Begin Again

Note to self: Remove your headphones. Get off the couch. Plant some seeds. Look for signs of life under the snow. Exercise. Do it now.

This Is the End

Reader, I think of you fondly and often. I haven’t forgotten this space. So many blog posts have been started and abandoned, both in my head and on the page, so many photos taken and then left to languish in laptop purgatory. So when I went out to the garden yesterday to bring in one of the last harvests of the season, I was determined to report back to you.

Two weeks ago, after an early hard frost, a weather report popped up in my Facebook feed. The last line read, in all caps, “THE GROWING SEASON IS ENDING.” Could the National Weather Service be any more dramatic? The same day, a farmer sent me this text after I asked if his fields contained anything LocalShare could glean: “We had 23 degrees that froze what we had left and turned it to mush.” This isn’t a surprise--the ancient Revolutionary-era ash tree outside our front door dropped its leaves a couple weeks ago, and I had to wear a winter coat last weekend--but the reiteration that WINTER IS COMING from all around does make it seem more real. It’s all not over just yet, though.

Our huge bed of kale, which started out as 24 pale, rescued seedlings, is happier than ever thanks to the low temperatures killing off the pests that were devouring their leaves, followed by some rain and a number of days with temperatures in the 60s. I continue to pick huge bunches of peppermint and spearmint several times a week, now with some urgency, to make big batches of my favorite green chai-mint iced tea before the cold gets serious and kills off everything green. And even though Mark objects to collecting horseradish root in the fall (yes, okay, it should be harvested in the spring for the optimum health of the plant, but our robust horseradish isn’t going to wither away anytime soon), he concedes that now is the time to make our favorite winter tonics--Rosemary Gladstar’s fire cider and my horseradish-infused vodka with caraway seed and honey from our bees.

Fall activities, working overtime, and kids’ schedules are keeping us so busy that getting out to the garden to do the most basic tasks seems nearly impossible. There are still potatoes in the ground; the garlic remains unplanted. Yesterday I couldn’t take it anymore and had to spend some time out there even though the rain was pouring down. And you know what? It was marvelous. There’s something deeply satisfying about gardening in the rain. I plucked enough sprouting broccoli to make a nice head’s worth for the kids’ lunches, checked on the leeks and brussels sprouts that we’re leaving out for as long as possible, squelched the sense of failure I felt upon seeing all the delicious ground cherries from this year’s bumper crop that went uncollected. The greenhouse was still humid with the intoxicating smell of warm earth that’s been seducing me since my first job in a greenhouse at age 15.

Next season we’ll be easing off on the large-scale gardening to offer the rest of our property some TLC. Ironically, even though we’ll be doing less gardening, this should leave me more time to post here. We’ve wanted to share stories about the earth oven we built at Luna Parc, the satisfying work of LocalShare, what’s going on at Genesis Farm, the farm dinners I’ve been cooking, the exciting things our friends have been up to, and of course, our ongoing kitchen and garden experiments. Because sharing with you all is my favorite.

The War on Weeds

Our most beautiful hen--and the meanest by far.
Just like that girl in junior high.

It’s been a long time, we know. It’s not that we’ve been slacking—au contraire. We’ve been busy as ever, digging and planting and cooking and making ambitious plans. After a long winter that weighed heavily, we’re heaving a huge sigh of relief that spring is in full bloom. 

Kate made Mark pinky-swear that he would not launch a huge new project this year. So far, so good. Instead we’re trying to improve the garden we have. The greenhouse is a godsend, the perennials we started four years ago are now well established—mature asparagus, rhubarb, peonies, blackberries, and gooseberries around the perimeter, plus some obscure sea kale, turkish rocket, ramps, and hyssop in the hugelkultur.

Mark planting peas in double-dug beds
with his little helper mugging for the camera.

