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Thanksgiving 2013

11/29/2013

Until this year, my husband, Kevin, and I have enjoyed a comfortable relationship with that most illfated of numbers — 13.

A prime reason being that he happened to have been born on a Friday the 13th. So, it’s understandable that we have traditionally held nothing against such a universally unloved figure.

But for myriad reasons, we’re looking forward to embracing a fresh start and bidding not-so-fair 2013 adieu.

As I look back, though, I find there are many things to cherish:
• Our first full crop of asparagus to chase away the winter blues
• Plenty of peas to satisfy the palate and even stock the freezer
• Sweet strawberries that, once thawed, are a heavenly reminder when snow blows that spring will indeed come again
• Perfectly timed sour cherry blossoms that yielded gallons of pie-luscious juice
• Neverending cilantro that just keeps re-seeding and adding zest to salads and salsas
• Tender beets without any effort, thanks to abundant rain in early summer
• Leafy basil and Italian parsley that’s now dried in jars, available to season sauces and soups
• After multiple attempts, finally success with Thai eggplant and bokchoy
• A modest crop of tomatoes, despite neglect, septoria leafspot, and encroaching neighborhood blight
• A canning cupboard overflowing with jars of grape, black currant and cherry juice
• Peppers. Peppers. And, more peppers. No matter what the weather conditions or orthopedic emergencies, I manage to have little trouble with peppers.
• The largest and best-tasting harvest of buttercup squash we’ve had
• Happy broccoli that fed on mineral-rich clay soil that I turned into the garden after digging a path last year
• More than a dozen pint jars of fiery roasted tomatillo salsa verde
• Loads of legumes — garbanzos, cowpeas, shell beans, 20-foot pole beans, edamame

Most of all, we’re grateful for yet another growing season that’s enriched our plates and our palates. Both of us are eating a wider variety of fruits and vegetables — some of which we’d never laid eyes on before: Celeriac, gooseberries, kohlrabi.

But, it’s the deepened connection to our food that’s enhanced our lives. It’s so satisfying to eat what was connected to the earth just moments before. Or, to see a full cupboard and freezer stocked with produce that we planted and tended and harvest and prepared.

It’s true soul food.

And, a priceless treasure.

That doesn’t mean we won’t wholeheartedly welcome 2014.

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Head start

11/22/2013

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Timing is everything.

It’s nearly a daily mantra in our house — invariably as a cat contentedly settles into a lap just as the television credits start to roll. For nearly an hour, the purr-machines squander an opportunity for an uninterrupted nap. Instead, they curl up right when we need to get up.

It’s the same with certain vegetables and herbs.

My husband, Kevin’s aunt makes a killer strawberry salsa from store-bought ingredients that we can’t duplicate with home-grown fruit. When our strawberries are in their prime, the tomato and pepper plants are mere toddlers, barely forming new growth after being transplanted.

And, once they’ve produced juicy tomatoes and fierce peppers, the strawberries are just a memory — long ago ensconced in sugar syrup and packed into containers stacked in the freezer.

The same is true of coleslaw. When we crave its tangy, crunchy bite, my pathetic attempts at spring cabbage have bolted without forming heads. By fall, when cole crops are happiest in our garden, it’s lost its appeal. By this time of year, my palate has moved on to warm, comforting oven meals and soul-satisfying soups.

So too, our first crop of alien purple and pale green lumps known as kohlrabi that have finally matured, won’t be shredded into rice noodle salads or grated with carrots into refreshing, vinegary melanges. Instead, they’ll end up in roasted root vegetable medleys or chunked into stews.

Next year, I’m adding kohlrabi to the spring seed collection, so it has a chance to plump into its unique, branched and bulbous form while I still have an appetite for salads.

Too bad we couldn’t store it until early spring, when the desire for crispy, crunchy foods is so strong, Kevin and I head frequently — but not without some measure of guilt — to the grocery store for lettuce grown hydroponically in Ithaca. I’m sure then we’d find it oh, so satisfying.

Ah, timing is everything.

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More lessons from the bean patch

11/15/2013

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Beans are indeed a magical fruit — extraordinarily remarkable for the soil, for adding “interest” to the garden, for our health. Even for my vocabulary.

Legumes’ nitrogen-fixing abilities enrich the earth during the season and long after they’ve decomposed. As green manure, they are an integral component of crop rotation — boosting yields and bolstering a healthy, balanced biota.

Above ground, they’re a sight to behold. Beans’ varied growth habits create a dappled coat of greenery, blossom colors and verticality. Broad leaves. Ferny leaves. Dark green. Yellow-green. Purple blossoms. Pink blossoms. White blossoms. Some plants top out at 2 feet. Others try valiantly to find the giants’ kingdom.

In our diet, beans play a vital role in keeping our systems humming along. They’re high in protein, complex carbohydrates, B vitamins, iron, folic acid, calcium and trace minerals. Through their low glycemic index, they can help prevent or manage diabetes. And beans’ high fiber content can lower cholesterol and combat colon cancer.

Beyond these noted benefits, I find dried beans terminology especially enchanting. In addition to self-explanatory terms such as string beans, shelly beans, wax beans, pole beans and bush beans, heirloom seed catalogs and packets also frequently reference:
Cut-shorts
Greasy beans
Greasy cut-shorts
Half-runners
Soldier beans

With these, I found my initial suppositions on their definitions were way off. What set me straight was a visit to the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center’s website. There, a glossary of Southern Appalachian Heirloom Bean Terminology provides descriptions and historical background for a long list of terms.
Contrary to my idea that cut-shorts must need to be pruned during the season, I learned that they acquired this name because the seeds outgrow the hulls and lock developing seeds against one another, making them appear square or triangular, even trapezoidal. In short, their circular shape is cut short. They’re also noted for being higher in protein.

Greasy beans, I learned, aren’t fatty or best prepared in bacon grease. Instead, their pods are slick without fuzz. Considered high quality, they fetch higher prices.

Greasy cut-shorts are the cream of the crop and in high demand.
OK, so half-runner makes sense. These beans tend to grow 3- to-10-foot vines. Full-runner beans can grow as many as 20 feet high.
But soldier beans? I couldn’t conjure a meaning. On the website, I read that this is the mark of a good bean crop, where the beans line up on the stem in formation — one by one or two by two, until the stem contains six to 12 beans. When weather conditions are accommodating, one vine may have 100 or more bean pods, yielding 700 to 800 seeds.

So, my new goal is to produce soldier, greasy cut-shorts.

What can I say?

Long after the vines have been pulled, beans continue to cast a spell on me.

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School of hard beans

11/8/2013

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I love learning — and I have a lot of respect for people and situations that teach me things — even legumes.

Dried beans may be the Rodney Dangerfields of the culinary world, but in our garden they’ve been a source of great fascination.

This year, my husband, Kevin, and I planted a dozen varieties, and each provided an education.

Our roof-line experiment at the back of the house is a case in point. The two varieties farthest from the neighborhood woodchuck’s enclave fared the best. The red calypso and good mother Stollard vines twined 15-20 feet all the way to the peak, producing clusters of as many as four pods every few inches.

The Hidatsa shield figure and black Valentine suffered from predation, but still managed to each produce nearly a quart of beans — from just 14 plants!

With the black Valentine, I was duped yet again by improper seed packet labeling. The alleged pole bean is, in actuality, a bush bean. So needless to say, it didn’t take advantage of the 15-foot support strands we created after Kevin attached screw-eyes under the eaves. But its long pods each yielded nearly 10 of the shiniest, blackest beans I’ve ever seen.

Most of the time, bush vs. pole label discrepancy has gone in the opposite direction. So, my new golden rule is to provide climbing support for every new variety — regardless of how its growth habit is described.

This year’s wet conditions did deepen my appreciation for pole beans. By hanging so far off the ground, the pods caught available breezes and stayed mildew-free until harvest.

Once they were dried, I plucked each one within reach with ease. I especially enjoyed being able to stand on the back porch in my slippers while filling a basket. It was a surreal and oddly satisfying moment — a little bit Heidi of the Alps, a little bit Laura Ingalls.

Harvesting the pods hanging high above my head proved trickier. With my own feet planted firmly on the ground, Kevin crawled onto the roof and cut the strings before lowering them to me. Several pods burst open after flopping onto the woodpile stacked in the lee of the vines, but most landed intact and we gathered the wayward souls as best we could. I figure those that rolled away will surprise us after germinating in hard-to-reach places next spring.

The other beans we grew — Mayflower, appaloosa, Jacob’s cattle, pinto, kidney, Hutterite, kabouli black garbanzo, koronis purple, California black-eyed pea, gray-speckled palapye cowpea — each taught us lessons that I’m eager to test in 2014.

A whole body of knowledge awaits.

What's not to respect?

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Fall frost a bittersweet turn in season's journey

11/1/2013

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Fun to leaf through. Periodically.

The first hard frost holding off until the last week of October is a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, it was exciting to eat fresh summer squash, peppers and green beans — even tomatoes and Thai eggplant — just days before Halloween, but on the other, we had to hold off clearing the garden of the season’s detritus.

As eager as I am to embark each spring on the year’s vegetative journey, I am equally as eager to retire once daylight wanes and temperatures sink.

Like Christmas, anticipation fuels my captivation. Leading up to the Eve, food is magical, music is joyful and companionship is dear. But in the flat winter’s light of Christmas afternoon, children need to sleep, dishes need to be washed and guests need to head for home.

The holiday is over, and tired, sad decorations must take their bow.

So it is with the garden. Leading up to Memorial Day, seed catalogs are magical, lengthening days are joyful and seedlings are dear. But, when dawn arrives after a killing frost, all that plant life I so lovingly nurtured and tended and celebrated needs to find the compost heap.

The growing season is over, and tired, withered plants must exit the stage.

Except, of course, for the encore of hardy greens, cole crops and root vegetables that thrive when temperatures dip below 40.

Our frist stab at kohlrabi – trowel and error.

Brussels sprouts and parsnips kissed by cold are worth the wait, and our crisp radicchio have yet to set heads. With luck, we’ll be enjoying them as well as broccoli, kohlrabi and Swiss chard well into December.

Has-beans?

In the meantime, my husband, Kevin, and I are dutifully tearing out lifeless stalks and vines, storing tomato poles, dismantling bean trellises and stacking potato buckets. Occasionally we spy undiscovered, neglected fruit or out-of-seasonal-synch volunteers that fell victim to frost. But, mostly, the once-bustling earthen community seems desolate, sporting a dappled coat of dried, shriveled leaves. It’s due for an intermission — and so are we.
Inside, the wood fires roar, harvest perfumes mingle — apples, winter squash, potatoes, dried herbs — and cooking aromas entrance.

It’s a mixed blessing.

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Thanksgiving 2013

Head start

More lessons from the bean patch

School of hard beans

Fall frost a bittersweet turn in season's journey

Kevin & Mary Schoonover

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