In this month’s blog:

Reopening? Or Reinvention?

Reinventing the Garden: New Plants and Reasons Why

May 2020 Fruit and Veggie Update

Reinventing in the Kitchen: Bread, Mother’s Day, and Beyond

May 2020 Gallery

Chris:

As of today, the cases of COVID-19 keep rising in the US by 15,000 or more per day–over 1.7 million in total–and the deaths have skyrocketed to more than 100,000–300% worse than in any other country. Nevertheless, every state is being pushed by the White House to “reopen,” almost as if the pandemic didn’t exist, and all states are relaxing restrictions. However, these relaxations include safety recommendations that vary with state and local governments.

Meanwhile, Jean and I have been working within the partial restrictions recommended by national health experts and still recommended here in California for seniors. (All but a few California counties have now been allowed to reopen most types of businesses, including retail, restaurants for sit-down dining, hair salons, etc., as part of Phases II and III of the reopening, but partial restrictions remain in all those counties.)

“Reinvention,” Not “Reopening”

I’d like to propose a different term than “reopening” for what will happen as the restrictions are lifted.

I propose “reinvention.” “Reopening” implies trying to go back to the way things were. “Reinvention” implies learning from the pandemic and making needed changes. Here are just four examples:

(1) The pandemic has alerted people to facts of health and well-being that won’t just disappear.  Because so many COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths have been hastened by such pre-existing conditions as high blood pressure, diabetes II, and compromised breathing, all of us should have even greater incentive to adopt

• better eating habits (and access to more healthful food options for low-income communities)
  
• regular exercise, and
• reduced carbon emissions.

Moreover, we must push politicians to create affordable health insurance for all Americans, since so many of us have suffered the double whammy of reduced income and endangered health.

(2) The pandemic has disproportionately impacted the poor, immigrants, persons of color, and elderly persons in nursing homes. In other words, this virus brings needed attention to the least powerful and most voiceless in our country: people whom it has been all too easy for the privileged to ignore and keep powerless. BUT, ironically, those who have been labeled during this crisis as “essential” workers are also disproportionately poor and of color: home health aides, hospital personnel, transit and sanitation workers, grocery workers, farmworkers, meat packers, etc.  We must address this awful inequality, which undermines our entire nation. We must invest in these essential movers of our economy.

(3) Beyond personal health and financial inequality, the huge move to

• online work
• online schooling
• online socializing with family and friends
• online shopping and
• online travel

will have a massive effect on reinventing the national and world economy.  Of course, this shift was already happening well before the coronavirus came along; but now billions of people are realizing multiple benefits of the technologies; more important, we are seeing how humans can adapt to new ways of doing things. Sure, there have been lots of glitches in the transition, and many millions still need much better access to the tools, but, hey, even old people like us are now Zooming and FaceTiming all over the place! As a result, we’re actually having more contact with our family and friends around the country than we ever did.

(4) The focus of countries around the world on trying to stop the spread of the virus, coupled with greater and greater respect for the work of scientists and health care professionals, should signal a huge infusion of public and private investment into epidemiological research and governmental preparedness (horribly lacking at the federal level in this crisis). We can only hope!

Reinventing the Garden: New Plants and Reasons Why

The restrictions have helped me focus on ways that the garden helps us make it through this crisis. See our posts for March and April. The restrictions also have given us time to think of ways to “reinvent” the garden through improvements.

So far in the past two months, I’ve added 14 plants new to the garden, with both of us providing the ideas:

Delphinium                                                             Blackberry

Cambridge Geranium                                        Campanula

Two forms of Lavender

Milkweed                                                       Lemon Cucumbers

Bottle Brush                                                   Columbine

Ancho Chilis                                                      Diascia

Carmello Tomatoes                                                     “Blueberry” Mini Tomatoes

In some cases, the new plants replace other varieties. For example, the Carmello tomatoes replace the T-67 and Ace varieties that had not done as well as I’d hoped the previous two years. So far, there are 50 fruit growing on the 2 plants after 7 weeks in the ground.

Others, like the bottle brush seedling, the delphinium, the campanula, the diascia, and the Cambridge geranium, are meant to add color, variety, and bee friendliness in empty spots of the garden.

Still others, like the blackberry and the lavenders, add edible, pollinator-friendly varieties where purely decorative plants had been.

The milkweed, known for attracting butterflies, particularly monarchs, is a risky addition, because it is also known for taking over gardens, through its puffy, wind-blown seed balls. Jean and I routinely uproot the shoots of milkweed throughout the garden, the seeds having come from a three-block planting of milkweed along a nearby road. But I decided that one small display this season (study the Milkweed photo above) in our garden might attract a few butterflies, add a dash of purple, and be easily controlled. I’m hoping for the butterflies as the summer goes on.

All in all, we have at least 20 new plants in the garden over the past 7 months. Note the photo (top) that leads off this month’s post to see a few more of those new plants.

May 2020 Fruit and Veggie Update

Tomatoes

Besides the two new Carmellos described earlier, we have another SunGold grape variety (already 90 green fruit on 1 plant), 2 first time “Blueberry” mini tomato plants (18 green fruit total after 5 weeks), and one Husky Cherry Red (10 fruit after 5 weeks). All are looking good so far, especially the 2 Carmellos and the 1 SunGold.

Peppers

2 mild green peppers, 1 mild yellow, and 1 Ancho Chili (shown earlier). White flowers on all 4, but only 2 growing fruit as yet. 5 weeks in the ground.

Lemon Cucumbers

2 plants. Growing well, 5 weeks in the ground. Flowers. No fruit as yet.

Rosa Bianca Eggplants

2 plants in the ground, 5 weeks, 10 inches high. No fruit expected for 2 more months.

Zucchini

1 thriving plant (below), multiple flowers, 2 fruit growing. In ground 5 weeks.

Apricots and Cherry Plums

Both trees are heavily laden with fruit (see below), but the cool weather has pushed harvest until June, which is usual for the cherry plums, but not usual for the apricots, who usually harvest in late May. But temps over 100 this week are speeding up the apricots!

Peaches

Unlike last year, when we had a bumper crop, this year there are no more than a few tiny fruit growing. Very similar to 2017, when we had a total of one peach for the summer. See July 2019: Hot, Dry–So What’s New? for a comparison to 2019.

Oranges and Lemons

This winter-spring citrus season was excellent, including our best year yet for meyer lemons (over 150). So far, the orange tree is on track for a moderate year in 2020-21, with small green fruit over 100 total. The meyer lemon looks ready for another banner year. But we’re so early in the process.

Reinventing in the Kitchen: Bread, Mother’s Day, and Beyond

Jean: 

Baking Breads: The Joy of Flours

When the stay-at-home began, I had about a bag and a half of all-purpose flour, a half bag of bread flour, and some rye flour, whole wheat flour, and semolina flour.  (I don’t think I bought the semolina; our daughters bought it and used it when they were in a pasta-making phase.)  I wasn’t worried yet about my flour supplies; I assumed most people did not know how to make homemade bread any more, or didn’t care to do it.  Not long after I learned that toilet paper was disappearing from the stores, however, I realized the flours of nearly all types were also gone!  That led me to research how to use whatever I had on hand, including the semolina as a bread flour.

I didn’t adequately take into account that I, like so many other people, would find that baking bread was a comforting way to get through the boredom and discomfort of being stuck at home.   It’s not like there weren’t any ready-made loaves of bread to be found in the store; I’ve had no trouble finding those.  But at least for me, there were a lot of childhood memories around homemade bread.  Bread was literally my mother’s favorite food, and she baked it sublimely.  For holidays, she made fancy or sweet breads like Swedish tea rings and Sally Lunn.  She taught me and my siblings, but I was perhaps her most apt pupil.  We worked particularly hard on perfect loaves of white bread to enter in the county or state fairs.  I remember my brother winning one time.  He could really knead!

(As an aside, my older sister, who doesn’t really like to cook but is always asking for other people’s recipes, some years ago started requesting a recipe for a bread I had made once.  I thought she would like that recipe because it did not require kneading, but when I kept trying to tell her “you don’t knead it,” she kept replying, “yes, I do; I really need it.”  We finally sorted out our communication problem.)

By the way, one of the most delightful bread preparation methods I have played with during this stay-at-home has been a slow-rising no-knead bread baked in a Dutch oven.  I have also resurrected my electric bread machine, essentially for the same reason.  I don’t really have to do much, and it confines any mess to one pan.

It is also satisfying and fun, however, to make a hand-shaped loaf or batard, like the one in the photo below with Chris’s pasta sauce.  That loaf was an experiment with using the semolina flour in place of bread flour, once I learned that semolina is similarly high in protein and gluten.  We have also particularly enjoyed my rye breads, and the oatmeal bread I made (see photo above; it tasted better than it looks, having collapsed a little during baking) after my thoughtful daughter found some bread flour somewhere on the Internet and replenished my supply for Mother’s Day.  My mother would have been proud of both of us.

