Grow Your Own Caffeine

Posted on April 4, 2022 by Ann Lovejoy
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Coffee, Tea Or Tisane?

As cold rain beats down, I’m puttering in my little unheated greenhouse, where my new stash of caffeine plants is sheltering from the latest wild wind storm. The tea camellias should do fine once they get planted outside, but keeping the coffee plant happy will take more thought. There’s also a young Yaupon shrub as well as a start of Yerba Mate, both which can get large, so regular pruning is definitely in their future. This intriguing collection is part of my experiment with growing my own caffeine sources (especially given increasing concerns about food security; I need my tea!!!). All around the world, people have been brewing herbal and plant-based pick-me-ups since time immemorial. Though many of these remain regional specialties, some have become nearly universal. A remarkable percentage of humans are hooked on coffee or tea, the vast bulk of which are grown in tropical or subtropical regions. For most of us West Coast folks, growing tea presents few challenges, and Yaupon will do fine, but both coffee and Yerba Mate will require some seasonal protection.

While ornamental Asian camellias such as C. japonica and C. sasanqua are grown for showy spring or winter flowers and are not suitable for tea brewing, tea camellias are bred for flavorful foliage and bloom is discouraged. Due to its enormous popularity, the tea shrub, Camellia sinensis, has thousands of regional and selected forms of varying size, vigor, and leaf-shape, each with its own distinctive flavor. Tea camellias prefer mild, moist climates and thrive in Zone 8-9, though some are hardy in zones 6-10 and a few need winter protection in colder climates. Tea shrubs are pruned in winter to maintain size and shape, and harvested through the summer months. Frequent leaf “plucking” in summer keeps tea camellias bushy and productive; on tea plantations, tea plants are continually shaped and harvested and flowering is prevented, as it diverts energy from foliage production.

Keeping Tea Plants Happy

One of my new plant pals is a miniature tea shrub called Brew-Tea-Ful that remains just over a foot tall, perfect for containers and small gardens. Another is a slender-leaved Taiwanese form that tolerates shade and is used to make Formosa Oolong tea. Large or small, tea camellias prefer even soil moisture and very good drainage, so plant in berms where soil is heavy. Fertilize lightly in summer and mulch with mature compost to boost natural flavors. Treat any insect issues with soapy water or Neem oil; never use toxic pesticides on tea camellias, as the residues will contaminate the tea(!). Winter pruning keeps tea shrubs bushy and compact, with many new shoots for frequent summer plucking.

Harvesting tea involves removing removing one or two of the top leaves and/or the top bud from each shoot. New shoots will form from tiny buds in the leafy “armpits”, providing several flushes of new growth each year. Tea leaves are harvested in the morning, then washed, dried and withered until supple. For white and green teas, dried leaves are steamed over simmering water for up to 1 minute or dry-roasted in a heavy skillet for about 2 minutes. Finally, the leaves are spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet and baked at 250 degrees F. for 20 minutes to dry completely and prevent molding. Black teas are dried, then crushed or rolled until they turn coppery to promote fermentation, then dried again for up to 3 days before the final baking.

Dried jasmine flowers lend sweetness to teas or coffee leaf brews

Coffee Leaf Teas

Arabica coffee is an understory plant that prefers warm, shady, humid places. Topping out at about 6 feet, coffee can be treated as a large houseplant or grown outside in summer and overwintered indoors. Indoors or outside, coffee plants prefer bright, indirect light and need shade from direct sun. Coffee leaf tea is my new afternoon favorite, refreshing and mildly sweet, without the bitterness of brewed coffee no matter how long it’s steeped. Coffee leaf tea has about half the caffeine black tea, and blends deliciously with cinnamon and cardamom pods, or rose petals or jasmine blossoms. After coffee leaves are picked, washed, and dried on screens or racks, they are lightly toasted in a dry skillet, then oven-roasted at 200 degrees F. for 20 minutes to dry completely. Coffee leaf tea is made by steeping the dried leaves in hot water to taste. I keep mine going for hours, refreshing the hot water now and then, and it always tastes lovely.