The objective this season is weed control. We don’t use herbicides, and we keep the tilling and gas-powered machines to a minimum (in fact, we haven’t done any this year besides mowing the lawn once). Considering the battle we continue to wage in the garden against thistles and mugwort, which has completely taken over, this means many, many hours of hand-weeding. That’s one reason Mark became enraptured with double digging—the other being his obsession with nurturing the soil food web. And indeed, double-digging does result in gorgeous, aerated soil free of rocks and deep-rooted weeds (for the time being, at least). This video showed us just how easy it is! Except . . . it’s not. It’s difficult and slow, especially if you pull out all of the weed roots you encounter as you go. What an opportunity, though, to not only loosen the compacted soil but to attack the weeds right at the source! And at the end of it, we have the beautiful, high, mounded, well-aerated beds we’ve always dreamed of. The beauty of the tilth is enough to make one swoon. These days, early in the morning, you can find Mark outside in his pajamas and muck boots digging just a few more trenches, getting one more bed prepped before going to work. That’s how good double digging is, if you have the time and energy.

Busy hens in the chicken tractor.

Another weapon in the War on Weeds (just as futile as the War on Drugs or the War on Terrorism) is laying down 20-year greenhouse-quality weed blocker in the pathways. Kate has mixed feelings about this, since she has a vision of the garden as wild and free and able to breathe, and she worries that the weed blocker will harbor disease. Plus it’s kind of ugly right now since we haven't had a chance to dump any mulch on top. But she will certainly not be complaining when we don’t have to beat back the weeds on the pathways, and covering the pathways will placate her aesthetic concerns.

This first rhubarb became syrup for iced
black tea with star anise and cinnamon.

Finally, the most fun way to combat weeds—the chicken tractor, which is truly as cool as we hoped it would be. We carry a few girls from their yard out to the garden, put them inside, and they happily peck and scratch at the dirt all day, eating weeds and bugs that will end up producing more luxurious eggs for us. Closing the loop like this—making energy out of waste matter like insect pests and weeds, plugging that into our little ecosystem—feels SO SATISFYING. We’re perpetually working on becoming more efficient like this.

Some of the other topics we’ve been talking a lot about at Markate Estates are mulching, foraging, pushing our permaculture principles even further, and establishing an orchard. And Kate is obsessed with making bitters (and consuming them, of course), while Mark is content to simply remain bitter. More on that later.

Bracing Ourselves

It's bitterly cold today, 23 degrees with a mean arctic wind whipping across the mountaintop. Hard to believe that we spent the entire day yesterday outside, putting up the greenhouse, prepping garlic beds, and pulling in a surprisingly large harvest for late November--several pounds of little leftover onions, leaf beets that are still going strong, and about 20 pounds of parsnips.

Back in October we brought in half our parsnips and left half in the ground, and when I dug them up yesterday they were monsters. Hopefully the cold weather has concentrated their flavor without the texture getting too fibrous. But if they've matured into that sweet, cinnamon goodness, then I don't mind cutting out a tough core one bit.

We also checked on the horseradish, and sure enough, the roots have been going crazy underground. Recently I've been on an Eastern European kick and eaten at a couple of Russian restaurants in New York and Washington, DC. Their savory infused vodkas knocked my socks off, with the horseradish infusion being my favorite. So we broke off a good-sized piece of root and I shaved it and put it in vodka this morning. In a few days we should have a bracing winter tonic. Some people swear that a shot of horseradish vodka with a spoonful of honey stirred into it will clear your sinuses and ward off an oncoming cold. A more genteel person might use this infusion for a spiced-up bloody mary. In the interest of science, I will try both and report back.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

We're so spoiled to be able to make meals almost
completely with goods we produce ourselves.
But we can do even better.

