If We Can’t Stand The Heat

Posted on June 28, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Hung out to dry in the blink of an eye

No Getting Out Of This Kitchen

Here in the maritime Pacific Northwest, summers are usually temperate, thanks to cool nights that mitigate even the hottest days. Usually. This week, however, we’re experiencing what most of the country usually does; days of high heat with no cooling marine layer to buffer it. Nights are staying warm and there’s no promise of rain in sight. When I went out to water various gardens this morning, it was just as hot at 5 am as it had been at 10 pm. Soaking wet yarn I hung out was dry in 20 minutes. We just aren’t ready for this. Until recently, Seattle area houses famously lacked air conditioning and insulation, though that’s starting to change. My daughter and I are extremely grateful for our elderly heat pump, which is working hard day and night to keep the temperature livable in our elderly mobile home, which is basically an aluminum box. When we renovated, we replaced insulation in the roof and the crawl space, but there’s nothing in the sides but plywood, air and aluminum.

We can’t rebuild the walls, but there are things we can do: We hang wet towels everywhere to help cool things off. We drape wet bandanas around our necks or over our heads, where they dry out in a matter of minutes. We drink a lot of water. We nap. Plants need help too: I water the gardens early and late, spraying dust off foliage to help the leaves do their job. My huge fuchsia baskets get a gallon of water each morning and evening and an extra half gallon two or three times a day as well. That keeps them from collapsing, which helps nurture our resident hummingbirds, who buzz both the baskets and the shrubby fuchsias constantly all day long. Bird baths get cleaned every morning and topped off twice a day or more. I put rocks in each basin and it’s sweet to see the bees drinking eagerly as well as fluttering birds. Bees and other pollinators have breakfast in the pollinator patch by 5 am, and someone will feed eagerly on every blossom, whether it’s tiny hoverflies on oregano and thyme or big bumbles on foxgloves and lavender, or various bees on the various catmints. Variety is important, as is planting for long and overlapping seasons of bloom to keep our smaller neighbors nourished.

How We Can Help

Keeping the gardens alive and flourishing despite the heat is challenging and takes time and planning, but it’s something we can do. There are just so many things we can’t directly affect, at least not easily. Wildfire threats are mounting daily and I can’t stop thinking that severe climate change effects are already here, sooner than predicted, because we have not been willing to change our wasteful ways. What will it take? I suspect that in some ways, this dire heat wave will push us to become more willing to be aware of the effects of our actions. Most of us aren’t running huge multinational corporations and can’t change their policies individually but it’s been interesting to watch major companies change their ways because of public pressure and cultural shifts. Each of us is a part of that or can be, and it can be as simple as voting with your checkbook. It’s also still useful to make calls to elected officials and voice your views. The easiest way I know to do that is with 5 Calls, a nifty program that helps you choose your topic(s), offers scripts and bullet points, then directs you to your local, regional and state officials. You can make 5 calls while you drink your morning tea or coffee:

https://5calls.org/about-us/

You’ve probably read a bunch of lists about ways to reduce our impact on the suffering planet, but here’s mine: Plant trees and take care of them afterwards. Heal the soil on your property and anywhere else you can. Protect birds and insects, including pollinators. Use water wisely. Eat more plant based foods and less meat (or none). Buy locally grown food. Grow some of your own. Drive less, walk more. Use LED bulbs. Unplug all devices and device chargers when not in use (keeping them plugged in uses a surprising amount of power). Change investments from extractive companies to green energy and building companies. The best way I’ve found to keep up with good intentions is to do any of them for a month, then add another one. A month later, add another. Go faster if you feel inspired, or slower if you need to, but don’t stop doing any of them.

Cool Food For Hot Days

Before the heat hit, I hard boiled beautiful eggs from our neighbor’s chickens so we don’t have to fire up the stovetop. I also made our favorite lovely melange of pesto and hummus. This version of the twin classics is light and fresh tasting because it doesn’t use oil or cheese, though you can certainly add either one if you like, or use almond or walnut butter instead of tahini or sunflower butter. Combining the nutritive value of hummus with the sheer delectability of pesto, this fragrant melange is perfect with raw vegetables, crackers, or toast and makes a lovely pita stuffing.

