Edible Landscaping

Last week I attended the Master Gardener California Smart Landscaping Conference in Chico, California.  The best part of the Conference -- which included information about growing native plants, composting and attracting beneficial insects -- was the presentation by Rosalind Creasy, author of the recently published "Edible Landscaping" and many other books.  Creasy is passionate about her goal to replace unproductive, water guzzeling lawns with productive edible plants.  Her new book includes over 300 photographs illustrating her ideas for moving edibles out of the traditional rows in the backyard into prominence in the front yard, emphasizing color and design, as well as productivity. 

 

My weekend goal is recreate this bed of succulents,

lettuce and painted lattice work: 

A Brandywine from the fog belt at last - but was it worth it?

In retrospect it does seem silly to try to grow Brandywine tomatoes in the fog belt of the Richmond Annex; far more sensible to stick with cherry and plum tomatoes suitable for this area.  UC Davis has done exhaustive trials of what tomatoes grow best in each region of California (http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8159.pdf) and therefore, despite finally producing a Brandywine from seed, I have concluded that it isn’t worth the time and expense to try to battle the elements.  I can walk to an organic market and my bi-weekly Farmer’s Market where I can purchase my favorite heirlooms (Brandywine, Black Crimson and Pineapple Tomatoes).   From now on I will stick to growing Sun Gold and Sweet Cherry 100s, which performed great despite a cool summer and an admittedly neglectful gardener.   


My experience growing the Brandywine is akin to that described by William Alexander in his witty and informative book: "The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden"

NPR provides an interesting podcast of an interview with William Alexander at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5360768.

The $64 Tomato

William Alexander

Best Price $0.01
or Buy New $10.93

With only a dozen of these sought after beauties I am not fussing with any elaborate recipes - just sliced tomatoes, fresh basil, Burrata cheese & a sprinkling of black olives.  

Provence in California - Georgeanne Brennan

Goat Cheese Souffles, Tomato & Blue Cheese Tart and Stacks of Grilled Eggplant, Peppers & Mozarella

Noted author Georgeanne Brennan gives cooking classes at her home in Provence and in California.  My fellow Master Gardener, Kathie Fitzpatrick, and I attended one of her California classes this week.  Lucky for us, the menu was a celebration of yummy tomato dishes. 

We began by gathering herbs and vegetables from her large garden.  In addition to the above pictured dishes, we made pizzas topped with homemade sausage, fresh tomatoes & basil which were baked in the outdoor pizza oven as well as chicken provencal and ratatouille confit made in a Tajine.

Our morning of toil was rewarded with a delicious repast in the garden complete with a light rose from Provence.

In sum, a good time was had by all!

Pablo Neruda & Tomatoes

The tomato displays its remarkable amplitude and abundance, no pit, no husk, no leaves or thorns, the tomato offers its gift of fiery color and cool completeness.  

- Pablo Neruda

Happily, I am now enjoying the amplitude & abundance of the luscious cherry tomatoes started from seed earlier this year as well as lots of basil.  

Today I am makng a roasted tomato & basil soup adapted from an Ina Garten recipe:

Ingredients

• 3-4 pounds ripe cherry tomatoes

• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 tablespoon sea salt

• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

• 2 cups minced yellow onions 

• 6 minced cloves of garlic 

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

• 4 cups fresh shredded Basil leaves

• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

• 1 quart chicken stock

Directions

 Toss the tomatoes with 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread the tomatoes in 1 layer on a baking sheet and roast in a 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until the tomatoes collapse.

Saute the onions & garlic with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of butter, and red pepper flakes for 10 minutes, until the onions begin to caramelize.   Add the basil, thyme, chicken stock and oven-roasted tomatoes with their accumulated liquid. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.  Blend with an immersion blender.  Garnish with basil pesto (see 4/23/11 post). 

Now off to pick some blackberries for dessert!

Edible Front Yards

My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance. 

Tim Allen 

I attended an excellent lecture on converting front yard lawns into edible gardens by Ivette Soler.  She has great ideas for getting rid of non-productive lawns that guzzle water and require big bucks to maintain.  Her new book, "The Edible Front Yard," includes tons of photographs illustrating how to combine edibles and ornamentals in the front yard.  

