your own.

Good, gorgeous food is not about privileged shopping, but about surrounding yourself with plants and all the possibilities they offer. Seedling by seedling, leaf by leaf, you navigate through each year’s garden, and in that way, you grow your life. You’re no longer a spectator standing in the aisle reading about what’s for dinner, but the one whose hands, tangled up with weeds and leaves, dirt and dust, end up with a squash that positively gleams.”

Sauteed Zucchini with Mint, Basil and Pine Nuts

This could be a salad or something you pile on crostini covered with ricotta or toss with a small pasta shape. It is easy to make in smaller or larger quantities. 

• 1 pound zucchini, any color or variety
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 small cloves garlic
• 10 mint leaves 
• 5 basil leaves
• 1 heaping tablespoon capers, rinsed
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts or walnuts, lightly toasted
• 1-2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• Additional mint and basil leaves, slivered or torn to finish

Slice the zucchini into rounds a scant 1/2 inch thick. Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the zucchini and saute, flipping and turning every few minutes, until golden brown, about 15 minutes. They won’t necessarily cook evenly.

 Meanwhile, chop together the garlic, mint, basil and capers and toast the pine nuts.

 When the zucchini is golden, add the herb-garlic mixture and the vinegar to taste and toss well. Taste for salt and season with pepper. Turn onto a plate. If you’re not going to eat the zucchini right away, cover and let stand at room temperature or in the refrigerator, then finish with the pine nuts and the mint and basil just before serving.

 With ricotta: Slip spoonfuls of ricotta among the squash. 

The post More “Vegetable Literacy” Plus Profound Edible Quotes appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

Yes, the Annapolis Community Foundation presents GreatGive, a 24-hour online fundraising event, and Homestead Garden is proud to be listed as one of the 10 Founding Circle members, in loving memory of Don Riddle, who was well known for his dedication to local causes.

How it works

From 7 PM on May 15 to 7 PM on May, 16, 2013 the Anne Arundel County community will come together for 24 hours of generosity. During that 24-hour timeframe, individuals, businesses, and organizations can donate online here to a charity(s) of their choice. 100% of each donation to participating charities will be given to the charities.  Each donation increases the cause’s chances of getting some of that prize money, too.

The Causes

Of special concern to us at Homestead are causes supporting the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways in the county, and there are plenty of them to choose from:  Chesapeake Baysavers, Severn Riverkeepers, Watershed Stewards Academy, South River Federation, Scenic Rivers and Trust, Oyster Recovery Partnership and the Chesapeake Conservancy.  Other environmental groups worthy of support include Friends of Anne Arundel County Trails and Help Green Annapolis.

But there are so many more – nonprofits in the fields of health, education, arts and culture, business development, et cetera.  (Browse all the nonprofits here.) There’s something for everyone.  And seeing what a wealth of philanthropy and volunteerism enjoyed in Anne Arundel is inspiring, and surely will lead to more awareness of them going forward. That’s the beauty of the GreatGives campaign. 

Speaking of great online campaigns in support of worthy causes, I recently saw how much attention and needed funds can be won by using online participation and social media in smart ways.  $1 million was offered to 24 different historic sites in the Washington D.C. area (including three in Maryland), with the monies going to the sites that gained the most online votes and social media support.  At the end of two weeks of voting, needy sites had not only won important funding; they’d seen their support communities grow, and the whole cause of historic preservation was at center stage all over the Internet and in traditional media, too.  Here’s hoping that GreatGive has the same tremendous impact for Anne Arundel County causes!

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First up, are some images from Takoma Park’s House and Garden Tour, in my neighborhood from 1985 to 2011.   It was great fun seeing the progress in people’s gardens and indoors, renovations I’d never seen before.  Anyone with shade in their garden can appreciate the fabulous perennial display in the shady spots above and below.  Even a narrow side yard can be a stunner.

Above is the view from one homeowner’s deck and screened-in porch into their back garden.  Nice wide borders stuffed with a diversity of plants reveal a real gardener living here. 

And though I neglected to photograph them, screened-in porches seem to be the new big thing in home renovation, judging by the homes on tour in Takoma. 