It's not all about fancy new greenhouses around here. At the same time, austerity measures are being implemented. Sometimes Mark and I get carried away by our enthusiasm for growing obscure and unusual vegetables. Often, there is a reason said varieties are obscure. We grew a row of fava bean plants this past year--plants that required purchasing seeds, planting, tending, watering, weeding, and harvesting--that yielded about 2 cups of beans after they were removed from their fleshy pods, blanched, and shelled again. As much as I love favas, that's not much of a return on our investment. Same goes for the black chickpeas--two peas inside every tiny pod means a lot of work, and the small, feathery plants required frequent weeding so they wouldn't get swallowed by thistles and garlic mustard. There's a reason these aren't perfectly suited to our climate or to the way we garden.

In 2014, we're looking for a little more bang for our buck. There's satisfaction in being economical and sustainable. I'll step into the chicken coop with kitchen scraps, spent grain from brewing beer, and whey leftover from making cheese, and I get to walk out with a pocket full of eggs, white and blue and brown, some so recently laid that they're still warm, all with richest golden yolks I've ever seen. It feels so rewarding, and I get one step further away from the stereotype of the wasteful American consumer. I feel like part of a primal network of people, animals, and the land.

We grew these hops for Man Skirt Brewing,
and we feed his spent grain to the chickens. Everybody wins!

Right now we see glimpses of it: growing some hops for the brewer who gives us his spent grain that we feed to the chickens, who give us eggs, some of which we give back to the brewer. Using day-old cream from our neighbor's farm stand to make butter, trading honey for vegetables from our farmer friends. Recently we've been going a little deeper into the system by helping to establish a local seed library, and launching LocalShare, a project that uses farmers' culls to feed people who don't have access to fresh, local produce.

We'll still be growing mostly heirloom varieties using biodynamic and permaculture practices, but there's nothing wrong with trying to save a bit of money and our own energy. So we'll be growing fewer varieties and bulking up on veggies that produce and store well--broccoli, potatoes, carrots, plum tomatoes, green beans. Veggies we can't get enough of, that aren't labor intensive, that won't go to waste. This is what we're working toward--closing the loop, eliminating waste, helping ourselves and others.

To that end, we're taking suggestions for what we should grow next year. What do you grow that's delicious, prolific, easy, and well suited to zone 6b? Because heaven forbid we should do anything that's easy.

LocalShare pepper cull from Caristi Farms--185 pounds total.
Most was distributed to food pantries, but we made
50 pounds into pickles and hot pepper jam.

Raising the Roof

We can't leave well enough alone. You probably know this about us. It seems like every year we embark on some big project. Last year it was the chickens, before that the bees. We made a pinky swear that we'd take it easy in 2014--no big projects. Well, it turns out we're untrustworthy, because this showed up at our house today:

Xmas came a little early this year. Yup, we're building a greenhouse. And in order to impose some kind of order on the garden, we're also putting down environmentally friendly landscape fabric to widen the paths and attempt to keep some of the weeds at bay. We have long wanted to extend our growing season and create an environment that's friendlier to our favorite heat-seeking plants like eggplant and peppers, as well as our potted kaffir lime, lemongrass, and baby fig trees. Plus a greenhouse will give us the space we do desperately need for starting seeds and storing garden tools. No more making potting mix in the dank basement or filling seed trays in the living room! We had talked about cold frames and a hoop house, but finally we just bit the bullet and got the most useful and versatile structure we could think of. After all, the greenhouse is just one layer of protection; incorporating cold frames and row covers inside the greenhouse extends the season even further.

Rhubarb Star

 

I'm a Real American Hero, managing to harvest 8 pounds of rhubarb tonight in the torrential rain before the lightning came uncomfortably close. And oh look, here's a snapshot of me walking in the door soaking wet.

I'd been putting this off for too long, and all the plants have already thrown up flower stalks, which I dutifully hacked off. If the plants flower, then they'll devote their energy to reproducing instead of making more tart, snappy stalks for us to eat. If we let the flowers mature and go to seed, then they'll produce babies that won't produce reliably true to type. So now there's lots of rhubarb-ginger jam and my mom's famous rhubarb bread and rhubarb-rosemary cocktails to be made. Onward!