Chris:

 For Mother’s Day: Halibut in Creamy Lemon, Garlic, White Wine Sauce

Really going out on a limb this month, I cooked for Mother’s Day Weekend. Jean always assures me that I’m a good cook, but I don’t trust her faith in me. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I ruled the stove Friday through Sunday.  My largest ambitions were for dinner on Friday, for which I made poached halibut in a creamy lemon, butter, garlic, white wine sauce. For color and veggie flavors, I added onion, roasted red peppers, and garden chard to the sauce, with salt and pepper to taste. I then added a tablespoon of  flour for thickening and 1/2 cup of veggie broth.

The trick for this dish was cooking the sauce in a large skillet until the ingredients were cooked down to pleasing flavor and texture, and then adding in the halibut steaks, which cooked quickly in the sauce on low heat (about 9 minutes). If I’d put the fish in earlier and cooked it longer, I’d have had a mushy mess.

I accompanied the fish dish with easy baked potatoes covered with cottage cheese and frozen mixed veggies cooked al dente. All in all, the meal was a lot easier to make than I’d expected. And Jean said she loved it.

Pasta with Arrabbiata Sauce and Sausage

For Sunday dinner on Mother’s Day Weekend, I made a dish I was more comfortable with, since I’m so used to tomato sauces after all these years of tomato growing and jarring. Since I love all spicy tomato-based sauces, I looked forward to making this arrabbiata version.

It actually was an arrabbiata-puttanesca sauce, because my other favorite pasta sauce features green and/or kalamata olives. So what could be better (to me) than a spicy puttanesca?  And I knew Jean would be game for whatever I came up with.

Since we had no fresh tomatoes yet, I used one large jar of marinara from the pantry, plus a can of diced tomatoes with basil. The spice came from some spicy lean Italian sausage that I browned in the skillet beforehand, with a chopped quarter of a large onion and two minced garlic cloves, all cooked in a tablespoon of olive oil and the sausage drippings.

Then came the fun, adding in the tomatoes and tomato sauce, about a dozen chopped green olives, 1/4 cup of kalamata olive juice, 1/4 cup of red wine, and a bunch of chopped herbs from the garden:  thyme, marjoram, culinary sage, Greek oregano (spicy), and savory (also spicy).

Since I still thought the mix wasn’t spicy enough, I chopped into the sauce a super hot tiny Thai pepper from last year (in the freezer) and sprinkled in some super hot Asian chili powder.  I cooked all of this down for about an hour on low heat, and it was ready.

Because I was tinkering with the sauce the entire hour, I knew it would be exactly to my taste: a bit more of this, a bit more of that, etc. I don’t think I could cook any other way. Bottom line–Jean liked this dish, too, and we each had two (small?) helpings.

Jean:

Beyond the Usual: Lemon “Ricotta” Pancakes

In the imaginative spirit of isolation cooking, I found two interesting uses for some cream that had started to curdle.  I often use sour milk for buttermilk, but this time I actually had some fresh buttermilk, and the cream was getting too thick to be used as a liquid.  An easy switch was to use the curdled cream in place of ricotta in a lemon ricotta pancake recipe that also called for buttermilk.  Now, I have never understood the big deal about lemon ricotta pancakes because I can’t really taste the lemon or the ricotta, but this combination did make for rich and creamy pancakes. And how about those tangy blueberries?

Punjabi-Style Red Beans with Paneer

The second use was more unusual.  I was making Tejal Rao’s Punjabi-style red beans (rajma). https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/magazine/punjabi-red-beans-recipe.html

The recipe calls for cream to be poured over the top, which sounded strange.  In reading the comments, though, I learned that this dish is often made with paneer.  A little more research revealed that paneer is a fresh homemade cheese, actually little more than clotted cream.  Although paneer is usually cut in cubes like tofu, I simply poured my curdled cream on the top of the spicy tomato sauce in blobs like drop biscuits.  It cooked in the sauce, and we liked the texture.  Voila!  Cream problem solved.

Now to Spain: Patatas Bravas

A frequent item on a tapas menu, patatas bravas are easy to make.  I cut baby yellow gold potatoes in quarters and baked them at high heat in olive oil.  They need to go past the stage where they are just sufficiently cooked through.  You need them to start to harden and crisp up, creating a lovely brown crust on the skin and cut edges.  A simple garlic aioli and/or a spicy pimenton sauce are great for dipping.  This sauce was merely garlic and pimento (both sweet and smoky) softened in olive oil and thickened with a little flour, then expanded with some broth.

May 2020 Gallery

Chris:

This month’s gallery continues the theme of reinvention. Whereas my photos usually strive for technical accuracy and clarity of presentation, I’m including here a few that try for something a little less representational, something that plays with light, color, focus. Maybe something a bit more painterly, a bit impressionistic. I’ve always been intrigued by the STEAM movement, that fruitful blending of the scientific and the artistic, the technical and the more imaginative. Anyway, I hope you enjoy these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on to June, with hope for the bees and bumble bees, who always must reinvent in a changing world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this month’s blog:

• Social Distance, Yes; Plant Distance, No
• Sheltered in the Kitchen! A Great Place to Be
• Some Garden Gifts of April 2020
• Friends in the Garden
• A Note on Composting

Chris:

Read last year’s April entry, for contrast.

We are now in the fourth month of the COVID-19 pandemic, but only just beginning the second month of the statewide “shutdown” safety measures our governor put in place March 19–the first state to do so. These measures have had great success in limiting the number of cases and deaths in this most-populous of all the states. If every state had the same rate of infection and deaths as California, the US would have in total only 1/3 of the current number of cases and only 1/4 of the current number of deaths.

Meanwhile, Jean and I follow the safety measures, and try to stay creative and hopeful in our home and garden. Our children and grandchildren around the US struggle with this new reality in various ways. Each of them and their families are suffering the pain of narrowed or lost incomes and fear of what the future may hold. But when we speak with them and often see them via digital miracles, we also feel their hope and admire their strength and creativity, just as we admire how they, too, are honoring the safety measures to keep themselves and their fellow citizens disease-free.

Get Your Hands Dirty, Then Wash Them Well

I wrote last month about how our garden provides solace, hope, food, and the opportunity for creativity in a deeply troubled time. It seems that many Americans over this past century have felt as I do, because people have turned to gardening in times of national crisis, such as World Wars I and II, when millions grew “victory gardens.”

While a small garden like ours can only partially make up for food shortages brought about by such crises, the apricots, peaches, oranges, lemons, strawberries, cherry plums, tomatoes, chard, lettuce, arugula, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplants, and many kinds of herbs do make a small contribution.  Maybe more important, the gardener comes to realize that personal, patient effort–when carried out in collaboration with nature–can produce something living, healthful, and almost unbearably beautiful.

Even the smallest garden–say in a few pots on a ledge outside an apartment window–can have these same benefits.

Just from the standpoint of how a person can spend the hours at home, the work of a garden can make that time pass fruitfully and with fun. You basically just have to be willing to get your hands dirty–or wear gardening gloves!

Also, read!

You also need to read. But this is also easy, because if you have internet access, you have an open avenue to 1000s of sites (like this one, for example) that give clear advice on do’s and don’ts.  I guarantee it: you can Google or Yahoo any plant you want to grow, and you’ll find good sites for it.

Be patient and have fun!

Remember, planting a seed or a seedling (tiny plant) isn’t like buying food at the grocery. You need to wait for the plant to grow. Follow the instructions on your favorite site, study your plant every day, and be fascinated as it slowly appears and changes.

Sheltered in the Kitchen! A Great Place to Be

Jean:

Carrot Cake

This recipe makes 3 9-inch or 4 8-inch layers, but I cut the recipe in half for the two of us, and it made two nice 8-inch layers.

Here is the full version of the recipe, but I think it is pretty simple and standard:

Butter and flour your pans, or line them.

Sift or whisk the following dry ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside:

• 2 c. flour (you can use some portion of gluten-free flour if you like)
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ginger or 1 T. chopped candied ginger
• 3/4 tsp. salt

Next, grate, chop, and/or grind the following chunky ingredients in the food processor until desired consistencies and set the combined ingredients aside for the final stage:

• 2 1/2 to 3 c. grated carrots
• 1 c. shredded coconut
• 1 c. chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1/2 c. moist dried raisins (plump them in rum or whiskey for a while if too dry)
• 1/2 c. canned pineapple tidbits

Beat the following ingredients in a large bowl until very smooth:

• 1 1/2 c. sugar (can be part brown sugar)
• 1 c. oil (I used a mixture of vegetable oil, very light olive oil, melted coconut oil for half, and then the other half was cinnamon applesauce)
• 4 large eggs, added one at a time, beating after each addition.  (I’ve also used a recipe that required beating the egg whites separately for a fluffier cake, but I don’t think that’s necessary.)

When all three sets of components are ready, gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet ones with a rubber spatula.  When the flour is no longer visible, add the chunky ingredients.

Bake at 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes, depending on how many and what size pans you use.  They are done when they smell great, look slightly brown at edges and on top, and are not gooey in the middle.

Where I really had fun was with the frosting.

The caveats were that I didn’t have a block of cream cheese, and I didn’t want the frosting too sweet.  So I had to cobble the frosting together with what I had, which happened to include some sour cream, white chocolate chips, and some leftover canned cream cheese frosting (which is both too sweet and not all that creamy to use by itself).

