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Parsley

November 4, 2019katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

Do you love parsley? I don’t. I don’t mind it, just don’t love the flavor. It’s so “parsleyish”. But pick up almost any recipe and you’ll find it used as a final garnish. Recently a friend served parsley pesto over pasta for dinner. Mentally I was thinking it sounds as bad as raisin pie which is a total waste of good crust. It actually tasted okay, but pretty parsley-intense. Luckily the parsley flavor was mellowed by olive oil, cheese and nuts.

Healthful Addition to Meals

Still, garnishing is best in my book. I dutifully purchase a bunch at the grocery with which to garnish my dish. It only costs a buck, but I’ll use only about 10 leaves. So then I have this bunch of healthy, green goodness that gets rid of garlic breath, is chock full of vitamin C and K, helps regulate blood pressure and is a digestive aid. I can’t make myself just compost the rest so I need to find a way to use it that doesn’t swamp me with parsley flavor. And so I don’t have to run to the store every time I want some for garnish.

Freeze it

It can be frozen! It’s easy to do and when it comes out of the freezer, it tastes fresh, retains its beautiful green color and still gives you all the healthy benefits. Simply wash it, remove as many stems as you can (not necessary to remove them all), spin it dry in a salad spinner, bag and freeze.

When you want to use it, simply remove the amount you want, chop it while frozen and voila. It thaws quickly so if you want to sprinkle it for a garnish do it while frozen or you won’t be able to separate it easily.

Grow your own

Growing your own parsley assures you’ll always have it at your fingertips. Parsley stays green well into winter (almost evergreen in mild winters), and sprouts in very early spring. Find a spot in sun or partial shade, soak your seeds 24 hours and plant.

Parsley is a biennial, meaning it grows a rosette of leaves the first year, sends up a flower stalk in the second year and dies after setting seeds. If you let the seeds ripen and fall, nature will start your new plants where they drop and you’ll always have parsley. You simply need to thin out the plants and organize (not nearly as impolite as dill, which scatters its seed all over everywhere).

Carrots and celery

You can use the same freezing method with celery and carrot leaves, but unfortunately, this method does not work with cilantro. Even though they are related, cilantro is more delicate and loses its flavor when frozen. I’m still experimenting though so I’ll keep you posted.

I took my friend’s recipe for parsley pesto and converted one of my favorites, broccoli pesto, by adding about one-third parsley. The recipe is below.

Broccoli-Parsley Pesto for two

1 c. broccoli flowers
½ c. parsley leaves
1 clove garlic
½ c. fresh basil leaves
½ t. salt
¼ t. pepper
¼ c. toasted walnuts, pecans or pine nuts

¼ c. olive oil
1-2 T. grated parmesan
½ lb. noodles of choice, cooked and drained

Pulse first seven ingredients in a food processor until chopped. Gradually add olive oil with the processor running. Process until smooth. Toss with hot cooked noodles and Parmesan cheese. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Leave Your Leaves

October 31, 2019katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

It’s your friendly leaf goblin, showing up as I do at this time every fall. The leaves are finally starting to fall, which means that wonderful activity, leaf pick-up, is here. Instead of looking at them as a nuisance, why not think of them as gold for the garden? I’m going to try to convince you to change leaf pick-up into “leaf recovery.”

Attitude change about beauty

It means a mind shift from wanting everything to look pristine to a less tidy appearance. Why is it that when we see leaves blanketing a bed instead of commercially shredded mulch, it looks messy to us? Both are organic matter, and the leaves are actually much more colorful than shredded bark.

Leaves = Nutrients

The leaves that turn lovely hues and then drop are nature’s source for replenishing the soil beneath trees and shrubs. A plant takes up massive amounts of nutrients through its roots as it grows to use in food production for its healthy leaves. When the plant sheds its leaves, those nutrients are released back into the soil as the leaves decay. These nutrients are waiting to be used by the plant next season to produce leaves, stems and fruits.

So, taking away the leaves simply takes away nutrients. We can add nutrients by fertilizing, of course, but for the most part, synthetic fertilizers do nothing for the soil, and certainly make a dent in the wallet.

Mulched tree circles make happy, healthy trees

What do I do with them?

So, can you simply leave them where they fall? And exactly how do you use these leaves that are so plentiful?