Glass Half Full

We managed to sow all our cover crops this weekend, blanketing most of the beds with field peas and a couple others with an oat/clover mix once the peas were gone. This is the first year we’ve managed to do this consistently and in a timely fashion; previous attempts have been kind of sporadic. We’re motivated by the visible benefits from limited cover cropping last year. We can see the improvements compared with the beds that weren’t cropped: looser soil with better tilth, less erosion, better water retention.

Of course, it’s not all coming up roses at Chez Markate. Although I try to be meticulous with my seed starting, I’m having all sorts of trouble with some of my seedlings. In the past, I’ve started peppers, tomatoes, and basil in mini soil blocks that heat up quickly to 70 degrees or more. This year is no different, but the results certainly are. Germination has been great, but I’m finding many of the emerging seedlings are failing to take root. The tiny plants have been bowing over and petering out within a day or two of sprouting. The effect is somewhat different from damping off fungus, where the base of the stem withers visibly. Even the seedlings that have survived are anemic and slow growing. I’m pretty sure there’s something wrong with the soil block mix I made for the mini blocks.

We expect to get only about 15 tomato plants and a handful of peppers--a poor showing compared with past years. Fortunately, there are many local sources of live plants for the nightshade family. I just put in an order for 25 pepper plants from Cross Country Nursery and managed to score most of the same varieties we were planning for this year. We also plan on attending the annual Catalpa Ridge plant sale at Lafayette Village in May to augment our tomato stock. We used to do all our tomatoes and peppers from purchased live plants, so in a sense we’ve come full circle. The alliums and brassicas continue to thrive, fortunately, so we’re currently trying on our ‘glass half-full’ hat for size.

It helps that this week truly feels like spring. Look how happy our rhubarb is!

Glimpse of Green

Leeks sprouting from seeds we saved two years ago--success!

Our floor-to-ceiling seed-starting rack is filling up quickly with flats of onions, leeks, and spinach. Next up are lettuce and peas, radishes and broccoli. Mark is mixing up huge tubs of seed-starting medium that have become permanent fixtures in the kitchen and, confusingly, look remarkably edible once they've been made into blocks. It's a little confusing, even for me, to keep what look like huge pans of brownies on the counter. Everything is germinating well, and the weather is seasonal but generally cooperative.

In even more exciting news, our shipment of baby chicks arrives tomorrow! We're dizzy with excitement and have the guest room all fixed up for them--literally.

Pickin' Chickens

It’s good to have goals, right? It makes sense to begin each year with some objectives in mind for the coming growing season. As usual, 2012 left us with plenty of room for improvement but also lots of enthusiasm for the future. Here’s the short list for 2013:

Chickens! This is the big one, and we just placed our order for chicks this week. They’re scheduled to arrive at the end of February. Mark has already done a lot of prep in anticipation of these little dynamos’ arrival--they have a coop that we hope is secure, their own little nesting boxes. We’re hoping the birds will improve the health of our soil through tilling, manure, and composting. Chickens do a lot of scratching and rooting around, which happens to mimic exactly what we’d do to prepare a garden bed for growing. They’ll generate manure that will enrich that same soil, and they also process a lot of waste biomass into compost while they search for food. And then, you know: EGGS. Kate is already entertaining fantasies of the kids collecting dozens of eggs in old-fashioned wire baskets every morning and not breaking a single one. The key word here being fantasy.

One of the coolest parts of this process was using Mother Earth News’s Pickin’ Chicken app to choose the chickens based on their characteristics. That was pretty fun. We chose Dominique and Wyandotte breeds because they’re known for having decent foraging abilities, being well suited to our climate, laying well, and having a peaceable temperament that’s resistant to curious children. Unlike some people who choose their chickens because they look like they’re wearing pants--you know who you are. But big questions remain: Should we name all of them? And if so, what? Should we have a theme? Please weigh in on the comments.

