Fog In The Valley At Dawn

This morning the fog in the valley was so beautiful that it drew me outside, camera in hand, BC (before caffeine). I scrambled up the path to the bench above the garden, snapping photos all the way.

An informal collage of the full valley view.


Looking toward the coast.








Across the valley.


The fog changes minute by minute.




Cowlicks form in this part of the valley.




Up the valley.

Harvest Monday - 9/21/09

Here's what came out of my garden in the past week. There would have been lots more to show if I hadn't been gone for a few days. I haven't harvested anything since the 17th. The tomatoes are really coming in now! I'm in heaven...

Here's a tray full of cherry tomatoes: Black Cherry, Galinas, and Isis Candy. Some of these became Oven Candied Cherry Tomatoes: Toss the tomatoes with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, spread on a rimmed cookie sheet, roast at 300F for about 2 hours until shrunken, shriveled, and caramelized. Yummy good and they keep in the fridge for a long time.


Blue Beech paste tomatoes and Black Sea Man.


Clockwise from the upper left: Giantesque, Caspian Pink, Paul Robeson, Hillbilly, Chocolate Stripes, and Aunt Ruby's German Green.


Piracicaba broccoli shoots, Plaza Latina Giant tomatillos, runty little Marconi Purple sweet peppers (the runts are just as tasty as the full size peppers), Pimento de Padron peppers, and Purple tomatillos. And what is probably the last zucchini. It's not powdery mildew that did the zukes in, it was a mole (a family of moles?) that seemed intent on rototilling one of my beds. It severed most of the zucchini roots and pushed a bunch of seedlings around. Dang rodents...

I've been roasting the tomatillos and packing them in containers and freezing them. The purple tomatillos keep a lot of their purple color when cooked. The broccoli has been coming in faster than we can eat it, so I've been blanching and freezing that also.

More Pimento de Padrons and tomatillos. Lots of roasted Padrons in the freezer now.


And another bunch of Piracicaba broccoli shoots, a couple of Christmas Bell peppers (C. baccatum), and the first Palace King cucumber.



Join in the harvest fun at Daphne's Dandelions!

Now, I really have to get out to the garden and do some harvesting. Y'all come on back next week and see what I found...

GBBD - September in the Vegetable Garden

I haven't participated in Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in ages, either I totally forget about it or the dry summer has made for slim pickings of blossoms. But early yesterday morning we had a rare sprinkle of September rain that made everything fresh looking so I was taking photos of flowers as well as vegetables. So, here's some flowers from the vegetable garden.

Cilantro (Coriander)


Magdalena Big Cheese Squash


Sweet Alyssum and Squash Blossom with Two Types of Squash Foliage


Red Florence Fennel


Caper

To see what is blooming in other bloggers' gardens this September visit May Dreams Gardens

Harvest Monday - 9/14/09

Monday, time to show off the harvest. Daphne hosts Harvest Monday on her blog. It's fun to see what she and other garden bloggers are harvesting. Go check it out and then join in the fun!

Tomato season is finally starting in my garden. I've now harvested at least one tomato from 9 of the 13 varieties that I'm growing. This year is so weird, there are 4 varieties that still haven't ripened, but that will change in the coming week. To be fair, 3 of those 4 got a really late start, I had to start seeds of those varieties a second time on April 27 because the first round of seedlings were a failure.


Shown above, harvested on September 9: clockwise on the round tray, a couple of zucchini (dwindling fast), Piracicaba broccoli sprouts, slightly more than a pound of Pimento de Padron peppers, 1 Caspian Pink tomato, 1 Giantesque tomato, cherry tomatoes, 5 Blue Beech paste tomatoes, 2 green Guindilla peppers. A bowl of fennel pollen. A bowl of Purple and Plaza Latina Giant (not so giant anymore) tomatillos. Some of the tomatillos and the guindillas were used in a roasted tomatillo salsa.

Thursday night I made pasta with a couple of tomatoes, I'll just describe it here since I didn't keep track of amounts. I briefly cooked some chopped garlic in olive oil, then tossed in some slivered red onion, slivered ripe Marconi Purple sweet peppers, and some dried salted capers. The vegetables just barely softened over very low heat while 1/2 pound of whole wheat penne boiled. When the penne was ready I turned off the heat under the vegetables, added the pasta to the pan, 2 large tomatoes cut in 1/2-inch dice, some shredded basil leaves, fresh ground black pepper, a good amount of my best olive oil, folded it all together, and served it with grated Idiazabal cheese. It was really good.