Yaupon & Yerba Mate

These holly relatives have been used as traditional teas and tonics since time immemorial. Native throughout the Southern US, Yaupon has dainty, toothed leaves with a warm, earthy flavor similar to a robust green tea. Naturally caffeinated, the tea falls between coffee and black tea in caffeine levels, and also offers theobromine, a natural anti-anxiety chemical also found in chocolate. Yaupon thrives in USDA zones 7b-9, tolerating many soils types and conditions from part sun to shade. Naturally shapely, it takes pruning well and needs no fertilizer other than an annual compost mulch, which boosts flavor. Without pruning, it may reach 10 – 20 feet tall and 8-12 feet wide, but takes heavy winter pruning well. Yaupon tea is made by steeping the dried leaves in boiling water for 3-5 minutes.

Yerba Mate is a South American holly relative that needs a warm, humid climate and in areas with seasonal temperature swings, is best grown indoors or at least overwintered inside. It’s a tree, so winter pruning is required to keep it from getting sky-high. The slender leaves can be harvested for tea year round, and offer a bracing, moderately caffeinated brew (less than coffee, more than black tea). Dry-roast Yerba Mate foliage in a skillet for 1-3 minutes, depending on the depth of flavor preferred. Once roasted, the leaves are crushed, spread in a rimmed baking sheet and baked at 225 degrees F. for 20 minutes. Once dried and cooled, Yerba Mate may be crushed further with a rolling pin, then brewed by steeping in hot (not boiling) water for 3-5 minutes.

Onward, right?

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Birds Love Seeds, Bunnies Love Greens

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Ann Lovejoy
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Illustration by Garth Williams (from Margaret Wise Brown’s book, Mister Dog)

Giving Seed Saving New Meaning

Seeds are such little miracles, bundles of protein and promise. Seeds can nurture living beings and create new plants. Seeds can also invite flocks of hungry birds into your garden, eager to share the bounty. Indeed, birds give seed saving a whole new meaning, as preventing them from gobbling down everything we sow can be quite a demanding task. Years ago, I had a wonderful water-spraying device called a scarecrow that was motion activated. It worked to keep birds and dogs and deer out of the garden, and many birds disliked it as well, except for the crows, which quickly learned to trigger the refreshing spray for feather cleaning and preening purposes. Oh well. These days, I mostly resort to covering newly sown beds with a sheet of woven row cover, loosely held down with rocks along the edges.

That doesn’t keep slugs and snails away, of course. I generally find it less stressful to sow seeds indoors and pot them up before setting them out in the garden as larger starts. I repurpose plastic lettuce boxes as mini greenhouses for seedlings, propping the hinged tops open with old plant labels for better air circulation. When the second set of true leaves form, I gently tease the youngsters apart and give each a 4-inch pot to grow on in. After a few weeks in our unheated sunporch, the sturdy little plants are ready to go into the garden. Since the sun porch is not heated, it gets cold at night and the starts are already hardened off, so changeable spring weather is rarely an issue. However, other dangers await the youngsters once they’re nestled in the mulch.

Beware Of Bunnies

Bunnies are adorable, but oh my, can they ever eat. In recent years, rabbits have proliferated all over our island. Proliferated is definitely the word, for rabbits are famously prolific, producing as many as five litters a year when well fed (which these clearly are). Each litter may consist of 4-8 babies, all of which are sexually mature in 2-3 months. They start their breeding cycle in February around here, and their gestation period is about a month. Do the math and try not to faint. However, rabbits are pretty low on the food chain and many babies die young, eaten by cats, skunks, and snakes as well as larger birds. Adult rabbits are preyed on by owls, hawks, coyotes and foxes, not to mention dogs, and many become roadkill. That’s why the temperate world is not utterly overrun by rabbits, but it can seem a likely eventuality when our beloved gardens are getting ardent appreciation from these voracious critters.

