"What do you give back to your garden?"

Mark was talking to our friend Lani; she and her husband were vending a few booths down from ours, and during a slow time she and Mark were trading gardening stories.  Mark had shared with Lani that 2010 and 2011 were poor gardening years for us, although the years before had been very prolific. 

Mark talked about the good management he gives the gardens, the organic fertilizer, the mulching, the lack of chemicals.  Lani took it all in, but that wasn't what she was asking.  Her question was about the spiritual connection with Mother Earth, and how we honored the little patch of her skin, that is our garden area.  "Do you give tobacco," Lani asked, "that garden has given you a lot over the years.  What do give it in return?"  Not much stops Mark in his conversational tracks, but Lani did!  He squirmed around, trying to come up with an answer that was anything than the truth, which was....we give back very little. I don't know what Mark will do to remedy the imbalance from his view, but knew I had to do something of my own.

My way of giving back to the garden has been to visit it during these warm winter nights, and be thankful there.  I have gone to each garden and looked at the moon, and talked about how much I enjoy the whole process of gardening; the excitement of the little seedlings sprouting in the kitchen, the maturing plants growing stronger every day, the way the sun warms the leaves and makes everything smell so good.  I've given each garden showers of cornmeal from one of my mom's Pueblo pots, reminiscing about her gardens in California and remembering the love she had for all growing things.  I've taken the drum I made into each garden and played a heartbeat, letting my love for the garden and Mother Earth swell through the air and into the soil. 

I think the best thing I've given back to the garden has been appreciation.  Attention.  Thanks.  So often during the gardening season, the demands of keeping up with the weeding and mulching and canning and drying and....and...and...are too much for me.  There is always more to do than there is time to do it in, and when the first frost draws near I'm very ready to be done with it!  The interval since the active gardening season ended has given me a chance to put some distance between what comes between the garden and I other days, and concentrate only on what it offers right now.  Peace.  Incubation.  Promise. 

Gardening season will be here before we know it, and what frustrates me about gardening will be here too.  I hope to carry forward the good feeling of communion with the garden this year.  It feels healthy to give back to the garden.  I like it, and it feels like the garden likes it too.  I look forward to drumming there the year 'round, reconnecting with thankfulness and tuning into the deepest vibrations of Mother Earth

We've had a warmish winter so far, but yesterday the season caught up with us.  With cold, snowy winds rattling the house, I was in the mood for something sunny.  Also, we have about 6 huge Marina di Chioggia squash lurking in the mud room and I don't like the way Mark fixes them.....so, I did a quick Google using the terms "winter squash split pea" and came up with a great curry recipe.  Happiness!

If you aren't familiar with them, the Marina di Chioggia squash look like dark green, slightly flattened and warty pumpkins.  The ones we have are the size of soft basketballs, and they seem to be good keepers.  Mark has been preparing the seeds as you would pumpkin seeds, and thinks they are "pretty good."  We had a smaller di Chioggia squash, but those seeds were twisted and underdeveloped.  The seeds from the larger squash are not quite as meaty as pumpkin seeds, but are right up there.

Onto the curry.  I'll put down what I used, with notes about what the original recipe suggested in parentheses, for those who are curious about how it was supposed to be done.  I haven't deviated too far with this one, and plan to make another batch tonight that will go straight into the freezer.

A big gob of our own onions, which are all shapes and sizes (1 diced onion)
half of one Marina di Chioggia squash (1 large winter squash)
2 cups green split peas (2 cups yellow split peas)
1 pint jar of our own canned tomatoes (half a can of diced tomatoes)
2 teaspoons each of ground tumeric and cumin (2 teaspoons tumeric, 1.5 teaspoons cumin)
(half a cup of dried, unsweetened, shredded coconut)
1-2 tablespoons fry oil of your choice; I used coconut oil
   
Once you've done a bit with these ingredients, you'll also need.....
1 tablespoon mustard seeds (1-2 teaspoons mustard seeds)
almost 1/4 cup of minced garlic (2-3 cloves of minced garlic)
1 teaspoon red pepper powder (1 teaspoon red pepper flakes)
1-2 tablespoons fry oil of your choice; I used coconut
for seasoning: honey, lime juice, cilantro

Heat the oil in a soup pot, as you'll be adding everything into it as you go.  While the diced onions are gently sauteeing in the oil until they are soft, dice the squash into 1-inch cubes.  Add the tumeric and cumin to the onions, and blend thoroughly.  Into the seasoned onions, add the squash, split peas, tomatoes, and coconut if you used it.  Add enough water or broth to cover.  Bring this to a boil, then reduce to simmer until the split peas are soft, and the squash gets really soft.  The original recipe indicated that this would take 30 minutes or so; I let the stuff cook for almost 2 hours.