If I was keeping track of weights and value the Pimento de Padrons would be golden - there's a grower in the SF Bay Area who sells the Padrons at farmer's markets for $6 a 1/4 pound bag, $24 per pound! I've never seen them in the Monterey area other than on one restaurant menu for beaucoup bucks. I sent a couple of pounds home with visiting friends yesterday.


September 11, clockwise from the top of the round tray: Plaza Latina Giant tomatillos, Purple tomatillos, 1 small cracked Aunt Ruby's German Green tomato (the first), the first Hillbilly tomato, 1 Giantesque tomato, 6 Black Sea Man Tomatoes, many cherry tomatoes (yellow Galinas, Black, and Isis Candy). A bowl full of Pimento de Padrons (about 1.5 pounds) and a few ripe Guindillas. A bunch of Piracicaba broccoli sprouts.


Also on September 11, a handful of carrots - St. Valery, Afghani Purple, Atomic Red, and Daghestan White. Those were peeled, grated, lightly pickled and some of it used in a sandwich with hummus, cucumbers and tomatoes, yum!

Other than what is shown I think I only harvested basil and parsley and another handful of tomatillos.

Is UC Santa Cruz Going to Abandon it's Arboretum?

It's really not my thing to rant, but this issue got my attention. A rather short sighted budget cutting measure seems to be in the works at UC Santa Cruz. The inside scoop is that the University is quietly gutting the staff of the Arboretum and allowing the collection to literally die away. Here's the scoop from a staffer that was passed on to a Santa Clara County Master Gardener:

1. They have taken away the only state funded salary the arboretum has - that of our executive director Dan Harder. The decision took effect immediately, leaving Dan no time to come up with a fundraising plan to cover his salary. The university expects to enforce this plan immediately.

2. They are pushing Dan to lay-off 5 arboretum staff essentially gutting the arboretum. So far Dan has refused, and is looking to mitigate and compromise for a solution even though at this point the univeristy refuses to.

3. We feel this is a very shortsighted attempt by the university to effectively shut down the arboretum, not recognizing the true value of the arboretum's collections, or understanding what a wonderful resource the arboretum is to the university and the greater community. They are doing it slowly to prevent a community uprising. If staff are laid off, the collections will go unmanaged, enabling the university to say 'if you can't take care of it, then you can't have it'. It would be easier for them politically to slowly shut down the arboretum, rather than shutting it down in one fell swoop - because they know if it was one fell swoop there would be a community uprising, and bad publicity.

Up until now we have essentially internalized our financial difficulties; the situation has become dire and it is now time to get the word out and rally our support base together.

So what can you do? Just get the word out - to anyone and everyone in the community. Tell them what is happening here. Write a letter to Chancellor Blumenthal stating your support for the arboretum and its world class plant collections, dedicated to conservation and research. Currently, a number of faculty are drafting their own letter of support for the arboretum.

This reminds me of the State of California's attempt to shut down the majority of the State Parks. Doesn't the University realize what a valuable asset they have? Are they ready to throw away years worth of work collecting and growing plant specimens, many of them unique to public gardens in America? Do they realize what the expense would be to recreate such a collection? Do they realize the monetary value of the collection?

From the Arboretum web site: "Many of the species in these collections are not otherwise available for study in American botanical gardens and arboreta." and "To date, the Arboretum is the original importer of more than 1,500 different selections of choice ornamentals. Many of these have been and will continue to be the plants of future California gardens."

Are they really ready to throw all of that away....

It really ticks me off that they are trying to be so sneaky. They aren't even giving the arboretum staff nor the public a chance to help.

If this ticks you off as well, you can send your protests to Chancellor Blumenthal through his email at chancellor@ucsc.edu. Then you can pass the word on.

Additionally, those of us who are close enough, visit the arboretum and/or join as a member. Not only does it have a wonderful collection of plants, it's also a fabulous place for bird watching, the hummers there are amazing. And don't forget to stop at the gift shop Norrie's and buy a treasure or two, members get a discount. Discounts at a number of local nurseries are also available.

Now I need to get to work and write a scathing email to the chancellor. Then I'm going to send in my membership form.

Elsewhere in the Garden

My kitchen window looks out over a raised bed built up next to a block wall. That bed is home to a few interesting plants. Here is Hoja Santa (Piper auritum), the common name means "sacred leaf" in Spanish. Another common name for this plant is Rootbeer Plant for the fragrance of its leaves.

From Wikipedia:

The leaves can reach up to 30 centimeters (12 in) or more in size. The complex flavor of hoja santa is not so easily described; it has been compared to eucalyptus, licorice, sassafras, anise, nutmeg, mint, tarragon, and black pepper. The flavor is stronger in the young stems and veins.