For the leaves covering your grass, think of the prairie’s cycle. Prairies don’t usually have trees, so there are few leaves. The organic matter from a prairie cycle comes from the grass itself. So, it is a good idea to clean up the leaves on your grass in order to keep the grass healthy and free from disease.

On the grass

Simply mow the grass and leaves together and blow it all in your landscape beds. This is not a hard job, but may take some creative driving or pushing to round them up into beds. If your mower is a mulcher, take out the mulching chute cover so you can blow and direct the leaves as you would into a bagger. If you don’t have that capacity, you can simply mow over them a couple of times and they will be ground finely enough to leave in place.

In the beds

Beautiful beech leaves making a winter blanket for the tree

As for landscape beds, take a walk in the woods and you will see blankets of leaves covering the ground beneath trees. This cycle of leaf fall and decay maintains the soil health and this, in turn, allows the trees to grow and remain healthy. We can easily duplicate that cycle by simply not taking the leaves away.

You can leave them whole where they fall and eventually they will begin to break down into the fine humus that is so good for plants. Or you can shred them with the mower and blow them into the beds. You will have ready mulch every year without the back-breaking work of adding wood mulch to your beds.

Make winter beds for pollinators

Keep in mind that native bees nest in the ground, and bumblebees burrow into leaf litter to spend the winter. Leaf litter also protects countless types of butterfly pupa such as black swallowtails and fritillaries.

Make a leaf pile for later use

I have a lot of leaves, so after I fill my beds, I scoop all the extra into a pile at the back of my property and let them sit there over winter. Next spring I can dig into the bottom of the pile for some of the most beautiful shredded mulch to go directly on my vegetable garden instead of straw.

After a couple of years, my leaf pile will be reduced by half and will be composted beautifully for use all over the landscape. The British have been doing this for years – they are famous for their leaf “mould” which they use in the garden and even in containers. Best of all, it’s free!

Garlic!

October 22, 2019October 27, 2019katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

Garlic goes with anything! In fall, sauteeing a minced clove with sweetened kale, chard or Brussels sprouts makes the ordinary sublime. And that doesn’t even begin to describe what happens to the last of the tomatoes when garlic is introduced into luscious sauces. Home-grown garlic is wonderfully intense, unlike the garlic you find in the grocery store.

Plant garlic now

If you haven’t planted your garlic yet, it’s time to get it in the ground for next year. It’s important to plant early enough in fall to give the bulbs plenty of time to develop a sturdy root system yet not so early that they put out leaves in fall. If they get a good start, they will send out healthy foliage the following spring and you will be harvesting garlic in mid to late summer.

Garlic and terroir

Garlic is known for its affinity to the soil (called terroir), meaning that if you can purchase garlic bulbs from a local source, you will usually have larger cloves right away. Ordering it from another region of the country means it may take two or three years of repeated planting before you begin to get large bulbs.

If you don’t have a local source, garlic bulbs are available at most garden centers and nurseries. Supermarket garlic is often treated with a sprouting inhibitor, which takes a long time to wear off and can slow growth.

Hardneck and softneck garlic

I’ve always had the best production from hard neck types of garlic and, although this type doesn’t keep quite as well as soft neck, the flavor is more intense. Hard neck garlic sends up a tall stalk in the middle of the leaves in early June. The stalks are topped with curly seed heads called scapes, which should be pinched out to allow the plants to put more energy back into the bulbs. The scapes are edible and can be used in any way you normally use garlic cloves. Soft neck garlic has no central stalk and will keep for six to nine months if properly cured.

Spanish Roja garlic, one of the tastiest

How to plant

It’s hard to give them up to the garden, but I save the biggest cloves from this year’s crop for planting next year’s garlic. Prepare the garden bed with a fresh covering of compost and dig a trench about two to three inches deep. Soybean meal is a good slow-release fertilizer that can be sprinkled in the trench (make sure it’s from non-GMO soybeans if you are growing organically). If you have rich soil, this is not necessary. Put the blunt end down, about three to four inches apart in rows about a foot apart. Water in well and cover with three to four inches of straw or leaf mulch to keep the weeds away and the ground moist. If your garlic sprouts in fall, don’t worry. It will go dormant and then start up again in spring.