Fresher Basil Pesto Hummus

1-1/2 cups cooked chickpeas or white beans
1-3 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups basil leaves and stems, lightly packed
1-2 tablespoons tahini or sunflower butter
juice and grated rind of 1 organic lemon
Freshly ground pepper and/or hot smoked paprika

Grind chickpeas or beans with garlic, salt and basil to a thick slurry, adding water as needed. Add tahini or nut or seed butter and 1 tablespoon each of lemon juice and grated rind. Adjust seasoning to taste (salt, tahini, pepper/paprika, lemon juice) and thin to desired consistency with water. Makes about 3 cups and keeps, refrigerated, for up to 3 days.

Onward, right?

Posted in Birds In The Garden, Care & Feeding, Climate Change, Health & Wellbeing, Pollination Gardens, Pollinators, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

The Magic Of Mulch & Patience

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Let nature work in peace and prepare to be amazed

Nature’s Healing Takes Time

Every Friday for over twenty years, I’ve worked with a band of vigorous volunteers to plant and maintain the extensive grounds at our local public library. Even during the pandemic lockdown a handful of us kept coming, wearing masks and keeping our distance as we worked, finding solace and satisfaction in planting and weeding and pruning. Sometimes pruning has been especially satisfying, notably when the news was particularly dire. In early January, two of us who love to prune decided to tackle a huge, overgrown variegated redtwig dogwood that had spread almost 30 feet in width, spilling into the sidewalk and smothering nearby neighbors. Fueled by fury and horror, we whacked the crap out of the poor shrub, which was a tangled mass of gnarled and twisted stems. Once we removed the dead and damaged stems, not much was left, but twiggy dogwoods are tough and hardy. If didn’t re-sprout, it would be removed altogether. Oh well.

As winter fades and spring approaches, there’s always plenty to do. Dormant bindweed pops up, lusty and vigorous. Crowded plants need dividing and new plants need just the right home. The whacked dogwood left a large gap of bare earth near a sidewalk, so we put our minds to choosing some attractive new plants to fill in the now-empty bay. However, several busy months passed before we returned to tuck in native mock orange and golden flowering currants. I was astonished to see masses of plump bulb shoots emerging from what we thought was bare earth. As weeks went by, it became clear that over a hundred large allium bulbs were getting ready to bloom.

Letting The Seeds Fall Freely

About 15 years ago, I tucked a group of five Allium christophii into the library garden. They’ve persisted but I had never found any seedlings. I always enjoy gathering the dried seedheads and using them to decorate bare twigs and branches each winter, then tossing the battered remains into the back of the borders each spring to give them a chance to self sow. Invisible under the spreading skirts of the twiggy dogwood, these highly ornamental onions had sown themselves into a flourishing colony. It take a few years for seed-grown alliums to reach blooming size and this undisturbed area was clearly a fine nursery for them.

Each winter, we weed and mulch all the borders, first with compost, then with coarse wood chips, which open the hard soil enough that weeding is much more successful than it used to be. As the soil heals under its comforting blanket, we start to find many seedlings, not just weeds, but also offspring of our border plants. This spring, those lovely alliums were joined by clouds of black chervil (Anthriscus sylvestris Ravenswing) and deep purple columbines, all self sown volunteers which look smashing together. Nearby, waves of California poppies and calendulas line the driveways and sidewalks. Lettuce leaf poppies appear here and there in luscious clusters, their huge, ruffled flowers nodding over silver-blue foliage. Moon plant (Lunaria annua) rises in tiered towers, some tinted purple, others jade green, all tipped with flat, round seedpods that strip to silver at summer’s end.

The Gardener’s Choice

Yes, many weeds are also ardent self sowers, and part of the gardener’s task is to choose which plants to let bloom for hungry pollinators and which to yank without mercy before they can go to seed. In my own gardens, I ruthlessly root out bindweed (aka morning glory vine), Scotch broom, Bishop’s weed and buttercups whenever I spot them. However, I also allow a few of the overly enthusiastic purple toadflax (Linaria purpurea) to bloom for the bees but pull at least 90% of the hundreds of seedlings that pop up here. Even if I were to yank every last one, the seeds in the soil would keep on sprouting for years to come, so I might as well let the local pollinator community get some pleasure and nourishment from this prolific flower. Feverfew is also permitted to grow here, though I may give seedlings a new home; its cheerful sprays of starry little white and gold daisies look lovely with California poppies and calendulas and are endlessly useful in cut-flower arrangements.