In any event, once the split peas and squash have reached the texture you like, warm the remaining oil in a small sautee pan. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, garlic, and red pepper.  The goal is to cook this long enough that the mustard seeds begin to pop, but not so long that the garlic gets bitter.  Once this mixture is ready, add it to the big pot and stir to blend everything thoroughly.  You can season it with as much honey, lime juice, and cilantro as you like, but I thought it was lovely just the way it was.

I would be inclined to add carrots, sweet potatoes, and peas to this when I make it again.  This looks like it will freeze well, and the cheerful color of the mix is doing wonders for me on this gloomy winter day.  Enjoy!! 

What could be nicer on a wet dreary day, than piping hot chili?  Here's what I put in my most recent batch.  As usual, I merely lumped stuff in rather than measured, so feel free to add things in the proportion that suggests itself to you.

I cooked dried calico, garbanzo and white beans the night before, resulting in a large crock pot full of the critters.  I froze half, and retained half as the base for this chili.  The garbanzo beans are particularly yummy since they retain a nice texture no matter how long you cook, or store, the chili.

Into the pot were added raisins, cashews, chopped onions, tomato paste, beer, orange juice, sorghum, chili powder, cayenne pepper, cumin, and a quart of 2009 home-canned tomatoes.  I went a little light on the cashews as I didn't have the raw nuts, only the roasted & salted pieces.  Next time I make this I'll use chipotle pepper rather than cayenne, and might add a container of frozen sweet corn.  This freezes well; look for it to be served next time Raventree Pewter favors us with his presence.  Call if you want to join us!

I don't know where he found it, or if I can read his writing well enough to set this recipe down correctly, but Mark found a way of making sweet & sour beet tops that's just incredible.  How incredible, you ask?  I'm a fairly picky eater, and I would gobble down string and old keys if they were prepared like this.  Without further ado, then:

a mess of beet tops
1/2 stick butter
3 tablespoons prepared horseradish
2-1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

His cryptic note says only "saute greens for 5 minutes" but I imagine he melted everything together prior to the introduction of the beet tops.  I'm sure you could use any greens for this, although the beet tops were very attractive with their burgundy veins.  Mark used white vinegar and the horrible flavored corn syrup that is sold as "maple syrup."  If I'd been cooking this, I would have skipped the syrup until I could get the real deal; I would have used honey in it's place, and gone with Balsamic vinegar.  I also have vague plans of using wasabi in lieu of the horseradish and adding some slivered almonds and Mandarin oranges, one of these days; Mark plans to either freeze or can more greens than he initially bargained for, because this recipe is going to be made a lot through the year.

We freeze, dry or can most of what we grow in our garden for use throughout the year, but radishes are one thing we tend to only eat while they're fresh.  This year Mark planted Cherry Belles rather than the usual French Breakfast Radish, and these certainly have a more uniform globe; they also have a little more "bite."


If we don't sell these at the Lamoni Farmer's Market today, I plan to braise the tops, and make a salsa with the globes.  On second thought, Mark just got his Vita-Mix working again, so I might juice the tops, and make salsa with the globes.  The recipe I will base my salsa on can be found in the delightful "More Recipes From a Kitchen Garden" by Renee Shepherd and Fran Raboff.  I'm sure to make substitutions, but here is the recipe I'll be working from:

Chile Radish Salsa

The following peppers to be roasted, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped:  1 serrano, 1 anaheim, 2 jalapenos
1 large clove of minced garlic
1 cup finely diced radishes
1 cup of seeded and diced cucumbers
5 finely chopped scallions
2 cups of diced tomatoes, drained
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup cilantro
salt to taste

In a bowl combine chiles and vegetables.  Stir in lime juice and olive oil.  Add cilantro and salt to taste.  Refrigerate 1 hour; drain off excess liquid before serving.

Sounds good, doesn't it?  Maybe I'll break out the tortilla press and make fresh tortillas to go with.

We've done a good job of eating the produce we froze last year, although we still have plenty of canned goods on the shelves.  Over the winter, as the vegetables are removed from the freezer and eaten, Mark fills the empty space with on-sale meats and sausage.  He'd better start up the grill, because look how much spinach he picked yesterday---a whole laundry basket of the stuff!  Also coming on nicely are green beans, radishes, cauliflower and a hint of broccoli; most of that was torn out of the ground by a storm earlier this month.  So far he has frozen everything he's picked, although we did enjoy a mess of steamed green beans last night.  Will we finally have produce for the Lamoni Farmer's Market?  We'll see!