Finally for Takoma, a small patio is made prettier by the liberal use of purple and blue, including in the shade cloth but especially in the chimney-as-artwork.

Now let’s go to Virginia for the Fairfax portion of the state’s Historic Garden Week.  That’s where I found the glorious redbud/wisteria blooming combo shown above, in the large garden of a large and grand home – like many of the homes on the tour.  I learned that homes can be the focus of tours in the Historic Garden Week program – it’s just that the proceeds go to support historic gardens.  Grand homes aren’t nearly as interesting to me as grand gardens, and even more interesting are the less-grand ones.  This one, though large, wasn’t too formal and was full of great plant choices grown perfectly.

Above, here’s a homeowner using plants and creative talents to welcome her visitors.  A child’s Adirondack chair becomes a container garden hanging next to the front door and the mailbox echoes the same color-coordinated blooms.  Below, the view looking from her (amazing) home into the back yard is even more colorful and inviting.  She hand-painted the floor cloth and pillowcase.

Finally, the tour included a public garden – Meadowlark Botanical Gardens.  Since it opened in 1992 Meadowlark has become quite popular with the public, especially for weddings in the building seen below.

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Seasonal Cooking with Rita Calvert~The Local Cook

Vegetables are the new heroes of the food world, as more and more of us try to eat healthier meals, many attempt to lose weight and others simply want to give up eating meat. This week we bring you a plethora of Deborah Madison from her much heralded new cookbook, Vegetable Literacy.

 When I lived in Santa Cruz, CA, Deborah worked at the Greens at Fort Mason Restaurant which was way ahead of even CA culinary leadership. She has always excelled in the vegetable kingdom and in her new book she talks about growing the food as well as cooking it. 

 I find reviews helpful, so some are included in this post. I tested and photographed new recipes from Vegetable Literacy. The first one you will find below.

 Quotes from Deborah Madison-Vegetable Literacy: 

“The garden is the other side of the kitchen”.

“As a beginning Gardner, I join forces w all the million of others who have been inspired for one reason or another to try to grow something. It’s a movement I’m thrilled to see happen and am thrilled to be part of”.

 In her latest cookbook, Deborah Madison, America’s leading authority on vegetarian cooking and author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, reveals the surprising relationships between vegetables, edible flowers, and herbs within the same botanical families, and how understanding these connections can help home cooks see everyday vegetables in new light.

Reviews

“I have always marveled at Deborah Madison’s deep knowledge of vegetables and her original creations, which taste just as delicious as they sound. Vegetable Literacy is her latest tour de force, a massive well of knowledge that makes you want to read and learn as well as cook. A fine achievement and a real inspiration for me.” 

—Yotam Ottolenghi, author of Plenty and Jerusalem

 “I have long been a fan of both Deborah’s vibrant food and her many thorough, thoughtful cookbooks. In Vegetable Literacy she offers, with abundant warmth and generosity, observations from years of garden-to-table cooking. Filled with fascinating botanical notes and inspired recipes that really explore vegetables from the ground up—it is a pleasure to read. The writing is beautiful and the lessons are astutely down to earth.”

—David Tanis, author of Heart of the Artichoke and Other Kitchen Journeys

 “Deborah Madison has taken vegetables to a whole new level. You’ll want to know what she knows—about botany, family pairings, and companion flavors on the plate. In cooking, Madison excels, but she’s also a natural with observation in the garden. Her passion is palpable, her scholarship tops, and her prose exquisite.”

—Amy P. Goldman, PhD, author of The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table

 “The are few people equipped with the curiosity, skill, and eye for observation required to construct a volume of this size and scope—and Deborah does it masterfully. Vegetable Literacy will shift the way both home and professional cooks think about the relationship between ingredients, and vegetables in particular. Using this book has felt like a missing puzzle piece snapping into place—inspiring, intimate, informative, and beautifully illustrated.”

—Heidi Swanson, author of Super Natural Every Day

 “For those of us who love vegetables, Deborah Madison gives not only practical tips for buying them, but also a bounty of diverse recipes. This is a monumental cookbook from a gifted writer and one of the best cooks of our time.” 

