Gratin made with any Green

March 7, 2022 Elizabeth Boegel

Tonight, as a side dish to some tender Flat Iron steaks from Butcher Box (marinated in olive oil, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, a little coriander and smoked paprika, a couple of smashed garlic cloves, and plenty of pepper) seared in a hot cast iron pan, I made a gratin with fresh cabbage. It was delicious, and it occurred to me that you could use this recipe using any fresh greens from the garden or the CSA box.

It’s not even a recipe, really, more like a guide or a ratio. Take the fresh leaves of some sturdy green (cabbage, kale, chard, spinach, collards), remove the center ribs (feed those to your chickens or your compost pile), and slice the leaves into fat ribbons. You need about six generous cups of sliced greens. Boil a couple inches of water in a large pot (I use a Dutch oven). Add the greens and cook for a few minutes - cabbage needs about six minutes, spinach probably a scant two - until bright green and just wilted. Drain and set aside. Wipe out the pot, and heat it up again on medium. Add a splash of olive oil, then some chopped bacon (or pancetta, or Canadian bacon) and fry until crisp on the edges. Add 2-3 minced cloves of garlic and stir until just fragrant. Then add a cup of heavy cream. Lower the temp and add a cup of grated parmesan (or gruyere, or Swiss, or whatever) and then add back the greens. Cook over low heat until thickened a bit, 5-8 minutes. Add a little salt, a little pepper, and a grate or two of nutmeg. Sprinkle fresh breadcrumbs over the top, as much as you like. Then stick it under the broiler until brown and toasty on the top.

This would also be a fabulous main dish with a fried egg on top (and a runny yolk, natch).

I always have fresh breadcrumbs in the house these days, because I’ve been baking again. I got a book that I absolutely love - Bread, Toast, Crumbs by Alexandra Stafford - and it’s gotten me back into making bread. This isn’t the fancy (and difficult) sourdough that I made for years. This is simple yeasted bread, and it’s super easy. The recipes make two small loaves, generally, so we have enough for several meals. The cookbook is in three sections; the first part is dedicated to breads of all kinds, the second part consists of recipes to use the stale slices of bread, and the third section is full of recipes for the breadcrumbs. We’ve had some excellent things from this cookbook, like white bean gratin with sausage, which is what got me thinking about gratins made with greens.

I’ve been baking the loaves in two clay bread bowls from King Arthur flour company. They’re great.

We still have a lot of cauliflower yet to ripen in the garden, so soon our dinners will be full of that, I imagine. What are you cooking from your garden?

the Garden in March

March 2, 2022 Elizabeth Boegel

South Garden, from the sidewalk, with the pollinator garden in the forefront

As you know, I’m teaching an Urban Agroecology course this Spring at Merritt College. Part of this course is a lecture, where we are learning the theory and ideas behind different kinds of agriculture/methods of growing. Part of it is hands-on, learning these concepts physically in laboratory. For this portion of the course, I decided the students and I would rebuild an abandoned garden on the property of the Environmental Center at the far end of campus. This whole area was neglected for years, but slowly and surely my little team is making an enormous difference in the space. Today was a banner day, as we finally got three cubic yards of soil delivered, and were able to fill all our raised beds and transplant all the seedlings we started back at the beginning of the term.

As we were happily planting (why is planting so much fun? why does it make our hearts so glad? There is a mystical side to gardening which is hard to quantify), some of my students were asking questions about how certain veg grows, particularly heading vegetables. (Some of my students have a lot of gardening experience, and others have none. This diversity of knowledge is one of the strengths of our group.) In the course of our discussion, I promised to take some pictures of my little farm to share; then I realized that I haven’t shared this kind of thing here on the blog in ages, and maybe my readers would also be interested.

Top row, left to right: Fennel growing through the fence, cabbages which we have been shredding and sautéing like greens, cilantro growing everywhere, and rainbow Swiss chard.

Middle row, left to right: The last of the broccoli going to seed, shelling peas, Russian Frills kale, and one of the garlic beds (with cilantro).