Naturally enough, there’s a learning curve to this live-and-let-live policy. It takes a few years to discover which plants are lastingly mannerly and which are biding their time before beginning an invasion. It also takes time for starved bare soil to heal enough to support new life. This morning I met a friend who told me how well her once-barren garden is doing. When she first moved in, she was dismayed to find solid clay and hardpan throughout the yard. One small wooded area was weedy and overgrown, yet it was almost impossible to remove weeds because the ground was so hard. We brought in truckloads of hog fuel, the coarsest, cheapest form of wood chips, and raked it out to a depth of about 8-12 inches under and around the tall firs. Now, when my friend digs down, she finds actual soil, and what she plants no longer dwindles and dies. Victory!

Time & Patience & Wood Chips

She excitedly described making mounded beds, planting everything from annuals and vegetables to ornamentals, and watching them thrive. The satisfaction of bringing a static landscape back to life, turning a wasteland into a flourishing garden more than makes up for the work involved, which was surprisingly little. Despite daunting initial conditions, continuing remediation consists mainly of spreading more wood chips under the trees as the original layer breaks down. Weeding is much easier in mounded and mulched beds and takes very little time and effort. Instead of a still life, her property is now a vital garden, lovely with plants and lively with birds and pollinators.

At the library, we found that nothing heals clay and hardpan like annual layers of mulch and coarse wood chips (not bark). Year after patient year, we spread mulches; compost, aged dairy manure, flaked bedding straw, shredded leaves. That helped, but it was only when we added thick layers of coarse wood chips that we finally got the upper hand on long-existing perennial weeds that plagued the site. With patience and mulch, a barren clay parking lot has bloomed into a living garden. Amen! Oh, and Happy Summer! Here in the maritime Northwest, Real Summer is here at last, with warm, sunny days that make the vegetables burst into happy growth spurts. Onward, right?

 

 

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Messy Or Marvelous?

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Messy, marvelous, or both?

Chaos And Natural Order

Yesterday I was showing a young friend my new P-Patch, which is in a churchyard community garden a few blocks from my home. I always enjoy seeing people’s reaction, since my garden plot is both abundant and untrammeled. When I first saw it, back in March, it looked like bare earth. The top soil had been removed and the undersoil clearly needed some love. I layered on compost and started planting peas and patches of catmint and various kinds of oregano. I scattered seeds of sunflowers for my beans to climb up, and calendulas to bring in the pollinators. Before long, it was apparent that the previous gardener grew potatoes, as sprouts popped up here and there. And here. And there. Some I removed, but others were left in peace (who doesn’t love home grown potatoes?).

Clumps of lovage also appeared, which I pulled because one can quickly have more than enough lovage. Borage invited itself along, and I left those nearest the bed edges for the pollinators. Volunteer kale and chard were everywhere, along with parsley, feverfew, and columbines. Forget-me-nots made clouds of blue which I ripped out as soon as they got funky foliage. Raspberry canes poked up from broken bits of roots, along with a lost piece of grape vine, so I decided to let them have the summer to size up. Come fall, I’ll gather them up and build a stout cage for them at one end of the bed, but for now, they’re free to roam.

Free Range Vegetables

Among all this effortless bounty, I’ve tucked in more kinds of kale and lettuce, onion and garlic sets, peppers and way too many tomatoes. Beans now wind up the rising sunflowers and bushy basil scents the air as I weed. Strawberries run between larger plants, which share space graciously, since with amended soil, there’s enough and plenty for all. The lovely melange is full and fluffy, with an enticing variety of foliage forms and textures and colors. There’s barely a bare inch of soil without a delicate covering of thyme or creeping oregano, a feathery plume of dill or a spire of shallot.

To my eye, this intermingling echoes the natural planting patterns that delight us in open meadows. Plants gently overlap just a bit, enough to create a bubble of moisture at soil level, which promotes rapid root growth and allows soil biota to flourish. Nature doesn’t really do bare earth; even in deserts that look empty in the dry season, thousands of flowers sleep just under the surface, waiting to burst into brief and glorious bloom when the rains arrive. To my great pleasure, my young friend turned out to be a passionate devotee of permaculture. Her garden is much like mine, and she and her partner revel in the marvelous mixtures and rich relationships that arise through happenstance and the force of nature. To my fellow P-Patchers, with their tidy rows and carefully bared soil, this wild profusion looks like utter chaos (so I hear). To me, it looks like vegetable love and vegetable happiness.

A pleasing profusion can echo natural plant relationships

Blueberries And Bindweed

But what about weeds, I hear you say? If you have weeds, you don’t have enough plants. Besides, weeds can be allies as well as enemies. Years ago, a friend who is a professional gardener and a whiz of a weeder told about clearing a large blueberry patch of bindweed (aka morning glory vine). Her client was elderly and her extensive property needed more help than she was able to give any longer, so my friend went over periodically and weeded, trimmed shrubs, and generally tidied up the place. She noticed that the blueberries were half hidden under bindweed vines, which blew their white trumpet flowers triumphantly over the bushes. Patiently, strand by strand, my friend unwound the twining stems, trying to clear the bushes without knocking off the ripening berries.

