Tommy's Pumpkin

Tommy grew a pumpkin this year. It's small, and it was a hard-fought battle to get this little pumpkin for two reasons:

• As I've belabored to the point of becoming tiresome, our backyard is not sunny enough to grow anything bearing fruit.
• Squash bores got into the squash vine, and this pumpkin was the sole survivor of that attack.

The pumpkin's special because it was grown from a seed I saved from a pumpkin Tom picked during a kindergarten trip to a local pumpkin patch. Around early November last year, when Max and Tommy had friends over, I removed the seeds, saving and drying some and roasting the others. Then I cooked down the pumpkin and froze the pulp, and threw anything left over into the compost heap. It reminded me of fifth-grade social studies class learning how the Indians were respectful of the buffalo they killed, and used every last part.
So Tommy's prize this year, a descendent of his kindergarten trip, will be cooked into the chocolate chip pumpkin muffins he likes, with seeds saved for next year's sunny front-yard mini pumpkin patch.

Hints from Heloise: Gleaming Cutlery

A dear friend of mine gave us a set of cutlery for our wedding almost 14 years ago: Marquise by 1847 Rogers. It sat in its case for about 12 years while I worried that it was too fancy for the likes of me and Phil. Since I pulled it out and started using it, it's slowly grown a layer of tarnish that I've hardly noticed. Others have. In fact, one neighbor has casually mentioned not once but twice that he thought maybe we shouldn't use my "fine" silverware because of the patina. I'm sure he was thinking more about the stained fork than my baked ziti. One day, I thought, I really need to sit down and spend a few hours cleaning that stuff up like the household help in the 1920s.
Then I stumbled on a recipe the other day for cleaning silverplate. Here's what I did:

1. Make a single layer of silverware in one of those disposable foil things you use for potluck baked ziti. The silverware needs to touch the foil. You can also line a pan or dish with foil.
2. Heat some water to boiling, and then pour it into a 4-cup Pyrex container. For 4 cups of water, add 1/4 cup baking soda. It's going to bubble up impressively when you add the soda.
3. Pour the boiling water and baking soda over the silverware and watch in amazement as the tarnish disappears. Just disappears.
4. Call your husband in from the porch where he's trying to have a quiet martini and do a little reading, and drag him in to watch the magic. Marvel that this will be your fourth-grader's first science fair project.
5. Invite your neighbor over for dinner -- something that will require a few pieces of cutlery -- so he can marvel at your sparkling home.

For really stubborn spots, swirl the water around a bit. Then take out that silverware and add more. When the water cools, you can either re-heat it or make some more.

Brilliant!

In other Household Hints news, I finally paid attention to my kale, which I'd sort of OD'd on in the early summer and hadn't really noticed for a bit. I realized something was chewing the heck out of it. When I went to get rid of the tattered leaves, I found small green caterpillars having a party on my kale. A little Facebook research, and my friends informed me these are white cabbage moths, and the eggs are laid by the little white butterflies I always look at sanguinely when they flutter around the lavender. I couldn't find a good solution until I found the following on an Internet garden Q&A: Pay a kid 5 cents a caterpillar. Max made $2.50 today working next to me, and is eager to start his shift again tomorrow.
Sometimes money DOES buy happiness.

Musings on the Tomato, with Lacto-Fermented Salsa

Yes, it's been a long time since I've posted. I think this is a record. Yeah for me.

Last year my friend Dave pointed out that my anemic tomatoes weren't the result of the universe plotting against me, but simply that I'd not paid attention to their needing more sun than my semi-wooded backyard would afford. Noted. This year I moved the tomatoes to the front yard, and while we've only had six plants, I've been beside myself with how they've thrived. Simply beside myself. If you have any doubt what sun can do for sun-loving plants like tomatoes, here are two heirloom tomatoes, one in the backyard (because I had some extra plants and a little extra room in the raised beds) and one in the front yard. Case closed.

Sylvia explaining last May why we planted tomatoes out front.

It's been a fun gardening year. I tried potatoes for the first time and am giddy that you can put a part of a potato under ground, and a couple months later dig under the resulting foliage and find... Potatoes. As Phil says, "honest potatoes." I planted a 4 X 4 box with Purple Haze potatoes and we've been eating on them for a bit. I can't find a good source for seed potatoes this fall, so I'm sprouting some myself, and sharing them with my dad, who's never grown potatoes but was fascinated when I told him about our experience this year. By the way, if you're thinking of planting potatoes, you might want to check out The Resilient Gardener, which devotes a whole chapter to spuds. One thing I learned from that book was to watch for the foliage to die, wait another week or two, and then dig up the potatoes. Apparently they keep growing and getting nutrients even while their foliage looks dead and as if nothing good is going to come of them.


