Garden 2012: Tomatoes On Parade

I was beginning to think that, for the first time in memory, we might not be planting tomatoes in our garden. My neighbor, Susana, had planted hers a good three weeks earlier and I'd been watched them gradually pop out of the tops of their protective teepees. Plus we'd been gone for a week at the beach, losing even more precious planting time.

I was somewhat comforted when the weather took a turn for the colder, followed a couple of days later by a horrendous hailstorm that blasted through the area, leaving pellet-sized residue a good half inch deep on the ground. So yesterday we downed some coffee and headed for our favorite neighborhood nursery, Garden Fever, hoping that they hadn't sold out of our favorite varieties.

The younger starts we normally plant in the spring had been replaced by larger, sturdier plants in gallon pots that were a bit more expensive, but we decided to pay the penalty for not planting earlier and bought six: two Cherokee purples and one each of green zebra, yellow pear, Sungold and red cherry. And with the weather for the coming week predicted to hover in the 60s and 70s, and consequent warmer nights bringing the soil temperature up to the desired 60 degrees, we also invested in pepper starts: two Jimmy Nardellos, two pasillas and a Melrose.

With those and a six-pack of lacinato, we bought, we came home, we planted. Add in the tiny leafy greens, carrots and herbs in the raised beds and the pea shoots climbing up the fence behind them, and we're pretty much done for the time being. Now to sit back and pray for nice balance of sun and rain for the duration!

Garden 2011: Exercising My Options

It's been said before, but to me a garden is an exercise in hope. Especially this year, with the cool temperatures and wet weather making this the latest I've ever planted tomatoes. Though this year I didn't need the Walls o' Water to protect them from the premature planting urge that usually overtakes my better judgement in early May.

Holding off also gave me a little more time to plan, if that term can be applied to the whirlpool of vegetable-themed desire that swirled in my head, resulting in a scouting trip to the nursery to look at what was available and grab my few required starts and soil amendments, with a return trip or two to fill in.

Trip one was for tomatoes (Sungold, Cherokee Purple, a black cherry and Green Zebra), peppers (ancho and Jimmy Nardello), lacinato kale and collards, which went in our parking strip bed. Trip two was for seeds (arugula, French radish) and herb starts (French tarragon, savory). I also had the brilliant idea to grow vegetables up the chain link fence behind our raised beds both for space considerations and also to screen our outdoor dining area on the other side. For that task I chose Kentucky Wonder green beans and a green cucumber. Again, hope is the operative word here.

Then trip three was for carrot seeds to fill in some space left in the second raised bed, a mix of red Nantes and a packet labeled Carnival Blend guaranteed to grow "red, purple, white and yellow" carrots, and which claims "Kids love them!" in cheery italics. I also picked up a few squash plants to grow down the slope in front of the beds, a trick I tried last year but one that yielded miserable results for some reason I've never figured out.

I'll be posting occasional photos of the progress of this yearly experiment in optimism. Oh, and for those keeping track, Dave's 20-year raised beds are in hale and hearty shape in their fifth season. Only fifteen to go!

Download the plans for Dave's raised beds.

Fritter Chronicles: Can't Get Enough

What's not to like about corn? It's sweet, it makes a fun sound and it's happy being a main course, side dish or condiment. Now contributor Jim Dixon of Real Good Food's foments on his fritter fascination with a recipe that includes this versatile vegetable.

I had some leftover corn on the cob, and while I’d planned to do a simple corn and tomato salad, I ended up making corn calas, a rice fritter we’d had when we ate at Cochon in New Orleans. I’ve said before how familiar the simple Cajun food seemed, and the calas sure seemed related to all the other fritters I make.

Calas traditionally were sort of rice beignets, deep fried and served with sugar or cane syrup. These are pan fried, more like corn cakes.

Corn and Rice Calas
Adapted from Real Cajun: Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link's Louisiana

Combine the kernels cut from 2-3 ears of cooked corn with half an onion, finely diced, a diced frying pepper (like a Jimmy Nardello, although any sweet or even a hot pepper would work), a couple of eggs, a cup or so of cooked rice, and a few tablespoons each of flour and corn meal. Season with sea salt, freshly ground pepper and healthy dash of cayenne.

Heat a heavy skillet and add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Drop spoonfulls of the batter into the skillet and flip when nicely browned. Sprinkle with flor de sal.

In Season NW: Jimmy Nardello? Nice to Meet You!

I first met Jimmy by chance about a year ago at the Hillsdale Farmers Market. He was hanging around with a bunch of friends near a large pile of brilliantly colored peppers at the Gathering Together booth. He was young, but there was a gnarliness about him that sent shivers down my spine, offset by a sweetness I could see in his eyes. Before I knew it, he sitting down for a candlelit dinner, just me and him and a bottle of red, red wine.

There are romance novels to be written about the flirting and flings that happen at farmers' markets, the glances, the double-takes, the outright lustfulness that overcomes shoppers at this time of year. Perhaps it's the ripeness, the abundance, the dizzying selection that makes people giddy, or maybe it's the knowledge that soon, so very soon, it will all disappear with the onset of winter.

And though I'm guilty of piling more produce than I'll ever use ("Beans again?") into my market bag, I also use this season as an opportunity to survey vegetables that I might want to include in my garden plan next year. Which is where Jimmy comes in.

Doing some research, I discovered that the seeds for these long, twisty sweet peppers came over from Italy with Giuseppe Nardiello and his wife, Angela, in 1887. Giuseppe's son Jimmy, whose teachers decided he didn't need the "i" in his last name, donated some of his father's pepper seeds to Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, which specializes in protecting heirloom seeds.

Fantastically flavorful, I found myself throwing them into pasta, roasting them (carefully…they're thin-skinned and disintegrate easily) for antipasto, chopping them into salads and even including them in tomato jam. So when the time came to buy seeds for the garden, I made a point of picking up a packet of the Nardellos.

The results of the first harvest from the garden are pictured above. And I'm thinking that this fling may have turned into a long-term affair.