First I melted about 1/2 cup white chocolate chips with about 2 T. coconut oil.  You could add some vanilla or coconut extract to the warm mixture to help keep it from seizing up.

Meanwhile, beat a stick of unsalted butter (1/2 c.) until creamy.  Then you can throw in about a cup of powdered sugar, but keep stirring until you get the right consistency.  A little lemon juice can balance out the sweetness if needed.

At this stage I also added about 1/4 c. sour cream and 1/4 c. leftover canned cream cheese frosting (obviously not required).  The point is that I kept beating and tasting it at each stage, and it somehow came out just right.  I can’t even recreate this myself, but the point is to have fun and be creative.  It just might work!

After removing the cakes from the oven, I threw a little pan of coconut and pecans into the oven to toast for a few minutes.  (They’ll toast well enough and have less chance of burning if you put them in just after you turn the oven off.  Stir them around after a few minutes to make sure they toast evenly.)  These look beautiful on top of the frosted cake and add even more crunch.

I love the texture of a carrot cake with all these add-ins. And we’re loving the taste of this one.

Stay-at-Home Spicy Beef Veggie Soup

This soup was an amalgam of sources perfect for sheltering in our comfy home.

The inspiration was a couple of cans of Progresso beef and barley soup I had in the pantry. Then I started adding other ingredients to “beef” it up….

• I had some quick-cooking barley, some beef broth, and some yellow potatoes, peas, and carrots.
• I also found in the freezer a couple of servings of beef stew I had made a couple of months ago.
• Chris contributed some herbs from the garden, plus several large leaves of chard.
• The spice came from a gift sent by one of our kids who is a master griller: homemade hot sauce.

We kept tinkering with the soup until we both agreed it was highly agreeable! After all the additions, we had enough for several days.

Some Garden Gifts of April 2020

Chris:

Irises

This is their month. Enjoy them while they last! They’ll then be back in bloom next spring. We’ve had them five years, and each display has been larger than the previous one. We always look forward to them.

Roses

They all started budding in our unseasonably warm February. But March was cool, and so has been April. They are now busting out all over, and will keep on keeping on as the temps warm.

 

Lemons and Oranges

Our meyer lemons persisted through five months, from December through April, giving us delicious lemonade and lemon juice for baking and sauces. This was our best crop ever (in nine years), both in volume and quality. And as the last 30 lemons hung on the tree this month, the new buds and flowers, magnificently profuse, were a bee magnet.

The last oranges were harvested in March. The new buds bloomed in mid April, drew the bees and butterflies, and quickly became tiny, tiny fruit. The new crop will be distinctly smaller than this season’s, as indicated by the relatively few buds and blooms. But see the visitors below…

Apricots

Whereas the 2019 crop was one of our smallest in several years, the new crop appears to be by far our largest in the 8 years of the tree. We’re on track for a May harvest, but the cool March and April may push it back to June. We still have a few jars of the jam we’ve made from the previous four years!

Cherry Plums

Last year’s astounding crop will maybe not be matched this year, but already the tree is laden with tiny, hard plums that promise an abundant June harvest.

Strawberries

We’ve had 6-10 plants in a small patch in the back garden for a good five years. The crop–and the plants–have never been large in our alkaline soil, but augmenting with acid in the watering helps. Spring is our best time for producing fruit.

Herbs

Most of our herbs are perennials, so we can use them year-round. Some are in pots, so I can move them to keep them out of the hottest summer sun (see below). Others are in ground, like the rosemary, fennel, lavender, and the floral garlic with its surprisingly pungent and useful leaves. A few are annuals, such as the basil. All make the air fragrant and brighten Jean’s soups, stews, and sauces.

Friends in the Garden

No, not human friends, though we do invite fellow humans into the garden these days via this blog and FaceTime. These are other welcome friends:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Note on Composting

Recently, a follower of this blog, having noticed our compost bin in a few of the photos, asked me to describe how I compost. Here’s my response:

I don’t have an entry specifically about composting, and I’m no expert. (There are lots of good sites online.) But I’ve had the bin (the one you saw) about 10 years, and we put plant trimmings, exhausted plants, dead leaves, rotted oranges, lemons, and peaches from our trees, veggie and fruit waste from the kitchen (but not cooked), and coffee grounds in it. I add in some of the extra soil left after I plant new plants. So it’s an organic plants catch-all.

But I don’t put in stuff like tree branches that will take a really long time to degrade. Those go into the garden/yard waste toter that the town picks up.

The bin stays covered most of the time to build up humidity and encourage the fruit flies. Whenever it rains, I leave the bin uncovered so the water can get in to soak the contents. In the hot, dry months, I water the contents about once a week for a minute to keep the biodegrading going. The water is important to the process.

I know the bin is working whenever I take off the lid, because the cloud of fruit flies hits me in the face!

Don’t expect quick biodegrading into soil. That takes months, especially because we have such a long dry season. As biodegrading occurs, the pile of debris sinks down. Eventually the stuff stops looking like plants and looks more like wet dirt. At this point, you can pull away the bin and start turning over the mushy contents so the most degraded, now actual dirt, appears. Now you can use it to nourish new plants.

Every other year, I shift the bin to another corner of the garden and begin the process again.

When I lived in the East, where it rained a lot, was more humid, and I had lots and lots of fallen leaves from our oaks and maples pile up in the yard, I just raked the leaves into corners of the property and let them sit–no bin. In a year or less, I could push away the top layer of leaves and there was rich humus to use for new plantings.

It’s more work here because of the dryness, but it’s still satisfying, because I know the debris is going to be used to nourish new plants. Nothing is lost.

And on to May!

 

In this entry:

I. Creativity in the Kitchen

II. Garden Love

III.  This Month’s Gallery

Chris:

Jean and I are sheltering-in-place: trying to stay well and stay creative as we respond to the March 19 order by the governor of California for all 40 million in the state. We are staying in touch with our children and grandchildren around California and the U.S. through our smart phones and our computers–using the various amazing technologies that we have at our hands to erase the miles and bring joy to our hearts.

We also stay in touch with our friends and our colleagues, and they stay in touch with us. We say “in touch,” even though a handshake or hug is what we dare not do in this climate of extreme caution. But by talk and writing and staying attentive to messages, we perhaps are more “in touch” than mere touch implies.

How fortunate we are!

We do not think for a moment that we are alone, and we hope that all our loved ones and friends know that we are thinking of them throughout this health crisis, unprecedented in our lifetimes.

I. Creativity in the Kitchen

Jean:

These circumstances are challenging my creativity.  We actually had a fair amount of pantry supplies because we always keep some things on hand for emergencies like fire, flood, or earthquake, when we might have to hang out in a damaged home for a period of time, so I figure this is as good a time as any to dig up and use all those things.

I also had bought extra food for a surprise birthday party for Chris early in the month (well before the sheltering-in-place directive), and fewer than half the guests showed up, probably due to coronavirus worries.  I don’t blame them.  I worried about it as well, but then put the extra food in the freezer.  Some of it, including the birthday cupcakes, we have been munching on for two weeks.  I actually can’t wait for these to be gone so I can make a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies.  Thank goodness I have plenty of butter, chocolate chips and nuts.

Part of the trick to getting through this, I think, is allowing yourself to anticipate a dish you want to make next, but only after you finish something you have started.  Zero waste allowed.

Canned fish:

One of the food types I have mentioned in earlier posts is canned fish.  Sardines, anchovies, tuna, kippers, whatever.  These are good for you.  They pack a punch (too much for some people).  However, there are several different ways you can go with them, and a little can goes a long way to making several different dishes.  They can go into

• a tomato-based seafood soup like San Francisco cioppino
• a pasta dish with lemon, capers, bread crumbs and parsley
• a ramen dish with Asian–flavored broth.

For example, as you see in the photo above, I built a ramen dish using a ramen packet that I had on hand with a very strong flavored chili sauce, so I saved some of the sauce to flavor other sauces after using a little of it in this dish, tempered with fish sauce, soy sauce and packaged miso soup.

Using the Fruits and Veggies You Have in the Fridge and the Garden:

This ramen dish doesn’t come from a recipe; it’s just about pulling out what you have and thinking about it a little bit.  This is a great time to dig out those spice packets and things you’ve thrown into the pantry or bottom of the drawers in your refrigerator.  I also used the last wilted and some frozen vegetables I found while digging around in there, and I thought about what dishes I could use my old spices in.  I know, spices supposedly don’t hold their potency forever, but a little flavor is better than none.

Of course, this is also a great time to use whatever vegetables may be growing in the garden in this transitional period between winter and the spring planting. See the garnish of fennel in the ramen dish?

Here’s another dish–with South Asian flair–that I made using chard from our winter garden, plus spices and veggies on hand:

Aloo Palak

1. I sauteed in coconut oil (you could also use clarified butter) some chopped onions and garlic, plus South Asian spices including cumin, garam masala, and ginger.

2. When the onions were softened, I added diced potatoes and veggie broth and cooked the potatoes down for about ten minutes.

3. Then I added chopped greens–including kale, spinach (both of which I had on hand), and the star of this dish, our beautiful chard from the garden, and cooked those down for another ten minutes.

