Chef David Kolotkin is no stranger to these pages, but every time he reveals more and more about the Chef’s art. This time I went with him to Manhattan’s Union Square Farmers’ Market.

We looked at tomatoes, cucumbers and then at some interesting varieties of mushrooms as the Chef explained about their flavor nuances, how the various types differed with each other. We then looked at mesclun, arugula, and a few other salad greens. I really got an education today! Before we left the Chef picked up about four pounds of fresh Jerusalem artichokes for The Prime Grill.

But who is Chef David Kolotkin? What makes him tick? He was barely in his teens when his interest in food preparation first manifested itself. His mother had taken him to a restaurant where the food was prepared tableside. David watched fascinated and decided right there and then that one he too would join that profession.

After high school he attended the prestigious Culinary Institute of America from 1991 t0 1993, he then went on to apprentice at the legendary Club 21.  Club 21 was a favorite meeting place for many of the rich, famous and powerful politicians and entertainers. After a while he went back for further studies at the CIA and returned to Club 21 for another 3 years.

Leaving Club 21, he became sous chef for the Restaurant Associates operated, very exclusive, Trustees Dining Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From there he went on to to become sous chef at Windows on the World, which occupied the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower at the World Trade Center.

After 9/11 he went on to work for The Prime Grill (60 East 49th Street; New York, NY 10017; 212.692.9292). He left in 2005 for his own venture in Miami, it didn’t work out and came back to New York where he worked for famed restaurateur Kenneth Uretsky, whom he knew from his days working for RA. Mr. Uretsky hired him for his Butterfield 81 restaurant. In 2007 he went back to The Prime Grill. Since then while still primarily at The Prime Grill he went on to became Corporate Chef for Joey Allaham’s restaurant ventures, including Solo and soon to open up Prime Ko, an upscale Japanese steakhouse.

Unlike others in his profession, Chef David is no prima donna, he puts on no airs, is well aware of his self worth without any need to toot it around. He’s totally dedicated to his profession and the people at his restaurants. Is it any wonder that he rose in the ranks?

CS

January 2010 Exercise – Bradley Labarre, Executive Chef, Cabarrus Country Club, Concord, NC

Scotch egg and pan-seared mushroom stacker, bacon and tomato vinaigrette, local mesclun greens and crispy potato hay

Cookies and Cream Kiss Ganache Laced Short Bread Cookie with House-Made Vanilla Bourbon Ice Cream, Creme De Menthe and Pulled Sugar Hay

The plate used for the January exercise:

To participate in the next exercise, please send an e mail to: jeffrey@bauscherinc.com

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http://deepplate.wordpress.com and “Deep Plate” on Facebook

December 2009 Exercise – Bradley Labarre, Executive Chef, Cabarrus Country Club, Concord, NC

“All-local” fall salad of mesclun greens, pan roasted root vegetables, charred grape tomato vinaigrette with Hickory smoked Carolina trout and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Creamy shiitake mushroom and butternut risotto, hickory smoked Carolina trout and sauce vierge garnished with Italian parsley, tomato chip and fried farm-fresh egg.

To participate in the next exercise, please send an e mail to: jeffrey@bauscherinc.com

See all your favorite chefs’ collections of past submissions at the Deep Plate page on Facebook.  Please become a “Fan”.

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had soup for dinner tonight, and since i don’t have a mr. (or ms.) bento that seals tightly enough to bring that to work, i used some of my trusty, reliable trader joe’s mini-pizzas for tomorrow’s lunch.

lots of props again tonight.  and i FINALLY remembered to bring home the massive econo-pack of batteries i got on sale at CVS, so i was able to replace the almost-dead batteries in my flash (i use an SB-600)… i think the difference is noticeable, much less need for light editing in picnik.

anywho, back to the food.  three little pizzas, and the top one has some pepper jack (painted with green food coloring) and pom seeds for a “holly” garnish.  my holiday chef is tossing the pizzas (get it?!), and he’s made out of mozzarella and cheddar with nori facial features.  grape tomatoes and baby carrots with my mesclun greens and one romaine leaf (will bring a small container of dressing with me to eat all the veg together as a salad), with pom seeds and kumquat slices in a food cup and two godiva truffles (present from the boyfriend) for dessert.  doily, chenille ribbon, and cool pencil chopsticks from moma for props.

chanukah is almost over, but there’s still that exciting pre-christmas mood at my office!