Spider Sticks

October 14, 2019katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

I met a woman I didn’t know while walking in the woods yesterday. We each had a dog and were walking toward each other waving sticks up and down. When we met, we both burst out laughing. It wasn’t a cult ritual nor dousing for water. These were our spider sticks.

In the fall, when spiders are busy making plans for winter, they string their webs from tree to tree, without regard to where the paths are and who might be walking them. You seldom see the spiders, but occasionally I’ll find one hanging from my hat brim. I love what spiders are and what they do, but frankly, don’t like them on me. It’s irrational I know, but just can’t quite get past that silly fear.

So, we walk with spider sticks, waving them to catch the webs instead of letting them wrap themselves around our faces. Without a spider stick, you risk coming out of the woods looking like Frodo in the Hobbit when the giant spider wrapped him up in silk.

Spiders are amazing allies in the garden. They consume countless aphids, flying pests and even slugs that can wreak havoc on our plants. So protecting and tolerating them is definitely in our best interests. Their presence makes garden easier.

Spider silk is one of the wonders of the world. It’s ethereally light and almost as strong as steel. It’s sticky (why it’s so hard to get off your face), and is used for transport, lodging and trapping prey. Most of the silks across the trail are the lines tossed into the wind to make a way for the spider to move through the trees without having to walk down a tree, across the path and up another tree. For fascinating details about the silk (and some creepy photos), check out Spider Silk: Evolution and 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging, and Mating by Catherine Craig.

I’ve started timing my walks so that someone else has already been on that path. Hopefully, with their spider stick, they’ve cleaned out all the webs spun during the night. And yes, there is a spider that shoots silk just like Spiderman. It just doesn’t live around here (look out, Floridians).

Heirlooms and Saving Seeds

October 10, 2019katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

Heirloom vegetables give us a sweet connection to the past, and many people believe that these vegetables have the closest flavor to our childhood memories of true vegetable taste. Heirlooms come from seed that has been handed down for generations. They get their start when a gardener hand-selects for a special trait.

Open Pollinated, Self Pollinated

Heirloom vegetables are open-pollinated, which means they’re pollinated by insects or wind without human intervention. As long as pollen is not shared between different varieties within the same species, then the seed will produce a plant that resembles the plant from which it came and remain true-to-type year after year.

If you decide that you want to save seed from heirloom plants, you need to understand whether the variety is self-pollinated or will cross-pollinate. Cross-pollination may mean that you end up with plants that don’t resemble the plant from which you saved seed and may not even be edible. This is particularly true with cucumbers, squash and melons.

Hybrid Seeds

The “opposite” of an open-pollinated plant is a hybrid which is created by human intervention. Designated as an F1 hybrid, seeds are produced by seed companies by carefully controlling cross-pollination of two varieties with specific traits. It’s important to note that they often don’t “come true” from saved seed. In other words, the seeds you collect from a hybrid may produce plants that are like either parent that was used in the cross or some combination of traits. Some hybrids produce sterile seeds.

Save Seeds Now

Start making plans to save seeds now while the garden is still in full production. Peas, green beans, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers are all self-pollinating and fairly easy to save.

Tomatoes

For soft fruits, such as tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers (yes, they are botanically fruits), let the fruit ripen to almost overripe but not to the point of being rotten.

For tomatoes, scrape out the seedy pulp and discard the rest of the fruit (make bruschetta!). Put seeds and pulp in a covered jar with some water and let it sit a few days to ferment. Fermentation lets bacteria kill any seed borne diseases. Shake the jar a couple of times a day.

After a couple of days, the good seeds will have sunk to the bottom and the bad seeds and pulp will be floating. Pour off the water and pulp carefully, trying not to disturb the seeds on the bottom. Then dump the seeds into a fine strainer and rinse them well. Spread the damp seeds on a tray or screen to dry. If you dry on paper towels or newspaper, they will be hard to remove without damage.

Peppers and Eggplants

For peppers and eggplant, simply remove the seeds from the pulp and wash the seeds thoroughly. Spread the seeds to dry.

Beans and Peas

Beans and peas are most easily left on the vine to dry. When dry, break or split the pods to release the seeds. Spread them on a screen or tray to dry completely.