Next up: perennial vegetables. Mark expanded the size of the hugelkultur mounds in autumn with the hopes of adding some more perennial vegetables this spring. Reading Eric Tonsmeier’s book Perennial Vegetables and attending one of his lectures has inspired him to rely more on perennial gardening for diversity and time savings. We’ll be adding exciting and obscure veggies like sea kale, turkish rocket, sorrel, and even some more rhubarb to the hugelkultur, filling in the gaps with a range of perennial flowers to keep the beneficial insects happy.

Finally, we’re going to focus more on keeping the plants content, which is code for MORE WEEDING. There are bound to be disappointments every year, of course, but I think we missed out on some of our favorites like beans, potatoes, and basil last year because we fell behind in keeping the weeds at bay as the end of summer came and got overwhelmed with harvesting and preserving.

Right now we're keeping warm by perusing seed catalog porn, and next up will be the big compendium of all the varieties of vegetables, flowers, and herbs we'll be planting this year. Planning the garden is like a slow IV drip sustaining us until we see some green again--besides last year's Asian mustard greens still alive under the snow. Kate is already asking how soon till we start the first seedlings. Answer: Not soon enough.

Last Hurrah

The garden's last hurrah before Friday night's killing frost. I can't believe we're here already--too soon for my taste.

Going to Seed

I've been hearing the same refrain several times a day: Where did the summer go? At Markate Estates we're knee-deep in tomatoes, making confit, sauce, ketchup, salsa, gazpacho, and canning like crazy. The Titan sunflowers, which grew to a towering eight feet this year, are already hanging their heavy heads. We're still waiting for the seeds to darken and dry, though, so we can harvest and eat them. A friend told us that the entire sunflower head can be roasted and eaten as a delicacy, but we haven't attempted that yet.

Three cheers for the ground cherries that are finally dropping off their bushes! But I'm still in denial about the pumpkins; a couple of them are already ripe! My brain is unable to make the transition from summer to fall just yet. And we have three more weeks to go till the autumnal equinox. I'm in no hurry for the bounty of summer to trail off, even if processing all these tomatoes is a full-time job.

I took these photos yesterday at dusk, in my favorite light with my favorite lens. Man, I love our garden, even when the overgrowth is trying to swallow me whole.

 

 

The Jungle

As you can see, this is the time of year when the garden starts to take on a life of its own. Eight-foot-tall sunflowers, watermelons as big as basketballs, and a bumper crop of tomatoes on the verge of ripeness. We're steeling ourselves for the weeks of desperate round-the-clock canning. Not that I'm complaining. We just have to keep telling ourselves that it's okay to feel out of control sometimes.

Fortunetelling

I see a number of feathered friends in your near future.

Baked Torta with Spring Greens

Right now our garden is exploding with good things to eat, and after waiting so long for spring to arrive, I can’t bear to waste a single lettuce leaf. Our bi-weekly share of amazing produce from Genesis Farm has also begun, so on occasion I’ll find myself with a fridge full of greens as well as bags full of them littering the kitchen floor. Like today, for example. When this situation arises, I do not panic. Our family can only eat so many salads, so I turn to this trusty recipe for a warm, flavorful torta that uses up to three pounds of spring greens and garlic. Served with a big communal bowl of snap peas that the kids gobbled in minutes flat, it was perfect for today’s cool, rainy weather.

This is a significantly adapted version of Marcella Hazan’s Baked Escarole Torta from her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I don’t often use recipes to cook Italian food, but when I do, Hazan is my guru.

Baked Torta with Escarole and Chard

• 2 2/3 cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 scant teaspoon active dry yeast, dissolved in 1 cup lukewarm water
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 to 3 pounds fresh escarole, chard, kale, or spinach
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 teaspoons chopped garlic (or 4 stalks garlic greens, or 2 heads young garlic, or even 1 cup chopped garlic scapes)
• 3 tablespoons capers
• 10 oil-cured olives, pitted and quartered
• 7 flat anchovy fillets, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts or chopped walnuts

1. Mound the flour in a bowl (or on a work surface, if you’re feeling confident) and make a hollow in its peak. Put the salt, a few grindings of pepper, the dissolved yeast, and the olive oil into its peak. Pull together and knead for about 8 minutes by hand or in a standing mixer.

