Honeybee in poppy flower, back garden

In this month’s blog:

Swimming in an Ocean of Orange

March Kitchen: Orange Juice! (and More)

Garden Update: Will There Be Veggies?

The March 2022 Gallery

The long-lasting petunias in front of the orange tree

An Ocean of Orange

Now this is not to say that we don’t have a rainbow of colors in the garden in this Spring called March, but sometimes the orange explosion has seemed overwhelming. We always assume an abundance of navel oranges in March, but this season’s production from our single tree is a record, by far.

More than 700 oranges have fallen from the tree since late November, and we have picked them up day by day to squeeze for juice, snack on, and give away to neighbors. That works out to more than 35 per week, or, in squeezed-juice terms, about a pitcher and a half per week. Since we clear the ground of oranges each day, very few have rotted. So what have gone into the compost bin have mostly been the squeezed rinds.

700 is close to twice as many oranges as in any other spring. March has been particularly prolific, as the ripe, sweet oranges are falling more rapidly as their harvest season moves toward the end.

3/24: Two-day’s orange fall and full pitcher

3/15:One week’s worth

Meyer lemons. I’ve noted about the same ratio (2/1) for our meyer lemons in the past two seasons, compared with years past. The lemon bush, much smaller than the orange tree, has given about 250 total in each of the last two seasons.

Moreover, last season (2021) the lemons stayed hearty and strong on the bush through August, way longer than in any previous year. So we had fresh lemonade through most of the summer. This season promises the same delectable pattern.

Meyer lemon clusters, late March

Remarkable profusion of lemon buds while the current season continues…

What really stands out about our meyer lemon bush this March is the remarkable number of buds and new flowers (at right). The buds usually arrive in early summer, prepping for fruit for the next season.  What does this very early emergence of buds portend? Another sign of our warming climate?

The Surprising Other Orange. I predicted last month that our first crop of California poppies would burst into magnificent flower in March.

Last summer, I planted six green seedlings, 4 in front and 2 in back. In the dry heat, I watered these hearty fellows for a few seconds 3 times a week. Five grew slowly, one died–I thought. These are spring bloomers, so I didn’t expect flowers until this year.

The 5 little ones stayed small, green, and healthy through the rains of October and December. Then, in late January, tiny clusters of poppy plants began appearing in the sunniest part of the front garden, amid the other green shoots that always spring up after winter rain.  Yes, the poppy rhizomes had spread underground. Most surprisingly, the one plant that had “died” in the summer heat had produced the largest spread. By February, a few blooms had appeared on two of the 5 original plants, but not yet on the largest spread of new plants. Here’s how the largest spread looked on February 23:

Blanket of poppy plants spreading

Here’s how it looks now!

Poppy profusion in sunny front garden

And here are views of the two plants in the back garden:

Poppies and African daisies in back garden, evening

Poppy flower and periwinkle, by back fence

I’m swimming in an orange ocean, and enjoying every minute.

March Kitchen: Orange Juice! (and More)

Fresh-squeezed orange juice–and its source!

When we have so much citrus, especially our cascading oranges, we have to think of ways to use them. Over the years, as noted in earlier blog entries, orange chiffon pies and orange juice as ingredient in different desserts, soups, meat dishes, and salads have been featured. But orange juice itself is the staple, and we don’t seem to get tired of this sweet, tangy beverage for breakfast or lunch. It also goes great in teas.

Of course, orange juice as a component with various whiskeys, beers, and liqueurs is also a favorite, as is the ever-popular mimosa, made with champagne or other bubblies. At a recent dinner with friends, we served champagne mimosas with appetizers, and the juice drink–whether with the champagne or by itself–perfectly complemented the cheese, crackers, and spreads.

A Simple, Colorful Spring Chili

Chili with extra olives and tomatoes

No surprises here, if you’re a chili lover. I use ground turkey, sauteed with onion and garlic until the onion is translucent in a large skillet. Then I pour in one or two cans of beans (I used one can of pintos and one of black beans) with the sauce from the cans included for taste and volume. Then a can of yellow corn and a can of diced tomatoes (I used basil-flavored), again including the liquid from the cans to make a rich flavorful sauce.

Your personality in this dish comes through the seasonings and the ingredients of the sauce. To all the flavors noted above, I added a half cup of red wine and quarter cup of olive brine from the jar, as well as a dozen manzanita olives, cut in halves. I salted to taste with some garlic salt, threw in 20 tiny leaves of spicy oregano from the garden, and ramped up the heat with two of our Fresno chilies, finely-chopped, that I liberated from the bag of home-grown hot peppers in the freezer.

All of this I simmered for about an hour on low heat, until all the flavors melded and the sauce cooked down, so the mixture was more stewy than soupy. Before I served it, I chopped into my bowl a few more olives and some fresh tomato, then heated it a bit more (30 seconds) in the microwave with a grated Mexican cheese blend that melted over the whole concoction (see photo above).

All the ingredients filled up the large skillet, and made enough chili for several days of meals. If you try to make this chili for yourself, feel free to show your personality in whatever you choose to pour into the skillet!

Garden Update: Will There Be Veggies?

Back garden, with orange tree, coreopsis, compost bin, iris shoots, meyer lemons, and roses–plus empty veggie beds.

Because I chose in October to save water rather than plant my usual fall-winter assortment of veggies, we have no onions, broccoli, lettuces, and beets in our garden beds this season. As a result in this ongoing drought (now over 2 years old), we have cut our water use by almost 40% over previous winters. In the dry January, we used no water outside. In the dry February, I did water outside once per week. Thus far in a bone-dry March, once-a-week watering has continued to keep our splendid trees, bushes, and flowering plants going. With the high temps now in the low 80s this week, I’ll see if I can persist with this meager regimen.

The larger question is if I will plant in April the summer mainstays of our seasonal veggie garden: 2-3 types of tomatoes (7 plants in all), 2-3 types of peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, and chard, as well as the basils and parsley. Also on the possible cancellation list are the brilliant multi-color vinca flowers and petunias that usually go in front and back in May. All these plants together double (!) our spring-summer water usage. With no or little rain in the forecast for the rest of the Spring, I’m pretty sure we’ll need to get along without them. Just keeping our trees and other perennials going will be enough. I will try to cut back on frequency and amount of water with those as well.

A third option would be to have a very limited growth of the annuals: say 2 tomato plants, 2 peppers, one always reliable zucchini, and even 1-2 vinca pots. I’ll make that decision in the next three weeks. That option will cut back the 25% on water use that the state may require. We’ll see.

Western Lilac, Wisteria, Callalilies, and More

Meanwhile, the limited water we have been using has helped produce a gloriously colorful March. The Gallery will highlight some of this color, as well as the insects and birds that make it possible. In particular, I want to celebrate the lavender display of two bee magnets: the Western Lilac (Ceonothus) and the Wisteria, which beautify and perfume the side garden. The wisteria particularly hums with bumble bees.

Wisteria above side gate beside roses and orange tree

Male bumble bee in wisteria

Bumble bee worker in wisteria

I’ll also raise a glass of orange juice to the callalilies, who draw the pollinators in profusion:

pollen-covered ladybeetle on callalily, back garden

Bee in callalily flower

Closeup bee on pollen stalk

The March 2022 Gallery

Back garden color: geranium, poppies, strawberries, African daisies, erysimum, chard

Four callalily blooms, side garden

Red-yellow roses, side garden

Bumble bee in wisteria, side garden

Orange tree, African daisies, aloe, erysimum, back garden

First peach blossoms of season

Eurasian collared dove, sycamore

Blackberry blossoms, front garden

Northern mockingbird, sycamore

Tiny apricots, front garden

Bee pair on erysimum, back garden

Bee on coreopsis bloom, back garden

Cape daisies, front garden

Front garden panorama to Southwest

White-crowned sparrow hides in coreopsis

Cherry plum petals in birdbath, side

First salmon rose of the year

First blooms of the year, Tradescantia,

Bumble bee in wisteria cloud

Welcome to the garden, early March

And on to the adventures of April…

Chris: February 26, 2022: The world is now trying to come to terms with yet another megalomaniacal dictator, who has dragged his ancient nation into a brutal invasion of a neighboring country just this week. These neighbors of the dictator have been struggling to make a success of democratic independence from that same blood-thirsty nation, which had harshly ruled their country from 1922 to 1991. Devastating damage and loss of life have already occurred from this most recent invasion.

Meanwhile, a bumble bee in our garden draws nectar from a cluster of tiny Western lilac flowers (above), and in so doing helps the Western lilac spread life-giving pollen to others.

Both the maniacal human and the equally determined bee possess power, though of different kinds. Whose power would you say is greater?

Just beyond our neighborhood, an almond orchard in bloom

In this month’s blog:

Garden Update: The First Month of California Spring

Kitchen Delights

February 2022 Gallery

Migrating snow geese and greater white-fronted geese in a field north of the Sacramento/San Joaquin delta, February 20. See this month’s gallery for more about these birds and others.

Garden Update: The First Month of California Spring

Front garden with apricot and cherry plum in bloom

The apricot is always the first of our trees to bloom. Although January and February have been rainless this year, our plentiful rains in the Fall gave our perennials, including the fruit trees, the start they needed to be ready for Spring’s pastel show. Within a week after the apricot exploded in pink-white blossoms, the pale pink cherry plum flowers brought an even more impressive display. In both trees, the bees have carried on a daily concert, to celebrate their life-sustaining work.