Nutrient-packed, dark leafy greens grow best in cooler weather – making them in season right now. Many people often shy away from dark greens such as arugula, collards, and kale because of their bitter reputation, but when you pair them with a sensible amount of flavorful ingredients like bacon, feta-cheese, garlic, walnuts or even a little butter (shhh, I said a “little”) its easy to balance their bitterness. Study the list below to learn about the various winter greens and determine which of them you might enjoy best. Try the Bold Winter Greens Salad located under the “recipe” tab.

ARUGULA

Taste: pleasantly pungent and peppery.                                                                                                                                                             Best in: Salads and sandwiches.  Also known as rocket (in England, rocket salad is used as a garnish on just about everything – even eggs!), rugula, and rucola, the leafy green is a staple of Italian fare and often found in musclun (young tender greens) salad mixes. I like to think of this green as a cross between lettuce and herb.

Substitutions: Watercress, endive, or young mustard greens.

BROCCOLI RABE

Taste: Broccoli rabe, a cooking green popular in Italian cuisine, resembles tiny clusters of broccoli florets amidst bunches of leaves which have a slight bitter flavor.                                                                                                                                       

Best in: The leaves are best cooked or sautéed to bring out the flavor (the stocks can often be too bitter to eat).           

Substitutions: Chinese broccoli, dandelion greens, or Swiss chard

COLLARDS

Taste: At no surprise, collards taste a bit like cabbage – since collards are a variety of cabbage.                                             

Best in: A variety of world cuisines. If you’re from the south, you’re probably making your greens with bacon or ham hocks; Italians simmer them in bowls of minestra.

Substitutions: Kale, mustard greens, or turnip greens.

ENDIVE

Taste: Prickly texture and slightly bitter taste.     

Best in: Salads or stirred into soups and bean dishes.                   

Substitutions: Escarole, mustard greens, arugula, or spinach.

ESCAROLE

Taste: Like its relative, Belgian endive, its slightly bitter.      

Best in: The young tender leaves are best in raw salads. Because escarole is more delicate than other hearty greens, it doesn’t require a long cooking time – great if you want dinner on the table in a hurry.

Substitutions: Mustard greens, arugula, or spinach

KALE

Taste: Earthy and cabbage like.                 

Best in: Kale’s sturdy leaves are excellent sautéed and added to casseroles like lasagna, for example. 

Substitutions: Collard greens, Swiss chard, mustard greens, or spinach

MESCLUN

Taste: Mildly tangy              

Best in: A mixture of baby greens served raw as a salad.              

Substitutions: Arugula, romaine, and spinach

MUSTARD GREENS

Taste: Spicy and peppery; the smaller the leaves, the sharper and hotter the taste.         

Best in: Stir-frys or sautés. To tone down the mustard greens’ assertiveness, blanch the leaves in salted water before incorporating them in a recipe.        

Substitutions: Escarole, kale, Swiss chard, or spinach

SPINACH

Taste: Mildly bitter and earthy            

Best in: A wide variety of salad and entrées. Be sure to wash spinach thoroughly as dirt and sand tend to cling onto the leaves. 

Substitutions: Swiss chard, beet greens, kale, turnip greens, escarole, and arugula (for salads).

SWISS CHARD

Taste: Chard is in the same family as the beet, so you may detect some beet-like flavor in the ribs of the leaves. The leaves have a tendency to taste very intense, much like spinach.                 

Best in: Swiss chard’s hearty leaves are excellent when added to cooked dishes such as casseroles, stews, and lasagnas.

Substitutions: Beet greens or spinach

TURNIP GREENS

Taste: Cooked, turnip greens can be pleasantly pungent and bitter.

Best in: Braises, stews, and sautés.

Substitutions: Mustard greens, collards, kale, Swiss chard, or spinach

WATERCRESS

Taste: Peppery with a touch of mustard (its a member of the mustard family).

Best in: Salads and as a garnish

Substitutions: Arugula

As summer winds down, I wanted to make a dinner tonight that appreciated some really great squash. Quick recipe – I sliced up thin strips of carrots, zucchini, yellow summer squash, vidalia onion, and orange and red bell peppers. I sauteed the carrots for a few minutes first to get them soft, and then added the onions, squash, and peppers. I didn’t need to add too much liquid, as the squash is water based, so I tossed it with a blend of stone ground mustard/balsamic vinegar/1 minced up clove of garlic. It took about 10 minutes for everything to soften up appropriately, but I didn’t want to kill it. To serve it, I tossed some mesclun with a little bit of balsamic and put that and the veggies down on a wrap with a liberal scattering of goat cheese. Fold it up like a burrito and YUM.