2. Shape the kneaded dough into a ball and put it into a lightly floured bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp, doubled-up cloth towel and put it in a warm, protected corner until the dough has doubled in bulk, 1 to 1½ hours.

3. Preheat the oven to 375°F and prepare a rack in the uppermost position.

4. While the dough is rising, prepare the filling. Wash the greens and slice thinly into 1-inch pieces. Put the olive oil and garlic in a large sauté pan, turn the heat to medium, and cook the garlic, stirring, until it becomes colored a pale gold. Add the greens, turning once or twice to coat it well. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for 10 minutes, turning from time to time. If the pan juices are watery, turn the heat up and reduce them quickly. Stir the capers, and then the olives, into the escarole. Remove from heat. Stir in the anchovies and nuts. Taste for salt, pour the contents of the pan into a bowl, and set aside to cool.

5. When the dough has doubled in bulk, divide it into 2 unequal parts, one twice the size of the other. Roll out the larger piece of dough into a circular sheet large enough to line the bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan. To simplify transferring this to the pan, roll the dough out on a piece of lightly floured wax or parchment paper.

6. Smear the inside of the springform pan with butter. Transfer the large circular sheet of dough to the pan, covering the bottom and letting it come up the sides. Smooth the dough, flattening and evening off any particularly bulky creases with your fingers.

7. Pour all the filling from the bowl into the pan and level it off with a spatula.

8. Roll out the remaining piece of dough until it is large enough to cover the top of the pan. Lay it over the filling, covering it completely. Press the edge of the top sheet of dough against the edge of the sheet lining the pan. Make a tight seal all around, folding any excess dough toward the center.

9. Place on the uppermost rack of the preheated oven and bake until the torta swells slightly and the top becomes colored a pale gold, about 45 minutes. When you take it out of the oven, unlatch the pan’s spring, and remove the hoop. Allow the torta to settle a few minutes before loosening it from the bottom and transferring it to a serving platter. Serve either lukewarm or at room temperature.

Two Hearts That Beet As One

Leaf beets, where have you been all my life?

Mark and I recently had a revelation similar to the one a couple of years ago when we discovered ground cherries. Intrigued by a rave review in the Fedco catalog, we ordered some leaf beet seeds to supplement our spinach crop, which always seems to peter out too early in the season.

Leaf beets are basically beets that don't have an edible root. But the leaves are completely delicious, and I actually like them more than spinach. They don't squeak between your teeth, they're a little more succulent than spinach, and the flavor is unexpectedly savory, almost salty. The whole family chowed down on a big bunch at dinner tonight, and I didn't hear a single complaint from the kids.

Internet wisdom tells me that leaf beets are an ancient vegetable that lost popularity once spinach came on the scene, but I don't get it. Why eat spinach when you can have these tasty, crunchy leaves instead? They're even more heat tolerant than spinach and can grow right through the summer, like chard. And they're prolific as all get-out, not spindly like spinach plants can be.

I'm already brainstorming recipes.

Promises, Promises

I often get impatient in the spring, my mind jumping ahead to harvest time. But it's easy to forget how overwhelming August and September can be: trying to keep the garden under control, canning all that produce, and planting fall crops.

Spring is so full of promise; nothing has gone seriously wrong yet, and I can blithely imagine that the deer won't eat our gooseberries, that beetles won't chew on the eggplants, that the tomatoes won't succumb to end rot and we'll actually have time to pick and process them all instead of leaving some to wither on the vine because we're so frazzled.

In May I can take pictures of flowers and enjoy their winks and whispered innuendos. Consider me seduced.

Chive flowers

First-year strawberries

Little lettuce volunteers from last year's plants that went to seed.

Pea shoots--yum.

My new friend the violet.

Mark's hugelkultur experiment:
growing potatoes in mounds of old wood.
More to come about this soon.

Blueberries: From Alkali to Juicy Pie

Happy blueberry bush in our garden.

What’s that you say? This is supposed to be a gardening blog and you haven’t seen any actual gardening for a while? I’m glad you mentioned it, because it’s not that we haven’t been doing any. Mark has been itching to talk about the extensive array of berries we’ve planted this year, especially the blueberries. He’s also been taking advantage of his new headlamp to stay out in the garden until 9pm. (Hilarious photos to come.)

Blueberries are about as quintessentially “Jersey” as the Turnpike and the Sopranos. When it comes to growing them, the southern part of the state is the perfect environment with its distinctively acidic soil thanks to all those pine needles. While most fruit plants enjoy soil that is neutral to slightly acidic, blueberry bushes prefer to plant their feet in well-drained sandy loam, rich in organic material, with a pH range of about 4-5. This habitat abounds in the evergreen forests of Atlantic, Burlington, and Ocean counties, but not so much in western Morris county. A certain amount of backbreaking toil is required--music to my ears!

At first glance, it’s tempting to lump blueberries in with members of the bramble family (raspberries, blackberries, etc.), mostly because of the similar ways we use the berries. I mean, how hard can they be to grow? Wild raspberries grow like weeds around here, and even the cultivated varieties thrive in less-than-ideal conditions. But the highbush blueberry plant, a member of the heath family, differs in many ways from your garden-variety bramble. In addition to the acidic soil requirements, blueberries grow as individual bushes and take longer to establish than raspberries. That said, once established, blueberry plants can produce for decades, and wild version are every bit as successful as their wineberry counterparts given the right conditions. And that’s the key with blueberries: getting the conditions right.

My first blueberry experiment began 2 years ago with about 8 plants and a new garden space. I read up on planting techniques and made a plan. The biggest challenge was to get the soil pH down from neutral to below 5 if possible. A lot of sources recommend using peat moss and sulfur, so I merrily dug 8 holes in hard-pack, rocky clay and filled them with with some sphagnum moss, sulfur granules, and some native “soil” for good measure. I planted each seedling, watered them once or twice, then dutifully ignored them for the next 24 months; three or four survived but never showed much growth, and the others called it quits altogether. They turned into casualties of an over-ambitious start to an overwhelming new garden. I’m sure it won’t be the last horticultural atrocity I commit.

Flash-forward to Plan B. My latest scheme is influenced an orchardist friend who has actual experience growing blueberries just a few miles from my house. The first step I took was to spread some sulfur, peat moss, and pine needles over the planting area last fall. The idea here is to try to slowly--not instantly--lower the pH of the entire area. Then, instead of digging individual holes for each plant, I excavated a 35’ long trench to a depth of about 12” and filled it with peat moss, sand, some native soil, and a little compost. Importantly, NO sulfur went into the hole. Sulfur is apparently a very slow-acting agent that can take years to activate, and it does not belong in intimate contact with plant roots. Next, I planted the blueberries and dumped lots of compost on top of the filled-in trench and around each plant. I mulched the entire planting area with cardboard [Kate: This lends our garden a delightful hobo je ne sais quoi."] and then dumped straw on top for weed control. The finishing touch is a mound around each blueberry plant made of pine needles and forest litter I dug up from our yard. I’ve even managed to water each plant deeply twice during this hellacious drought we’ve had.

For “fun,” I dug up the surviving stragglers of Blueberries v1.0 and planted them at the end of the new row. I could be imagining things, but I feel like these three old veterans have already perked up noticeably this year at bud-break. Perhaps they’ve been biding their time, waiting to explode with fecundity when conditions turned favorable. Or perhaps I’m delusional and simply enjoy using disgusting adjectives. Only time will tell.