Storage

Once your seeds are dry, store in an airtight container to prevent reabsorbing moisture from the air. Label immediately. Keep seeds dry and cool and between 32° and 41°F. Canning jars or plastic containers make great storage containers, and you can add a silica-gel desiccant to keep them completely dry.

Summer in a jar

October 9, 2019katejerome2020gmail.com2 Comments

Our house is in the midst of putting summer in jars. I canned apple butter today, which had been in the slow cooker overnight. I awoke this morning to the scent of cinnamon and apples, and officially made the switch into fall. I’m no longer craving cucumbers, but have changed my craving to butternut squash.

Putting Food By

All winter my family will recall the sights and scents of summer as we open jars of home-canned fruits and vegetables. “Putting food by” is much more than just filling the larder for winter consumption. It’s an elixir for the soul. Not only is the food good for us, but one of the best prescriptions available for keeping the winter doldrums at bay is homemade strawberry jam on warm toast.

I Learned from my Mother and Grandmothers

Preserving from the garden fulfills my need for a connection with my past. My mother taught me to put food by, and always used everything from the garden. After canning tomatoes, green beans and squash, the leftover vegetables went into chow chow or green tomato piccalilli. Fresh apples and pears went into the root cellar while the overripe fruits were made into musky butters or tangy chutneys. I have many of my mother’s canning jars and they are used over and over again, occasionally finding their way to someone else’s home in the form of a holiday gift.

Canning Kitchen

Our kitchen is now a canning kitchen, with the canner taking a position of prominence on the counter, surrounded by canning lids, freezer bags and various utensils for lifting, tightening, pouring and straining. We put up tomatoes, green beans, beets, pickles, hot peppers, relishes, pear and herb vinegars. I’ll make pickles out of just about anything, some of which have become favorites while others end up on the compost pile the following spring.

Neighborhood Gardens

As I made my evening stroll of the neighborhood the other night, I took a different route than usual and came upon a magnificent garden nestled in an empty lot between two houses. It was divided into six plots, each bursting with cabbages, tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans, beets, carrots and Swiss chard. This community garden was obviously producing plenty of vegetables for preserving. I trust that those gardeners are gaining the same pleasure from their harvest as I am from mine, and I’ll bet that they will all have cupboards full of summer’s bounty as they roll into a frigid winter.

Even though fall is approaching and bringing with it the bittersweet feeling of losing our long days and warm temperatures, the smells of ripe fruit and vegetables and the bright jars of pear butter, tomato sauce, tarragon vinegar and green tomato pickles make this a luscious time of year.

Cooking for one or two

September 30, 2019October 22, 2019katejerome2020gmail.comLeave a comment

I just spent the last six days eating squash casserole. Now I love squash casserole and when the pattypans were calling my name at the market this week, I succumbed. I love them prepared just about any way, but decided I hadn’t had my favorite squash casserole in a long time.

So, I pulled out my grandmother’s recipe and proceeded to steam 6 cups squash, saute a whole onion, and mix everything together with three eggs and a cup of shredded cheddar. Topped it with panko breakcrumbs and baked it. It was absolutely heavenly. But it was enough for four to six people.

Don’t get me wrong. I love leftovers (I get teased for eating last night’s dinner leftovers for breakfast), but there needs to be a limit. It didn’t even occur to me to reduce the amounts in the recipe. I could have easily cut this recipe down to feed two people.

I happen to have a lovely husband who eats my cooking readily (but not squash casserole). He and I cook together and often enjoy leftovers together. But sometimes, we just make too much food and I have to give some of it away. I don’t mind doing that, but I have to be careful not to sell it as “leftovers”. That kind of puts people off. So, I try to let people know that I simply made too much and am sharing with them.

One of my projects this winter when I’m housebound is to take all my favorite recipes and convert them for two people. I can do this when I’m actually doing the cooking, but sometimes (see squash casserole above) I get so enthusiastic about the actual cooking that I forget to reduce amounts.

This isn’t a problem when I’m just cooking from my head because I naturally lean toward cooking just enough for two of us. But I do use recipes and this can be a problem (see squash casserole above).

To end the story, after several days of leftover baked squash, I couldn’t face one more day of it. So my dog reaped the benefits of squash and cheese. She loves it when I make too much food.

Kate's Garden Kitchen

Simple gardening, simple cooking.

Author: katejerome2020gmail.com