That said, rabbits aren’t the only ones who nibble garden greens. To identify the culprits, look at the leaves; rabbits’ teeth make clean, straight cuts, while slugs and snails, caterpillars, leaf miners and deer take raggedy bites. Slugs and snails are always a problem in cool, damp weather, but they can be controlled by sprinkling diatomaceous earth around slug favorites like young lettuces and greens. To keep Cabbage Moth caterpillars from decimating your kale, as soon as you spot them at work, spray both sides of the leaves with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), a naturally occurring soil dweller that paralyses the caterpillars’ digestive system so they stop eating and die. However, Bt works equally well on the caterpillars of beautiful butterflies, so use it only on target plants when pests are present and never spray in windy weather. Leaf miners are trickier to control but you can always feed affected leaves to chickens (yours or a neighbor’s), put the funky foliage in the green waste bin, or bury the leaves in the hottest part of a thriving compost heap.

Oh Deer

Dealing with deer is an increasing issue as their habitat is destroyed to make room for new houses or shopping malls and so on. Fencing must be high and impenetrable to foil these strong, graceful, leapers but there are a few good tricks for reducing their damage in our gardens. Strong smelling meat by-products such as blood meal and bone meal are effective deterrents for both deer and rabbits, but need to be renewed every few weeks in rainy seasons. Both are good soil amendments that add important nutrients to the soil, from calcium, magnesium and zinc and iron (bone meal) to nitrogen (blood meal). Both smell strongly of their animal origin and that’s unpleasant to both deer and rabbits. Bonus!

Both bone and blood meals need to be replenished after rain, but perimeter plantings of strongly scented herbs are even more potent when wet. Edge the garden with rosemary, oregano, sage, catmint and fennel plants and you’ll delight pollinators and discourage nibblers. Line each garden bed with thyme, oregano, and chives and enjoy the benefits of repelling pests and making happy pollinators, such as increasing crops and encouraging seed production to ensure next year’s bounty. If you have dogs, encourage them to pee around the outer parts of the garden, as their scent markers are repellent for smaller beasts. Post-puberty human males also produce repellent pee, and a timely squirt can keep unwanted feasters out of your garden. Best of all, urine offers both nitrogen and phosphorus to soil; to avoid burning tender plants, ask handy males to limit their territorial marking to the outer perimeter of the garden. Onward, right?

 

 

Posted in Birds In The Garden, Butterfly Gardens, Care & Feeding, composting, Early Crops, Hardy Herbs, Health & Wellbeing, pests and pesticides, Pets & Pests In The Garden, Plant Partnerships, Planting & Transplanting, Pollination Gardens, Pollinators, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Pots & Troughs For Aging Knees

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Ann Lovejoy
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Where soil is tired and compacted, troughs are a boon

When The Third Time Is Not The Charm

I recently visited a little garden that was both bare and overgrown, with scrupulously raked beds and struggling shrubs and trees leaning to catch a bit of sun. The gardeners had tried to plant all sorts of things, from peonies and ferns to rhododendrons and cherry trees. Unfortunately, few of these were growing well and many had passed on to a better world (hopefully). Two steps into the space, several key issues were apparent: heavy soil, poor drainage, and overzealous grooming. Perhaps because the paths weren’t well defined, every inch of the garden was raked (or perhaps even swept) clean, sometimes exposing tree and shrub roots. This is a common issue with tidy minded people who find the look of fallen leaves unattractive. If that’s the case, adding a light layer of compost will hide the leaves and speed soil healing.

This is especially important in shade gardens, as most shade lovers appreciate open, deep soil. Many do best in soil that’s similar to the duff that develops in forests and wooded areas as leaves and twigs, mosses and lichens meld into a wholesome blend over time. In this little garden, ferns would seem to be a good choice, yet they had all died. Only swamp lovers might thrive in the heavy, wet soil, and even those prefer an open soil over tight, anaerobic clay. Such soil doesn’t drain well even where it’s sloping. The only things that really heal sour, acid clay soils are air and humus. To open them up, sprinkle some granulated humid acid, then top it off with a few inches of compost each year. Some people prefer to use a mixture of compost and finely shredded wood chips or tree “waste” (but not bark!), and that’s also effective over time. Lowering paths between beds helps with drainage and air penetration too, especially if the paths are then filled with wood chips or crushed gravel. (Avoid pea gravel, which tends to migrate and is treacherous underfoot.)