More from Wikipedia:

It is often used in Mexican cuisine for tamales, the fish or meat wrapped in fragrant leaves for cooking, and as an essential ingredient in Mole Verde, the green sauce originated in the Oaxaca region of Mexico. It is also chopped to flavor soups and eggs. In Central Mexico, it is used to flavor chocolate drinks. In southeastern Mexico, a green liquor called Verdín is made from hoja santa. American cheesemaker Paula Lambert created "Hoja santa cheese", the goat's milk cheese wrapped with the hoja santa leaves and impregnated with its flavor. While typically used fresh, it is also used in dried form, although drying removes much of the flavor and makes the leaf too brittle to be used as a wrapper.

The essential oils in the leaf are rich in safrole, a substance also found in sassafras, which has been shown to be carcinogenic in animals. In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned sassafras bark along with sassafras oil and safrole as flavoring agents because of their carcinogenic properties and the Council of Europe imposed the same ban in 1974, although toxicological studies show that humans do not process safrole into its carcinogenic metabolite.

In warmer climates than mine this plant can be invasive. Winters here are cold enough to knock the plant down to the ground but the roots survive and send up new growth in late spring. It isn't warm enough here for it to be a vigorous grower so I don't worry about it taking over.

My favorite use for the leaves is as a wrapper for grilled fish.


The plant is actually growing in a large pot set on top of the soil, I'm sure the roots have gone through the drain hole in the bottom of the pot and are well established in the ground. Sharing space with the Hoja Santa in its pot are a volunteer cherry tomato and wild oregano.


Next to the Hoja Santa is my prolific Meyer Lemon Tree. The tree has all phases of fruit on it right now, from buds and blossoms, to just set fruits, to small green lemons, to ripening lemons, to huge thick skinned very mature lemons.


And on the other side of the lemon tree is another pot-bound exotic, cardamom ginger (Elettaria cardamomum or perhaps Amomum species, the plant was labelled as Amomum cardamomum, but that's a synonym for Elettaria c. true cardamom). Regardless, the plant will never bloom in my climate so I will never get any cardamom seeds. The foliage does have a nice spicy fragrance to it, with hints of ginger and cardamom. The poor plant would be much happier and prettier if it were in the ground.


And look down here, below the bed, next to the house, growing in almost complete shade... another volunteer cherry tomato.


With tomatoes. Such a nice healthy looking plant.


And here to entertain us is Stella. One of those plants volunteering in the gravel is catnip.


Which explains the blissed-out look. Must be some good stuff...

Harvest Monday - 9/7/09

It's Monday, time to show off the harvests from the past week. See what other gardeners have been harvesting at Daphne's Dandelions and while you're there join in the fun and show us what you've got!

Here's what came out of the garden in the past week. Grapes! I managed to harvest some in spite of generally neglecting the vine. It gets hit hard every year with powdery mildew, but I managed to treat some of the young grape clusters with neem in time to prevent total crop failure. Then I managed to beat the birds to some of the clusters when they finally got sweet enough to eat. I'm not sure what variety this is, the vine was here when I moved in, but it may be Red Flame.


Next up, Pimento de Padron peppers, Piracicaba broccoli shoots, zucchini, carrots (Atomic Red, Daghestan White, Afghani Purple, and St. Valery), and fennel pollen from the Red Florence Fennel. The zucchini plants are pooping out, one of them hit the compost pile yesterday, but the most productive one is still producing a few small zukes. The carrots were used in a spicy Thai style salad, yummy but HOT.


Amaranth leaves. I used these as a spinach substitute in a Spanish dish of stewed chickpeas. It was a hit with my husband.


A bit of basil, splitting Plaza Latina Giant tomatillos, fallen purple tomatillos, the first Caspian Pink tomato (yeah!) and a couple of Black Sea Man tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes (Black, Galinas, and Isis Candy).


More tomatoes, finally! More cherries, Black Sea Man, Caspian Pink, and Giantesque. The cherries topped a pizza last night.


Marconi Purple sweet peppers. The plants set a whole bunch of cherry sized peppers, most of which didn't have seeds. I chopped those up, stewed them with some garlic, oregano, and capers and put them on another pizza. The larger peppers will probably be roasted and stuffed with something later this week.


The first Diamond eggplant, more Pimento de Padrons, and one Christmas Bell. The eggplant was sliced, roasted and used in the third pizza last night.