—David Lebovitz, author of Ready for Dessert and The Sweet Life in Paris

 “In Vegetable Literacy, Deborah Madison elegantly folds together a joy of gardening, a fascination for botanical kinship, and an expansive knowledge of fine and simple cooking. This book is a nutrient-dense treasure.” 

—Wendy Johnson, author of Gardening at Dragon’s Gate: a Work in the Wild and Cultivated World

 “In her most exciting and innovative book to date, Deborah Madison shows us how the botany in our gardens can inform and guide our preparation and cooking of meals that will both delight and nourish us all. Come directly from the garden to the kitchen with Deborah, and you will never observe or use vegetables in an uninspired way again. This book feeds our imaginations and souls with more insights per page than any cookbook I know.” 

—Gary Paul Nabhan, ethnobotanist and author of Coming Home to Eat and Desert Terroi

 Braised Fennel Wedges with Saffron and Tomato

Deborah Madison suggests you leave the core intact when slicing the fennel as it’s what really holds the slices together. Make sure to brown the fennel before adding the cooking liquid. Reserve a few of the greens for a delicate garnish at the very end. Serve it however you’d like; fennel pairs beautifully with fish or chicken, but gives grains a whole new character. Play with heartier grains like farro, wheat berries or even barley. Slightly adapted from: Vegetable Literacy

Serves: 4 

• 2 large fennel bulbs
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
• Pinch of saffron threads
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• Finely chopped fennel stalks
• Finely chopped fennel greens
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons capers
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
• Kosher salt
• Cooked Quinoa (or other favorite grain), for serving (optional)
• Crumbled goat cheese, for serving (optional)
• Chopped Italian parsley, for serving (optional)

 Trim off the stalks and greens from the fennel bulbs and chop finely. Set aside. If the outer leaves of the bulbs look scarred, take a slice off the base and loosen them and set them aside for another use. Halve each bulb lengthwise and cut the halves into wedges about 1-2 inches thick. 

 Heat the olive oil in a wide saute pan over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion and fennel seeds, crumble in the saffron and thyme, and then cook until the onions soften and the steam releases the color from the saffron, about 7-10 minutes. Add the fennel wedges and cook them until golden, turning them and the onions occasionally. Once they are well colored, add the garlic, stir in the tomato paste, capers and then add the stock and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Scrape the pan to release the juices, then cover and simmer until the fennel is tender, about 15-20 minutes.

Serve over a bed of cooked quinoa with a little crumbled goat cheese and chopped fennel greens and parsley for garnish.

 Note: If there’s excess liquid at the end of cooking, pour it into a small skillet. When ready to serve, add 1 tablespoon butter to the juices, bring to a boil and simmer until rich and syrupy. Pour the thickened sauce over the warm fennel. 

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Call me crazy but I think I outsmarted the insects this spring. Normally, I’d be pulling cabbage loopers off my brassicas and handing them off to the chickens for a treat.

Beautiful Brassicas

Insect parents are just like the rest of us: they want to make sure they have food and shelter for their offspring. They evolve with and come out of hiding when their food source will be available.

Cabbage Looper Larva
photo by David Cappaert, Michigan State University

For years, I’ve had my vegetable garden in the same place. This year, I decided to experiment and grow everything in containers. My containers are at the opposite corner of the property from my veggie garden. These two containers are watering troughs planted with broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale and kohlrabi.

Watering trough planter

I believe that by moving their food source, I’ve eliminated at least the first onslaught of cabbage moths. Let’s hope that’s a trend this year!

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Lucky us, many public gardens in this area are always free.

But really, spending the day in a gorgeous public garden is wonderful anytime, as I’m sure Homestead’s readers would agree.  Just take a look in the right sidebar of this blog, under Inspirations, to find a list of some wonderful ones local to us.  Or just peruse the representative sampling of photos below, intended to inspire you to GO VISIT.

Even if you’ve visited these gardens already, are you sure you saw everything there was to see?  For example, at the National Arboretum, there are so many great collections but one little-known one is the Gotelli Dwarf Conifer Collection, shown in the photo above behind a display of Irises.

Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, as it looks this week.

Ladew Gardens in Monkton, MD as it looks this week.