I had just finished unpacking when my dad called to meet up. He was already on my street and so we decided to get something eat. My dad was eager to find a place in the city but I persuaded him to take the subway. We ended up getting off on 14th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood. After walking for about 7 minutes, I saw the Le Pain Quotidien located on 7th Avenue and 17th street. I couldn’t wait to get a nice French meal.

My dad got into some political conversations varying from health care, Congress, France, the NHS in the UK, and many other things. Our waiter joined in our conversation for about 25 minutes! It was nice to having such a heavy debate with my dad. On to the food…since I was a bad photo blogger I cannot show you my meal but it was delicious. I ordered the vegan quiche which came with a mesclun salad. I loved, loved, loved this place. I will definitely be back. Here is a link to the website: http://www.lepainquotidien.com

When the waiter gave me the check I was surprised to receive a complimentary “gift”

This is the back side of the “gift” It lists a recipe for a rotta rig tartine…yum!

This is the front side describing the daily rituals of “le pain quotidien” which is French for daily bread.

When I look at this photograph of the garden taken two weeks ago, one word springs to mind.   Lush.

A lot has changed since then.  Several of the tomatoes are looking not just mature, but tired.  The lovely crookneck squash have been decimated by the mildew; only one plant remains and is trying to recover from its own infection.  After an almost three-week dry spell and then a huge rainstorm that lasted half a day and made puddles in the garden, we had some losses.  Four zucchini plants got taken out by the mildew, as well, but I wasn’t complaining as I was kind of sick of them by then.

In general, I’m not complaining.  Removing the zukes allowed us to prep the soil for fall radish planting.  As the plants become mature, I won’t mind making the decision to end their time in our beds — with only a twinge of regret and a word of thanks for such wonderful time shared in the garden together — because I’ve begun to internalize a more seasonal way of living, of eating.

The first tomato is a joy, a revelation on the tongue.  After that, they become a little more commonplace and your tongue is pleased, but not in raptures — well, except for when eating Cherokee Purple (I’m in love!) — and then you’re inundated with tomatoes at their peak.  You look up 80 different ways to eat tomatoes and get creative, yourself.  In the end, you settle on the old standbys.  There’s a reason those are classics.  They’re usually fairly easy to do, and several of the best involve raw tomatoes, which is good because a hot kitchen in August is just about your least favorite thing to contemplate.  And then you start looking toward the next thing, knowing that every tomato you eat is on the downslope.  You won’t be able to get tomatoes like these in December.  You’d better sun dry a few and savor every bite — all while you daydream of beets, radishes, spinach and mesclun and prepare the soil to hold the seeds that will make your dreams a reality.  The work and the rewards are so intertwined.

The victory garden is showing its age a bit more now, but it’s still extremely pleasing to the senses.

lush ¹

Self-sufficiency doesn’t have to mean growing all your own food and raising your own livestock. Often times, we can become more self-sufficient by moving away from buying finished and processed goods and towards purchasing raw materials.

Here are some very simple ways of becoming more self-sufficient.

1. Bake your own bread.

Baking bread is not difficult, especially if you have a bread machine. I suggest looking on ebay or at garage sales and thrift stores for one. Baking bread in a bread machine is very simple, and requires no more work than throwing in the ingredients and turning it on. You’ll be able to have fresh bread for less money. Bread machine recipes are easy to come by (although more scarce for high altitudes). You can also bake your own english muffins, bagels, and other staples to save money.

2. Grow your own salad mix.

Salad mixes are one of the easiest things to grow. Start with some soil, scatter some seeds around and keep it watered. Salad mixes (a.k.a. mesclun mixes) can be grown inside in a container by a sunny window, on a balcony or in a garden. Cut the greens at the soil level when they are bite size and you’ve got a gourmet salad! These mixes usually cost around $7 / lb at grocery stores.

2. Grow your own herbs.

Many herbs are easy to grow by sunny windows and store-bought herbs can end up costing lots of money if you buy them regularly. Here are some great herbs for growing inside:

Basil

Chives

Marjoram

Mint

Oregano

Parsely

Rosemary

Sage

Savory

Sorrel

Tarragon

Thyme

4. Make your own cereal.

I’ve been making granola for a few weeks now and it has been going very well. I have not worked out the relative cost to store-bought granola, but it definitely tastes better! Here is a good recipe for granola. But don’t feel obligated to stick to it, I usually throw in a few extra things like dried apples and any random nuts or dried fruit around the house. I also double the recipe, and it lasts us about two weeks.