Bottom row, left to right: Oregano starting to regrow, rosemary blooming, the artichoke plants getting big, and the carrots nearly ready to harvest.

In the North Garden, where I plant tomatoes every year (it being the sunniest space I have during the hotter months), I decided to have a cover crop over the winter, to improve soil tilth, water-holding capacity, available nutrients, and soil biology. I seeded (in October) a mix of rye and crimson clover. These are going gangbusters, and many other interesting plants have also germinated here - the ubiquitous cilantro, but also blue flax (Linum lewisii), common speedwell (Veronica persica), and borage. Every so often I tear some of this out to give to the chickens, and in a month or so I will chop it all down, taking care not to disturb the roots (letting those rot in place), and use it as mulch for the tomatoes. If it regrows, so much the better, as it will provide a living mulch. I doubt it will last long, though, once the weather gets hot. Tomatoes go in the ground the first weekend of May, so I’ve got time to let it grow yet.

The flowers that are blooming are mostly native, things like ceanothus, ribes, and manzanita. The verbena ‘de la mina’ is getting ready to bloom, too. Bulbs are popping up all over the place, and my pansy ‘wall’ has looked great all winter.

The fruits are starting to wake up. Quince blooms earlier than the other fruit trees, and provides a beautiful and leafy cover for the chickens in their run. Huckleberries and blueberries have put out their bell-shaped blossoms, and remind us that berry season isn’t far away. And this photo of the lemon tree is reminding me to put up juice before the fruit rots on the tree!

I started my pepper seeds late though this light rack has been in use for a while now - first it was warming a batch of peppers for the school garden. Now it’s finally got ours, and as soon as they germinate and get potted up and out in the greenhouse, it’ll be time for tomatoes!

The chickens are doing great, all are laying well, and are providing us at least one dinner a week. Below you can see the makings of tonight’s meal - an egg salad on homemade pita bread.

I’d love to know how your gardens are doing. It finally feels, here in California at least, like spring is well on the way!

Time to Order!

February 22, 2022 Elizabeth Boegel

It’s time to start thinking about ordering onions, shallots, garlic, potatoes, sweet potato slips, and asparagus crowns. My favorite place to get these items is from Filaree Farms in Washington State. They are an organic operation, and family owned. Everything I’ve gotten from them has been first-rate.

For garlic, my favorite variety is a softneck called ‘Inchelium Red.’ I’ve grown it for the past five years and we love it. It has a strong flavor and a beautiful purple cast to it, and it dries and braids well. It’s also a fairly good keeper, even in our warm dry climate.

I do not grow onions, but I do grow shallots, and like both ‘Dutch Red‘ and ‘French Grey.’ We have had allium aphids quite badly with ‘Dutch Red,’ so I’m going to try ‘French Grey’ again this year and see if we have better odds.

Potatoes come in three different ‘time’ categories, if you will - early season, mid season, and late season. Early season include varieties such as ‘Yukon Gold’ (my favorite). Mid Season include varieties such as ‘Red Chieftain.’ Late varieties include all the fingerlings, and russets. It’s fun to plant 1-2 of each kind, so you have potatoes all the way through summer. Home-grown potatoes really do taste different than store-bought, so it’s worth giving it a try.

Asparagus is a vegetable that takes some patience, as well as a permanent place in your garden. You’ll plant the crowns, which look like little octopi, and then you’ll wait three long years, watching the shoots grow and flower and leaf, before you can start to harvest them. But once they establish, they’ll be in your garden for 15-20 years, which is a very good return on your investment.

Ordering now is recommended, as most growers run out of supply quite early. You might be able to find a local supply, but why not do it now, while you’re thinking about it?

Nature's First Green is Gold

February 16, 2022 Elizabeth Boegel

If the poet Robert Frost is to be believed, anyway! I am not sure I agree, however, that gold is “her hardest hue to hold.” Certainly, gold flowers are abundant in early spring, and I can’t help but wonder… why?

My instincts tell me that it is something to do with the pollinators that are emerging from hibernation at the same time. As soon as daytime temps start to reach 50 degrees (F), native bee queens will start to come out from their cozy winter dens.