Backyard on the left; front yard on the right.

So, back to the sun. I took Dave too literally. While I moved the tomatoes to the front yard, I didn't apply his lessons to all summer vegetables needing sunlight. So my first attempt at corn turned out miniature. The raccoons got it, and frankly, they could have it. Ditto the peppers, which were less than impressive other than one hot pepper plant that did me proud. So the plan next year is to expand the little garden plot next to the driveway , and stock it with tomatoes, peppers, corn, rhubarb, and everything else that's been struggling in the backyard. The raised beds in the backyard will be planted solely with the leafy greens and spring/fall vegetables that thrive there: radishes, lettuce, kale, chard, mache.

Meanwhile, the tomatoes.

I will admit that my ultimate strategy is that we'll be able to grow all or most of our vegetables, and even fruit, on our little 1/4 acre suburban lot. But this year the thought of canning tomatoes made me tired. So very tired. So we're eating and enjoying them fresh, and I'm going to rely on the eight packs of Del Monte organic tomatoes at Costco to get through the winter. Sue me.

That said, we've got an abundance of tomatoes, and even tomato-philes like me and Phil are a little overwhelmed. And we've got a raccoon problem that ends in slightly blemished tomatoes that are still mainly good, if a bit scratched or bitten here and there. Bring in lacto-fermenting. I'm a little in love with it. This is a way to get probiatics (you know... Jamie Lee Curtis yelling at you about a yogurt brand that helps keep you "on track") through crazy-quick and easy prep. No canning. Essentially, you're prepping vegetables (pickles, kimchi, sauerkraut) and then letting them sit at room temperature. The result is living food filled with good bacteria; canning, on the opposite spectrum, kills all bacteria -- bad and harmful as well as good.

So I'm loving lacto-fermented salsa, which uses up less-than-perfect tomatoes, takes about five minutes to make, and tastes phenomenal. (Phil, who is more sensitive to salt than me, says it's a bit salty; I haven't noticed.) I'm using a combination of the method from Nourishing Days and a very slight riff on the recipe from Cheeseslave. I'm tickled that the tomato, garlic, and hot peppers all come from my garden. Next year, the onions will, too. Here's what I've been doing.

Lacto-Fermented Salsa

1 small to medium onion
2 cloves garlic

1 to 2 hot peppers, depending on your taste, split and seeded
Juice from 2 lemons
1 Tbsp. salt
4 oz. whey or 1 Tbsp. salt
About 3-4 decent-sized tomatoes
If you like, fresh herbs like cilantro or oregano

In a food processor, process the onion, peppers, and garlic. Now add the tomatoes and whir them a bit. I have a very small food processor, so I have to add the tomatoes, quartered, one at at time. If you're using fresh herbs, put those in and whir them a bit more. Now pour into a bowl, add the lemon juice, salt, and whey (or additional salt). You should have about a quart, so after it's all mixed up, pour it into a quart canning jar, making sure you have about an inch of headspace (space between the top of the salsa and the lid) and let it sit on the counter for a few days. The salsa should be pretty watery, and you'll want to be sure that stray pieces aren't clinging to the lid, as these could develop mold. In two or three days, taste your salsa; it'll be a little tangy and, in my opinion, crazy-delicious. Stick it in the fridge, and it'll keep for a long long time.



Delicious!

If you're really into this, just double the recipe and use a half-gallon canning jar.

For a lot more about lacto-fermenting, which used to scare the bejezus out of me, you might want to check the books Wild Fermentations or Nourishing Traditions.

You Say Tomato

A couple months ago I was at the Meredith Corporation office in Des Moines on business, and got to take a tour of the Better Homes & Gardens test garden. It was, as you might expect, jealousy-inducing and so peaceful and colorful, one just wanted to tuck in and take up residence. The garden manager explained that the garden is about 12 years old, "really quite young for a garden," and that they've continued to refine and hone it. As she said, "You're never really DONE with a garden." What a comfort to know that even the BH&G staff, with their Better Garden, sees gardening as iterative.

Which is a long way of saying that my tomato harvest wasn't what I expected. I have about 10 tomato plants in (three are grape and other tiny varieties that volunteered when we moved the old compost location). The tomato plants went insane in early summer, growing taller than me before they toppled over. I had visions of being overrun by tomatoes; handing out heirloom varieties to lucky neighbors and keeping the stovetop canner in constant use. I spent a lot of time researching what to do with my bumper crop once it came; perhaps a bit less (some might say no) research on ensuring the bumper crop.

So we're getting a few tomatoes a day, and we're eating them now. I stand at the mangle of bushes and eat cherry and grape tomatoes off the vine. All in all very pleasant, but it's a good thing our winter eating isn't dependent on our Purple Cherokee harvest.

Fortunately this past weekend an old friend and co-worker dropped by. Dave and I worked together my first job out of college, and have stayed in touch over the years. For the past decade he's been a a volunteer at Gingko Community Garden (that's him on the home page!), an urban garden that supplies fresh, organic produce to those in need. He took a quick look at my toppled tomato plants and had a few tips I'll be integrating next year:

• Prune. Getting rid of the nonproducing (but not downward-pointing) stems will mean a fuller stem and a better harvest. Let the plants more plant energy into creating the fruits, not more foliage.
• Move the tomatoes to a sunnier spot. My backyard gets ample morning sun to grow lots of things, but tomatoes need lots and lots of afternoon sun. In fact, the huge growth is likely less attributable to my green thumb as to the plants trying to grow and stretch and get themselves to a sunnier spot. Next summer, I'm putting them in the front yard where they'll have constant access to sun. (Dave reminded me, realizing I'm a pretty lazy gardener, that this will mean I'll need to water more often. Noted.)
• The sunnier spot goes double for the tomatillo plants. I chalked up the fact that these plants only produced sad little empty husks to their being overwhelmed, nay intimidated, by the monster tomato plants. In fact, they probably needed more consistent sun.
• Stake. In years past, I've forgotten tomato cages until the plants were too big for them. So I was patting myself on the back over the fact that all were in cages this year. Dave reminded me that I also needed to stake them. This could save the current embarrassment of having a small step-ladder next to the garden trying to keep the fruit of toppled-over plants from touching the ground.

With the garden doctor on hand, I also complained as a helpless victim about the bores that had eaten my zucchini plants. Rather than the bushels of zucchini these plants should have produced, I got one -- one -- before the vines rotted and had to be pulled up and replaced with kale. Dave explained that I could actually bury the nasty part of the vine and the healthy part likely would take off and continue growing and producing. Nice tip.

He also tasted my basil and disagreed that it tasted "wrong" and "soapy," and I made a delicious pesto that night.

I'm already planning next year's garden, what I'll do better, what I'll research, where I'll get seeds. Mucho thankso, Dave.

In other news, this one headed off to kindergarten last week. He's taking it like a champ, and has been excited about the bus and chill about having his personal style succumb to a uniform. I'm in denial that he's this big a boy.


I'm going to pretend that she's never going to grow up:

So there.

Lavender Jelly

Back when we lived in New York, we once spent a weekend in New Jersey at the home of a friend's parents. The friend's mom grew lavender, dried it in little bunches, and used it to make sachets, many of which included a cross-stitched initial for the lucky recipient. I received a gorgeous "C" sachet when I gave my friend's mom a cookbook that we'd recently published. I dreamed of having a garden and the perfectly manicured lavender bushes I saw at their lovely house.

Several years later, I now have unperfectly manicured lavender bushes, and have yet to lovingly dry the lavender into thoughtful sachets for friends and acquaintances. Usually I hack the things down once or twice a summer and throw away what I cut. But this year I decided to try to do something useful with the cuttings. Having really gotten the jam bug this year, I tried my hand at lavender jelly.

Here's all you do. First, come about June, hack the heck out of your bushes. Here's half of what I cut. The other half, I'm ashamed to say, went into the compost. Next year I'll consider sachets...

With a little luck, you'll have a lovely and enthusiastic assistant helping:


Now separate the lavender into little bunches. It's a thrill to know that the buds look like bugs; I was desperately brushing buds off myself, thinking we had a kitchen infestation. But the terror is worth the end result:


You need to tie up the little bunches and let them dry, upside down, not touching each other, for about two weeks. They should also be out of direct sunlight. Our house is short on space, so the living room bookshelves were adorned. Here's some of the harvest in progress:


And here's a close-up of my improvisational tying. Thing is, lavender is so beautiful it stands up to knotted kitchen twine, baby hairbands, and old bread ties. Still, I'm not seeing the staff of Martha Stewart Living paying me a visit anytime soon:

The strings of lavender were secured with a collection of books I trash-picked from behind my college library more than 20 years ago. I have yet to crack one of these, so it's good to know they're getting some use:

In about two weeks, you're ready to remove the buds from the stems. I read lots of advice online advocating removing the buds by putting the bunches in a pillowcase, rolling them around, and removing both the stripped stems and the buds. I tried this method and found it cumbersome and messy. After trial and error, I found the best option was to roll the bunches between my fingers and thumb over a clean piece of paper, and then roll the paper and funnel the buds into a jar for storage.

Making the jelly is really very quick -- about an hour start to finish, including steeping the lavender. Outside of the lavender (which was free and organic), the recipe just requires some pectin, sugar, and lemon juice. The recipe I used is here, and it was so simple I didn't make changes. The recipe says you'll get about five half-pint jars; I got almost six.

I was so tickled with this jelly -- the fact that I could do something useful with what had essentially become a weed. I also absolutely love the taste. It's definitely lavender, but not remotely overpowering. Just soft and delicious. The first batch I made I handed out like a meth addict on the beach: Lavender Jelly for All! So I recently made another batch. I have enough dried lavender buds left for at least two more. I'm seeing some unusual teacher gifts for the holidays...

Happy canning!

Scenes from the Garden

Tonight...

Tom watering the plants with the water I'd left in the car from driving back from Michigan this weekend. I figured the plants would be fine with any plastic leeching into the sun-heated liquid. Sylvia accompanies him doing I don't know what.

American Gothic.

The little 8 X 4 raised beds I made this spring. Please don't scrutinize the craptacular workmanship.

Phil and Sylvia working on their circus act.

Beets, carrots, and kale. I love the color of beet greens.

Welcome, little out-of-focus cayenne pepper. Max will be so happy to see you. He's currently obsessed with the idea of feeding hot peppers to unsuspecting folks.

Hey, there, whatcha knowin'? I've come to watch your pea pods growing...

I'm seeing kale chips in my near future...

Wow! This alien carrot is as big as a grill!

...or smaller than a five-year-old's pinky.

Our neighbor took out his circa 1920s cast iron front rails and gave them to us. I think they lend a Grey Gardens vibe to the original, appropriately overgrown, little garden plot.

The end of the rhubarb and the start of the sweet peas. I froze the rhubarb to pull out mid-winter for Angry Chicken's rhubarb hand pies. Man, those things are delicious.

I keep thinking the little lettuce patch, which now has a couple zucchini plants interspersed, is exhausted and ready to be tilled over. And then I cut more greens. Here's tonight's cutting; we're a very healthy family:

Oh, dear. Is that a leftover Cinnamon Poptart in the background?

Pretend you didn't see that.

A New Kind of Superhero: Garden Man and Seedling

Sunday (if I need to point out the irony: April Fool's Day) the weather here in Indiana was just amazing. We were all wearing shorts, drinking iced tea, and talking of picnics. Ignoring both the calendar and the fact that I live in Indiana where New Year's was too warm to keep champagne cold on the porch but July can require wool, I interrupted the boys' saving the world to herd them to my favorite garden shop and get a jump on the season.

I haven't grown anything but a little basil and a lot of weeds since T arrived a couple years ago, but I'd been promising that *this* year we were going to have tomatoes out our ears, carve a Jack-o-lantern from our own bounty, and try a rhubarb-strawberry crisp from garden rhubarb. The woman at the garden shop clucked disapprovingly while I selected our Better Boys and Early Girls, but we ignored her and confidently gathered up our purchases, headed home, and got to work resurrecting the neglected Earth Boxes.

(As a note, for those of you who haven't gardened with Earth Boxes, you need to try them. A very experienced gardener at my office got me onto them, and I've never looked back. And while you're at it, check out the mind-boggling number of heirloom tomato options at Totally Tomatoes.)

Once the plants were in, I chopped down an old rosebush I've always hated, weeded in the front beds, and started dreaming of the Caprese salad I'd shortly be enjoying.

Yesterday we had spitting snow showers and freezing temperatures. I had neglected to cover the weak little plants the night before, as I was more interested in socializing with the friends who came to visit, so the Caprese dreams have died along with the shriveled tomato twigs. Even Garden Man and Seedling could do nothing to turn back the clock and get the unseasonably warm weather back.

Oh, Mother Nature, you fickle wench.