Alas, Poor Rhodie

One gardener looked sadly down at a bunch of bare sticks and said that they really wanted a rhododendron there but this was the third one they’d tried in that spot. As a rule, when the same plant fails in a certain spot three times, it’s time for a new idea. Though the area was sloped, drainage was impeded by the heaviness of the soil, which was also scraped bare and full of roots from many large trees nearby. It’s admittedly hard to give up our garden dreams, especially when we have a very clear mental image of how we want the garden to look and what we want where. When our heart is set on having a plant that isn’t able to live where we want to see it, it’s far easier to add a generously sized pot for that plant than to try to amend very challenging soil. This is particularly true when there’s a sense of urgency and we want to see the garden of our dreams NOW, not in five or ten years.

Patience is definitely the gardeners’ friend, yet as we age, we may indeed develop a sense of urgency about projects in the garden and elsewhere. Some of us get great satisfaction from growing trees from seed, knowing that at best, only our grandchildren (or somebody’s grandchildren) will see them in magnificent maturity. For others, such long term projects are exercises in frustration. They’re not wrong, yet it’s also possible to take a middle path and adopt something from each strategy. For a quick boost, plant annuals, perennials, grasses and shrubs and enjoy them immediately and (hopefully) for many years to come. For the long term, plant trees and larger shrubs, placing them with care (!!!) so they have room to develop their full natural form and size without touching the house or outbuildings. Also, before planting an ultimately large tree or shrub, look up. If the area you chose is overhung by branches of large nearby trees, think again. Those big branches will only get larger and longer over time, shading and stressing anything planted below them. Also, roots follow limbs, filling the soil under the branches, further stressing other plants.

Where Space Is Limited, Try Troughs

In small gardens surrounded by large trees, pots and troughs are often a better choice than planting into challenging soil. Where drainage is poor, they’re especially helpful, as you can provide your plants with good, well drained soil that allows air to reach the roots. This isn’t about leaving plant roots exposed, but heavy soils are often anaerobic and plant roots need air as well as water and nutrients. Open, well drained soils let in enough air to suit the roots and promote good drainage while retaining enough moisture to keep plants contented. A clutter of small pots will be harder to care for than a few larger ones, needing to be watered several times a day in hot, dry weather and requiting fresh soil each year. Larger pots with a volume of 2-3 cubic feet can be refreshed with humid acid and compost each year and retain moisture longer than bitty ones.

Troughs and stock tanks can hold up to a cubic yard of soil, offer a generous enough depth of soil for roots to support compact shrubs and small trees. Always drill extra drainage holes in the bottom of such containers and remove any drainage plugs. These are usually on the side of large troughs and here’s a tip: I battled to remove one by prying it out, only to discover that the plugs are threaded and unscrew quite easily. Who knew? Prop each large container on bricks or cement blocks to allow air circulation, which helps keep soil healthy. If you grow annual crops, stir up the soil with a small garden fork each spring and refresh soil with compost before replanting. In my tiny garden, some troughs hold annual edibles and others host perennial pollinator pleasers such as long blooming pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) and Agastache, aka hummingbird mint, both of which are indeed hummingbird magnets as well as bee pleasers. The troughs take up relatively little space and are delightfully easy to tend, especially for those who find bending, stooping and kneeling increasingly difficult. Anything that makes gardening easier as we age is a definitely boon. Onward, right?