Infusiasm, Part II

The two infusions, much reduced.

In Infusiasm: Part I I merrily picked bucketsful of violets and honeysuckle, then poured boiling water over and let everything sit overnight. Today I finished the experiment.

The syrups turned out to be subtle but surprisingly flavorful. I wasn't sure what to expect from the violets, since one friend warned that commercial violet syrup, like Monin, tastes (in her esteemed opinion) like old lady perfume. I'm relieved to report this is not the case with the homemade version. It's floral and a little fruity without tasting like you ate a handful of potpourri.

The honeysuckle tastes like a garden with bees in it. It's so lovely I had to immediately mix a couple of drinks with each. First I tasted them both with sparkling water on ice (so refreshing!), then I got serious. Here's what I came up with:

A splash of lemon juice turned the violet
syrup from dingy purplish-gray to true violet.

Violet syrup with sparkling water, Cointreau, and a squeeze of lemon. So delicate and ladylike! Not at all perfumey like violet candy.

Honeysuckle syrup with Courvoisier and mint has a lot of personality. You get the floral honey and mint flavors with an edge of cognac that gives the drink some structure.

You can't go wrong mixing either of these with prosecco, too.

You may be wondering which one of these delightful cocktails accompanied me into my office to write this blog post. Gentle reader, it was the violet. Who can resist such a beautiful color?

I'm left with a few questions: Are the violets I used less potent than most? Does it matter that I collected the honeysuckle blossoms on a rainy day? I wonder if the syrups will be stronger if I pick them under precisely the right conditions. I'm happy with the results, but I plan to keep experimenting. Here's my recipe.

Flower Syrup

(Folks, make sure your flowers are safely edible before you start.)

2 cups packed blossoms

3 cups boiling water

1 cup sugar 

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Pick your flowers, using only good quality fresh flowers. Cover with boiling water and let steep anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. Strain through a sieve, then simmer gently until the infusion is reduced to 1 cup. Make a 1:1 sugar syrup by adding the sugar and the lemon juice. Pour into a glass jar and use right away or store in the fridge. These are safe for canning; simply put in a hot water bath for 15 minutes and store in a cool, dry place for up to a year.

Makes 1 1/2 cups.

Peter Rabbit can't choose a favorite!

Infusiasm

Aren't you lucky? You get to watch me perform my latest kitchen experiment in real time. Not much is ready to harvest in our garden yet besides rhubarb and mint, so I'm taking my impatience far afield and going foraging. We were treated to the deluxe version of foraging a couple of weeks ago at a little ramp festival in the woods with the best local ingredients prepared by some chefs who really knew what to do with them. My humble contribution was some Golden Treasure syrup I had made from late-summer yellow tomatoes and herbs from our garden--rosemary, some basil when it starts to flower and take on an anise flavor, and the season's first apples. My friend Ben made a mouth-watering sweet-tart sauce for barbequed local pork by pureeing some of my rhubarb together with this syrup, and it was completely amazing.

This got me thinking about infused syrups, taking inventory of what's in season now. Spring has busted out so quickly that I'm afraid if I blink I'll miss something unique and then be forced to wait another year to cook up some obscure recipe. Last year I wanted to try violet jelly but was preoccupied by the garden. I've always loved the fragrance and taste of honeysuckle, too; pulling the sweet stamens out and eating them was a favorite pastime when I was a kid.

The violets are all over our lawn, so it was easy to collect them. They're not very fragrant, though, so how can they make a perfumed syrup? Guess I'll find out soon enough. This week I've been seeing honeysuckle bushes in bloom wherever I go, tempted to pull over when I'm driving and sniff them to my heart's content. Today I picked a huge jarful of blossoms that turned out to be only 1.5 ounces, half of what I needed for the recipe I'm using. No matter, I'm forging ahead!

Step 1: Make a kind of flower tea by pouring boiling water over the flowers and letting them steep overnight.

I promise to post the results whether this succeeds or fails.