I bought the 75th Anniversary SueBee Honey Collector's Edition Cook Book from Watson Farms, a few farmer's markets ago, and today I finally made a casserole based on a recipe they give for Sour Cream-Potato Casserole.  If you want to see what the recipe originally looked like, Watsons still have copies of this nice wire-bound book; to learn what I did, read on.

I mixed together:
2 pounds of thawed hash browns
1 pint of sour cream
1 chopped medium onion
1 can, cream of mushroom soup
a 6-ounce piece of sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 stick of melted butter
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon black pepper

All of that went into a casserole dish.  For the topping, I used some home made raisin bread cubes that were taking up space in the freezer, probably about 2 cups of cubes, and tossed 1 cup of melted butter into them.  This mixture was spread atop the potato mixture, and the whole thing was baked for 45 minutes at 350.  The result was a creamy, sweet-sour casserole that I garnished with smoked paprika.  I'll portion and freeze this to be used as breakfast on market Saturdays, rather than running up to Casey's for a donut and their potato cheese thingies.

Even before our cool-weather vegetables are ready to be picked, we're enjoying fresh greens in the form of Lamb's Quarters, shown here growing in the rock garden near the front door.  We use it every way you would use spinach, and it freezes well too.  Be sure to pick yours from a source that uses no chemicals, as most folks see this as a common weed. 

Our most recent dish to feature Lamb's Quarters was a spinach-feta cheese quiche.  We meant to follow the recipe but were missing some ingredients, yet the finished product still turned out delicious!  One quiche was frozen and the other eaten within days; the quantities given below are for two quiche.


2 pie crusts for a 9-inch pie, unbaked
2 boxes of mushrooms, sliced
1 large or 2 small onions, diced
1 head of garlic, diced
2 packages of feta cheese, plain or flavored
2 cups fresh Lamb's Quarter leaves
1 stick of butter
8 eggs
2 cups of Cheddar cheese
2 cups of milk
oven at 375

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat, and sautee onions and garlic.  Set aside; sautee mushrooms.  Add the onion/garlic back to the skillet with the mushrooms, and include the Lamb's Quarters, feta cheese, and about half of the Cheddar cheese. When everything is mixed thoroughly, divide into the two pie crusts.

Beat the eggs and milk together until frothy.  Evenly divide this liquid between the two pie crusts, pouring slowly so the liquid covers the vegetable mixture.  Bake in a pre-heated oven for 15 minutes, than cover each quiche with the remaining Cheddar cheese.  Bake for another 35 minutes or so.  The cheese on top will have nice brown bubbles and the center will be firmly set.

We made our bloomer in not having any milk, but fear not!  This was still delish. 

Mark has been working to get as much planted as he could in advance of the storms that were forecast for today, and he's gotten a lot accomplished.  This photo shows hot tops sitting over Brandywine tomatoes that went in right by the house.  We have a long narrow garden east of the back yard, and he planted the Beefsteak tomatoes there today.  Other plantings in the past couple of days include summer squash, onion plants and sets, and sweet corn.  The sweet corn went out in an impromptu garden; the cow pen our friends built last summer. It held a pile of manure they said they would spread with their Bobcat, but so far the only spreading has been whatever the horses have pushed around when they've wandered into the pen.  Rather than bring the manure to the seeds, Mark decided to bring the seeds to the manure.  That planting of corn should be through by county fair time, so here's hoping they don't need it for cows earlier this year than they have other years.

It's been a week full of muscle aches and sore backs, as garden season has ramped up to include tilling and planting.  Our tiller is in the shop but our neighbor was kind enough to lend is his, so Mark spent 2 days tilling all of the garden plots.  We knew rain was forecast for Wednesday night going into Thursday, so Wednesday was a frenzy of planting. 

The broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage plants went out; here you can see the north garden broccoli waiting for their hot tops to be put on.  Mark also planted our first batch of sweet corn, plus beets, spinach, zucchini, and about half of our onion plants.  He'll have a number of sweet corn plantings to produce corn for the longest span of time, provided the weather looks favorably upon us.  Last year we had only two puny ears, while the year before that, we had so much sweet corn that Mark's gums were sore from eating some every day for about about 6 weeks.

This north garden was plagued by rabbits last year; even with anchoring our chicken-wire fence, the little fuzzies wormed under the wire and decimated every living thing.  We haven't seen a single rabbit since the fall, so we were hoping to have a bunny-free planting season this year.  Nope!  Mark was literally sitting with his eyes closed envisioning where to plant the broccoli, and when he opened his eyes, he was staring straight at a rabbit!  Chico the Garden Dog has gotten too slow to chase them, so he contents himself with peeing on the hot tops, and looking reproachfully at Mark when Mark gripes about the rabbits.