Ingredients

4 cups oats

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup bran flakes

1/2 cup coconut

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup wheat germ

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 cup walnuts

1/4 cup almonds

1/4 cup corn oil

1/3 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

In a large baking pan, mix together the oats, raisins, bran, coconut, cranberries, wheat germ, cornmeal, sunflower seeds, walnuts, and almonds. Add the corn oil, honey, and vanilla and mix well. Spread the granola out on the pan in an even layer and bake until the granola is golden brown, about 45 minutes.

You asked for more, fresh, vegetarian meals and we listened! Please welcome our newest addition…The Ultimate Veggie Burger Salad!

We start with mesclun greens, topped with our delicious, all veggie burger, made from the best of the garden patch. Add a few fire roasted pepper strips, grilled onion, our black bean & roasted corn salsa with a scoop of garlicky guacamole and crumbled manchego cheese…mmmmm! Try one!

This past weekend, at my sister’s and my graduation party, we enjoyed the (finally!) nice weather along with some great food.  For me, there’s nothing better than eating fresh-looking and delicious food in one’s own backyard on a nice day.  Giving in to my pleas,  my parents agreed to let me cater the party as opposed to the caterer who they had originally planned to hire. 

The menu I came up with was the following assortment of my own whims and some of my sister’s favorites:

Salad of Mesclun with Avocado, Chilies, and Mint

Summer Fruit Salad: Peaches, Raspberries, Blackberries, and Strawberries

Gazpacho Shots

Salmon Tartare Sushi Rolls with Brown Butter Aioli Dipping Sauce

Miniature Egg “McMuffins” with Parma Cotto Ham and Hoch Ybrig Cheese

Tuna Escabeche Wraps with Tomato and Kalamata Olive Aioli

Turkey, Pear, and Brie “Croissandwiches”

Meatball Sliders with Pine Nut Butter and Tomato Sauce “Preserves”

Braised Barbeque Pork Ribs

Pumpkin Cheesecake Blondies with Graham Cracker Struessel

“Blackies” (Really Super Dark Brownies)

Rice Pudding Panna Cotta Bites

White Chocolate-Lemon Verbena Ice Cream

Everything turned out great, and we couldn’t have asked for a nicer day to spend with the family.  The food was a hit, and I can’t say any of it let me down. 

La Cocotte dans les Étoiles a déménagé… retrouvez dès maintenant tous les articles sur : http://lacocottedesetoiles.free.fr

J’ai trouvé des pleurotes fraîches en plein mois de juin dans mon supermarché habituel pour “pas cher”… et j’adore les champignons !
Le plus difficile restant à faire car je n’avais pas envie du traditionnel : beurre, ail, persil. J’avais un peu de
coriandre fraîche et du basilic surgelé mais j’ai penché pour la coriandre cette fois-ci. Et puis j’ai trouvé une recette parlant d’une cuisson douce de la volaille au bain-marie. Alors voilà. Ces petits médaillons finalement totalement estivaux ! Parfaits avant le maillot.

Informations de base
Durée préparation : 30 min
Durée cuisson : 25 min
Durée repos : 10 min
Nombre de parts : 2
Retrouvez les autres informations (difficulté, thématique, saison, occasion, santé, minceur, végétarien…) dans les rubriques “Categorized” et “Tagged” en haut à droite de l’article.

Ingrédients dans l’ordre d’apparition… libre à vous de nuancer !
[Ingrédient utilisé et sa quantité] ≈ [Variante possible et sa quantité]
Poulet : 2 filets
Vinaigre balsamique : 5 cs
Huile végétale : 2 cs
Échalote : 2
Ail : 1 gousse
Pleurotes : 200 g ≈ Tout autre champignon : 200 g
Coriandre : 1 petit bouquet ≈ Persil ou baslic
Jaunes pousses d’épinard frais : 2 poignées ≈ Mâche, mesclun ou autres jeunes pousses de salade
Sel et poivre

Recette

1. Préparation et cuisson
Ouvrir les filets de poulet dans la longueur et inciser chaque côté dans la chair.
Dans un bol verser 2 cs de vinaigre balsamique et 2 cs d’huile. Remuer.
Y plonger les filets de poulet. Remuer et laisser mariner 10 min.
Émincer les échalotes et les faire revenir dans une poêle anti-adhésive.
Ajouter 3 cs de vinaigre balsamique et laisser compoter.
Pendant ce temps, laver les champignons puis les sécher.
Les couper en lamelles.
Dans une autre poêle anti-adhésive faire revenir l’ail puis les champignons afin qu’ils perdent un maximum de leur eau (environ 5 min).
En fin de cuisson, ajouter la coriandre en la ciselant directement au-dessus des champignons puis remuer. Réserver.
Farcir les filets de poulet marinés avec la préparation. Saler et poivrer.
Refermer les filets et les envelopper bien serrés dans un film alimentaire.
Cuire 15 min au bain-marie.
Ôter le film alimentaire et les couper en tronçon d’environ 1,5 cm d’épaisseur.
Les faire griller au four 5 min.