On the Mall in D.C., the Ripley Garden is a hidden gem.  It’s tucked in between the Smithsonian Castle and the Hirshhorn Gallery.

Rose Garden at the U.S. Botanic Garden.

The Cylburn Arboretum in Baltimore, late summer.

Historic Londontown Gardens – from their website.  (It’s on my list to visit!)

The Adkins Arboretum, above, is also on my list.

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Getting Plants Started

-Amend the soil with compost and mulch on top to hold moisture.  Clay soil isn’t bad soil; it just needs to be broken up with organic matter to create space for air (because roots need air or they’ll drown).

- Dig holes twice as wide and an inch or so deeper than the root ball, mix the fill-in soil 50/50 with compost, discarding any clods that won’t break up.   This is the best (possibly the only) time to fix soil problems, so don’t skimp.

- Most common planting mistake?  Planting too deep.  Better to err on the side of planting high, not deep, which can cause the roots to drown.

- If you encounter hardpan (impenetrable layer of compacted clay), find a better spot, or consider building up some planting soil on top of it.  That’s because hardpan won’t drain and plants will drown in it.  Drainage is key!

- Loosen the roots so they’re free to grow into the surrounding soil. 

- Build water basins around new plants.

- Pat down the soil around the newly planted plants (with hand or a gentle step with your foot) to ensure good soil-root contact.  

- Hand-water new plants their first 1-3 weeks.

- For the first few weeks, especially in summer, it may be necessary to water every day, but the frequency will decrease as its roots spread.

- A plant’s first 5 months in the garden determine its future.  Pay close attention during that period.

- Water needs change over time for plants.  Adjust watering as conditions change and as plant matures.

 - The goal of “establishing” new plants is to encourage roots to grow deeper.  After the first few months, a tree should be able to go a week between waterings.  The next year, a month.  By the third season, it should be self-sufficient and only need watering during extreme droughts.

How to Water and How Often

- Water deeply when you water.  Why?  Roots go where the water is, so deep watering makes the roots go deep, too.  Thus, the plant becomes more and more drought-tolerant.

- Water infrequently, letting the soil close to the top dry out between waterings.  Allow as much time as possible between waterings.  Plants need AIR and it’s between waterings that they can breathe. Overwatering means watering too frequently, not too much at a time.  

- What’s the right frequency?  When the plants need it.

- Maximum self-sufficiency comes from deep roots.  Daily watering creates dependent plants.  Shallow watering = shallow roots.

- Use buckets, not teacups.  There’s no such thing as too much water at any one time.  

- Water slowly and deeply.

- For larger plants what’s recommended isn’t hand watering but a slow trickle of water for 20-30 minutes around the drip line of a plant.

Gene told us about the tall Lavender growing in his garden that’s been there 8 years now and never, ever needs watering.  The key to success with Mediterranean plants like Lavender is good drainage, which Gene accomplished by growing them over crushed rock.

Sometimes it’s the gardener who needs watering.

More Watering Tips

- Group plants with similar water needs together.

- Mulch conserves water.

- Best water meter?  Your Finger.  Though asked about soil moisture meters, Gene says they work fine, as long as they’re used correctly.  He suggests inserting them into the soil at different levels because the reading is for only the tip, not the length of the probe.

- LOOK at your plants regularly, at least weekly.  This is wonderful pay-off for all our efforts – the pleasure of strolling through the garden with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, noticing and admiring.

- Most plants will wilt to show us they need watering, but what about evergreens?  They don’t wilt, but they will lose their luster when they’ve dried out, and appear  a shade lighter.  (I’m so nervous about my evergreens, which are large and the most expensive plants in the garden, that I water them regularly, regardless of their appearance.) 

- “Drought-tolerant” plants AREN’T drought-tolerant until they’re established. 

-  For trees, Gene says that TreeGator bags are very effective.  They hold 20 gallons and take 6 hours to empty, so the tree is watered slowly and only where the water needs to be.  So unlike sprinklers, which typically waste half the water they’re spraying around, through evaporation.  Efficient watering puts it directly into the soil, not up in the air.

Photo credits:  Man watering face, little girl, and nozzle.

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