4.  Next I threw in a small can of chick peas (AKA garbanzo beans), some jarred chopped jalapenos (for extra punch) and a small can of diced tomatoes (fresh tomatoes in season are equally great).  I let all that simmer another 5-10 minutes.

5.  Finally, I served up and topped the colorful mixture with plain yogurt and a garnish of sliced radishes.

6. This dish was perfect over white rice.

Here’s another example: my own version of Waldorf Salad

Yesterday I grabbed some lettuce, arugula, baby chard and parsley from the garden to make a little salad of greens.  Then I topped it off with a Waldorf salad made from one Granny Smith apple I had, plus some raisins and walnuts, dressed with plain yogurt and mayonnaise.  As a side dish to balance the sweet of the Waldorf ingredients, I found some of last season’s vinegar and salt pickles, still crunchy. Oh, yes, and I garnished the salad with garden fennel and some kiwi fruit from the fridge. The lunch was yummy, fresh tasting, and packed with complementary flavors:

What about Eggs When There Are Shortages?

Speaking of fresh ingredients, we were running low on eggs and couldn’t find any on the one trip we made to the store so far since starting to “shelter in place.”  I did manage to grab a container of egg whites that day, however, so I decided to make an egg white frittata, using mostly egg whites plus a couple of precious whole eggs.  I added frozen peppers, canned chopped jalapenos, and plenty of cheese, so I threw together something that cooked up quickly, looked pretty and tasted delicious.  It made enough for more than one breakfast for both of us.  Remember, eating some of your best leftovers is also a treat to look forward to!

The bottom line:

• Be inventive
• Use what you can find
• Appreciate what you have, including your health, and
• Stay positive!

II. Garden Love

Part of our good fortune dwells in our garden, where love abounds.

Chris:

It seems reasonable to claim that a gardener loves the garden, when we think of the daily work, even when minimal, that goes into gardening. But not only work, which can sound like drudgery. Care is a better word, the tenderness of which embodies that time each day when the gardener studies each plant, tends here and there–or just looks at and admires the garden, every plant in it, every one.

And not only the plants, but the animals that live within it or visit from time to time, and who gloriously use what the plants provide, and in turn pollinate other plants. Right now, in March, bees glory in the flowers of so many plants, and hum their music;

 

 

 

 

 

while the birds, some of them our year-round citizens and some returning from migration, sing more beautifully than the best orchestra, play in the birdbath, or at least talk articulately among themselves in many languages. Listen for the bees humming and birds chirping in this video of one of our visiting sparrows:

But can we say that the garden also loves the gardener? What I know for sure is that as I garden I am feeling wonderfully “in touch” with the plants, and have a kind of regular conversation with the birds and bees and fruit flies and worms: a conversation that hovers between peaceful coexistence (with the bees and worms), banter (with the jays and hummingbirds), mutual but affectionate annoyance (with the fruit flies), or my being just an appreciative audience (for the mockingbirds, warblers, and doves).

I don’t know if this is love, but what would you call it? Last summer I transplanted a fennel that was growing tired in its pot, and now it rewards me with a magnificent deep green, feathery fragrance that goes to my head. Last summer I also transplanted arugula that was weary of its pot along the front walk, then flourished through the fall, turned dry and brown in winter, and now is sending up from the ground thousands of new green shoots that are just as peppery and aromatic as ever.

What is this if not love?  And what about the apricot tree, who is bursting with tiny green fruit just now beginning to turn toward red and orange?

Will you let me call it love, if that is what this gardener feels?

The garden surrounds our home like a sanctuary. It makes sheltering-in-place anything but isolation.

III. This Month’s Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on to April, in hope….

 

In this month’s blog:

1. Heading for the Driest on Record

2. The First Month of Spring

3. More February Bloomers

4. February in the Kitchen

Chris:

1. Heading for the Driest on Record

Don’t be alarmed. This isn’t a photo (above) of an approaching wildfire. It’s just a beautiful February sunset seen from our back garden. But you’ll have to excuse me for thinking of fires when, yet again, in what is usually one of our wettest months, the weather news is depressingly the same from day to day: sunny and dry, with temps from the 40s to the 60s, and even into the 70s, warmer than average. (Today’s predicted high of 77 by the National Weather Service would be a record for this date.)

Please understand: I’m trying not to take for granted the magnificent weather in California, but the gardener in me always wants there to be that magnificent natural balance between sun and rain. Between late October and mid May, the climate usually blesses us with enough rain (and mountain snow) to tide us over during the intensely blue skies and high temps of June through mid-October. See, balance.

So you’ll forgive me if I share the alarm of many fellow Golden Staters when it looks as if Northern CA will have for the first time in recorded history no rain in February–not even a trace or a smidgen or a drop.

Meteorologists blame the infamous “high pressure ridge” over the Pacific, the same condition that gave us the 5-year drought that ended in 2016, before the way-above-average rain seasons of 2016-17 and 2018-19. So Californians are used to these climatic waves, and as I wrote in “W Is for Water,” we have done many things to prepare for them and to see them through.

So I’m not horribly anxious about this go-round. Yet it does come as a bit of a shock to my sense of well-being when I must reactivate the irrigation system and unwind the hose three months early. Not to mention a shock to our finances because of the rising cost of water.

Oh well, the snowpack in the Sierra still has 50% of normal, and the reservoirs around the region are still mighty deep, so we’ll forge ahead.

2. The First Month of Spring

Meanwhile, it’s February! Which means in our part of the world the first month of spring, the time of first blooms and return of the warm weather birds.

And so…

 

There are new blooms all across the garden, and rarely does a day go by in late February when one or more of our plants isn’t beginning to flower–or even bursting into full bloom. Here is this month’s gallery, with a few comments:

Apricots

Ten days ago, I took the video (above) of the bees hard at work in the just opened blooms of this harbinger of our fruit trees. Now, most of the blooms have fallen to carpet the ground and the tree is beginning to bud it first leaves:

Arugula

With last year’s stems dried out early this month, here come this year’s peppery new stems and leaves from the ground:

Broccoli

This season’s amazing crop just keeps proliferating (see below). The five plants have moved headlong into the blooming phase, and the bees couldn’t be happier. Every time I clip off a bunch for either cooking or decoration (imagine–broccoli as decorative flower!) another green shoot emerges. For cooking, the flowery shoots remain tasty, even with the yellow blooms, because the stems within each floret are thin and tender.

See the following site for more on the joys of cooking and eating broccoli flowers:

https://www.gardenguides.com/90097-flowers-broccoli-sprouts.html

Cajun Red Pepper

Now in its 11th month, this wonder just keeps producing ripe, spicy fruit. I’ll grab its space for new plants in April (or will I?)

Cherry Plum

The white and deep burgundy blossoms of the cherry plum (below) come just after those of the apricot. Last year’s tiny plums were the most prolific ever, over a thousand; what will happen this year?

Lemons and Oranges

While ripe fruit still awaits us on the orange tree and the meyer lemon bush, new shoots and even a few buds proclaim that the next crop is coming…

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and I just keep making juice:

 

3. More February Bloomers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And getting ready to bloom in March…

…are the roses, all trimmed back in January and now rich in new shoots and leaves:

While all this goes on outside, inside it’s also cookin’…

4. February in the Kitchen

Jean:

Ginger Pear Apricot Upside Down Cake

This is an upside down fruit cake, which is always popular.  To make the cake itself, you can use your favorite gingerbread recipe or cake mix.  I used a simple homemade spice cake recipe, below.

1. First, prepare the topping in the bottom of your cake pan.  Using a 9-inch square pan, combine 2 tablespoons hot melted butter with 1/4 c. brown sugar and 1/4 c. dark corn syrup or molasses.  Make sure those are well blended and spread over the bottom of the pan.

I also put down a layer of our homemade apricot jam (from last year’s crop), for an additional layer of flavor.

2. Then arrange 9 showy half-nuts like walnuts or pecans equidistant apart and place 9 canned pear halves, cavities down, on top of the nuts.  You can add more nuts, maybe broken ones, and/or candied ginger, in between the pears.  Set aside while you prepare the cake and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

3. For the cake itself, sift together 2 cups flour, 3-1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1-1/4 c. sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and 2 tsp. spices.  You can either use a gingerbread spice mix, or 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, and 1/2 tsp. ginger.  Throw in a little allspice and cloves if you have them.  It’s all good.

4. Next, beat in 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup shortening, and 1 tsp. vanilla.  (I used coconut milk for half of the milk and shortening because I had some left over, but that’s up to you.)

5. Beat for a couple of minutes, then add 2 large eggs and beat another couple of minutes.  Pour into the prepared cake pan until 3/4 full.  If you have too much batter, as you probably will, bake the rest as cupcakes.  (I tried using half a recipe of the cake batter, but it didn’t sufficiently fill the pan.)

6. Bake the cake for 40 minutes and cupcakes for 20 minutes.  Let the cake stand just a minute before inverting onto a cake plate.  You don’t want the sugary topping to seize up before you try to release it from the pan, but try not to break the cake.  You might need to go around the edges with a knife first, to make sure the cake can come free in one piece.