It took a long, long time and while she was finally finishing up this daunting task, the older woman hobbled over to the berry patch. She leaned on her cane and looked over the newly cleared bushes for a long moment, then said quietly, “I imagine you think you’ve done me a favor.” Stunned, my friend just gaped at her. With a sad little smile, the older woman explained that the blanket of bindweed hid the ripe blueberries from rapacious flocks of birds and other critters that can strip a bush in minutes. “Ever since I learned to let the bindweed grow here, I’ve harvested nearly all my blueberries for canning and freezing, jams and pies. Now I’ll be lucky to get a handful.” Ever since I heard that story, I’ve viewed weeds a little differently.

Flag Day Musing

And Happy Flag Day! Today we had our first meeting of our new LGBTQA Club at the Senior Center, with Pride flags and buntings aflutter. Ten people had a lively debate about whether the term ‘queer’ has transitioned from slur to supportive descriptor. I can remember a time when calling someone queer was pejorative, either deliberately or casually offensive. For younger people, queer seems to be an affectionate, widely embraced term that’s used in any and every situation. Anyone under 60 or so uses ‘queer’ as the most inclusive and comfortable term for all sorts of things; queer family, queer community, queer culture. Among the ideas tossed out today were hosting Queer Bingo, an event that drew over 250 people in Kitsap County some year back. And Queer Movie Night. And Queer Family Picnics. Of course!

Last night, our Transfriending family support group had our summer gathering. While rain poured down, little kids played with the family kitty, teens and tweens hung out happily, and 20-somethings graciously mingled with parents before quietly fading to find more congenial company in each other. The parents who were newer to the experience of having offspring spring gender-bending announcements on them were pantingly eager to bond with other parents who could understand exactly what they were thinking and feeling and trying to do. Every one of the attendees was clearly reveling in the delicious feeling of normalcy; in queer communities, everyone is welcome to be whoever they are, openly and with pride. Onward, right?

 

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When Basil Blooms Too Soon

Posted on June 7, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Pinching out blossoms makes basil bushy

New Basils That Take Their Time

As summer arrives—or doesn’t—I gotta say that I sometimes envy gardeners in Oregon and California. There, summer is a real presence, with warm days and sultry nights that keep heat loving plants growing happily. I love my little island home, but I admit that there are times when I could willingly exchange the gentle grey mornings for the routinely sunny days southern gardeners enjoy. When it’s blisteringly hot down south, I’m grateful for the marine layer that keeps our nights blissfully cool. When days are chilly and night temperatures remain in the 40s in what’s supposed to be summertime, heat lovers tend to sulk, people and plants alike.

This year, my poor beans sprouted cheerfully in our little sunporch, but turned yellow when I planted them out and the temperature wobbled for a week. They’re back on track now, after a spell of warmer days, but so far, only the grafted tomatoes are flourishing (they’re definitely more resilient than most of the “regular” tomatoes). As for basil, the plants in my sun porch are growing lustily, so much so that I’ve already made pesto twice. One of the issues with my usual go-to Genovese basil is that when it gets happy, it starts to bloom like crazy. To keep it bushy and productive, I have to pinch it every few days, which makes it bush out and start blooming again, which means we eat a LOT of basil-flavored sauces and omelets and salads and sandwiches.…

Late Bloomers

This year I’m excited to be trying out a trio of later-blooming basils, including Everleaf Genovese, which is bred to bloom as much as 8 weeks later than usual on plants that may reach two feet in height and girth. That’s a boon for those of us who want to stagger the harvest and have fresh plants coming on when the earliest are petering out. Some forms of the Everleaf series promise to extend the harvest for up to ten weeks past the typical annoying bloom stage, and some are also columnar, making them easier to squeeze into small gardens like mine, where space is at a premium.

