A Cooperative Learning Project
I picked 107 pods from this one soy plant – that’s about 321 delicious little edamame beans. I noticed that the roots of this plant were particularly loaded with nodules of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Examining other plants, it was consistent that the largest plants with the highest yield had more nodules on their roots. Do more nodules make the plant healthier, or do healthier plants support more nodules?
Here’s what we harvested today. Can you find the eggplant impersonating a bagel?
We know that summer squash grow so fast that if you miss one during harvest you’ll find a Moby Zuke in a few days. But I’m a left-brained geek who likes numbers, so I planted some reference sticks next to a young Zephyr on Saturday, August 4 and checked it four days later on August 8. It had just about doubled in length and more than tripled in girth, well on its way to blimpness. That’s how fast a summer squash can grow. I picked it immediately before it could scare any dogs or small children.
I love the greens from our garden and, really, never get tired of cooking them in a very simple way. Usually, I saute onions in olive oil, then add the greens (collards, kale, chard, mustard and turnip greens, in whatever combination was available on a gardening day). I saute it all a bit, then add just enough water to facilitate steaming, and steam, covered, until the greens are tender. Usually, I season with just salt, pepper and a little celery salt. It’s perfect! We not only eat it hot with our dinner but, also, I put it cold on my salads for lunch.
But, tonight, I wanted to try something different. I turned to Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” cookbook, my “bible” over the summer when the veggies are fresh and varied. I chose the recipe “Kale and Cannellini Beans” but I used a mixture of greens from the Garden, kale along with Swiss chard, collard greens and some turnip greens (from salad turnips) instead of just kale. I also used a vidalia onion. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe, though I used a bit more olive oil (2 Tbsp instead of 1.5) and garlic (4 instead of 2 cloves). I used organic canned white kidney (cannellini) beans from Trader Joe’s, thoroughly rinsed. I also used dried rosemary from Penzey’s, though it would have been better to have taken fresh rosemary home from the Garden. I was too lazy to drive back up there to take some. I used a very yummy Nobilo New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for the dry white wine. A bit of overkill, I guess, but it was what we had. (I drank a glass while cooking the dish, and it was much appreciated.) Enjoy!
Another very interesting plant that I want to recommend that we grow next season is the Egyptian Walking Onion. They are also commonly called tree onions, top onions, or topsetting onions (Allium cepa var. proliferum ).
A field of Walking Onions
Bulblets forming at the tops of the stems
This hardy perennial onion, unlike most other types of alliums, grows bulblets (small bulbs) at the tops of its leaves. These bulblets can be eaten (they’re very mild), or they can be planted just like onion sets to produce more walking onions. The term "walking" refers to the fact that if the bulblets are left on the plant, they eventually get big and heavy enough to cause the stems to bend to the point where the bulblets come into contact with the soil, at which point the bulblets take root and start new plants. Thus, these alliums can "walk" their way across your garden (if you let them).
For more on this amazing and alluring allium:
http://www.egyptianwalkingonion.com/
Just like my Sue, my sister of the soil, I’ve just made my first-ever batch of sauerkraut, which spent four days on the counter before moving to the well-known "cool, dry place," which in my house is the fridge. Its base was Napa cabbage from the garden, and the secondary ingredients included both carrot and parsnip from the same source.
Honestly, I don’t really like sauerkraut — it’s "sauer!" — but I had my reasons to try it. First, is the locavore reason — what good is a bumper crop if your only choices are to give it to the neighbors or put it into the compost?
Secondly, I was writing a story about natural fermentation, the centuries-old method of food preservation, for the Boston Globe, and wanted to have a feel for what I was talking about. It’s one of the privileges of journalism, to learn and experience more than I would if I didn’t have a need to know.
Anyway, the story was published this morning. Though it didn’t make the print version, the online presentation includes a tips box from Dan Rosenberg, founder and co-owner of Real Pickles, a Greenfield, Mass., company makes about a dozen products using only local produce and natural fermentation.
If remember to, I’m going to bring my kraut to the garden Saturday morning for a tasting. C’mon by!