2. Dressage
Dans une grande assiette, disposer les roulés de poulets.
Servir avec les jeunes pousses d’épinard frais assaisonnées de vinaigre balsamique.
Ajouter un peu de compotée d’échalote.

Conseils
Ne pas faire trop cuire le poulet qui risque de devenir top sec notamment au grill.
Pour un plat plus gourmand (en calories j’entends !), ces médaillons peuvent très bien être accompagnés d’une émulsion coriandre/huile d’olive (ou basilic/huile d’olive) à mixer comme un pesto.

Yesterday I worked on the “big pots” project.  I got two of the three remaining big pots done.  I’m growing lettuce in one and other greens (I know, how generic, right?) in the other.  I also readied pots for mesclun (3 pots) and for baby leaf mustards (1 pot), and then sowed them.  I sowed Baker Creek’s stir-fry baby leaf mix and their European salad mix, and Renee’s Garden Seeds’ Asian baby greens salad mix.  The mustard mix I made myself from four baby leaf mustards from Kitazawa Seed Co.,’Garnet Giant,’ ‘Ruby Streak,’ ‘Mizuna Red Streak,’ and ‘Golden Streak.’  They’re really cool looking if you want to check out their baby leaf mustard page for photos.  I love how frilly they are!

Today I went to the nursery to get bigger hanging baskets for the fuchsias that I bought recently at a drug store here; they were super cheap ($8 each, when hanging baskets often cost $20-30 at nurseries) but their baskets are already way too small for their large size, and when it is warm and/or windy, they dry out within a day of a rainstorm and faster without rain.  I ended up also getting Jerusalem sage, which is not actually a sage and is also probably not really from Jerusalem.  It’s starting to bloom now and should look nice in the front garden, as it is allegedly tolerant of heat and drought (though we shall see; some things that allegedly are actually turn out not to be up to the task my front garden demands of them).  I also got a second blooming basil, smaller than the first (which I bought and planted last weekend), as well as a little pot of leek seedlings.

The leek seedlings have not been selling well at the nursery, perhaps because they are placed with the herbs instead of with the vegetables, perhaps because they take so long to get very big and thus look like chives in their little pot instead of like leeks, or perhaps just because Americans seem to not be as fond of growing leeks as Europeans are.  The little pot contains several small but decent-sized-for-leeks seedlings, so will turn into several leeks, assuming they make it through my experiment.  What is my experiment?, you ask.  Glad you asked.  I’ve been reading two associated books by Frank Tozer, The Organic Gardeners Handbook and The Vegetable Growers Handbook.  Though they could have used a better copyeditor than the one they apparently got, they are interesting regardless of that.  One interesting thing they mention (out of many many many) is that leeks are one of the crops that can take the very closest spacing of any fairly typical home-garden crop.   So I am going to experiment with growing them closely spaced in a large pot and seeing how they do.  This is the first year my nursery has offered leek seedlings.  One year in my old garden I grew them from seed myself, but I haven’t done that since.  The tag does not appear to indicate what kind of leek they are (not even whether they are one of the two categories Tozer sets out in his book, a ’summer leek’ or a ‘winter leek’), so I will just have to grow them and find out myself!

Another thing that has particularly intrigued me so far about Tozer’s books is his mention of buckwheat being one of the fastest-maturing grains that home gardeners might reasonably be able to grow in their home gardens.  If I am recalling correctly (which I may not be, though the photos/drawings do appear to match my memory), buckwheat is one of the things I used to sow in my old garden’s main crop bed to nourish the soil, reduce weeds, and provide nectar for beneficial insects and seed for birds.  In that garden, it was quite successful, but that garden had much easier growing conditions than my current one.  Having recently procured a copy of the new edition of the 1970s (originally) growing standard book, Small-Scale Grain Raising by Gene Logsdon, I’ve been reading the section on buckwheat in the evenings before bed.  It sounds like old-time buckwheat is kind of a pain for even non-home growers to grow, as it apparently matures at varying times on a single stalk and does not have a very high yield, but it appears from the book that breeders have been working recently on coming up with buckwheats that mature more at once and have higher yields.  I am curious enough that I am considering experimenting with buckwheat later this growing season (it sounds like it is best sowed to time with cooler temperatures, so it is too late to do it in this part of the growing season).  It is supposed to be highly nutritious – Logsdon talks about how much Americans loved buckwheat breakfasts back in the days before commercial cereals – so it would be a nice crop to add to my passion for legumes (by which I mean that legumes are also highly nutritious).