As the season progresses, I’ll replace overblown sprawlers with Everleaf Emerald Towers, a sturdy Genovese type with big leaves on upright stems that form natural columns as much as three feet high. So far, trial nibbles show that the foliage is every bit as fragrant and flavorful as its wider-spreading kin, and the plants look amazing, truly rising (ok, towering) above their neighbors. A third form, Everleaf Thai Towers, has pretty purple stems and stout foliage with a spicy-sweet licorice-like twist on the Genovese types. It’s also got a great, sculptural form and looks pretty enough to grow as a dramatic ornamental accent in a mixed pot or on its own. Everleaf Thai Towers basil can reach three feet in height without losing its columnar form and looks astonishing rising straight up from a deep pot, as if pot and plant were extruded together. When it finally blooms, as much as ten weeks after traditional basil, the pinky purple flowers are pretty enough to pick for cocktail garnishes and tabletop tussy-mussies.

How To Please Basil

I never tasted fresh basil until I went to school in Italy; nobody I knew grew basil except our Italian neighbors (same goes for cilantro). These days, basil is one of the most popular herbs in America since pretty much everyone loves pesto. Native to India, basil appreciates hot, sunny, and relatively dry environments, gaining extra savor and snap from conditions some plants find mildly stressful. When happy, many culinary basils will quickly build into bushy mounds that reward frequent tip-pinching with ample new shoots and leaves. A single plant can turn into a green balloon the size of a large beachball. Alternately, a happy, healthy seedling can damp off into grey mush, or limp along, leaves yellowing and dropping drearily, without quite dying.

Why? For starters, any decent, neutral garden soil will please basil, but where soils are heavy or sandy, it’s wise to create a more benign and encouraging environment by layering several inches of mature compost on edible beds every year. For optimal results, add an inch each spring before planting and add more each fall after harvesting your edibles. Those who tend to pamper their plants may struggle with basil, which prefers benign neglect. Like all herbs, basil loses intensity when over-fed, which promotes rapid growth at the expense of flavor. Similarly, over-watered basil may rot and its leaves will be relatively tasteless.

Helping Basil Succeed

Basil is very sensitive to cold, making it harder to please in cooler climates. Since night temperatures have a lasting effect on soil temperatures, cool nights can retard growth in heat lovers like basil, tomatoes, peppers, corn and beans. Water-filled plant wraps or tents can help, as will placing a sheet of floating row cover over heat lovers at night. However, good air exchange is vital, since damping off, molds and mildews can all plague basil. To minimize problems, give plants an airy spot and spray weekly with diluted (90% water) skim milk (calcium helps strengthen foliage).

Basil’s most common disease is fusarium wilt, a soil-borne fungal pathogen that can devastate basil crops overnight. There’s no cure, so if your basil plants develop it, just pull them immediately, and don’t replant in the same bed for at least a few years. However, some sweet Genovese basils, including Nufar Genovese and Dolly, are especially fusarium resistant. If basil’s soft, lush foliage attracts aphids, whitefly, and other sucking insects, hose them off daily.

Basil Bliss

What do you do when basil just won’t quit? You can always whirl it into a slurry with a little oil and freeze it for a welcome touch of summer when autumn arrives. For now, fill large basil leaves with slices of nectarine and ripe brie, or crisp mini peppers and goat cheese, or shredded carrots and a dab of hummus. A handful of thinly sliced fresh basil can garnish gazpacho or be tossed with salad greens. Minced basil adds a refreshing bite to appetizers, sauces, and even cocktails as well as dressings and marinades. Basil-infused oils can be drizzled over steamed corn, spooned into hot dishes, or basted on grilled fish. And if you love pesto but don’t like the way it can discolor, here’s an Italian tip: pesto will stay bright green without pre-blanching the basil if you grind the basil with non-iodized sea salt. If you freeze extra pesto, leave out the garlic and add it fresh after thawing to avoid off-flavors.

A Traditional Pesto

Rich, creamy, savory and spicy hot from the garlic, this is an authentic basil pesto recipe from my cooking teacher in Perugia. I admit that these days, I use a food processor instead of a mortar and pestle. Include some stems for fullest flavor!

Pesto Perugino

3 large cloves red-skinned garlic, chopped
1/4 cup raw pine nuts or walnuts
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt (non-iodized)
1 bunch (about 4 cups) Genovese basil, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup grated Pecorino cheese
2-3 teaspoons fruity olive oil

In a mortar, mash garlic and nuts into a rough paste with the pestle (or grind in food processor). Add basil by the handful, adding salt and grinding each addition well. Work in cheese, adding olive oil sparingly as needed to make paste smooth and creamy. Spoon into glass jars, cover with a little olive oil and store, tightly sealed. Makes about 2 cups.

 

Posted in Care & Feeding, Grafted Plants, Health & Wellbeing, Planting & Transplanting, preserving food, Recipes, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living, Vegan Recipes | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment