Grow Better Veggies

Tomato Seed Winners!

As always, I run a contest each time I send out a newsletter, and my last one was to give ten lucky folks a set of TomatoFest seed packets.  These seed varieties are wonderful:

Black Cherry

Dagma's Perfection

Tobolsk

Sunset's Red Horizon

and Black Prince:

(All photos, courtesy www.TomatoFest.com)

The winners are, according to the "name" they listed when they entered the contest: Annette, Cathy S., Jeph Remley, Annie, William Barnard, Cheryl, Breadl, Aggie, E., and Jen.  I have sent each of you an email letting you know how to claim your seeds.  And if any of you who are not yet on my newsletter list want to join in on all these free-wheelin' give-aways, click here to sign up.

Check back here for a series of posts I'll be having soon on starting tomato seeds.

   

Celeriac - Would You Eat Something This Ugly?

This looks God-awful, doesn't it?  Maybe not quite as intimidating of an initial bite as the brave soul who first sampled an oyster, but unappetizing-looking nevertheless.  But after you cut away the rough exterior (no peeler I've found seems to work), the interior white flesh has all the pleasant taste of celery, and none of the strings.  And did you know that the stalk of the lush, showy, parsley-esque foliage can be cut and used as a straw?  I'm thinking really tasty Bloody Marys!

I like growing celeriac, and the chef certainly appreciates it (give him a root veggie, any root veg, and he goes to town on it).  The downside to it is that it takes FOREVER from seed to harvest.  My last batch I sowed in flats in the greenhouse a year ago January, and we were picking it from August through the last harvest, which was when the above picture was taken, on January 19th.  From 8 months to a whole year!  One of the nice things about celeriac is that you can harvest it and store the bulbs for two or three months.  We don't do that here; we fresh pick Manresa's celeriac and they use it immediately.

Also called celery root, the seeds are very tiny, and they can take up to three weeks to germinate.  They need to be kept constantly moist, which  makes it a challenge, as it is sometimes hard to be that vigilant.  That's the first reason I sow in flats rather than directly sow the seeds in the ground.  The second reason is that once germination happens, they are frustratingly slow to grow. They seem not to be doing anything for a long time, then you prick them out thinking they are way too small. Then they kind of sit there in their little pots not seeming to do much.  Finally one day you realize they're actually growing.  At that point you can happily transplant them out into your prepared bed, spacing them about six inches apart on all sides. Here is a newly planted bed:

Once the babies are safely tucked into their new bed, another wait is in order, about three months before you can harvest them.  It's perfectly fine, though, to start picking them once they are showing a couple of inch diameter bulb.  You'll be able to see the bulb poking up out of the soil.

The cultivar I use is called "Brilliant," and it's a biodynamically grown seed available from Turtle Tree Seeds.  They carry only biodynamic and organic seed of many old heirloom varieties.  Every time I order from them, I've been extremely pleased with both the health and vigor of the plants, as well as the taste.

I'd love to hear if any of you grow celeriac and what wonderful things you might do with it.

Farm Animal of the Week: Dali the Pot-Bellied Pig

Does she scare you, or do you think she's adorable?  I get both comments from visitors to the farm.  People who have never seen a pot-bellied big are both delighted and repulsed by Dali.  She's often confused for a male, but let me tell you, if you saw a full grown pot belly pig boar, there'd be no mistaking the gender.  The boys have tusks, heavier bristles, and their fright factor is such that you do NOT want to run into one in a dark barnyard.  Dali is positively the embodiment of femininity in comparison.  Rubens would have delighted in her generous curves and folds: Dali was brought home as a tiny baby, about 8 weeks old.  She was only 10 inches long and a spitfire from the beginning.  I remember holding her to try to get a walking harness on her, and she squealed so loudly, she completely freaked out the neighbors.  The decibel level coming out of a body so small seemed impossible.  Since then, we've let her be, and the best we can do is scratch her back and her ears. Although my friend, Manny, has bribed her into letting him fondle her considerable jowl.  He calls it "buche," and claims it to be a delicacy in Mexico (although I've also heard that buche is pork tripe, so if anyone knows definitively, let me know).