7. We served this upside down cake to guests, and they loved it!

Lemon Almond Tart

Our meyer lemons are so abundant and so juicy that I wanted to use them in a special way. We also had on hand a lot of delicious sliced almonds, another Sacramento Valley staple, so this is what I came up with to use them together.

FOR THE CRUST:

• 1 ½ cups/192 grams all-purpose flour OR substitute some of the flour with almond meal
• ⅔ cup/82 grams confectioners’ sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
• ¾ cup/170 grams (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, melted

FOR THE FILLING:

• 1 cup/240 milliliters fresh lemon juice
• 1 ¼ cup/250 grams granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• ¼ cup/32 grams all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed (optional)
• sliced almonds

1. Make the crust: Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Drizzle in melted butter and, using a spatula, mix until well combined. Press this into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch tart pan or square pan, using the flat bottom of a glass or cup to even it.
3. Bake the tart shell until it’s a pale golden brown on the edges and baked through on the bottom, 15 to 20 minutes.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together lemon juice, sugar, eggs, flour, ginger, turmeric and salt. Make sure no lumps remain, but don’t overmix. Pass the mixture through a fine mesh strainer to make sure no bits of flour or egg are left behind. (I actually cooked this on a double boiler and then strained it, to get out lumps of white.)
5. Transfer filling to the crust (depending on the depth of your pan, you may have a little yummy lemon curd left over). Lay reserved lemon slices and/or sliced almonds across the top. Bake until the edges are set, 15 minutes. Let cool completely before slicing.

 

And on to March!

 

 

 

 

 

In this entry:

• January Surprises
• Fruits and Veggies
• January Garden Friends
• The January Kitchen: Party Time!

Chris:

The opening month of the new decade–the 2020s!–brought us our typical chilly grey mornings of dew and fog, followed by afternoons of wintry sun, deep blue skies with puffy clouds, and temps in the 50s. Days of rain? Some, but fewer than usual, and as the month draws toward a close we’ve received less than 2 inches, more than 2″ below average.  But our rainy December–almost 9 inches–gave us a surplus gift for the new year, so the soil is dark and moist, perfect for a bit of transplanting and perfect for growth of the hearty winter veggies, fruits, and flowering plants.

By now, I should have grown to expect color in the January garden, but my deeply ingrained expectations for bleak Januaries from all my years in the East always make our Northern California Januaries an exquisite surprise.

For example, the palette of the photo just above isn’t as intense as it will be come March, but it’s still rich and varied.

And we love the January brilliance of some of our perennials in the back garden…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…not to mention the hearty annual petunias that keep going this January after having bloomed all spring, summer, and fall…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fruits and Veggies

Oranges and Lemons

Oranges. No surprises here. Just the colorful, supple, and juicy fruit. We’ve had a steady supply of sweet and tangy juice from the navel oranges, of which we’ve consumed or given away about 65 so far this month, about 155 total used so far this season. I’d estimate about 100 still on the tree, all in all somewhat less than last year’s more than 300 total for the season.

The birds love them, too, especially those fruit higher up in the tree, where the birds feel safer. But there are plenty for us humans.

Mostly, the oranges are much larger than what you’d find in the grocery store; ours are typically 4 to 6 inches in diameter. Those in the clusters below are in this size range, as are the two in the photo at the top of this post.

Meyer lemons. When I make juice, I like to blend about 3 oranges for each lemon–so about 15 oranges to 5 lemons for a full pitcher, which lasts us around a week. The fruit is so intense that we like to dilute the juice with water–and I’ll also add a small packet or two of stevia natural sweetener and a bit of baker’s sugar to balance the tang of the lemons.

The lemons this season are above average in size and in clarity of the skins: in size about 2-3 inches in diameter, or smaller than the more common Eureka lemons. In all, we’ll have about 125 meyer lemons this season, about average for the mature bush.

While the orange tree was here when we moved in 13 years ago (though much smaller than the present tree, which we need to cut back every other year or so), I planted the meyer lemon 11 years ago (about a foot high then). It stayed tiny and unproductive for three years, but in 2011 it started to take off; it grew steadily and produced more each year for the next five years (by 2016), when it reached almost its current size and productivity.

Unlike the sweet oranges, which draw the hungry birds, the sour lemons are almost untouched by our garden friends. But wait for the spring buds and blooms, which the bees love.

Swiss Chard

Jean seems to be using our chard even more often this year in her cooking than in the three previous years in which we’ve grown it (see January in the Kitchen: Party Time!, below in this post). Perhaps because when I planted the six seedlings in October, the garden critters quickly devoured two plants and damaged the others–until I moved the remaining four into pots and moved them close to the house on the veranda. So we appreciate their preciousness–as well as the deliciousness of the gorgeous leaves.

In November, I transplanted one of the four into the large raised bed and surrounded it by chicken wire. It has grown and thrived since, even in the cold weather. Then, a week ago, I transplanted another into ground near the strawberries, and did not protect it in any way. So far, so good. I’ll see what happens.

In previous years, such as last spring, 2019, the chard has never needed protection, even as the weather warms significantly, and it has grown prodigiously. So I have my fingers crossed for this new transplant. I have often found that fall and winter veggies that were eaten by insects in October thrive once the coolness of November and the cold of December come along. That’s true of the chard this year.

 

The Champion Cajun Red Pepper

This hearty plant continues to be fruitful even in January. Planted in April and bountiful each month since May, this Cajun Red is the champion pepper in the history of this garden. I keep wanting to replace it in the raised bed with something new, but I’ll continue to give it space until it gives up the ghost.

 

 

 

Broccoli

In this third year of growing broccoli in the garden, these five 2019-2020 plants are the best so far. All five have flourished this month, and we have used florets in a range of dishes thus far, with no real diminution of the stock. We may soon be cutting off florets to freeze for the coming months, as the heads are just beginning to show their tiny yellow flowers. See last month’s blog entry, December 2019, for a description of the two ways I’ve tended to these five plants, as reflected in the photos below.

Alum Root

I’ve never written in this blog about this hearty perennial that loves the fall, winter, and spring (when it flowers), and survives despite deep stress in the summer heat. I tend to ignore photographing it because it doesn’t produce edible fruit and it doesn’t have showy flowers–and in summer it browns out in the intense sunlight, unless I give it extra water, which I do. But it deserves better appreciation than I’ve given it. It’s now lasted a dozen years and has tripled in size since its early years. In many parts of the world, alum root is appreciated for its medicinal properties and has been used for many centuries by people much more considerate and savvy than I. See, for example, https://www.medicinalherbs-4u.com/alum-root.html

Even strawberries?

I always expect that my eleven modest strawberry plants in the back garden are happily keeping their roots warm underground in the cold weather, just waiting for spring to blossom and fruit. But two of the plants have put out a few fruit this January. A very pleasant surprise! We’ll see what this bodes for spring 2020.

 

 

January Garden Friends

We share the garden with the Western scrub jays (AKA rock jays), who don’t mind me too much, and who like to cavort around productively in my presence. They are as territorial as I am, but have come to realize that I am not a threat. Not so for other birds who visit, whom the jays can’t abide (especially the mockingbirds!–oh how they squabble!). So other visitors flit around, hope for a bit of food here and there, and rarely perch for more than a few seconds before flitting to another branch or tree or to someone else’s yard.

So getting good photos is not easy (except for the jays!). Here are a few recent ones…

Oh, and if you are wondering where the Anna’s hummingbirds are, they are around. I heard one whirring close by my head last week, but it disappeared before I could get a look. They are not happy that I’ve cut back the now-dormant Mexican bush sage to await new growth, but the hummers will be showing their iridescence once again, when spring flowers begin to surge.

Ooh, wait a minute! After writing the above, I was out in the garden a few minutes ago and heard the distinctive chirp. I was lucky to get this pic…

Bees

It’s never cold enough around here to chase away the bees, though they lie low on chilly mornings. Thankfully, no matter how foggy and wet a morning might be, the bees reappear as soon as the sun comes out. See this blurry honeybee I snapped three  afternoons ago on the blooming rosemary…

 

The January Kitchen: Party Time!

Jean:

Chris and I have special fondness for the winter months, as they contain our anniversary,  our birthdays, and so many holidays, from Thanksgiving through Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s, and on to Martin Luther King Day, the Super Bowl, Washington-Lincoln Day, the Asian Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day…. You get the picture.

And special foods seem to be part of them all, so what better time to exercise your cooking muscles and try different dishes?

This month we co-hosted a multi-occasion, food-focused party for friends. The party aimed to celebrate a bunch of these holidays in one big event. We’re calling it the Super Party! Why not? I cooked several dishes, and each couple also contributed a dish of their choice.

The rest of this entry will be a photo parade of some of the dishes at the party, with a comment about each.  Here goes:

 

May all your holiday celebrations be as joyful as ours!

On to February…

 

Chris:

A year ago, December 2018, our blog entry reported on the devastating Camp Fire in Butte County that destroyed the town of Paradise and cost 86 lives and thousands of homes. The mood this December feels very different, even though the threat of wildfires is never far from our minds.

As I described last month, this year’s fire season was far less severe, and now with the plentiful rains thus far in December our region is breathing a collective sigh of relief. The holiday season is upon us, and we are preparing in comparatively high spirits.