Right now, our hikes are simply overflowing with yellow flowers, no matter where we choose to walk. And this past weekend, Tom and I were lucky enough to witness a miracle of nature on the Burma Road Trail on Mount Diablo, not far from Castle Rock.

There are 1600 native bee species in California, and I have no idea which one this was. They were emerging from holes in a section of the trail that was made of clay and sandstone, quite hard-packed and dry. There were hundreds of bees flying just above the surface of the path, in a frantic circular pattern. We stopped to watch, and then Tom saw a head emerging from a tiny hole in the path. We watched as a female bee dug out the rest of the mud from the entrance, then crawled out. Immediately a male bee pounced on her and mated with her for several seconds. This pattern repeated itself over and over as we watched, and we realized that the males had emerged first, and had been flying over the path just waiting for the females to show themselves.

As you can imagine, we were entranced and delighted. Our online searching has not turned up the name of this bee species, but we are hoping one of our readers might know and will share in the comments. Meanwhile, I wondered: Have certain types of native bees evolved to exit hibernation at the same time as the native plants with yellow flowers bloom?

I’ve looked at several studies now, and while it is true that color is what makes flowers stand out to pollinators from a distance (something is needed for the flower to stand out from the field of green), it’s the un-seeable-by-human-eyes UV patterns in the centers of each flower that attract the bee in to the pollen (and nectar). Yellow flowers do attract pollinators, but so do white flowers, and blue flowers. And pollinators are opportunists; they’ll eat whatever they can find, especially in a Mediterranean-dry climate where winter rains promote flower blooming.

In other words… no one really knows.

It’s good to have some mystery in life. It’s good to ask questions for which we do not know the answer. It’s good to ponder these mysteries and let them delight us.

And it’s especially good to get out into the lovely late-winter sunshine and see what’s blooming… and what’s buzzing.

A Tale of Two Garlics

February 1, 2022 Elizabeth Boegel

Or rather, a Tale of Two Garlic BEDS.

This year, I didn’t plant as much garlic as I have in years past. The kids are both at college, and while Tom and I are very fond of garlic and cook with it nearly every night, making two portions rather than four has changed my planting schemes considerably (for every crop, not just garlic). I decided to put the garlic in our two fire-ring beds this winter and see how it worked out.

Last summer, one of these beds held basil (a riotous overflowing abundant crop of basil!), and the other held cilantro - which grew, then quickly flowered, and set seed, as cilantro tends to do. Last winter, both of these beds held sweet pea flowers.

I planted the garlic cloves in both beds at the same time this past October. Both get the same amount of drip irrigation. Both have very similar conditions regarding sun exposure, particularly in winter when our chitalpa tree loses its leaves. But the garlic crop in one bed is much greener, and much further along, than the other.

The top bed held the basil, which I either harvested before it had a chance to set seed, or did set seed but hasn’t germinated, because it simply can’t in cold temperatures. The bottom bed has its third or fourth crop of cilantro at this point, because it definitely set seed, and it can germinate well in cooler temps.

The cilantro bed not only looks prettier, full and abundant and rich, the garlic is also further along, taller and greener than the basil bed. The soil in this bed is also darker and richer than the soil in the basil bed.

What’s going on here? It’s all down to the wonderful synergy that happens when two or more crops grow together. One might think that the garlic growing alone would do better - after all, it has no competition for nutrients, light, or water - but that’s obviously not the case.

The bed with both garlic and cilantro is doing so well because the two species are sharing resources. Mycelium (strands of fungi) are connecting between the roots of the plants, and are shuttling resources between the two. Even more importantly, the garlic and cilantro are feeding two different colonies of microbiota in the soil. Each is photosynthesizing and pumping sugars down through their root systems to feed all the microscopic critters, and that means double the food. It’s also likely that specific species show up to eat from the roots of each kind of plant. It’s a beautiful symbiosis that results in TWO great crops, rather than just one.

My guess is that I’m going to be able to harvest the garlic that is growing with the cilantro earlier than the one in the old basil bed. It will be interesting to see if my hypothesis is correct.