The desire to turn the front lawn into a productive garden may be the modern trend, but my octogenarian neighbor has had an edible front yard for over 20 years and keeps it going all year long.  Indeed, his winter garden of cabbages, chard, broccoli, kohlrabi, spinach, lettuce and herbs is as beautiful as his summer garden.  

Of course, if you get rid of the lawns, you have to find another use for the man around your house.

Potatoes!

“What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.” A. A. Milne 

Despite limited garden space, I decided to try my hand at growing potatoes.  Wood Prairie Farm has an excellent selection of organic seed potatoes and great advice on growing potatoes.  After much deliberation, I elected to try their Rose Finn Apple Fingerling and Yukon Gold varieties.  

I planted one crop in February and have been harvesting a few potatoes each week since late May.  A second crop was planted in March with a third crop planned for planting in August. I planted the sprouted (aka "chitted") tubers in raised beds a few inches deep and about a foot apart using the “hilling method” of adding soil & compost as the plants grow, burying the stem, and leaving only half the stem exposed.  I repeated the hilling process every few weeks. The hilling method allows for better drainage, less compaction & makes it easy to harvest just a few potatoes at a time rather than pulling up the entire plant.  

Next Spring I hope to try the “potato tower” method outlined in Pam Peirce’s “Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area and Coastal California.”   Inside a wire-mesh tower 3 feet high and 2 feet in diameter, tubers are planted in layers with 10 inches of compost-rich soil separating each layer.  The tower seems perfect for the home gardener.  Hayes Valley Farm has used the towers successfully in their urban garden and their site provides excellent instructions on how to build the towers.

  

Initially, I was so eager to savor the earthy flavor of the new potatoes that for my first few "harvests" I merely steamed the fingerlings with baby artichokes, and tossed the lot with olive oil, tarragon and a spritz of lemon.  However, I’ve become more blasé as the harvests continue and plan to try this recipe adapted from Laura Calder’s “Pommes De Terre a la Boulangere: Potatoes a la Bakery”

2 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 pound of potatoes, thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Fresh thyme leaves
1 cup of stock

Saute the onions until soft and golden in half the butter & olive oil.  In a baking dish brushed with olive oil, layer the onion and potatoes, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper and thyme leaves.  Pour the stock over the layers, cover with foil and bake at 300 degrees until the liquid has been absorbed, approximately 1 1/2 hours.  Uncover for the last 30 minutes for a crispy crust. Note: If you are using older potatoes you may need to bake for 2 hours.  Newly dug potatoes require less time.

Vertical Gardening & Squash Blossoms

Short on garden space, I decided to start growing more veggies vertically this year by training tomatoes to climb a trellis, growing pole instead of bush beans and training Trombetta di Albenga (see April 9, 2011 post) squash to grow up and over a fence.  For the tomatoes and squash I used existing fencing but for the beans I constructed a trellis from livestock fencing as recommended by the Beekman Boys. In January I planted sweet peas next to this fence, followed  this month by a planting of Kentucky Wonder pole beans next to the sweet peas.  The beans are only 4 inches high at present but by the time the sweet peas are finished flowering the beans should be well on their way.  

To learn more about vertical gardening, I attended a lecture by Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet, authors of “Gardening Up! Smart Vertical Gardening for Small and Large Spaces.”  Their book has great ideas for getting the most out of a small space with edibles as well as ornamentals. 

Tonight I am using some of the zucchini squash blossoms to prepare this dish adapted from “Vegetable Harvest” by Patricia Wells.

Trombetta di Albenga squash  blossom

Zucchini Blossoms Stuffed With Goat Cheese

8 ounces herbed goat's milk cheese

1 dozen zucchini blossoms with immature squash attached if possible

1/4 cup of fresh herbs (thyme, basil and/or parsley) minced

Sea salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place a tablespoon of the olive oil in a ceramic baking dish.  Slit the side of each blossom and pipe or spoon in the goat cheese mixture.  Gently press the blossoms closed and place in the ceramic baking dish.  Sprinkle with sea salt, drizzle with olive oil and cover with foil.  Bake for 20+/- minutes, sprinkle with the fresh herbs & serve. 

P.S.  NPR has a terrific segment “Gather Ye Squash Blossoms While Ye May” with more recipes at this link.