Indeed, we are hosting family for Christmas week (see the stockings in the photo above?). And the garden is doing its part (see the oranges and peppers?) to enrich our joy.

In this post, we begin with Jean’s description of her dishes for our holiday guests. Then we’ll move on to my garden comments–and compare this year’s December garden with that of 2018.

Finally, we’ll close with our gallery for the month.

Our (International) Holiday Kitchen in December

Jean:

(December 28)

In keeping with our theme of an international Christmas, I made the three dishes I describe here, as well as others.

Pozole verde soup: First, on Christmas Eve, and the day before that (when our guests arrived), I wanted a Mexican theme.  We had tamales, chili, and this pozole verde soup, which was a particular hit.  I boiled a couple of bone-in chicken breasts with onions and garlic to make a good broth, then cooled them and pulled the cooked meat off the bones.  Finally, I reheated it with hominy, some chard from the garden, and a green tomatillo sauce before adding back the chicken.  You can top it with sour cream and/or cilantro.

For some history on pozole, I suggest the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozole

 

Pfeffernusse: I love making Christmas cookies.  There are so many different types.  I tried some new ones this year, including red velvet crinkle cookies, matcha shortbread, and pfeffernusse.   I can see from this Wikipedia article that pfeffernusse should be smaller and not rolled in powdered sugar, but we’re partial to anything rolled in powdered sugar.  Because I didn’t get around to making Mexican wedding cookies (AKA Russian teacakes or snowball cookies) this year, so the pfeffernusse got the powdered sugar that these other types would usually get from me. And we and our guests enjoyed them.

I had to ask what the name pfeffernusse means; I could guess the pepper part, but the “nusse” or nuts may refer to the cloves, or the nutmeg.  Anyway, I love anything that uses most of my spice rack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfeffern%c3%bcsse

 

 

Shakshouka: I wanted something warm and hearty plus colorful for Christmas breakfast, although we also had sweet breads available like stollen and my pumpkin bread.  This shakshouka met all of those wishes.  It contains many of Chris’s favorite flavors.  (He wanted to add the manzanilla olives, but basically it is just a tomato, sweet pepper, and spice dish.) I also added in a chopped-up Cajun red pepper from the garden for an extra kick.  While shakshouka is red and green, it is not per se a Christmas dish–it is a Middle Eastern dish loved by Israelis and Arabs alike.  Italians, however, know it as “eggs in purgatory.”  You poach eggs in the sauce, but you can’t see those well, so I added hard-boiled eggs on top for visual effect and to give choices of egg styles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakshouka

 

Comparing the Gardens, 2018 and 2019

Chris:

The main reason I started one year ago doing blog entries named month to month was so I could compare one year with the next. These two December photos are taken from opposite vantage points:

• the 2019 photo is taken from behind the orange tree and toward the deck to the north;
• the 2018 photo was taken from behind the sweetgum (liquidambar) trees and south toward the meyer lemon bush.

Both photos are taken in the rain, and you’d have to say the garden looks pretty much the same in both–in its deep greenness, its carpet of brown mulch, and its decorative stone borders. But the photos do highlight different features of the back garden:

• the 2018 shot shows the French breakfast radishes in the nearest raised bed, the broccoli plants in the square raised bed, and the chard in the pot between the beds, as well as the ripe meyer lemons in the background;
• the 2019 shot shows the strawberry plants in the near foreground, the African daisy in the pot to the near left, and the potted hibiscus, Greek oregano, and geranium in the near right, as well as the dwarf pomegranate bush beside them. It also shows the fennel just beyond the African daisy, the broccoli plants in the ground beside the fennel, and the feathery arugula to the right of the broccoli. In the background is the wire-protected chard in front of our black compost bin.

Both photos feature the fountain, the striking Euryops with its yellow blooms, the white rose bush, and the rosemary and calla lily beside the white rose.

What else stands out for you in the photos?

More comparisons

Oranges: The production of the orange tree in December 2018 and in December 2019 is about the same for each year. In 2018, the tree produced roughly 350 oranges. The tree this year looks as if production will be similar (about 90 oranges have been used for juice or for giving away to the local food bank thus far:

For years, our orange production varied between a huge crop (300 or more) one year and a small crop (under 100) the next (keep in mind that an orange will grow in the same spot on the tree only every other year). That the last two crops have been about even shows that the tree is now pretty balanced in where the fruit grows from year to year. We’ll see if that keeps up!

 Meyer Lemons: We’ve used about 20 of the lemons already this season for our juice (see photo below), so this year’s total production is about the same as last year’s (about 125). But this year’s crop ripened just a bit earlier and is freer of the blemishes that marked the 2018 crop.

Broccoli: In this third consecutive year of growing broccoli in the winter garden, I’m mixing the techniques I used in the previous two years. In 2017, I allowed each plant to produce one large head (multiple florets) in the center. In 2018, I trimmed off the central head in each plant when the head reached about 1.5 inches across, so that multiple much smaller heads (broccolini) would spring up outside the center. So what I lost in the volume of the central head was compensated for by the number of heads. (See the post “February 2019: Cold, Rainy,  but Warm in the Kitchen” for a photo of the proliferating heads last winter.)

This year, I have five thriving plants:

• two of these I’m treating like the 2018 plants, with the central heads cut off and the smaller heads growing around the centers (see below)

• the other three I’m treating like the 2017 plants, with the central head of each becoming lush and with multiple florets:

The advantage of the 2017 technique is the lushness of the central shoots, which most broccoli eaters will recognize. The advantage of the 2018 method is that as the smaller side shoots are cut off for eating, other small shoots will continue to grow. However, none of these will have the volume and lushness of the central heads.

In all three years, the broccoli plants have thrived, especially in the cold weather of late November through January and even into February.

Fennel: I can’t compare the 2019 fennel with that from 2018, because this is the first year I planted fennel in the garden. I should have done so years ago, because fennel is a perennial that has thrived in the garden since the spring–and is particularly lush and green now. I started the fennel off in a pot in April, and it took off. I transplanted it into the ground in the summer and it just kept growing taller. I tied it to a stake in August, so it would continue to rise and not fall over. In October, I trimmed off the tallest branches, which appeared worn out. Now in December it is proliferating deep green feathery shoots that are oh so fragrant and beautiful.

A Small December Gallery

Just as in December 2018, a few of our petunias still bloom even as frost appears some mornings–and look at the hearty aloe and kalanchoe (white blooms) in the foreground of this photo.

On to the New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris:

At last, the first raindrops of the season are falling. Just yesterday, the day lily above posed for my camera in the bright morning sunshine. This afternoon, we have the steady patter of drops on the dusty deck in the back garden (below).

The forecast is for a good soaking here in the Valley, which means maybe an inch. Hey, that would be a great start.  Meanwhile, the Sierra foothills might get a foot or more of snow over the next two days, and–if the weather service is right–as much as five feet in the highest passes above 7000′. Thanksgiving is just ahead, and mountain travelers, among whom we were supposed to be, are scrambling to make alternative plans–or at least get an earlier driving start.

Here in the garden, this November has been pretty much like last year’s. Which means that we’re waiting for the rainy season to begin, so that…

• then I can stop the irrigation system, and, more important,
• then all of us in the region can stop worrying when the next big wildfire will explode upon us. As I’ve explored in this blog, October ’17 and November ’18 were horrible fire months, with record death tolls, number of structures destroyed, and burned square miles. In ’17, the fires ravaged Sonoma and Ventura counties; in ’18, the Carr Fire did the same to the area near Redding, then the Camp Fire truly devastated Butte County. (See “December 2018: Rains Come, After the Fires,” and “W Is for Water.”)

This late October and early November, the Kincade Fire swept through northern Sonoma, while three much smaller fires fueled by the annual Santa Ana winds threatened Southern California. But the overall devastation was incredibly less than in the previous two years–about 85% less–in part because the beleaguered Pacific Gas & Electric corporation took the extraordinary preemptive step of shutting off power to a million or more households across the state in the most fire-prone areas.  This step reduced the chances of sparks from power lines igniting dry brush, which had been the immediate cause of the Camp Fire, the Sonoma fires of ’17, and other recent blazes.

The effectiveness and justification for the PG&E decisions remain controversial. But at least the PG&E action was one sign of the overall desire of Californians to be proactive in reducing the threat of such devastation as occurred in ’17 and ’18. It is the rare Californian who fails to recognize the fact of gradually rising yearly temperatures and an extended fire season–and therefore the need for collaborative planning toward identifying the most threatened areas and establishing the most effective laws and procedures.

It would be great if the current federal administration were interested in cooperating with the state toward real solutions. But since the 2016 elections the feds won’t even take the first baby step of acknowledging the environmental warming trend, not to mention acknowledging the human and corporate causes of climate change so that real progress might be made toward reducing those causes. Note that 57% of the forested land in California is federal, so the inaction at the federal level truly harms Californians. The Camp Fire and the Carr Fire were among recent catastrophes that began on federal lands.

The Plants of This November

I must begin with the amazing Cajun red pepper (at right), which even now is still putting out new fruit, and whose spicy brilliants keep making our soups and chilis burst with flavor. Last month’s blog was already marveling at the longevity of this plant. Now that it’s threatening to last into December, I’m beginning to wonder if it might become a two-year wonder.  Well, time will tell. Let’s see if it can withstand the freezing temps of winter. Through most of November, the daily highs have been from the low 70s into the 60s, but now the beginning of the rainy season will bring the daily range down to the 30s to the high 50s. How much longer can this hearty specimen survive?

Meanwhile, the Cajun red’s two pepper buddies, both mild, keep going, too, but less spectacularly (see one of them, below). I’d like to replace all three in the raised bed with something exotic, like the French radishes I grew last winter, but right now I’m so intrigued by the pepper oldsters that I’m willing to keep honoring their seniority. I guess that we old folks need to stick together.

Lettuce, Chard, Arugula

Our three very different salad greens have different stories. The arugula this year was a spring planting. In fact, it began with seeds that I planted in a pot in the shady front garden, and which I transplanted to the much sunnier back in July when it didn’t thrive in the front. In the ground in back, it flourished with moderate watering and no fertilizer into the early fall. Now it is heartier than ever and will keep going into next spring, as arugula does. Arugula has always been a strong performer in this garden, and the tiny yellow flowers of this variety are a bee magnet (October video, below).

The leaf lettuce and the Swiss chard this fall are October plantings, and both of these plant groupings had a rough start. The October temps stayed above normal, so the summer insects attacked the new plants, and, believe it or not, a free-range cat who loved our garden also liked to snack on the new veggies. Two chard plants and two lettuces, all of which I’d planted in the ground, pretty quickly disappeared.

However, the four chards and four lettuces that I’d had the good luck to plant in pots survived–especially when I moved them close to the house.  Once they were better established, I transplanted one of the chards and two of the lettuces into the ground–but covered them with chicken wire.  All of these plants are now doing well, and should thrive in the cooler temps and in the rainy season.

Broccoli

Once again, broccoli grows in the winter garden (see below), and in November these October plantings really took off–especially once the weather began to cool off in the past two weeks. In October, one of the plants was devoured by the cabbage leaf butterflies and the remaining five suffered partial damage. But now in the cooler temps, these plants are thriving. The center heads are beginning to appear, and I’ll need to decide if I want to let the center heads grow to their full (and delicious) size (as I did in 2017), or if I want to cut off the center heads so that the small broccolini heads will proliferate around the centers (as I did last year). I may choose to do some in each style.

Petunias

Last year’s petunias lasted from Spring through December and into 2019. This spring’s have now lasted almost as long, and are as beautiful as ever. Indeed, this year, I transplanted several of the plants from the front garden, when the sidewalk pots had been overtaken by the prolific vincas. The transplanted petunias have thrived now in the raised bed with the broccoli and in another planter in the back garden (see above).

In fact, a few of the plants have been transplanted more than once, moving from small pots and into the ground, or from small pots into larger ones. As always with pots, I can move them depending on shade and sun, and most of the moved plants do just fine. And as with our other annual plants, the long growing season means that some annuals can last into the next year with no problem.

Oranges and Lemons

When I have written that our navel oranges and our meyer lemons are ready for harvest in December, I don’t mean that that’s when they look ready. If we went by looks alone, then harvest should be in November (see below).

These meyer lemons at right look ripe, a nice deep yellow. And some might be ready for picking. But too often when I pick these November beauties, they are green on the side facing away from the sun, and they are not yet at their peak of juiciness. Just give them a few weeks more, and they’ll have that tiny bit of sweetness they need to keep the sour from overwhelming our taste buds.

Pretty much the same goes with the oranges.

The late November tree (above) looks laden with ripe sweetness. And if you pick one orange ball and cut into it, you’ll get plenty of juice–but your mouth will pucker from the sour bite and you’ll even shiver.  Not yet ready!

Try them again later in December and the sweetness will have improved a lot. Try them again in January, then February, then March–and each month the sweetness grows greater until the March guys are memorably sweet, but still with enough tang to be oranges.

I’ve written so much about the orange tree in this blog over the years, but I never get tired of the sweet, juicy, fragrant, huge miracle that it is. Every new season dazzles me still. May we never, ever, take this miracle for granted.

A Late November Gallery

Late November coda, just before the rains…bees in the Mexican sage…

..and on to December…with hopes for more rain to forestall more fires this season.

Chris:

In April 2013, I added several new plantings to our front garden, including the two-feet high fan palm in the foreground of the photo below. The fan palm had been for the previous two years (2011-12) in a large pot on the back veranda.  The photo above is of that fan palm today, taken as I look up through the canopy of fans along the thick red-brown trunk covered in the sharp-toothed stems of the many fans I’ve trimmed off regularly over the last three years.

The photo below is also of that fan palm today, now well over twenty feet tall and growing upward about three feet per year.

Hazards of Untrimmed Fan Palms

Notice how the fans toward the top are lush, firm, and deep green, while the lower fans are just beginning to dry out. If left untrimmed once these fans turn grey and hug the trunk, these dried fans will dry further–and will eventually fall to the ground, posing a hazard to any creature unlucky enough to be standing beneath. Communities across California, but mainly in Southern California, where the weather is most conducive to these trees, must keep their many palms trimmed to eliminate this danger.

But in Northern California, where palm trees are common but much less frequent, the same hazard exists, but we’ve noticed so often that property owners neglect the care of the trees–which often grow to 50 feet or more in height— and years of dried out fans hug the trunks and pose this silent threat.

An even greater threat from untrimmed, dried-out palm fans is that of fire. See this graphic 2008 brochure (and attached video) from the Escondido Fire Department in Southern California that describes the hazards–and offers advice that can help gardeners keep their palms healthy, safe, and looking beautiful.

SummerFall, 2019

In 2018, I drew a clear distinction between summer and fall in our post “Between the Seasons: September 20, 2018.” By October of last year, I had removed the summer veggies and was waiting to plant the fall veg. This October, the distinction is less clear: hence the term “SummerFall.” The back garden panorama just below shows what I mean:

(Click on the garden infographic oct 19  to see the plants labelled.)

Still thriving from the summer are the three pepper plants in the foreground and the arugula just beyond the petunias in the small raised bed. Brand new for October are

• the three leaf lettuce plants hugging the ground and protected by screens
• six stir fry broccoli plants in the small raised bed and just beyond (next to the arugula)
• and four Swiss chard plants in pots (beyond the arugula)

As long as the daytime temps stay in the mid 70s to mid 80s, all these plants should continue to do well. Once the daytime temps fall below 70, the peppers will be done, but all the rest of the veggies will thrive through the winter. In the next few months, I hope to add several more winter veggies that I’ve had success with, such as radishes and onions.

Here are a couple of closer looks at the amazing pepper plants and a video of the thriving arugula with its bright yellow flowers and their attendant bees:

Notice the petunias and the newly planted stir fry broccoli plants beside the arugula.

Bees and Birds in the October Garden

Not only is the arugula attracting a small swarm of bees, but so are the Mexican sage and the blooming rosemary (below).

Among the birds that make music in our October garden are these two that I photographed this week:

The Last of the Eggplants

Finally, the stalwart eggplants stopped producing in early October, but left behind some beautiful Black Beauty fruit that Jean continues to turn into luscious dishes, such as the crispy, rich tomato eggplant and cheese tart below:

Here is my still life to honor these beauties, surrounded by some of the Cajun red  and mild red peppers and a pot of newly-planted leaf lettuce:

The eggplants will keep fresh for still a couple of weeks more, so we’ll be enjoying home-grown summer eggplant into November.

Some More October Garden Views

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…which it loves as much as I do, and for the same reasons.

On to November, and with hopes for rain to forestall another terrible fire season.

Jean:

Our oldest grandson had requested eggplant parmesan for his recent visit, so before our eggplants ripened, I bought one at a farmers’ market and started practicing the whole regimen of dipping the slices of eggplant in seasoned flour, beaten egg, and then bread crumbs and/or panko and frying them before covering them with tomato sauce and cheeses for the final bake.  The result was somewhat underwhelming.  I wasn’t sure if the defect lay in the eggplant itself or the method of preparation, but I knew that method was very time-consuming and messy.

When the eggplants from our garden were ready for harvest in September, I took one and decided to try an alternate approach.  I coated each side of each slice with about a tablespoon of olive oil and roasted them at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, turning them over halfway.  I expected it to take longer, but I took them out when the outsides looked slightly golden brown and the insides were soft.  It was so easy and delicious that I decided to forget about the whole breading process, except that I saw a suggestion online to put some bread crumbs mixed with parmesan cheese on top of the whole pan after assembling the eggplant and sauce.  It also sounded easy and delicious.

However, since I always want to use up what I have in the pantry, and I had lasagna noodles, I ended up making a vegetarian lasagna, adding roasted peppers from the garden as well as eggplant in between the layers of noodles.  I still owe my grandson an eggplant parmesan, I think. But he loved the result!