All this talk about pork may make you think that Dali is scheduled for the table at Manresa.  But no, she's a pet, and alive she will remain.  But I have heard the chef exclaim, with more than a hint of covetousness, "Dali, you are looking really tasty, today!"

I asked my son, Zach, to name her when she was a piglet.  In the middle of a very interesting seminar of AP Art History, he decided to name her after his favorite painter, Salvador Dali.  When I reminded him that she was a girl, he said, "No matter.  Her name can still be Dali."  When I pronounced it "dahl-ee," Zach corrected me.  He said her name is properly pronounced "doll-ee," emphasis on the latter syllable, like Demi Moore.  One can certainly make the argument that Dali's belly resembles that of the very pregnant then-Mrs. Willis on that famous Vanity Fair cover.

Besides bringing sexy back with her own rotundness, Dali has another talent.  She has an incredible sense of smell, much like her French counterparts, who are trained to hunt truffles.  Dali has never enjoyed a truffle, but she can detect a cheeseburger at 200 paces. She doesn't get many treats lately;  I found out a whileago that I had been feeding her too much, so sadly for her, Dali is on a diet.  Which would make you her new best friend if you brought her a Big Mac should you come over to visit.  She may even let you fondle that beautiful buche.

 

The Experience of Manresa - A Novice Reports

Cynthia's assistant, Christopher Donovan, ate at Manresa Restaurant for the first time last night. Here are his thoughts about the experience.

From the moment a patron enters Manresa s/he is 'held'—like the way a newborn baby is held. The analogy holds, because to enter Manresa is to enter a land where every detail has been designed with the goal of providing an exquisitely soothing atmosphere wherein to enjoy exquisitely crafted food. One enters, as it were, David Kinch-Land, and for every detail of refinement noticed, a hundred or more pass unnoticed, working even more subtly to support the various aspects of his art.

Like the meal itself, entering Manresa involves a series of subtle shifts. Utter absence of pretension describes the door, and you are greeted in a soothing hallway. Your coat is stowed for you in the highly functional wooden paneled cupboards. You enter the dining room proper — though you do not realize it except upon reflection — at the very middle of the room. So there is no awkward moment where the entire assemblage looks up with impatience at an outer door letting in a blast of cold air and a 'new' customer; by the time a patron enters the Manresa dining room, there can be no awkwardness, since her entry point is the very center of the restaurant.

The Chef's Grand Tasting Menu is the choice for those with the leisure to enjoy a selection of dishes Chef Kinch feels like conjuring up on any given night. We were graced with seven amuses – tiny, savory treats that are so tasty you literally cannot help but want more . . . much more! But then that is me wanting to 'super-size' everything. It is antithetical to the agenda, which is more akin to prolonging pleasure than drowning in it.

In considering how I could possibly do justice to the experience of any one dish, or (heaven forbid) the totality of dishes which delighted me, I realize I cannot. How does one describe sex in words? Arpege farm egg (soft boiled, with sherry vinegar, cream, maple syrup and chives). A sunset in braille? Blood orange sangria, with Cointreau and carrot. To the person who has had the experience, the words may evoke a memory, may seem accurate in their own way. But to one who has not eaten Manresa fare, no words can remotely describe the experience. We had, as I said, seven amuses. These were paired with appropriate wines. Then followed eight courses, and four exquisite desserts. Since I cannot describe it in words (and I decline to use the cliches), you simply must eat there.

Manresa is a temple to quality. Not the appearance of quality as described by external features, or quality as it is commonly understood—but quality as functionality: what tastes the best? What smells the best? What has the most life? I know this to be so because I help Cynthia grow the vegetables that supply the restaurant, and I appreciate the wisdom that underlies and overshadows biodynamics. The rest of it that I don't know or understand (which is most of it), I take on faith. Because I know the chef. In the garden, his favorite question is, "how does it taste?" His favorite statement: "Here—taste this!"

We live, for the most part, in a culture fascinated with veneer thin appearances, where quality may be entirely absent so long as a thing looks like the thing it is a simulacrum of. And yet quality has a power that is undeniable. We cannot gainsay it. Witness Manresa; you simply must eat there!