Not shown this week, more basil, a few more zucchini, another bunch of Piracicaba Broccoli, a couple more carrots, and two pounds of Pimento de Padrons. The carrots were cut into sticks and used to scoop up homemade hummus. Yesterday I worked on blanching and freezing the broccoli. I also roasted all but the last picking of Padrons and froze them in portions for future consumption. This is the first time that I've tried freezing Padrons, I know that roasted sweet peppers freeze beautifully so I thought I'd try it with the Padrons.

It's Summer, Finally, Really!

We have a dirty little secret here in coastal California, Summer starts in September around here. Hehehehe, just after most of the tourists have gone... We can finally sit outside in the evening without a jacket and no dashing indoors or lighting the outdoor heater the very moment the sun dips below the horizon and the fog starts its slow creep or mad dash inland.

Chalk it up to prevailing winds and water currents. In the months that most of us northern latitude folks call summer the prevailing winds and water currents conspire to create cold surface water temperatures (50's F) along the coast and thus plenty of cooling fog and breezes. But late summer brings a shift in the prevailing winds and that brings a halt to the upwelling of cold water along the coast. The water surface temperatures rise as high as 65F and the fog machine slows way down. That's the start of summer!

We had a couple of days of 100F weather last week and now we're having another warm spell in the 90F's. Last night the thermometer showed a low of 65F instead of the usual 50-something or lower. Most of the summer veggies are loving it!

Diamond eggplant, something nearing harvest size. Some of the early flowers survived the rabbit attacks.

Thai Round Green Petch Parisa eggplant, the happiest eggplant specimen in the garden. There are small green eggplant nearly large enough to harvest hidden in the foliage. I don't know why the rabbits didn't attack this plant.

Pimento de Padron, pumping out peppers. My new favorite way to prepare these are to roast them in a hot oven on a preheated cast iron grill pan (put it in the oven when you turn it on) for about 10 minutes, sprinkling some chopped pancetta over them for the last few minutes. I find it works best to turn each pepper about half way through. When I don't add the pancetta my honey looks at me and sadly says "just plain tonight?".

Marconi purple sweet peppers, starting to ripen. I'm thinking these will be good roasted and stuffed with a cheese filling.

Chilhuacle Negro, from Mexico, supposed to be good for mole, chili, and drying. These will ripen to a dark brown.

Aji Angelo, a relatively early baccatum pepper that ripens red and is supposed to be sweet with a medium heat, good for eating fresh.

Christmas Bell, not a bell pepper, another baccatum pepper. I chose this pepper to round out my order from Cross Country Nurseries, the description said it was useful as an ornamental. The first pepper ripened last week and I must say that it is more than just ornamental, it is delicious.

The first Chaco Canyon runner beans forming just above the "rat line".

Magdalena Big Cheese developing the first female blossoms.

This is an Italian herb, nepitella Calamintha nepeta, it is supposedly used to season mushrooms in Tuscany. It likes to volunteer in a modest way around my garden. The interesting thing here is that some of the branches on this plant are sporting white flowers, the lavender flowers are normal.

The female flowers on the Palace King cucumber survived the recent 100F heat and are now opening. There are male blossoms open lower on the plants. Cukes soon, I hope.

You can see the crispy leaf edges on the cucumbers from the recent excessive heat.

And the zucchini plants are getting a reprieve from the powdery mildew attack. The plants aren't as lush looking as a few weeks ago and there aren't as many flowers, but I'm still getting a fair amount of zukes.

And just to show that it is not all joy in my "Summer" garden...

Some of the tomatoes are not so happy. Paul Robeson is covered with crispy leaves but the tomatoes seem to be ok. Other plants have cripy leaves also.

The leaves on Aunt Ruby's German Green are yellowing and then turning brown and crisp. Again, the fruit seems to be ok. A few other plants look like this as well. All of the tomato plants are suffering to some degree.



Well, there are other sad looking things in the garden but I've chosen not to show all the blemishes. After all, I am celebrating the beginning of "Summer", Coastal California style.

Caper Update - 9/1/09

My final harvest of caper buds was on August 5 when I picked the final ounce for a total of 1.25 pounds for the season. I decided to let all my plants bloom for the rest of the season. The flowers shown above and below are a Croatian strain of capers. The plant shown below produced the bulk of my caper crop. I hope that I get a good crop of berries now, they are good pickled.

One of the plants that I grew from seeds I got from a SSE member in Italy is producing lovely pink/purple flowers. The bees have been incredibly busy plucking all the pollen from the stamens. The ants love the sweet nectar that is produced on the exterior of the buds.

And there are lots of berries for seeds and for pickling. I allowed this plant to bloom and set berries before the other capers in the garden so perhaps the offspring grown from these seeds might produce pink/purple blossoms as well.