My tip for lasagna noodles?  If you fully cook them before assembling them with the sauce and cheeses, they may be too soft to handle and tear easily.  I don’t like the supposedly pre-cooked noodles you can buy; they are still too hard on the edges, I find.  So I parboil the noodles myself.  When they look about half-cooked, I drain, rinse and oil them so they can cool off without sticking together while I assemble the other elements of the dish.  They finish cooking nicely as you bake the final assembled dish.  Just put the cheese on top toward the end of baking unless you like it more brown.

Chris:

September ended just yesterday, and I will call it the month of the eggplants. Last year at this time (“Between the Seasons: September 20, 2018”) I sentimentalized about the end of summer. I had pulled out all the summer veggies except for two pepper plants that were barely hanging on–but as I looked beneath one of the eggplant bushes (little fingers variety) I actually discovered eight smaller fruit that I had missed! But it was too late for any more eggplants that still might have had a mind to grow. I had already pulled out the bushes.

This year, as I remarked in last month’s entry (“August 2019: July and Thensome”), had been a summer eggplant wasteland. Out of three black beauty plants, we didn’t get even one fruit until late July, despite many lavender flowers. I hoped that August would provide a “bumper crop,” but that was just wishful thinking. Only in the last week of August did a few buds start turning into tiny fruit.

Well, September brought the windfall–close to a dozen huge beauties from the three plants, with half of them still on the bushes as the month ended. Jean’s eggplant peppers parmesan lasagna (described above) is just one of several dishes that have sparked her creativity in the kitchen. Here’s another of her creations: her chicken eggplant red pepper salad, a great blend of hot and cold:

How long will the eggplant last? I won’t make the mistake this year of pulling out the eggplants too early. I just saw another tiny fruit growing and there are many lavender flowers blooming. As long as the temps in the 70s hold, who knows how many more may appear?

Peppers

Three plants–the mild red, the mild green, and the spicy cajun red–still thrive in the late September, early October garden.  Jean just put some into her beef chili, and they’ll be great in more eggplant parm and in the veggie hashes and salads like those we described above and last month in the blog. The cajun red is the champ of the group. You can see (below) all the green fruit still ripening toward red on the bushes today.

Unlike last year, when the last two pepper plants were just holding on in late September, these plants look good and fruitful for at least a few weeks, as long as the temps hold.

Late September Garden Views

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris:

August used to be the summer month when people who couldn’t go on vacation in July went on vacation.  But now it’s what September used to be when our children were children: the month when the kids go back to school. We still find our semi-retired selves cheerily asking how the grandkids are enjoying their summer vacation, only to be told by whichever one we are talking with that “we are back in school,” said with a resigned tone that conveys their sense of the unfairness of it all.

I get the same resigned, nostalgic attitude from the citizens of the garden–at least some of them. They are not happy about August. It’s like an even hotter July, and really dull. At best, their growth keeps going at a good pace–such as the tomatoes and the cucumbers and the peppers, which fill our fruit and veggie bowl each week pretty much as they did in July:

But even these hearty souls are getting weary. The number of dried out, exhausted shoots and leaves is building, and when I look at the plants it’s as if I’m looking in the mirror: “Come on, old fella,” I think, “I know you’ve got some life left in ya, but not a whole lot.”

It doesn’t help that the heat is just as relentless as ever. The temps have been routinely in the 90s to just over 100, pretty typical for August, but creeping slowly higher with each passing year.  In our blissful little patch, it didn’t help that our neighbor decided in July to have his cherry-plum tree, which always gave some shade to our back garden, drastically cut back so that the hours of blistering sun increased by 50%. Believe me, it is no fun to stroll through the back garden on August afternoons this year. And I can go back inside. The plants in the ground can’t.

This old fella (yours truly) is stubbornly resisting watering more frequently or longer, despite the increase in heat.  I’m willing, curmudgeon that I am, to see how the garden reacts.  On the one hand, I must say that the tomatoes have handled the greater sun like troopers. But on the other, I won’t be having any of my tomatoes thriving greenly into mid September like my champion red grape tomato of 2018, which got plenty of shade on those blistering August afternoons. (See “Between the Seasons, Sept. 20, 2018”).

Of the 2019 group, the husky cherry red has held out longest:

…and will probably be fruitful for about another week, to month’s end. But then, bye-bye.

The two Ace tomato plants (mid-size fruit) are still chugging along, too, with about ten more small green fruit having appeared in the past two weeks. But at this point, it’s a race between the plant’s urge to propagate and the strength it still has to take the fruit to full term. I’m thinking there’ll be some green fruit still on the withered vines when I pull them out.

Tomato Pests/Guests

Another problem for the tomatoes is one that I’ve not seen before this August: an assortment of oddly-shaped and multicolored munchy bugs that just love the ripening tomatoes as much as we do. Study the photo below, if you have the nerve:

Besides the groups already on the mid-size tomato, notice the lines approaching the buffet. Everybody gets a turn. Too bad for them, though, the buffet closes as soon as I flick the tomato a few times or throw an ounce or two of water on the fruit to wash the visitors off. Then I pluck the tomato for the fruit bowl, where it will ripen just fine, with little or no damage to the tomato–if I catch the bugs within a day of their attacking the fruit.

As I said, the problem never appeared before this year: that’s ten years of tomatoes with no pests. I will still not spray them with chemicals, as I never have. Besides, because my garden is small enough and the pace of tomato production slow enough, I can keep track tomato by tomato. But I’ll be on the lookout next spring and summer, so I can balance what we eat against what we leave for our “guests.”

What Loves August

Plenty of the plants in our garden love August, despite what I said earlier.  As long as they receive regular water, they can thrive in the heat. Here are a few, some in full sun, some in part shade:

What Did I Say about Eggplant in July?

Last month, I was bemoaning the slow development of our three eggplants, which usually provide a few fruit in late July and more into August and early September.  This year’s rains in May slowed the growth even more, and by the end of July, only one eggplant fruit had grown to harvest on the three bushes. I predicted (hoped?) then that we might have a “bumper crop” in August.

Well, that did not happen. Lavender flowers kept appearing and maturing, but none turned into nascent fruit.  Until, that is, the final week of the month. I’m happy to report that now we have several tiny, tiny fruit beginning to take shape across the three plants. Here is the largest of these–about 1.5 inches in diameter at this point. I’ll be monitoring them in September, and I hope will have good things to report in the next blog entry.

Kitchen Treats

The steady stream of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers in August meant a bit more experimentation in our “test kitchen.” The July peaches had been pretty much all used up (see the July blog entry) or the cooked peaches frozen for later, so the August creations were variations on the veggies-plus-herbs theme. The two we describe here–

• hot summer veggie hash, and
• grape tomato salsa

use pretty much the same ingredients, but differ in cooking, texture, and uses.

Hot Summer Veggie Hash

Really a stir fry, this colorful “hash” features chopped-up red and green mild peppers, red onion, chopped cucumbers, and whole (not sliced!) cherry and grape tomatoes. Keeping the tiny tomatoes whole in the sizzling oil-prepped skillet or wok means the little fruits are ready to burst when you pop them in your mouth, and that hot burst of flavor makes the dish special.

The spicy “hot” in this summer veggie hash comes mainly from the red cajun peppers chopped into the mix. If you want it mild-to-medium spicy, be sure to cut away the seeds in the chopping process. As with all hot peppers, leaving in the seeds ramps the Scovil score way up, and you may not want that. But live dangerously, if that’s what you want.

What we recommend: when chopping the hot peppers, taste the flesh without the seeds to see how much of a burn you get. Then pop into your mouth a seed or two or three and see what happens. Consider how much heat you and your guests can stand and enjoy.  Just be sure not to touch your eyes with any fingers that were involved with manipulating those peppers.  The burn can be transferred even hours later.

Serving suggestions: Serve as either a side dish with meat and starches, or merely as a colorful, spicy garnish. It also goes well blended with roasted or hash brown potatoes.

Grape Tomato Salsa

As noted last month, if you make sauce from grape or cherry tomatoes, you have to contend with the hundred or more skins that peel off into the mixture as it cooks. If you don’t like the texture of the skins, you have to find a way–always tedious–to remove them during or after cooking.

Well, our salsa avoids that problem. After you’ve chopped up your tomatoes, mild and hot peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, onion, herbs, garlic, etc.–everything you want to throw in to make your special flavors–gradually spoon your mix of ingredients from your bowl into your blender. Don’t try to blend all of it at once. Experiment with small batches until, batch by batch, you get it all finely chopped.  How much blending you do depends on how chunky or smooth you want the salsa.

Once it’s all blended, you’ll have a beautifully wet, chunky, colorful, oh-so-fragrant mess that you can’t wait to pour into your saucepan and cook down.

The great thing about the chunky mess is that the skins of the tiny tomatoes will be tiny-tiny fragments that are just part of the blend.

(By the way, if you don’t want to cook it down, you’ll have a beautiful blend for a summer gazpacho! See “T Is for Tomatoes” and “S Is for Soups and Stews.”)

Your cooked salsa (ours cooked down on simmer in less than an hour) will be perfect for

• chip dipping
• pouring over meatballs
• pouring over pasta
• mixing into a chunky Bloody Mary

or any dish that can be enhanced with rich tomato, herb, and garden veggie flavors.

The Last Word?

Yes, August does have its roses, too. See you in September!