Posted in Annual Color, Birds In The Garden, Care & Feeding, Drainage, Easy Care Perennials, Edible Flowers, Garden Design, Garden Prep, Hardy Herbs, Health & Wellbeing, Pollination Gardens, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Of Parmesan and Pollen

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Ann Lovejoy
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Parmesan stock adds umami depth to anything

Celebrating & Sneezing

As the year stretches out and natural light increases day by day, even the dreaded return of Daylight Savings can’t crush the spirit for long. Though this annual time shift has many well-documented downsides, getting up with the birds brings its own rewards. That joyful dawn chorus makes a cheerful start to the day despite my bleary eyes. That said, a friend just reminded me that our state legislature approved a bill to make daylight saving permanent in 2019 and it’s still waiting for our (actually quite wonderful) governor to sign it. Maybe I’ll kick start the movement with a quick note to my local elected officials to put on some pressure…

As I wandered around on my morning walk, I started sneezing violently and realized that my usual path leads between a thicket of native hazels and a stand of alders. Both are heavy pollen producers and when the wind kicks up, you can watch thick drifts of pollen blowing off the plants. Kachoo! This is when I’m grateful for my N95 masks, which effectively block most of the pollen and dust as well as any stray virus microbes that might be floating about. Though our state mask mandate has been lifted (for now), I still carry a mask in my pocket for just such an occasion. At home, our HEPA filter runs all spring, keeping indoor air cleaner in the main rooms just as the kitty jungle of cat-friendly plants (mainly spider plants and aloes) does in the bathroom. A recent study showed that at least some common houseplants are indeed effective air cleaners, removing chemical pollutants of several kinds. Years ago a NASA study with a similar result was criticized for inadequate parameters. I was happy to see that this new study corrects those failures and reaffirms the air refreshing power of indoor plants.

Show Of Support Matters

On my walk, I noticed many windows, including my own, sporting homemade-looking Ukrainian flags, often alongside Black Lives Matter signs. I’ve often wondered if such signs were anything more than preaching to the choir, but last week, I learned the they may have a surprisingly positive impact. A friend visiting Bainbridge got lost and ended up driving through several smaller neighborhoods looking for the correct road. Along the way, she saw many windows with BLM signs in houses of all sizes and was brought to tears. As she said, “I didn’t know people on Bainbridge cared about people who look like me.” I was moved to tears as well, and started thinking about who we assume might be seeing our signs. Family, friends, and neighbors, of course, but in this tiny neighborhood, I hadn’t really thought much about other visitors, as well as the many service people and delivery truck drivers who frequent our neighborhoods. Whatever their political persuasions, whatever their color or gender, just seeing so many signs of solidarity has to be sending them a message too.

Who sees our windows? We really don’t know, so let your heart shine!

Boldly Flavorful Vegetarian Stock

My youngest brother is an inspired foodie and his blog often sparks a flurry of fun in my own kitchen. Eben cooks a lot of meat, while I lean towards vegetarian meals, but one of his inventions has given my soups a fabulous flavor boost. Vegetarian soups can taste a bit thin, so when Eben wrote about making a savory, Parmesan-based broth a year or so ago, I immediately started experimenting. Last week he posted an updated version that boasts an even deeper umami-rich flavor. That reminded me that I had a bunch of Parmesan rinds in my freezer so I put them right to work. My version below is simpler than his (see his blog link below) but amazingly delicious all the same. I freeze some in recycled yogurt containers and some in an ice cube tray used for pesto and other savory things, then pop them out and store them in a freezer box. When a dish needs a bigger base note, just drop a cube or two into the mix and prepare to be amazed. Try adding a cupful of this stock to split pea soup for another blissful experience.

Hearty Parmesan Stock

1 tablespoon olive or avocado oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
1/4 tsp kosher salt
2 cups chopped Parmesan cheese rinds
8 cups water

Combine oil, vegetables and salt in a soup pot over medium heat and cook until barely soft (3-5 minutes). Add water and chopped rinds, cover and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 hours, or until cheese rinds are almost entirely melted. Strain through a colander and freeze in small amounts for up to 3 months. Makes about 6 cups stout stock.

Here’s Eben’s more complex version:

http://urbanmonique.net/tag/parmesan-stock/

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