The Lists

This fall I will have been four years at the “new” house and garden. My two biggest garden goals were edibles and Northwest natives. So today I made a list of what is planted so far…

Food perennials
5 blueberry bushes
semidwarf peach tree
3 minidwarf apples
self fertile kiwi
raspberries—golden and red
3 artichoke plants
hop vine
strawberries
French sorrel
garlic chives
shallots
parsley (ok—it isn’t really perennial, but it’s always there)
(no sage because I rarely use it)
rosemary
and thyme


Self-seeding all over the place
Corn salad
Arugula
Kale

Northwest natives
inside-out flower (Vancouveria)
shooting star (Dodecatheon)
wild ginger (Asarum caudatum)
Red osier dogwood
Bunchberry
Trilliums
Blue eyed and yellow-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium)
Sword fern
Deer fern
False Solomon seal
False lily of the valley
Goat’s beard (?) (Aruncus Sylvester) It hasn’t resprouted yet, so I’m not sure; it’s a woodland plant but my shady spot under the neighbor’s Magnolia may be too dry for it)
Flowering current
Native honeysuckle
Native sedums
Vine maple
Bleeding heart (Dicentra)
Monkshood (Aconitum)
Fireweed—I didn’t plant this, but it has showed up. We’ll see if we can co-exist peaceably
Darlingtonia (carnivorous!)
Sundew (also carnivorous; it’s not back up yet and I don’t know if it made it)
Fringecup (Tellima grandiflora)
Marsh marigolds
Beach strawberry (fragaria chiloensis)

It seems like a lot when I look at it written out, especially considering the number of empty patches still showing on a smallish lot. I have to keep reminding myself that a lot of this stuff will get a whole lot bigger if I can keep it happy.

Snow melted; peas and potatoes in

Probably this is pushing it, but I couldn't help myself.
Russian banana fingerling potatoes are snuggled in among the bulbs, and the first round of sugarsnaps are planted in the alley bed.

On the flower front, the Hellebore in the front yard has big dramatic white blooms, the first crocuses and snowdrops are in bloom, and the daffodils are breaking ground.

Seeds in the Ground!

...not only in the ground, but the first little arugulas (arugulae?) are up. Probably you could plant them on a block of ice and and they would still sprout in a week.

It worked last year, so this year again I planted spinach, arugula and lettuce as soon as the February sun broke through. It's been freezing pretty much every night since, but they don't seem to care. Today I upped the ante and planted some garlic, shallots, and leeks (cloves, clove, seed). I'm hoping that the sandy, mostly storebought soil in my alley planter will give me the garlic success I've always aspired to and never achieved. The box is bristling with pointy sticks to counter the alley cats' natural assumption that I have created this fabulous giant litterbox for their personal convenience. It looks like a bed of nails.

I'm still taking inventory of winter damage. Most of the perennials seem to be battered but not dead, though I probably lost a little box honeysuckle I was hoping would provide some winter green outside the living room window. Maybe it will revive. Raspberries and artichokes look fine

Apple Tree Flowers

I was walking home from a neighbor's yesterday, preoccupied with making it to the bus in time to ride out to school for free (yea for Free Fare Week in Whatcom County!) when I was hailed by my lovely young neighbor Amelia. I think she's 4.

"You can eat the apple tree flowers," she told me. That confused me, since it's August. "They taste hot," she added. Then I got it. Her folks have put two young columnar apple trees in pots by the front gate. Each pot is spilling over with an exuberance of nasturtiums. Therefore: apple tree flowers. I munched a peppery blossom and thought, not for the first time, how lucky I am in my neighbors.

When I got back I saw a another piece of luck. The recent rains have gotten my new sowing of salad greens off to a strong start. Kale, leeks, and chard are all in the ground for spring. When I go back to work next week, I'll be overwhelmed as usual by the start of school, but I won't be kicking myself for not have gotten started on the overwintered veggies.

And I made the bus with a minute to spare.

Grown in Columbia (Neighborhood)

Romenesco broccoli, aka Pyramidenblumenkohl, among many other names. It tastes like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower. It looks like something Harry Potter would study in herbology.

I've learned from cookalmostanything.blogspot.com, whose author also took this picture, that it is a mathematician's dream, being both a demonstration of the Fibonacci number sequence and a fractal, made up of ever-smaller repeating copies of the same shape.

We had a Grown in Columbia table at the neighborhood association potluck this week. Although our egg and honey crops were not represented, gardeners rose to the challenge. We had rhubarb crumble, Mennonite plum “platz” pastries, several takes on potato salad, a beautiful and delicious roasted beet salad on a bed of arugula, and a combination of Romanesco broccoli, chard, and other greens that was tantalizing both to see and to eat.
The dishes incorporated edible pod peas, wax beans, nasturtiums, shallots, and purple carrots.

Our cool spring and early summer was represented in the lack of tomatoes and summer squash. Usually by August, a call for food bank donations would be met by piles of zukes, and gardeners would be eager to show off the first cherry and plum tomatoes of the season. We got just one small bag of golden zucchini. I did eat my own first ripe tomato yesterday; it was about the size of a garbanzo bean and it tasted just wonderful. It was the outlier that often shows up weeks ahead of anything else on a tomato plant, so I won’t be making a Caprese salad anytime soon.

The bush wax beans are in full swing, but I can’t say I’m loving the taste enough to grow them again. Usually I grow romanos, and maybe that rich flavor is spoiling me for the subtleties of the wax variety. They are surely pretty though. Tomatillos and cucumbers are flowering, the poor stunted little zucchini plants are starting to produce, and my artichokes are abundant enough for kitchen experiments (to be reported later).

The latest garden project is to find the patches where I can plant seed for fall and winter greens. Last year I waited too long, and the days were too short too soon to give those salads a decent start. This year I hope time things better. If we up the ante and have a Grown in Columbia table at the February meeting, I want to be ready.

For a good basic primer on winter and early spring harvesting, which means planting right now, check out http://www.seedsofchange.com/enewsletter/issue_51/extend_season.asp

For the full local picture and a chance to thank Binda Colebrook for the decades she has spent making Whatcom County more fruitful and beautiful, get yourself a copy of Winter Gardening in the Maritime Northwest.

Getting Technical

The more I read about local diets and foodshed eating, the more I wonder how to evaluate the wildly varying claims about food miles, carbon costs, etc. It seems obvious that some long-distance provender is less damaging in environmental terms than others, but it gets bewildering to try to figure it out, especially when you are standing in the grocery aisle looking longingly at a gleaming pile of limes. The trendier local eating becomes, the more alluring the advertising we see from transnational giants pretending to be mom-and-pop neighbors

Actually, that's one appeal of an arbitrary boundary like the 100 Mile Diet. Once you've set your parameters you can stop thinking about those individual decisions and exceptions and concentrate on enjoying the food that is available to you. Sort of like when you decide to settle down with one person and make it work.

But what I started out wanting to say was...I found a site that explains in detail the technical justification for its claims on environmental impact of a big variety of foods. It also has a tweaky but very interesting interactive map for local food producers in Lower British Columbia and Northwest Washington. I love this melding of high tech and local knowledge. Check it out.
http://www.localfooddirectory.ca/foodshed/geobrowser/

Just a recipe: baby bok choy

A friend sent me this. I made it and can confirm it's delicious, and so easy, and she gave me permission to pass it on:





Choose very small, tender baby bok choy. Slice them in two lengthwise and place them in a flat casserole, cut side down.

Over them sprinkle a lot of finely chopped garlic, some olive oil, a bit of toasted sesame oil, grated fresh ginger, a splash of soy sauce and a shallow amount of good chicken stock.

Cover and roast in a 400 degree oven for about a half hour, uncovering for the last five to ten minutes. (Save any remaining stock/juices)

(I saw a somewhat similar recipe that called for a handful of roasted cashews to sprinkle on at the end. I think I'll try that next time.)