Two bees in this small bouquet of apricot blossoms, early February

Oranges and Meyer Lemons. These two trees continue to provide bountiful fruit for juice and snacking. We have used already over 300 oranges, with hundreds more still on the tree, and of the lemons we’ve used about 75, with more than 200 still waiting. The lemons are the largest we’ve had in over 10 years from this ever-spreading tree. From both trees, we use almost exclusively fruit that has fallen to the ground, and it is all we can do to keep up with the windfall. We squeeze about 30 fruit per week .

Meyer lemons on the tree, with coreopsis in the background.

Orange tree through garden gate

The Need for Irrigation. Through January, we had cut our household water usage by 50% since last year at this time, mostly because of the late Fall rains and because of my not planting fall-winter veggies. However, with no rain again this month and with none in the forecast for early March, I’ve turned in February to once-a-week irrigation, including both drip- and hand-watering. None of our perennials is stressed thus far, but as the temps warm into the 70s in March, I may be moving to twice-weekly watering. If so, we will be about on par for this time of year. The big question will be how many veggies will I plant in April.  I’m predicting a smaller than usual planting, as the drought continues. Stay tuned.

California Poppies. My first effort at growing this drought-tolerant state flower has begun to pay off with exquisite orange blooms this month and many more buds appearing. March should be spectacular.

Our first poppies blooming, with many buds promising

Kitchen Delights: Coq Au Vin, Butternut Squash Stew, Apricot Scones

Jean’s coq au vin with rotini and mushrooms

Jean: I made my coq au vin the week after my late January birthday, with the flowers from one of our children gracing this photo (left). The crockpot was perfect for the ingredients, as slow cooking allowed the gorgeous flavors of chicken thighs, red wine, pearl onions, small potatoes, button mushrooms, carrots, and chard to mingle in the sauce. The veggie rotini, cooked separately, provided a perfect bed for this classic French stew.

Butternut Squash Stew

The recipe I used called for beef short ribs, but after the beef was eaten, there was still stew left, and it tasted just as good all-veggie.  Chopped butternut squash (I used frozen chunks) is the star of the dish, because of its mild sweetness, which is perfectly complemented here with chopped white sweet potatoes, stewed tomatoes, carrots, sauteed onions, one chopped apple, and chard. Slow cooking in the crockpot made everything mingle, and the meat practically fell off the bones. Salt and pepper to taste. Chris said it was the best tasting butternut squash soup he’d ever had, with the presence of the other veggies, even though it’s technically a stew.  As with the coq au vin, we used pasta, this time egg noodles, cooked separately, then added to the dish.

Jean’s butternut squash stew (or is it a soup?)

Dried Apricot Scones

To close out February, I made my new favorite scones, using the recipe for Cream Currant Scones from the Model Bakery in Napa, as printed in their Model Bakery Cookbook (2013). What makes these scones so special is their crunchy outside and their soft, buttery inside. Instead of currants I used finely chopped dried apricots, which we had frozen in the fridge after our harvest in 2020. The tangy sweetness of the apricot pieces provides a nice surprise in every bite. If you have one, I strongly recommend your using a cast iron scone pan (pictured), as it shapes the dough and keeps the heat in. Also, because this recipe is quite buttery, place a  baking sheet beneath the scone pan, lest any butter should drip to the bottom of your oven.

Jean’s Dried Apricot Scones (Chris and I devoured two each before he took the photo!)

The February 2022 Gallery

Besides the array of photos from the garden, this month’s gallery (and the photography earlier in this entry) includes a few from a Sunday road trip south toward the Sacramento/San Joaquin delta. The weekend of February 18-21 marked the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, when bird enthusiasts from around the world send their bird sightings to the lab. The GBBC is one of the best examples of citizen science every year.

A red-tailed hawk observes a farm field of mustard and other wildflowers, north of the Sacramento/San Joaquin delta, February 20

Huge flock of snow geese and greater white-fronted geese settle down in this field as they head north.

Apricot tree in full bloom, side garden

Purple petunias, red geranium, back garden

Northern Mockingbird, in lupine, back garden

Purple petunias, African daisies, Erysimum, back garden

Eurasian collared dove in sycamore, front garden

First callalily bloom of year, back garden

Tea rose, back garden

Honeybee in erysimum

Ruby-crowned kinglet in cherry plum tree

Mourning dove on wire, Jepson Prairie Nature Reserve, Delta

Buzzing bee on Western lilac cluster, side garden

Scrub jay in sycamore, front

Loro petulam, fan palm, breath of heaven,side garden

Yellow rose, front garden

Greater yellowlegs, north of Delta

Pair of Eurasian collared doves in sycamore, front garden

Tiny apricot fruit after bloom

Scrub jay outside window, back garden

3 bees on Western lilac cluster, back garden

And on to March, in hope of peaceful uses of power…

At sunrise on a foggy morning, this first red-yellow rose of the year shines in the side garden, with purple bush sage in the background.

In this month’s blog:

Colors through the Fog

The January Garden: Oranges, Lemons, Apricots, and More

The Kitchen: Apple Spice Cake, Plus a Look Back at One Year Ago

January 2022 Gallery

A Eurasian collared dove returns: in our neighbor’s cherry plum tree on a foggy morning

Foggy Mornings in the Garden

Chris:

January is the foggiest month–at least in the Sacramento Valley this year. The record rains from October through December (14+ inches) soaked the ground and have provided plenty of moisture for morning fogs. The mists usually clear by mid morning, but while they last, the damp, chilly air is our version of winter here in the Valley, and I must admit I love being out in it, especially with my camera.

Side garden in the fog: fan palm, breath of heaven, apricot just starting to bud, heavenly bamboo with its Christmasy berries, and on and on

Heavenly bamboo, with apricot tree in background

The misty air quiets the distant sounds, mainly the freeway’s incessant flow a half mile away, while enhancing the birds’ calls and sweet songs from around the neighborhood. Colors are enriched in the less bright air. The sharp contrasts between sun and shadow fall away, and I can enjoy the many hues of the new roses, the scarlet berries of the heavenly bamboo, the profuse yellow blooms of the coreopsis, the varied purples of the bush sage, the hearty petunias, and the glorious winter erysimum–which shows off its royal plumage between the brilliant, fruit-laden orange and meyer lemon trees.

Back garden: oranges, purple erysimum, meyer lemons

Tea roses, back garden

White rose, back garden

Coreopsis and erysimum

Sunrise and the Moon in the Garden. On those breezy, very early January mornings when there is no fog, the sun and moon work their own magic with the garden light. The heavens can even be the center of the gardener’s attention–especially when the moon is full and setting just before sunrise:

Mid-January dawn: coreopsis and full moon

Mid-January sunrise through ceonothus and wisteria

Sometimes, the moon itself is the “star” of the dawn garden show:

Sycamore branches “hold” the setting full moon

The garden showpiece at dawn

Moon in focus behind ghostly branches

And yes, there are always the January sunsets:

Sunset with oranges, coreopsis, and neighbors’ trees

The January Garden: Oranges, Lemons, Apricots, and More

Meyer lemons, with more lemon buds and blooms, and morning dew on the lemon leaves

It has been three months since my decision not to plant my typical fall/winter veggies because of the ongoing drought. Was that a good decision? As long as the heavy rains fell in late October and through December, I was reconsidering. But now that there has been no rain for a full January, with none in sight for early February, I’m feeling good about my choice–even if I’m not happy that I had to make it.

My decision led to our cutting our overall water use by 50% in October through December 2021, in comparison to the same 3 months in 2020. We’ll see the same reduction when we get the bill for this month.  But caution: despite the solid soaking we got in Fall 2021, which continues to sustain all our perennial plants in ground, the many perennials we have in pots are stressed. I’ve just begun to do once-a-week hand watering of those looking most wilty.

All in all, it’s been a happy January in the garden. The orange tree has already supplied us and our neighbors almost 200 gorgeously juicy fruit, with hundreds more still on the tree. The meyer lemon, which is 25% larger than at the same time last year, again supports over 200 large umblemished fruit –our best ever in 10 years–which we’ve barely begun using. And more buds keep appearing (see the photo just above).

The ever-expanding meyer lemon tree

Fruit-laden orange tree

Apricot and cherry plum trees. The apricot tree is budding all over and the first blooms have just appeared. Last year’s blooms flew away in a heavy wind, so the 2021 crop (20) was by far our smallest in 10 years. Here’s hoping for better results in 2022. Meanwhile, the cherry plum is full of tiny buds that should flower late in February.

First bloom and many buds on the apricot tree

Late, late strawberries and the never-say-die Fresno chilis. We had frost for a couple of days this winter, but not enough to keep the strawberry pots from putting forth a few late fruit. The Fresno chili plant just won’t give up the ghost. Now 8 months old, it still has hot red fruit. Let’s see how long it will last.

Very late strawberries

Never-say-die Fresnos

California poppies. Last spring’s poppy experiment was a rousing success. Not only did the six plants thrive through the summer, but now the four in the front garden have produced blankets of new plants that threaten to bloom riotously in spring. Let’s see what happens.

Poppy still blooming in January

Blanket of poppy plants spreading

The Kitchen:  Apple Spice Cake, Plus a Look Back at One Year Ago

Apple spice cake in bundt pan

Jean:

I wish I could take credit for this absolutely yummy, moist cake, but it mostly comes from a King Arthur mix: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/secret-ingredient-apple-spice-cake-recipe

My only wrinkles, which Chris swears made a big contribution, were

• using some home-made applesauce that one of our sons sent us, rather than the cherry concentrate the recipe recommends
• using bourbon in the glaze, rather than brandy
• and topping the cake with some candied walnuts that were a gift from a neighbor

Anyway, this perfect wintertime cake helped keep our January warm, not-too-sweet, and spicy!

Fresh from the oven

More of Jean’s January Recipes?

I invite you to look back at my extensive Kitchen blog post from exactly one year ago.

January 2022 Gallery

Our latest crop of Fresno chilis, now stored in the freezer but staying hot!

Gaillardia bloom, Jan. 24, front garden

Honeybee in erysimum

Rogue Dandelion in periwinkle

First African daisy of the new year

Periwinkle flower, back garden

Bee in coreopsis flower

The first red-yellow rose of the year

First yellow rose of the new year

Tea rose and bud, back thicket

First magenta rose of new year

Callaliy behind purple sage

Rose hip in white rose thicket

Scrub jay in sycamore

Loro petulam in flax

White-crowned sparrow on apple branch

Making orange juice (with a few of our lemons, too!)

Wisteria pods, side garden

Volunteer mushrooms. side garden

Birdbath with cherry plum leaves, side garden

And on to February–our first month of Spring in the Valley!

Sweet gum leaves, mid December

In this month’s blog:

Saving the Nutritious Leaves

Garden Update: The Bountiful Rain Continues

The December 2021 Gallery

Wisteria leaves, side garden

The Holiday Gift of Fallen Leaves

And the ground spinning beneath us/ Goes on talking.

–Joy Harjo, “For Alva Benson”

A fallen leaf is not dead; it has just moved on to a new stage of its life.

Our sycamore in the front garden sheds its leaves from October to December, slowly covering the dark mulchy ground in a carpet of gold.  The peach tree in the back drops its long, pale green, curly leaves in October; the breezes scatter them into every corner of the veranda, beneath the orange tree, and amid the roots of the coreopsis, the alum root, the new callalily shoots, the rosemary, the roses.

The apricot, which gave us its fruit way back in May, sheds its leaves in November, nourishing its own roots even as, in January, its branches will put forth the tiny new budlets. The cherry plum is the last leaf spreader among the fruit trees, building its dark maroon tapestry across the side garden from November into January, nourishing the red flame sage, the photinia, the fuchsia, the lavender, the Mexican purple sage, the Western lilac, and the cherry plum itself.

Cherry plum and sycamore leaves on the ground, side garden

Apricot leaves beneath apricot tree

Persimmon and sweet gum leaves, back garden

The winds of autumn make sure that every plant in our garden receives its share of the fallen leaves nearest to its roots.  The rock roses in the front are particularly hungry for these nutrients. The winds push the assorted leaves between the rose plant’s sturdy branches, and, once embedded, the leaves decay in the winter rains to let the nutrients make their way into the ground.  Natural fertilizer on a yearly cycle.

Sycamore and cherry plum leaves captured beneath purple bush sage

As long as I let nature take its course in the garden, the nourishing process works. But, like most suburban gardeners, I get in the way. I worry about the superabundance of fallen leaves being blown out of the garden and onto the driveway, the sidewalks, the streets, and into our neighbors’ yards. So when the leaves, particularly the large, yellow-brown sycamores, pile up in the front garden, I’m out there with my trusty broad-fanned rake to herd the excess leaves into piles and then move each pile into either my own compost bin or the big compost pile in the back garden, or the 25-cubic-foot green toter that a powerful city compost truck unloads into its innards each week. The truck then whisks away the leaves to make food for fields.

At least those leaves are able to live on and nurture new plants. When I was a small boy in ancient times, my sister and I would help our Dad rake leaves into piles in our chilly backyard in New York. We had the great fun of jumping into those piles and landing softly on the cold grass. Then we’d stand aside as Dad lit those piles on fire. We’d smell the fragrant smoke and watch bits of the leaves sail into the wintry sky on thermal billows until all the leaves were gone.

It’s a good thing that our plants have the branches and stems to trap the fallen leaves that they need to grow strong. Otherwise, I might be trying to pull out the leaves they’ve held onto–rather than cheering that those plants can do such a great job of feeding themselves. Like many of my neighbors, I too often give in to the silly suburbanite notion that a good “yard” is supposed to be a neat-as-a-pin outdoor version of the neat-as-a-pin indoor home that all of us envision as a goal.

Compost pile, many leaf varieties, back garden

It sometimes ain’t easy to remember that a “yard” can be a living garden, a home for creatures that don’t play by the rules of home decor. If we try to make nature follow those rules, we just plain kill it (and more and more ourselves in the process).

A fallen leaf is only alive and giving when we allow it to feed the future. Here’s to that future and to those countless possible gifts.

Wind-blown leaf compost beneath orange tree

Garden Update: The Bountiful Rain Continues

First erysimum bloom of the season, back garden

The big story of this garden month is the plentiful rain. So far this water season (which began in October) we’ve had over 14 inches, the most in that span since 2016-17.  Meanwhile, up to 16 feet of snow–a record for December–have fallen in the Sierra: ensuring a healthy snowpack for the spring runoff.

Hallelujah! I’m almost tempted to reconsider my decision in early October not to plant my usual fall-winter veggies: broccoli, leaf lettuce, onions, beets, and Swiss chard. 

But it’s getting late to start planting, and, besides, there’s no telling if the rainy pattern will continue. In December 2019 and December 2020, we had normal rainfall (2-3 inches) or better–then the rest of the water season, January to May, produced almost nothing. We were left with an unprecedented drought, which continues to keep the reservoirs in our region at dangerous lows (only 28% of capacity in Lake Shasta, for example). The state was forced to cut off water allocations to farmers, as this blog described last summer.  Even with the huge December snowfall and rain this year, the state and the federal governments continue to be skeptical that the drought has been relieved.

While the rainfall lasts, though, we glory in it. The birdbath and fountain are filled to the brim, the ground throughout the garden is squishy, and the fallen leaves at the roots of all our plants (as described in the first section, above) decay beautifully to nourish the soil. It’s really a winter holiday celebration for the Northern California gardener.

Meanwhile, our orange tree and Meyer lemon bush are teeming with delicious ripe fruit, perhaps even more plentiful than in our record 2020-21.

The back garden in the rain: resplendent orange tree and Meyer lemon bush, the brilliant coreopsis, and the fallow beds where the winter veggies usually would be growing.

The December 2021 Gallery

Ruby-crowned kinglet on back fence

Salmon rose blooms in December

Whitecrowned sparrow on back fence by cherry plum tree

Fallen sycamore leaf on pink geranium

Ruby-crowned kinglet on compost bin

Yellow rose blooms in December

Fallen lupine leaves in the fountain

Black-headed grosbeak on birdbath

December bud, magenta rose

Purple petunias with coreopsis

Ripe meyer lemons plus buds

New callalily shoots toward spring

Fresno chilis still in profusion, December

White-crowned sparrow splashes in fountain

Ripe oranges at top of the tree

December panorama from the garden gate

Kinglet on the fountain

Loro petulam blooms, front

Jean’s cheesy chicken green chili veggie casserole

Christmas Cookie dessert plate: Jean’s Russian powdered-sugar tea cakes, a neighbor’s candied walnuts, and Jean’s chocolate-honey spice cookies

And on to the New Year!

Fall colors in the front garden

In this month’s blog:

Celebrating with Family

This Year’s Thanksgiving Kitchen: A Rebellion

Garden Update: Staying Slim

The November 2021 Gallery

Fall colors, back garden

Celebrating with Family, Once Again

Chris:

Last November I wrote about how we had a family Thanksgiving celebration via Zoom, as we couldn’t party in person because of the pandemic. It was a surprisingly great bi-coastal get-together of 22 people despite the restrictions, in part because we realized that we’d never tried before to bring together all of us in one place at one time on a holiday! So the pandemic–and the technology that we all learned because of it–sparked us to do something new and exciting. Could it become a new tradition?

Zoom and in-person gathering: Now this year, with all of us fully vaccinated (except the very little children in our family), we could do a very confident and worry-free mash-up: all 23 of us still met for an hour on the 25th via Zoom, but two of the East Coast families traveled from New York and Georgia to celebrate together in Virginia, and, in the West, the SoCal contingent drove up “the 5” to party with Jean and me in NorCal. The Zoom let those in our family who didn’t want to hit the road still share stories and laughs with those who traveled.

At home with visiting family: It was great once again to get the house ready for our wonderful family members from Long Beach, plan little excursions while they were here, shop for food for inventive meals, and look forward to impromptu conversations about anything anyone wanted to talk about. There’s no substitute for the serendipity and spontaneity of actually being together, not to mention the cheerful sharing of lovingly prepared food. Jean and I treasured this opportunity, which the vaccine–and the heroic work of all who devote their lives to public health–have given us, so that we might renew this precious part of what it means to be family.

This Year’s Thanksgiving Kitchen: A Rebellion

Jean’s Thanksgiving dinner in a cocotte for each person!

Jean:

This Thanksgiving, I decided “enough is enough.”  Enough years of trying and failing to defrost the turkey all the way through in time, lifting the heavy pan out of the oven to baste it and test it and then having to wrestle it back in.  Enough trying to lift the heavy, hot, greasy cooked turkey onto a serving platter for carving.  There are a lot easier ways to get some turkey meat!  It’s not like you have to eat it hot.  The meat isn’t hot anyway by the time you get your plate filled with all the piping hot sides and settle down to eat.  There must be a better way to prepare a yummy Thanksgiving meal, I figured.  Besides, since my heart operation in August, I haven’t been supposed to lift anything heavy, and my upper body strength isn’t quite what it used to be.

Did I fear that I would be depriving my family of the wonderful sights and smells and sounds of me slinging the hot turkey pan and the even hotter pan of boiling potato water around the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day? So what–I opted for self-preservation.  Starting about ten days before Thanksgiving, I got ready:

• I bought half a fresh turkey breast and roasted it. There were no helpful instructions, but I roasted it for about two hours until it seemed done.  The meat thermometer was helpful here. 
• Meanwhile I made gravy and some instant mashed potatoes. Forgive me, but there are some things I think are actually better using processed shortcuts than if I made them from scratch.  Not as nutritious, surely, but, testing for taste, I decided those would more than suffice.  Mashing hot boiled potatoes on Thanksgiving Day is one of my most disliked chores in the kitchen. 
• I also used a turkey gravy mix and a stuffing mix. Please don’t judge. I’m a recent hospital escapee, remember.  I did, however, add my own onions, celery, mushrooms and herbs to the stuffing mix.
• And I baked and mashed fresh sweet potatoes. No way around that, and I do love them so.
• Anyway, once I had the components of a meal together, I sliced and froze the roasted turkey and stuffing. I worried the turkey would get dry, but it turned out that the turkey was juicy and tender when defrosted and heated. Besides, I had other plans than serving simple slices of turkey breast.

On Turkey Day, I defrosted the frozen components and remade the quickie processed ones when no one was looking.  (I don’t like people watching me cook. Do you?) Into the hot turkey gravy, I threw chunks of the chopped turkey meat plus some frozen peas and tiny whole onions. 

When those were all hot enough, I did the most revolutionary thing: I ladled some of the mixture into a small cocotte for each person. 

On top of each bowl of steaming gravy, I dolloped equal portions of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and stuffing, in the manner of a shepherd’s pie.  A dollop of cranberry sauce in the center and a small decorative cut out of pie crust that I had previously baked on a cookie sheet finished the presentation.

Everyone seemed surprised and pleased that I had managed to get the favors of nearly an entire Thanksgiving meal into seemingly small containers.  Along with squares of the homemade focaccia from last month that I had also frozen, it was a perfectly orchestrated dinner.  Pies, of course, followed: pecan, apple, pumpkin, and blueberry. I bought most of these. I’ll let you guess which one I made.

Jean’s homemade blueberry pie for T-Day!

Herb art on our focaccia

Turkey Day Addendum: Baking British-Scots Treats

For friends whose Thanksgiving invitation we had to turn down, I baked these two classic treats:

Bakewell Tart

Dundee cake ready to serve

Here are the recipes I mostly relied on, from the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/bakewell_tart_90600

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/dundee_cake_22157

And for a day-after-Thanksgiving change of pace for our visitors, here’s what Chris made:

Chris’s turkey multiveggy tomatillo chili–with sauteed onions, garlic, and green pepper, plus pinto beans, corn, green olives, Fresno chili pepper, and tomatillo salsa

Garden Update: Staying Slim

Back garden panorama from the sweet gum trees to the Meyer lemons

Chris:

While we and our visiting family enjoyed the special meals of the holiday, the garden was on a strict diet. From the photo above, you’ll note that the two raised beds are empty of plants. Last year at this time, the square bed nurtured five broccoli plants. The larger oblong bed had in 2020 a colorful row of four green onion plants and a row of four Bulls Blood beets. Six Swiss chard plants were in pots and in ground around the garden, and leaf lettuce grew beautifully in cages.

But in September of this year, with all of us in the claws of an unprecedented drought, I vowed not to do fall veggy planting unless we could be sure of plentiful rain.  I vowed not to irrigate, as I stated last month in the blog.

So the beds remain empty, and all the flowers, trees, bushes, and other plants that you’ll see in the photos this month will subsist for as long as possible on the rain that falls from the sky. Right now, we’re ahead of last season’s rainfall, thanks to the 5 inches that fell in two October days, but we’re still in drastic drought conditions because of the previous two almost-rainless years.

Back panorama toward North, with two empty raised beds, and rosemary, callalily, periwinkle, and roses bottom and left.

Oranges and Meyer lemons. As climate change gradually warms our region, bringing with it reduced snowpack in the mountains, sea level rise, and more devastating wildfires, two fruit trees in our garden thrive in the hotter, drier climate: the navel orange and the Meyer lemon. For the first time in our 15 years here, both trees have ripe fruit in November–and in huge numbers (see photos below).

Navel orange tree, back garden

Meyer lemon bush, back garden

Last year, we had oranges in November that looked ripe, but were very sour. This year, I was able to make my first pitcher of orange juice (for our visiting family) with very little added stevia sugar. The oranges I used were only those that had fallen from the tree (see at left).

Peppers, chilis, and strawberries. The only summer veggies that remain in the garden are one mild yellow pepper, one very prolific Fresno chili pepper plant, and three potted strawberries. All still have some new fruit, as the low temps remain in the 40s. No frost in sight.

Our very prolific and resilient Fresno chili

Two recent strawberries

The November 2021 Gallery

Late season poppy, front garden

Pink geranium, front garden

Bee on strawberry blossom

Purple petunias before orange tree

Red petunias in fallen leaves

White-crowned sparrow in bush sage

Salmon rose, stucco background, back garden

Eurasian collared dove across the street

New blooming coreopsis, back garden

Heavenly bamboo berries, front garden

Red flame sage, Mexican bush sage, side garden

Black-headed grosbeak, back fence

Honeybee on dandelion, back garden

Aloe plants and flower stalk, front porch

Back garden color palette, November

White-crowned sparrow in birdbath, side garden

One-year-old bacopa, front garden

Magenta rose, back garden

Front garden panorama toward South

Anna’s hummingbird in bush sage

Bushtit feeding upside down in verbena, with chard

And on to December, with hopes for more family gatherings in the coming year.

First soaking rain of 2021, October 24

In this month’s blog:

Denting the Drought

A Kitchen for Pumpkin Season

October Garden Update

October Gallery

Raindrops on our ripening lemons, October 24

Denting the Drought

Chris:

As I write on October 24, a full day and night of soaking rain, already over 5 inches, has sounded outside our windows and gladdened my parched mind. Yet, the killing drought is still with us, to be sure. We had had no measurable rain since March, and only 2 inches for 2021 before this date. It will take about four times today’s “bomb cyclone,” as the weather people call it, to enable a serious rise in the deeply depleted reservoirs—-even though the “bomb” has set historic records for a single day in this region. And the two feet of snow this “atmospheric river” (another meteorologists’ metaphor) has brought to the Sierra will need to be multiplied by five to achieve the snowpack for a typical year. Still, today’s record precip is a good, dramatic start. Hurray!

If we get many more soaking days of rain and a renewed snowpack over several years, we may also begin to undo the damage to the unseen aquifer below. The aquifer has sustained for a century and more the California agriculture that so much of the world depends on. Reckless overuse of the aquifer for many years during drought conditions has put its future in grave danger. And this troubling forecast does not even account for the increasing impact of human-caused climate change. In short, there is much work for us to do–and much damage to resist doing–to help nature restore the balance of rain, snow, and sun that has allowed the West to thrive.

For more background, hear this week’s interview on NPR affiliate KALW with authors describing the aquifer and water accessibility crisis in California.

I’m hoping, too, that today’s rain will not dump so much in one deluge that it forces mudslides across the thousands of square miles of the West denuded and scarred by this summer’s record wildfires. The mudslide news so far is not terrible. I’d like our collective joy in this needed rainfall to last a while.

Water level in Lake Berryessa reservoir, Napa County; 40 feet below normal, October 23, the day before the storm (my photo)

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead on the Colorado River, Arizona-Nevada border; 30 feet below normal, March 2021 (my photo)

Pumpkin Season in the Kitchen

Buckwheat pumpkin pancakes with garden fruit, bananas, syrup, and Greek yogurt

Jean:

With rains finally upon us, it’s a great time to hunker down in the kitchen and enjoy making (and eating) some of those pumpkin treats that the month of Halloween inspires. For breakfast one morning, I griddled pumpkin pancakes (see the photo above), partially using buckwheat flour. I topped them with a blueberry syrup, plus some blackberries and strawberries from the garden, sliced bananas, and a dollop or two of tangy Greek yogurt. I made enough to last us two days.

I also couldn’t resist (who’d want to?) baking a couple dozen pumpkin chocolate chip cookies…

… which are tasty any time for snacks or an easy dessert. You may not usually think of chocolate and pumpkin going together, but, c’mon, is there anything that chocolate can’t go with? Even Chris, who always tells me he’s not a “chocolate person,” had no trouble downing these.

Pumpkin Parmesan Pasta

Jean’s pumpkin parmesan pasta with garnish of rosemary, sage, and basil

A first for me this October was a vegetarian pasta dish with a pumpkin and parmesan sauce, instead of the usual tomato marinara. I read Alex Guarnaschelli’s recipe for Food Network, and also found helpful Marisa Moore’s blog post on her pumpkin pasta with walnuts and spinach. As always, I added my own wrinkles. I used spinach pasta, as well as the chickpea pasta Moore suggests, plus some creamy elements (light cream and goat cheese), and also pumpkin seeds for crunch, rather than nuts. Like most things, there are various ways you can personalize this idea. I was a bit afraid that the chickpea pasta might be tough or strange tasting, but it was neither of those. Now pumpkin parmesan pasta will be one of our October favorites!

Some Other Spicy, Hearty Treats for a Cool, Rainy Fall

Jean’s chilaquiles with guacamole, tomatoes, and fresno chilis

Jean’s pork chili with chilaquiles and guac

October Garden Update

October garden produce: mild green, yellow, and purple peppers; pomegranates, Fresno chilis

Chris:

With no measurable rain before October 24, I honored my promise of last month not to plant any fall or winter vegetables, for the first time in the life of this garden. I did transplant a petunia, two irises that I separated from the parent plant, and a butter lettuce. But no seedlings of onions, radishes, beets, broccoli, chards, and lettuce varieties that I usually plant in October.

Until and unless we get enough rain to promise an average water year (which we last had in 2018), I won’t use the extra water that these veggies would require.

What fruits and veggies remain in the garden from the summer are 1 mild yellow pepper, 1 Fresno chili, the perennial arugula (now returning for its third year), 3 strawberry plants, 1 blackberry plant, 1 Swiss chard, and, of course, the magnificent fruit trees. Two of these, the navel orange and the meyer lemon, will bear ripe fruit in December. I’m hopeful that none of these plants will require any water other than that which falls from the rainy-season sky. We’ll see.

Fresno chilis and mild yellow peppers

Remaining Swiss chard, now in ground since October 2020

Transplanted butter lettuce with new leaves

Strawberry plant, front garden

Navel orange tree, ripening toward December

Arugula, third year

The October Gallery

Bees on Mexican bush sage

First white-crowned sparrows of fall

African daisies, back garden

Hummingbird wind chime, veranda

Vinca and petunias, veranda

Singing in the shower?

Scrub jay about to bathe

Scrub jay after bath, side garden

Ground squirrel–first we’ve ever seen in our garden

Blue-grey gnatcatcher, seasonal visitor

Honeybee in white rose

Bee hovers over blooming rosemary

Little still life

Herb art on our focaccia

And finally, a Happy (scary) Halloween from all of us garden creatures.

So much amazing life in the garden. On to November in joy!

Painted lady butterfly on lantana flower, back garden at noon

In This Month’s Blog:

The Always Garden

Our Kitchen: Firehouse Chili (and) Gumbo plus Mediterranean Treats

September Garden Update

The September 2021 Gallery

Floral garlic, front garden

Fountain grass, front garden

Creeping juniper, day lilies, roses, front garden

The Always Garden

Chris:

This blog usually features the seasonal fruits and veggies that we turn into tasty meals. These tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, chilis, cukes, eggplants, beets, radishes, onions, chard, broccoli, etc., grow fast within their seasons and give us their gifts. Then I pull out their exhausted bodies and bury them for compost. New versions go into ground at their appointed times in the coming year. They are dramatic and delicious.

They are also fragile and often unpredictable, requiring frequent (often daily) watering, fertilizing every few weeks, and daily attention as the gardener watches to see if and when and how prolifically they produce. They are the stars of the garden, and it is not only their flavor, but also their uneven tempers that keep me focused on their fleeting seasons.

Yet they are not the heart and muscle and bones of the garden. Those are the trees, which hold the soil in place with their deep roots, draw water from deep underground, provide the ever-more-needed cooling shade in our sunnier, hotter, drier climate, and give of themselves so much of our annual produce–besides providing homes for the birds. Some of them are evergreens–the orange, the meyer lemon, the fan palm, the ceonothus. But some drop their leaves in our short autumns–the spreading sycamore, the cherry plum, the apricot, the peach, the liquidambars–and these leaves nourish the soil to benefit all the plants.

I call the trees the always garden. It is too easy to ignore them, to take them for granted, to fail to appreciate them for all the miracles that they quietly provide.

But beyond the trees, the always garden includes the many other perennials that give our garden its beauty and sustainability. (Note, for example, the four photos that lead this month’s blog, above, and the three pics just below.) Though I rarely talk about the perennials in our entries, the monthly photo gallery features them in their daily glory. Browse this month’s gallery and look back through those of other months to get some sense of who these contributors are and the joy they bring.

Hibiscus flowers with pink and yellow lantana

Honeybee in white rose cluster

Magenta and yellow lantana

Our Kitchen: Firehouse Chili  (and) Gumbo, plus Mediterranean Treats

Jean:

Chili is one of our favorite foods, and I have a favorite story about chili.  A few years ago, we went to a small party at some friends’ house to watch the Superbowl.  One of our friends, a man, made chili.  To me, it had little chili flavor, just a beef and tomato soup.  The friend asked the other men there, “Don’t you hate spicy chili?” and there was a chorus of “yeah”s.  Chris and I didn’t say anything. But I couldn’t believe my ears.  We were at one of the “manliest” events of the year, and these guys didn’t like spice in their chili?  Why call it chili then?

No matter which way you lean in this debate, you can make this dish to your own taste and probably love it.  This recipe for a combined chili and gumbo, which I found in the New York Times, was proclaimed “America’s Best Firehouse Chili” in 2017.  I was fascinated by the merger of chili and gumbo, but I made them separately so they could be eaten that way or combined as desired by the consumer (in this house, Chris).

Firehouse Chili

Our version of Firehouse chili, with beans and beef brisket

The NYT says their Firehouse is not a Texas chili, but it seems very similar to me because it is heavy on the beef, and contains no beans and only a little tomato.  I, of course, made my own changes, and you can, too, depending on what ingredients you have and what you like.  (We always like beans in chili, so I added those in the final cook.)

Start by browning 2-3 pounds of beef, either coarsely ground, thinly sliced, or in ¾ inch cubes, in a little neutral oil.  (I used a sliced bbq beef brisket, which added a chipotle spark.) Pour off any excess fat, remove the beef from the pan, and add salt, pepper, 2 T. chili powder, and a teaspoon each of turmeric, dried oregano and ground cumin.  (The Epicurious website has you rehydrate a mild dry chili and put it in the food grinder with the dry seasonings and spices to make a paste.)

Epicurious also calls for tomato paste, which it is best to cook for a few minutes in the skillet with the spices.  You could also do this for the NYT chili, in lieu of the canned tomatoes the recipe actually calls for.

Regardless of which method you use for the chili and other seasonings, now loosen the pasty mixture in the pan with a couple of tablespoons of steak sauce and/or Worcestershire sauce.  Add the beef back in, as well as either a 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes or 2 cups of beef stock and some water, depending on how beefy or tomato-y and how thick you want the sauce.  (Epicurious adds other small embellishments, including a couple of tablespoons of masa harina (to thicken) and a little dark brown sugar and distilled white vinegar.)

Firehouse Gumbo

Firehouse gumbo with tomatoes, andouille sausage, and shrimp

The gumbo is a little more time- and labor-intensive, and I offer apologies to all gumbo afficionados who may feel this is not a true gumbo.  I will review some of the differences.

To make the gumbo, place a large pot with a heavy bottom over medium heat, and put 2 T. butter and 1 T. oil into it. When the butter is melted and foaming, sprinkle 2T. flour into the pan, and whisk to combine. Continue whisking until the mixture is golden brown, approximately 15 to 20 minutes.  This is a medium roux, whereas a traditional New Orleans gumbo would be cooked for twice that long to make it darker and more flavorful.  (The firemen probably don’t have that much time.)

When satisfied with the color of the roux, add vegetables, some salt and pepper, and cook to soften.  The vegetables should consist of roughly equal amounts of green bell pepper, chopped onion and/or shallots, and celery. You can also add parsley and/or okra if you have them.

After this is where the firehouse gumbo really goes off the rails, because it contains no meat but lots of tomato, whereas the traditional gumbo is just the opposite, lots of protein and no tomato.  Of course, if you combine the gumbo with the chili, you will have plenty of meat, but not the kind that is usually added to gumbo.

The firehouse gumbo, by contrast, includes a 6-oz can of tomato paste, an 8-oz can of tomato sauce, 1-2 cups of tomato juice and 1 cup of ketchup.  It is very tomato-y, so it’s lucky Chris loves tomatoes.  You could cut out some of the tomato in favor of broth or water.  I happened to have a lot of V-8 juice, so I used that, and it was very tasty.  Finish off the gumbo with 1 T. apple cider vinegar and 2 T. hot sauce, or do the spiciness to taste.

Would you prefer a traditional gumbo? If so, while cooking down the vegetables, you should brown some sausage (maybe chicken sausage) and smallish chunks of chicken in another hot skillet, maybe adding some garlic in the last couple of minutes.  The meats will get added to the vegetables with at least a couple of cups of chicken broth (or bullion and water). Cook until the flavors meld and everything is cooked through.

Now, what I did was to brown and add in some andouille sausage chunks, and then tossed in some medium-sized peeled shrimp in the final minute of cooking, to make it more like a traditional gumbo–but the tomato still really stood out.  The shrimp and sausage I blended with the tomato even gave my gumbo a kind of cioppino zest.

Finally, decide whether you want to combine the chili and the gumbo (to cut all that tomato in the gumbo) or just have two great dishes to make easy lunches and dinners for the rest of the week. We did both!

Two more September treats:

Mediterranean garden sautee: zucchini, green pepper, fresno chilis, onion, and garlic, sauteed in olive oil

Mediterranean pita medley: eggplant caponata, white bean dip, hummus, stuffed green olives

September Garden Update

Back garden, late September. L-R: Pomegranate, eggplant, meyer lemon, lemon verbena, red-pink vinca, coreopsis, flowering chives, dry fountain, and lupine

Chris:

Having produced heroically from May through August, almost all the spring-summer veggies have now been taken out from the back garden.

Most of the summer veggies–tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplants, arugula–are now gone from the garden.

Only one of the Black Beauty eggplants remains in ground, and that will go later this week, when its two remaining fruit are picked.

Our one remaining Black Beauty eggplant, with Italian basil

But the pepper plants–as usual in late summer–continue to thrive and put forth new fruit. These plants include the one purple variety, one mild green pepper, one yellow pepper, and one Fresno chili pepper, which teems with hot, bright red fruit. All these will keep going into October.

Fresno chilis, late September

Pepper melange: mild green, mild yellow, hot Fresno

Orange-yellow peppers, late September

And, as always in the fall, the green navel oranges and meyer lemons grow bigger toward ripeness in December…

Navel oranges grow toward late December harvest

Meyer lemons ripen

…while the three potted strawberry plants still give occasional tangy-sweet berries.

Late September strawberries

To plant or not to plant? The question remains: will I plant the usual winter veggies in this drought-stricken year? Right now, I’m leaning toward no. Not only am I just not keen to use scarce water, but we still have in our freezer some of the produce from winter 2020-21. I will continue to water the always garden, though on a further reduced schedule that I hope will be reflected in our water use statistics.

The September 2021 Gallery

3 day lily blooms with visiting bee

Darning needle on meyer lemon leaf

blackberry flowers and new fruit

3 bees in wet soil in vinca pot

Bee visiting last zucchini bloom of season

Blooms on all-my-loving rose bush

Petunias in bloom, back garden

Provence lavender, side garden

Chive blossoms, Fresno chilis, honeybee

Honeybee atop chive blossom

Salmon rose

Bee hovers over purple basil

Mexican bush sage

New Zealand flax

Stalwarts of the always garden

Sycamore, California fan palm, cherry plum

On to October, with thanks for the always garden…

Back garden on a blue sky afternoon

Early August kitchen display

In This Month’s Blog:

Parallel Worlds: Changing with the Wind

August Garden Update

Our August Kitchen–The Heart of the Matter

The August Gallery

Chris: When the wind blows from the West or Southwest, which is most of the time where we live, it’s easy to pretend these days that our garden and our quiet home are our world. It’s a pleasant delusion. But when the wind blows from the North or East, our sky is grey, the sun is a dim orange ball, and the hazy air is made of acrid molecules of what used to be trees. We live 70 miles west of the Caldor Fire, which rages in the forested mountains toward Lake Tahoe. We live 130 miles southwest of the gigantic Dixie Fire, which has been spreading for six weeks in the rugged lands toward Lassen Volcanic National Park. About this blaze, now almost 750,000 acres–the largest in California history–authorities with the state fire service have this to say:

“Fuel conditions are much worse than previous years and along with wind is causing much greater fire spread. Firefighters are experiencing conditions never seen before, such as increased spread rates, spotting and active nighttime burning.”

Our sun and sky when the wind blows from the East

Caldor Fire–Grizzly Flats

Caldor Fire explodes

So a capricious change in the wind changes our image of the world. Some days our sky is blue, the air fragrant from the herbs and flowers in the garden. But other days we cower inside and don’t even dare look through our windows. The prevailing westerlies mostly sustain our illusion, as long as no big fires start up to our west, as they did last August. For the many thousands of humans now uprooted by the flames and crowding into evacuation centers surrounding the fire scenes, there is little illusion to cling to. Most of those forced to evacuate will eventually go home to find that they still have a home, at least this year. But many face combing through burned wreckage to salvage, they hope, some little bits of their past: a child’s toy, a beloved tool, a photograph. Big decisions are upon them.

All of us across the West, not only in this iconic California that always seems to capture the attention of Easterners, still cling to a hope that the drought will end later this year… or might it be early next year, or when? With climate change now hard upon us, all bets are off.

There are places in the U.S. and in lands around the warming, fragile globe where the drastic effects of the climate disaster have still barely hit. In those places, some of the people still scoff at climate change, but those places grow fewer each year as the disaster spreads. What’s really dangerous for most of us around the globe is that some of those most desperately clinging to the melting iceberg of climate disbelief wield a lot of wealth, control a lot of politicians, spew lots of pollution, and so have the power to make the climate disaster so much worse more quickly for the rest of us.

August Garden Update

One August day’s strawberry harvest

Except on the smoky days, I’m out in the garden this month watering, trimming, studying plant health, or picking what’s ripe. I like sharing thoughts with the birds, butterflies, bees, and other insects. Or taking pictures of them and the plants. I wish I could say that I was reducing my water use beyond the 50% less I was able to achieve during the last drought (2011-16). However, though I’ve been culling plants more ruthlessly than I have in the previous five years, my water reduction is barely measurable.

But it is late August, so the time for the summer veggies and fruit is about run out. I promise to be utterly ruthless in September. As for the fall and winter produce? We’ll see. It depends on if we get rain.

Lemons. I’ve never written about ripe lemons in August before. June was our previous record. Only this year has our crop lasted into the 8th month since December’s ripeness. Eight months of hundreds of juicy, fat meyer lemons on the single spreading bush. And the last one just as fresh as the first. Lasting on the bush through dry 100-degree days. Imagine! A blooming miracle (as all plants are).

Green meyer lemons toward December 2021 harvest

Eggplants. Every summer the eggplants are late fruiters. Patience, patience. Now, in August, the two Black Beauty plants are fruiting. Just this morning the sixth fruit appeared, and two more buds look promising. The first few dark purple gifts should be fully grown by next week. Jean is ready with recipes.

Tomatoes. Four of the 7 plants have finished producing and I have pulled them out for composting. One more is about done and will be pulled in the coming 2 weeks to save more water. That leaves the two steadfast red cherries, which are still putting forth new fruit that redden in the 90-100-degree heat.

Peppers and Chilis. The real August stars in our little garden are the 3 mild pepper plants and the lone Fresno chili. This is their best month after a June and July of slow production, but they’ll still be going into September. The Fresno, which I didn’t plant until late May, is bursting with hot green gems, some of which are turning dark red, as befits their potency.

Fresno chili–what to do with all that green fire?

Mild green pepper surging with fruit

Late producing purple pepper, coming into its own

Strawberries and Zucchini. Three strawberry plants in pots are still giving fruit and putting out more buds. And Old Faithful Zucchini, which I thought was done, just showed me two beginning fruit beneath its broad leaves.

Strawberry clusters on one of 3 remaining plants

Another super-size zucchini

Our August Kitchen–the Heart of the Matter

Peppers, onions, tomato, garlic stir fry, with shrimp

Chris: Jean won’t be writing for the blog this month, as she is recuperating from open heart surgery, which she had early in August (hence the title of this part of the blog). We are so thankful that her recovery is going better than well, and just this week she began some cooking and baking again, with me as her sous chef, shopper, and all-around kitchen help. So the dishes we picture and describe here are a combined effort. The dish pictured above is a simple stir fry, using green peppers and cherry tomatoes from the garden, plus carmelized white onions and garlic, all fried on low heat in butter and olive oil. The pre-cooked shrimp are added just a minute before serving.

Sfougato, with finely chopped zucchini, peppers, shallots, chard, and feta and goat cheeses

A theme in this month’s blog is Mediterranean cooking. The sfougato pictured above is a Greek baked egg dish that is sort of a blend of a frittata with a souffle.  The cheeses give it a salty, lemony tang, and the veggies from the garden–finely chopped zucchini, green peppers, shallots, and chard–give it an earthy, crunchy, spicy freshness.

Zucchini two ways: (1) Zucchini pickles in a bbq pork sandwich with sauerkraut and mustard (top), and (2) chunked zucchini stew, with homemade tomato sauce

Another theme this month is zucchini, as this is the month of greatest bounty of these large, incredibly versatile veggies. Version 1: It is so easy to slice thinly part or all of one of these fruit, and then plop the slices into whatever pickling brine you already have on hand from pickles you may have bought or made: sweet, dill, or any other type. The slices begin marinating almost immediately in the fridge, and in a day or so you’ll have crunchy, crispy, fresh-flavored pickles just as good as any you can make with cucumbers, and with many fewer seeds. Version 2: In either a homemade tomato sauce or store-bought pasta sauce, these half-inch thick chunks of zucchini soften nicely in the oven in a baking dish (45 min. at 350 degrees). We used the chunky homemade sauce we wrote about in July. This dish is great, too, with a few sprinkles of grated parmesan or another cheese of your choice.

What we chose to do with our leftovers was to blend the zucchini stew with the barbecued pork–an amazing combination!

Peach blackberry cobbler–really more a cake than a cobbler

While she was in the hospital, I baked as a homecoming surprise for Jean this “cobbler,” more like a cake really, using our many leftover July peaches and some of her red wine spiced peach jam that we described in the July blog. The batter is a typical mix of butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, and milk. I poured this mixture over the fruit mixture of sliced peaches, berries, and sugar in a glass baking dish, and baked for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. What’s cool is how the flour mixture rises to the top and hides the fruity goodness underneath. A surprise indeed!

Greek yogurt olive oil cake, with lemon glaze and rose water frosting, garnished with pistachios

Another Mediterranean treat! Jean’s first cake since she came back home in mid-August, she baked it today, using the recipe from the Complete Mediterranean Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen (2016). The batter includes flour, sugar, and baking powder, along with 4 eggs, a cup of Greek yogurt, and 1 1/4 cups of EV olive oil. Bake it at 350 for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Jean made this cake with a lemon glaze, beneath rose water frosting she had from a previous project. The pistachio garnish was an added inspiration. I’m so glad she’s home, getting healthy, and back doing what she loves. And I get to help.

The August Gallery

New blooming fuchsia, side garden

Pair of peace roses, back garden

Red and purple petunias, veranda

Final picked peach of the season, early August

Hot and sweet still life

Chives in bloom, before lupine

Baked chicken and peaches, early August

Olive tomato sauce on pasta with parm

Labeled jar of homemade tomato veggie sauce

Late blooming wisteria, side garden

Potted succulent, veranda

Peace rose before baby oranges

Bumble bee on lupine, back garden

Honeybee on arugula flower, back,

Zucchini bloom, noon

On to September in our parallel worlds…

Peaches sun-ripening on our glass table, veranda, mid July

In this month’s blog:

• Adapting a Mini Garden to a Changed Climate

• Peaches and Other Highlights

• The July Kitchen: Compotes, PieCakens, and Jam

• The July 2021 Gallery

Chris:

As farmers throughout the West are fallowing thousands of acres that they don’t have the water to feed, how do micro-gardeners like me respond? When I decided to cut my water usage by more than 50% in the last drought (2011-16) by taking out our lawn and the wasteful sprinklers, I replaced them with mulch, stones, drought-tolerant plants, and reduced-water drip irrigation (see W Is for Water). But I didn’t shrink the fruit-tree and seasonal-veggie garden, which has increased slightly in number of plants since 2015, and which is now our household’s prime water user in the increasing number of dry months each year.  

Photo above from LA Times article, “Klamath farmers grow fish to quell a water war,” July 23, 2021.

I guess I could claim that I’m still contributing to saving water by virtue of what I did way back in 2015, but that feels false. This current California drought, which began in 2020, is already more intense because

•  the population of the state has increased, meaning more water users,
•  the number of acres planted in the state grew by hundreds of thousands during the three rainy years (2016-19), so the water is used up faster, and
•  climate change has raised the annual temperature, thus intensifying water usage and evaporation, and reducing the amount of snow in the Sierra to feed rivers, reservoirs, and the underground aquifer. 

Intensely depleted Folsom Lake Reservoir of the American River, July 24

So we’re in a new normal, meaning we can’t regard what we did in the past as giving us a good guide for the present and future.

One way I can reduce water usage from our already reduced level, while still maintaining a productive garden, is to pull out plants that appear to be struggling and maintain those that are clearly productive. This reduction tactic seems like a no-brainer, but I’ve always wanted to keep plants going as long as they seem somewhat productive, and I’ve always experimentally wanted to give newer plants a chance, even when they seem to have little punch.  But this year I’m not so forgiving, because every unproductive food plant I keep watering is a wasteful indulgence, I feel.

So my veggies are now down over 25% after a productive May through July, including culling 2 of my 6 pepper plants, 2 of 7 tomato plants, 1 of 2 remaining chards, and 2 of 5 strawberries. Meanwhile, my 3 Burpless cucumbers are living on borrowed time, because the excessive heat and lack of humidity have taken a toll on their health. Also, I may decide that the always prolific zucchini has done enough for the season and pull it out earlier than usual.

All in all, it’s been a good summer garden-wise, despite the heat and water woes, but I may decide that the season will end earlier this year, at least for the plants that I can’t justify continuing to water.

Some of our early summer bounty, shown on July 15.

 The larger issue, though, is weighing the value of even having a small garden like mine versus the value of saving water. From the perspective of dollars and cents, what I spend on watering the garden per month is much less than what I save at the grocery store by not buying fruits and veggies such as those in the photo above. But another perspective–among many–would say that my having easy access to produce stores and money to spend there means that I don’t need  to have a fruit and veggie garden, so I don’t need to use that water.

In contrast, in many U.S. cities, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, access to plentiful produce at a reasonable price is limited. In these “food deserts,” a home gardener can be not only a powerful good to a family, but a model and incentive for a community, especially if media publicize these resources. See, for example, the photo and caption below from the Sacramento Bee this week.

from Sacramento Bee article, “‘It’s our heritage’: How Sacramento residents fight food insecurity through urban farming,” July 22, 2021 https://www.sacbee.com/news/equity-lab/article252822003.html

Peaches and Other Highlights

July is typically peach month in our region. As I’ve noted before, 2020 gave us a grand total of one peach, as a result of strong March winds that knocked off the buds. But 2021 more than made up for that lean season. Green fruit covered the tree in late spring, and we have been handling the avalanche of several hundred ripe, sweet, and juicy peaches this month.

Unlike oranges and lemons, all the peaches ripen and need to be picked over a two-week period or they’ll just fall from the tree and rot; so it’s a challenge to use the abundance right off the tree or save it through preserving it in the form of jams or baked goods that can be refrigerated or even frozen (see the Kitchen section, below, for ideas).

But, as I’ve written elsewhere in this blog, every fruit that falls is food for the birds, other small critters, and the plants that they nourish. So nothing is lost. Indeed, since many of the peaches that fall may wind up in our compost bin, those fruit will go on to nourish the soil for coming years.

Lemons: I just have to marvel once again at the persistence of our meyer lemon crop this season. It’s almost the end of July and I’m still making lemonade! That’s a good three months beyond what we’ve ever had. Meanwhile, the small green orbs for next season are getting bigger by the week. This is one plant that absolutely is thriving in our hotter, drier climate! Eggplant: The two Black Beauty eggplants are a dilemma for me in this garden. As always, they are late fruiters, usually not forming fruit until July and sometimes not being fully grown until late August or September, even though the seedlings went into the ground in April. If it weren’t for the fact that these two keep showing gorgeous lavender and yellow flowers and broad light green leaves, I’d consider pulling them out in this season of scarce water. But I have hope for these beauties.

Flowers on the Black beauty eggplant. Will they form fruit?

Peppers: While 2 of the mild green and yellow peppers keep putting out small but perfect fruit in the full sun blast 13 hours a day, a third plant wore out early and another, in more shade, has failed to grow as large as its cousins. But the most pleasant surprise among the peppers has been the Fresno chili plant that I put in a large pot in full sun in early June after the pot’s former tenant, an Anaheim, shriveled in late May. Despite its late start, the Fresno in the past two weeks is swarming with white buds and in the past week has thrust forth at least 10 small peppers. I last grew Fresnos about 8 years ago, and I’m happy to rediscover this so-far prolific variety.

Mild green peppers ripening in ground

Late-planted Fresno chili peppers growing

The July Kitchen: Compotes, PieCakens, and Jam

Cherry Tomato Compote on pasta with olives and parmesan

Tomato sauces and compotes

Using our abundant July produce is always a pleasant, fragrant challenge. Around 200 of the grape and cherry tomatoes annually become sauces for topping pastas or veggies such as sliced, baked zucchini. These sauces have traditional bases that include the tomatoes plus maybe a cup of water, as well as sauteed onion, garlic, and perhaps mild peppers, enhanced with 1/4 cup red wine, olive oil, one or two hot chilis, herbs from the garden (such as basil and oregano), and salt and ground pepper to taste.  Upping the spiciness makes it an arrabiata sauce; with green olives tossed into the mix, it becomes puttanesca.

Tomato sauce cooking down in stainless steel saucepan. What an aroma!

A large saucepan is home to the mixture, which cooks on low for an hour or two until all the tomatoes have been broken down into a chunky puree. Usually the most tedious part of the process is separating the tough skins from the “meat” of the tomatoes. From the bubbly mass, each skin is pulled out with tongs and then the pile of skins is discarded.

However, this month we tried a different, more simple process. We made a cherry tomato compote–pictured above. So easy! It’s all done in the slow cooker:

First, for an hour let the garlic, chopped onions, and chopped green pepper sautee in olive oil in the slow cooker.