Speaking of legumes, the rest of the runner bean cultivars and the edamames (soybeans) are finally coming up today.  It’s so heartening to see their little sprouts poking up through the compost mulch.

My main plans for the next few days in the garden are to finish the “big pots” project (the last big pot is to be planted with root vegetables), move the fuchsias into the new bigger hanging baskets, plant a few of the tender geraniums in the fuchsias’ old hanging baskets, prepare pots for the leeks and the rest of the flowers that are to go in pots and then pot them, and plant the things that keep drying out very fast (with top priority going to the last three tall verbenas and a few other plants that have been waiting to be planted).  All my time spent  in the garden (even though I’m still so far behind!) has meant that I’ve gotten behind on non-garden stuff, so we’ll see how much of that I actually accomplish.

An acquaintance from the garden club saw my garden for the first time this weekend, and watching someone else look at it got me thinking about my unusual style (for here) of garden design and the divergent things that I most like.  Looking at it makes it pretty easy to see that cottage gardens are my favorite style of design for me, personally, but the plants are, as I said, divergent; I really like the kinds of plants that one would see in British cottage gardens – plants like columbines, peonies, stock, pansies, poppies, and larkspur – but I also really like tough native plants; for the shady back garden, that mostly means ones that are native to dry woods in New England, but for the unusual-for-New-England conditions of the front garden, that  means that it’s mostly ones that are native to the Great Plains and the Southwest, because they are plants that are more used to drought, heat, and strong winds than most of New England’s native plants (though, as I’ve said here many times, the New England native sundial lupine [Lupinus perennis] has done remarkably well in it, including self-seeding vigorously [by this garden's standards; maybe 6 seedlings]).  So my fronnt garden has agastaches, salvias, and cup plant mixed in with bellflowers, daisies, and gladiolas (well, soon for the gladiolas; they’re still waiting to be planted, sitting with the dahlias in bags in a box, as it’s been cold most nights here [for this time of year]).  While many non-gardeners just say, “Oooh, pretty!,” I imagine that for fellow serious gardeners it could be a bit discombobulating.  My biggest philosophy is that I mostly like to plant plants that I don’t have to coddle much or, ideally, at all.  Growing crops takes enough coddling that I’d rather save my coddling for that and let the flowers and (few) shrubs tend primarily to themselves.

The locust, the street tree in front of my garden, has fully leafed out and phase four of its annual master plan to inundate the garden has begun.  It had been so thickly leafed out that I had actually found myself looking forward to the point where, I knew, it would soon begin to drop entire twigs/small branches, because its canopy was blocking more rain than it does later in the year.  Phase one was dropping small young clusters of leaves; phase two was dropping lone leaf clusters; and phase three (still not complete) was/is dropping pollen.  Phase five, to look forward to come late summer, will be dropping its huge heavy ripe pods.  But for now, it has moved on from dropping single leaf clusters to dropping entire twigs.  Now that it’s begun, I find myself wondering why I was looking forward to it, because as always, many of the twigs are landing smack on my plants.  The worst so far was the large twig that tried to take out my entire patch of sweet peas.  I never appreciated just what messy trees locusts are until I moved in here.  Now they’ve been added to my short list of trees to never, ever plant close to gardens (maples being the other major one).

I mentioned recently that the seeded-in baby blue eyes had begun to bloom, but didn’t give more details.  It is a Western US native that I sow each year here and it does well in early summer.  This is its best year yet; there are already several little plants blooming.  Here is a photo elsewhere on the web.   Its botanical name is Nemophila menziesii syn. Nemophila insignis.