Romanesco Broccoli - A True Objet d'Art

If you think veggies are boring, then you've never seen the likes of Romanesco broccoli.  And if this true marvel of nature doesn't make you wonder what the hell the first George Bush was talking about when he proclaimed that he didn't like broccoli, then you're an incurable Lachanophobe.

See the way each little peak spirals around?  And then notice how each little bunch then spirals around the whole head?  This is called a fractal form, or a self-similar pattern.  There are lots of examples in nature of fractal forms, but I think the Romanesco broccoli is one of the coolest, because you can get right up close to it and admire it for as long as you want, and then you can eat it!

Romanesco broccoli is not really a true broccoli, it's more properly classified as a cauliflower, and a lot of people do know it as such.  I can tell by the way it grows that it's a cauliflower. The plant is much larger than a broccoli - about 3 feet in height when mature - and once the main head is cut, that's it.  You cannot rely on lateral growth for additional minor heads as the season goes on, which is a nice feature of regular broccoli.  However, this beauty is so interesting, with a nice nutty flavor, that it's worth it.

I mean, talk about a great segue at the dinner table.  You could steam this baby whole, present it to your perpetually bored lachanophobic teen-ager, and with any luck, get him to eat his veggies AND start a conversation about molecular nanotechnology.

Now go forth and multiply in a self-similar pattern.  Plant some Romanesco.  Pronto.

Class: Grow the Earliest Tomatoes

Date: February 2, 2008 (Saturday)(11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.)

Tired of waiting until late summer to get your first home-grown tomatoes? If you know how, it’s possible to harvest vine-ripened tomatoes as early as June.

Winter Garden versus Summer Garden

There are some subtle differences between winter gardening and summer gardening that may not immediately come to mind.  Of course, I'm not referring to the obvious difference in the temperature.  What's also common knowledge to most people is that there are a lot of vegetables that you can only grow in the summer - the cold of winter and its short days spell disaster to tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and other heat loving plants.  Then a bit lesser known is the relief the organic winter gardener feels when faced with a much smaller opposing army of pests.  We don't have to spend nearly as much time running around trying to save the nirvana we've created from invading forces intent on plundering and pillaging.  Another difference is that plants grow much more slowly in the winter - the colder your climate the slower the growth.  In fact, at some point plants are just in a cold-storage dormant stage.  They won't start growing until the days lengthen a bit and the temps get warmer.

But one subtle difference between the two seasons is something that had to be pointed out to me, and that is that the winter garden is low.  It hugs the ground, almost as if it's trying to stay warm.  Look how these first two photos of the winter garden show the plants close to the ground.

Then notice how these next pictures of the summer garden reveal it reaching for the sky.  The green beans stretch toward the sun, and the only thing that stops them seems to be the height of the pole they're on.

The dahlias just get taller and taller over the course of the summer.    People are amazed when the dahlias tower over them.  I'm always stopping little children from crawling into the beds and trying to play hide-and-go-seek in the dahlia forest.  Not very easy trying to hide in the lettuce patch.

And just look at these tomato plants in the hoophouse.  I've got 7 foot tall tomato cages which were still too short.  The tomatoes shot up past the 7 foot mark a good 3 feet, then couldn't support their own weight anymore, so they just bent over the top of the cage and cascaded down.  At some point, I couldn't walk through them, I had to walk under them.

The summer plants are all about light and heat - trying their best to reach up up up to the sun, sending out tendrils and elongating their stems in their pursuit of just a little more light.

The winter garden is content to hug mother earth.  Their bounty goes down, literally, into the soil.  Winter is all about the root crops: the radishes, carrots, beets, turnips, rutabagas, salsify, parsnips.  These are all things that cannot hear the siren song of summer.  None of these root crops do well in the summer.

So the next time you admire that your summer corn is growing as high as an elephant's eye, think about why that is.  Ponder the strength of the astral forces that produce that growth - the sun obviously -  and the moon and the stars.  Also think about summer's polar opposite, literally, the winter garden's inclination to grow inward, toward this earth, this terra firma, this terroir, this great big ball under all of our feet that is as life giving and supporting as that giant star of ours in the sky.