Second, dump in all the other ingredients and let the cooker work. The process is so easy because the tomato skins stay on and the goal is for the small tomatoes to get soft and the skins wrinkly.  Think of it as a kind of tomato stew, with the spirit of an Italian sauce. The slow cooking–we took about four hours–lets the ingredients meld and the flavors of the spices, herbs, and veggies become infused.

The compote…

The sauce…

Fourth of July PieCaken

Jean:

I saw a link online for a “Fourth of July piecaken” (invention of the chef Zac Young) that consisted of Wild Maine Blueberry Pie, New York Cheesecake, and a Southern Red Velvet Cake layered together with a light lemon frosting.  I thought it was brilliant not only because of the colors but also the flavors from different parts of the country.  

In the meantime, I decided to try to make my own version of the Fourth of July piecaken.  I decided to make a red velvet cheesecake because the red velvet cake seemed too fragile to subject to this piling up.  (Zac put the blueberry pie on top, which I could not really understand in terms of stability.)  My red velvet cheesecake had a chocolate cookie crust and appeared firm enough to go on the bottom of the stack.  Then I came up with a regular white cheesecake and made fresh blueberry and raspberry syrups to drag through the cheesecake in sort of a fireworks pattern before baking.

Top Layer: red. white, and blue “fireworks” cheesecake

In between the layers I put a blueberry pie, but it could have gone on the bottom.   I decided later that I could have done without the pie crust entirely and just used one of those cans of blueberry pie filling in between the two layers of cheesecake.  Chris liked the textural element that the pie crust added, though.

PieCaken inside: white cheesecake, blueberry pie, red velvet cheesecake, with a Rice Krispies treat as a garnish!

Spiced Wine Peach Jam

Along with peach cobblers and lots of fresh sliced peaches in syrup over ice cream, I decided to make my version of a spiced wine peach jam, to preserve some of our many peaches over the coming months. Based on a recipe in Topp and Howard’s Small-Batch Preserving (2007), my version uses golden raisins, red wine, sugar, lemon juice, and spices such as cinnamon and allspice, to go along with as many finely-chopped peaches as I might want to use. The texture of your jam will be determined by the amount of fruit pectin you use for thickening. Feel free to experiment with spices, too. They’ll make a definite difference in the flavor and level of spiciness you achieve.

Peaches, sugar, and spices cooking for jam, while jars for jarring boil.

I made enough for 7 8-10 ounce jars. Mine turned out maybe a bit less firm than some would like, because of the level of pectin I used. So rather than a thick jam for spreading on toast, mine has been great as a syrupy topping for ice cream and peach cobbler, while also good for spooning on to muffins or buttered breads.

Labeled jars of still warm spiced red wine peach jam!

 The July 2021 Gallery

Mocha cake with peaches in syrup, whipped cream

Key lime pie with mint chocolate chips

Purple petunias in noon sun

Hibiscus blooms in morning sun

Pomegranate flowers, sunset

Jay on our back fountain above vinca

Pigeon commanding our front gable

Local turkey family, morning stroll in our garden

Baked chicken za’atar with garden medley

Two tiny sunrise bumble bee tomatoes

Two loaves, zucchini bread

Anna’s hummingbird, red cherry tomatoes, fennel, coreopsis

Anna’s against fence grain

Anna’s, so still and iridescent

Turkey family crossing our street–can you count them?

The neighborhood turkey family strolls through our front garden, while the Monday morning refuse truck stops and drives on. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/oR8pj3rxbY4

And so must we all adapt. On to August!

June flowers and produce, veranda

In This Month’s Blog:

Making Lemonade

Treats from the June Kitchen

Garden Update

The June Gallery

Cutting and squeezing meyer lemons

Making Lemonade

Chris:

How to make the best of a bad situation?  The latest drought, now two years old, is hitting us really hard. Temps were over 100 4 days last week, with a high of 110 in our part of the Valley. More 100+ days are forecast for the coming week.  It has been particularly painful to hold back from giving extra water to the veggies–which are suffering, and look it.

Heat- and water-stressed cucumber plants

Heat-and water-stressed Early Girl tomato

I’ve tried to hold to my regular pattern of every-other-day hand watering of the veggies, but when the temp gets to 95 or above, I water some of them every day, especially those tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, zucchini, and cucumbers (17 plants total) that get full sun up to 14 hours a day. Meanwhile, the rest of the garden, much of which is on drip irrigation, continues to be watered twice a week, unless I see the need for a more ambitious program.

No mandatory water restrictions on homeowners have been issued as yet, but that’s probably just a matter of time.  The state and local governments are in the ironic position of just having fully reopened from COVID on the 15th–and don’t want to impose restrictions of another kind, even if they are justified.

On the other hand, those who use by far the most water (80+%) in the state, the large farmers, have already had their annual portions of river water cut back. This limitation, however, means even further stress on the sinking underground aquifer, because drilling ever-deeper wells has never been regulated by the state. Why not is a great question, and is part of the tumultuous, utterly complex history of water in California. (Mark Arax’s The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California is the latest excellent book on this subject. I recommend it.) 

Then, of course, the other annual weather crisis, fire danger, is looming, and everyone in California and across the West has that in mind. That climate change is making fires worse every year, as we reported in 2020 (see entries for August and September), just adds to the anxiety.

So how do those of us who love plants and growing them keep from going bonkers in this annual stress? Well, this one gardener makes lemonade! 

Yes, literally. We have been so fortunate in our meyer lemon crop this season. Our ever-expanding bush has given us close to 300 large, juicy bright yellow lemons from December through June (and maybe even into July)–about 2-3 months longer than usual. And the bush is teeming with little green lemons ripening toward this coming December’s harvest. So in a dry land we have this wonderful gift that helps to nourish us and keep us looking on the bright side.

Five baby green meyer lemons–with a yellow ripe lemon lurking in the bush (at top of photo)

Treats from the June Kitchen

Jean:

Also helping to keep our spirits bright are the treats that come from the oven and stovetop. Here are a few from this month:

My lemon squares, decorated with mint and lemon verbena from the garden. Lemon curd is a favorite, versatile way that we use some of our beautiful meyer lemons.

Chris picks them, pits them, and cooks them down on the stove, with water added as needed, plus sugar and stevia to moderate the tang of these sour/sweet stone fruit, and with fruit pectin for thickening. Read about our process.

June Garden Update

Back garden, looking to northwest, 7 AM, June 25

Chris:

While the drought and the lemons are the lead stories this month, a few other items are worth reporting.

Tomatoes: The harvest of ripe cherry tomatoes, Stupice cherry tomatoes, and Early Girl mid-size tomatoes has begun, with a handful being picked every few days. Most intriguing is the Sunrise Bumble Bee plant, which went in at the end of April: it is finally fruiting, though none of the fruit is red as yet.

First cluster of ripe red cherry tomatoes, mid June

First reddening cluster of Early Girl tomatoes

Peppers: Our four mild pepper plants have been taking their time to fruit this season in the challenging conditions. All have produced several small fruit, and all have numerous white buds. The strangest plant was the Anaheim hot pepper that I was trying out in this garden. It produced two beautiful, tasty fruit in early May, but expired in the heat of mid June and is no more. I’ve now replaced it with a healthy Fresno. We’ll see how it does the rest of the summer.

Four fruit ripen on yellow mild pepper plant, late June.

Cucumbers: The most disappointing veggy in this troubled season is the Burpless cucumber. The three plants started off beautifully in April and produced a mass of yellow flowers in May. They produced two large fruit in June–but both were uncharacteristically very bitter, really inedible. These plants, which I grow as usual in full sun, have been devastated by the heat this season. I’ll nurture them along, and hope the results improve.

Zucchini: Even this summer, our zucchini plant is a marvel, though it, too, has been stressed by the heat. It has already produced three prodigious, delicious fruit, with another on the way, and more yellow flowers.

Three zucchini blooms in early June

Largest zucchini yet

Sliced zucchini, baked in romesco sauce

Peaches: Our tree is bending down with many green fruit, though not so much that I fear breakage of limbs at this point. Harvest time is usually late July. What I worry more about this season is the fruit drying out before harvest. Drying out has not occurred in prior years. So far, so good.

Peaches ripening toward July harvest in a very dry summer

Strawberries: The four new plants, all in pots, keep steadily producing ripening berries, a few at a time. The pots allow me to move them around in the garden to avoid the most intense heat, and the pots also retain the acid treatments the plants need each week.

New strawberry plant in shady front garden pot

New strawberry plant in semi-shade back garden pot

The June Gallery

Floral garlic, front garden

Orange dragonfly on its favorite tomato cage perch, back garden

Hibiscus flowers, back garden

Bumble bee on Mexican sage, front garden

Last pansies of spring and first vinca of summer, front garden

Rare checkered white butterfly on periwinkle, back garden, June 9

Lantana flowers and baby green orange, back garden

Bumble bee on lupine cluster, back garden

All My Loving roses in sun and shade, side garden

Cabbage leaf butterfly on arugula blossom, June 12, back garden

Red rose, back garden, mid June

Clusters of Stupice tomatoes green to ripe, June 15

And on to July, with more lemonade…