It was such a dry May and June is starting out the same.  I miss the steady rains we used to get here in summer rather than the mists and cloudbursts we more often get now; there is so little any more in the wide range bewtween the two extremes.  In my sloped garden, cloudbursts are even more likely to be mostly runoff than in most gardens.  Now there are huge clouds gathering on the Western horizon, but they’ve been doing that on and off all day and it never actually rains.  Here’s hoping…

It feels like it has been raining for weeks – certainly in the last three there have been more rainy days than there have dry. While this does eventually get old, it has been great for my plants. Lettuce, chard, spinach, and mesclun are flourishing, especially the plants in my half whiskey barrel. They are big enough to eat as “baby greens.” The blackberry plants in both of my yards are heavy with blooms and my peas are working hard to catch up with them. Tomatoes and peppers are growing slow but steady.

I talked to a farmer at the market last Saturday about harvesting my garlic, planted last October. He says to cut the “tops” or “chives” when they begin to curl like a question mark, and that will signal to the bulb to begin growing. They should be readyt o be dug by mid-July. The plants are huge. Certainly there will be no vampires in my garden.

The only bad news is that my large garden spot is still unplowed. Im threatening to dig a section up by hand to get my watermelon and pumpkin plants in the ground. 

Just in case, I am planting beans in my “kitchen garden” tomorrow.

*Somehow this didn’t get published on Tuesday*

Between May 1st and 3rd, I planted cool weather greens in the garden bed with the snow peas: mesclun, Grand Rapids lettuce, corn salad and three varieties of swiss chard. I have had a lot of luck with these greens varieties. Here is what I have to say about them each:

Mesclun – I consider this salad green variety a Must Grow for my garden. Mesclun reaches maturity quickly in just 30-50 days. It is also inexpensive to grow in comparison to buying it in the store: mesclun is the gourmet salad mix you see sold at produce counters throughout the Puget Sound area. It’s been a while since I’ve bought mesclun in the grocery store but I remember the price being $5.99 to $7.99 per pound. I will never pay that price again as this mixed green is much too easy to grow all season long. It tastes better fresh, too. The mix consists of leaf lettuce, kale, endive, beet greens, spinach, swiss chard, sorrel, corn salad, radicchio, cress and mustard.

Grand Rapid’s Lettuce – This lettuce is another Must Grow for my garden. It’s my husband’s favorite lettuce due to its crisp yet tender leaves. This lettuce almost melts in your mouth. It grows quickly, reaching maturity in 55 days. It doesn’t get bitter in the hotter weather.

Corn Salad – My little wildling is a Must Grow for my garden. It is a plant that can take both the heat and the cold while maintaining its delicate, slightly nutty flavor. It takes 60 days to reach maturity.

Swiss Chard – Another Must Grow for my garden. I do favor sturdy greens. Swiss Chard grows well in the cool part of the season but holds up well when it gets hot, never becoming bitter. Chards can be planted in late summer for a fall and possibly winter crop. I plant three varieties in my garden: large white rib, rhubarb and bright lights. Rhubarb has red stalks while bright lights has a white, yellow, orange and red stalks. To me all these different colors taste the same but it makes for a very ornamental greens bed. All these chards reach maturity in 60 days.

Things are not going as well in the garden as I’d hoped. As of last week, half of the beautiful plants I got for my birthday have officially died. RIP Orange Symphony, dwarf sunflower, and yellow dahlia. I discovered that the unruly purple daisy that I never identified didn’t just need to be pruned: it had those irritating little white bugs that basically take over your plant and are pretty much impossible to get rid of. I don’t know if they’re aphids (I’ve heard aphids are squishy, and the ones I’m talking about looked too small to be particularly squishy), but I’ve seen them before, and I do not like them. So that one’s done, too.

On the more positive side, I got the stock cleaned up and repotted on Monday, though I don’t know how well that’s going to work out. There was enough to salvage, but I don’t know if they’re already beyond help or not. I cleaned up and repotted the two Gerberas, too. One seems to be okay, if still flower-less, but the other is looking iffy. Some of the leaves are okay and there are still new ones, but some are looking yellowish and droopy. I didn’t get to repot everything from last weekend’s nursery trip, but I did manage to get one large planter done: yellow garden daisy, two mini snapdragons (one definitely fuschia, hopefully the other is, too) and some lobelia. Will finish repotting the marigolds, celosia, lobelia, and snapdragons tomorrow, I think.

The chocolate mint, though not repotted yet, is like the happiest plant ever right now. I’m sure I’m mildly hallucinating how much it’s grown since last weekend, but I know it’s grown at least a bit. The leaves are nice and big, and there are some nice bright green leaves sprouting. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I want to try a layering technique to propagate it, so I’m torn on what to do with it: do I repot it now and try to propagate then, or do I try to propagate now and then repot once the 2nd bit was established? I want to put it in a terra cotta planter with some other herbs (the English thyme, and whatever I can find at the farmers markets next week), but I’m afraid the mint will basically take over the world. Either way, I’m still stuck on the propagating issue.

I also want to try layering with the thyme. I had to clean up the thyme last night, because out of nowhere, half the stems seemed to be drooping at the top. I mean, aside from the top parts falling over, the leaves and flowers on it looked fine, so I’m not sure what was going on. It’s about half the size now, but it probably needed to be pruned anyway. Have the same layering dilemma here, though I would prefer to just repot it once into the terra cotta, so I’m not sure if I should wait until the farmers markets to do something with it. I suppose once I put it in the terra cotta, I could just trail one stem over into another pot to get it to root, then separate the two when the new one is ready, thusly not having to do a second repotting or uproot the original plant. I’m just getting nervous about not repotting it soon, given the way most of the un-repotted plants went over the last two weeks.

In addition to all that, I need to get some seeds planted. Boxwood basil, more large-leaf Italian basil, common chives, and garlic chives are going in the window box (which I have to affix to the railing with the hanger brackets I got at the nursery), and I need to get going with the moonflower. I had some of the Heavenly Blue morning glory seeds soaking earlier this week, and then forgot about them, and after two days or so, they look kinda sketchy and sort of bug-like. At least I was smart enough not to soak all of them at once. I’ll put some more in water tomorrow and plant them on Sunday. In my trip down to the basement to get my containers the other day, I discovered I’d saved a pot with a little wiring over the top (I’m pretty sure it was from a clematis a few years ago). It was quite an exciting find, because it means I’m not entirely limited to the space along the railing for the climbers. I’m going to try a mix of moonflower and Heavenly Blue in there, and then probably a few smaller pots of each. Which reminds me that perhaps I should put the sweet peas out soon – they’re sorta falling all over each other trying to find something to hold on to. (In a good way – these are the only seeds I’ve started this year that are doing well so far. Well, the second mesclun planting is sprouting, but the first one did, too, so I’m trying not to get too optimistic about it.)

Oh, and this week, I got my first seed swap seeds! I saw a thread on MyFolia about herbs, and offered up some of my basil to a gardener in Wisconsin. In return, she sent me some French Marigold seeds and some Whirlybird Nasturtium seeds. I’ve only tried marigolds from seed once, and it did not go well, but I’ve had good luck with nasturtiums before, so we shall see.

And now, enough of my plant rambling. For now.

Back from harvesting for my CSA member–today’s delivery includes a pound of asparagus, gallon bags of spinach and Goddess salad mix, a small bunch of my big green onions, and a bag of about 12 or 13 little baby bok choy thinned from the double row of Mei Qing Choi.

I’ve got a couple extra bags of really lovely crisp baby spinach available, as well as one extra bag of Goddess mix that hasn’t been claimed (don’t worry S.S.–yours is set aside).

For those who haven’t been initiated, a few years ago, one of my good customers and fellow English Dept. colleague (retired now) Nancy Zuercher was talking to me at market about how the restaurants in Europe were serving these amazing salads with mixed lettuces, greens, and herbs.

From that conversation, the Goddess mix was born.  It is a blend of colorful lettuces–reds and greens, oak leafs, deer tongues, lolla rossas, and leaf lettuces from Johnny’s Encore organic lettuce mix.  To that gorgeous mix I add baby arugula for zing, a smidge of cilantro, and a sprinkling of dill.  I also add snippets of chives or chive blossoms, depending on the time of season.

That mix is pictured in the current spring header of this blog, so you can get an idea of it above.  Some weeks or seasons, depending on my mood, I might also add baby broccoli raab thinnings, chervil, parsley, or other tasty trimmings from throughout the garden.

It’s almost certainly one of the best salads you’ve ever had, and because it’s harvested fresh and marketed the same day, it has a lot more staying power than some of the (totally inferior!) bagged salad mixes you’ll find in the grocery store.

Goddess mix is a local, seasonal spring treat–I only grow and market it for about a month or so at the very beginning of the season–until the arugula bolts to seed (and then is too strong to eat raw). I’ve had CSA members tell me they’ve woken up at night dreaming of the Goddess mix and had to get out of bed, go downstairs, and eat it by the handsful directly out of the bag.

I’ll be bringing quite a bit of it (along with some asparagus, baby bok choy, spinach, lettuce and more) to the Vermillion Area Farmers Market that starts one week from today–Thursday, May 21st from 3-7pm at the Clay County Fairgrounds.  See you there!