Bugging the Bugs that Bug the Beans

About five weeks ago I started seeing something on my bush beans. I was expecting them and knew what to look for.

Those pretty yellow bumps are the eggs of a Mexican bean beetle. The adults, which I don’t have any of my own pictures of, resemble ladybugs. They are related, but the bean beetle has more of an orangey color and small spots in horizontal bands.

When the eggs hatch you can find the larvae feeding on the underside of leaves. They’re yellowish as well and are covered with spines.

The adults and larvae feeding on the leaves of the bean plants can obviously do a lot of damage. What I find interesting is that they appear to like some varieties of beans more than others. In this picture there are three rows of beans. From left to right they are Black Valentine, Jacob’s Cattle Gasless and Lina Cisco’s Birdsegg.

Notice anything? It looks like the beetles don’t especially care for the Black Valentine compared to the other two. They’re also more or less leaving my white kidney and pole lima  beans alone.

So how does one control them in an organic garden? At first I was doing the simplest approach—removing and destroying the eggs and adults whenever I found them. But given the number of bean plants I have and the fact that I can’t get to the garden every day that approach wasn’t going to do much.

Here’s one of the advantages of having a plot in a community garden. I and several other gardeners on the committee were charged with monitoring our bean plants and reported when the first eggs were spotted. Whoever was in charge of such things then ordered some predatory wasps that, being really, really pricey are out of the range of most home kitchen gardeners. The timing of the wasps’ release is very important so they are shipped overnight just before they emerge.

 

A little mesh bag is hung inside the bean plants (I moved this one out for a picture) so the wasps don’t have to go far. They’re very tiny and I haven’t seen any. The wasps lay their eggs in the bean beetle larvae where they hatch, feed on the beetle thus killing it, pupate and then emerge to start the cycle all over again on more larvae. These little buggers are gruesomely effective. This is the third year I’ve been growing beans here and the first time the beetles have been noticeable. The wasps have been used in the past and other gardeners report that they worked very well in knocking back the beetles for several years. My plants are forming beans that should mature and be harvestable. With some luck next year’s crop won’t have to suffer this kind of infestation.

Using the wasps to treat for the beetles is an example of a biological control. Do you employ biological controls in your garden?

Puzzlement in the Carrot Patch

I’m puzzled about the carrot seeds I’ve planted. I made seed tape with two varieties of seed I purchased this year following this method and planted them back during the freaky warm spell that is now decidedly over. A few days later I found a package of those cool spherical Parisian carrots on the share shelf at the community garden. They were dated for sale in 2008. In a what-the-heck moment I grabbed them and sowed them thickly in a row since I didn’t know how long carrot sees remain viable in storage. A week or more later I sowed a couple more rows of the seed tape carrots. Here’s the result.

 

See that fuzzy green strip in the middle of the five rows? Those are the old Parisian seeds planted after the supposedly fresh, seed tape seed.  There is one seedling popped up in the first seed tape planting. Otherwise nada. Several factors need to be considered here like the quality of the new seed—I did go with the “low bid,”—the interaction of the clayey soil and the tape tissue, heck, it could even be that the hi-liter I used to mark the seed locations is an inhibitor. Regardless, I’m disappointed since we were hoping to grow lots of carrots this year. It may be time to buy different seed and start all over. What do you think? I really wanted those Atomic Red carrots.

Tommy Turns 18!

Here’s Tommy on his 18th birthday. It seems like just yesterday that I tucked his little seed into a little wad of ecologically-unsustainable peat but it really has been over two weeks, eighteen whole days. Just look how he’s growing! He’s even cut his first pair of true leaves.

 

Tommy is an heirloom cultivar—a portmanteau word from cultivated+variety—of tomato called San Marzano and has a long and distinguished history. The original San Marzano tomatoes were grown in Italy in the Eighteenth Century and have been prized since then for their flavor.  Since San Marzanos are heirlooms, it means they are open pollinated. A plant of this variety will pollinate itself and produce offspring that are the same as its parents. Hybrid garden plants can’t do this. Because of this, seed can be saved from year to year. In fact, Tommy was grown from seed I saved last year from a plant I got from a friend. With luck I’ll be able to save seed again this year and keep my own supply of this line going.

Here is where Tommy will eventually make his home. This is a view looking northeast.

It’s kind of hard to see the beds with the leaf mulch still in place, but in this view you can see that garden is now twelve beds,  each of which is approximately 8’x3’ in size.  The second and third bed from the grass path there in the far corner have been reserved for the tomatoes and peppers this year. I prepared them in advance by installing the support stakes and then seeding the ground with a cover crop of buckwheat. My hope is that the buckwheat will have time to grow and be cut back before tomato and pepper planting time. It will help loosen the soil and then provide mulch.

Until then, Tommy’s got a lot of growing up to do. I’ll keep you posted on his progress in the coming weeks.

French Sorrel

One of the interesting phenomena of being able to tend the same kitchen garden year to year is the way the so-called garden seasons can overlap. Garlic planted in the fall emerges in the spring. Biennial crops can be overwintered in the ground, root cellar or crisper drawer to be replanted for seed production. Perennial herbs and fruits return--hopefully--like reliable friends every year.

 

It's that last category I used in my first fresh-harvested dish of the season. When I inspected the garden recently one of the emerging signs of life was the French sorrel plant. It's an herb I tried last year for the first time, not really knowing it was perennial. Since I was anxious to say "I cooked something from this year's garden!" I grabbed a couple leaves a week later and sliced them up.

 

 

Tasting them it was evident the fully flavor hadn’t developed yet. There was a faint hint of lemon and sourness but mostly it just tasted green. I went ahead and scrambled the leaves into some eggs with a little butter. In the end, it wasn’t offensive by any means, but I don’t think it added a whole lot either. In any case, I got my first meal featuring this year’s produce.

 

 

Now I’m curious about other uses of French sorrel. It’s a productive plant so when I read the traditional recipes for soup or salmon with sorrel sauce I don’t balk at the amount they call for. I wonder if two of my favorite g0-t0 dishes for green leaves could be adapted to accommodate it, saag and pesto. Do you cook with French sorrel? What are your favorite dishes? Please share in the comments if you have a delicious, brilliant idea.

 

Today’s leafy, spring-green post is part of Post Produce hosted by Daniel Gasteiger over at Your Small Kitchen Garden. Check it out!

Early Spring

You already know it and you’ve heard it a dozen times by now, but this weather is insane. The extended stretch of unseasonably warm weather is wreaking havoc with all manner of botanical timetables. Case in point: our Sargent cherry (Prunus sargentii) that we enjoy so much every year is blooming a full month ahead of schedule. Whatever “schedule” means anymore.  Still, it’s welcome beauty.

 

December Post Produce: Sautéed Brussels Sprouts!!!

Winter may actually be here now that we've had a couple of snowfalls. Now is when the staying power and storage characteristics that have made some crops popular is evident. When I visited the garden recently to harvest the last parsnips I also checked on the abandoned Brussels sprouts. Temperatures had been below freezing more than once so I wasn't really expecting them to be usable anymore. Mostly I wanted to get them pulled out and composted to keep the garden as tidy looking as I could, a hang-up I may work on overcoming in 2012. There were still at least a pound of tight little sprouts on the stalks just the right size for eating. I stripped them all off knocking ice pieces from inside the outer leaves as I went. A few days later we were doing a typical "what should we have for dinner?" and pulled the bag of sprouts out of the refrigerator. I was pleased to find that they weren’t mushy and watery like other vegetables that have been through freezing temperatures.

A quick sauté of lamb gyro sausage we had laying around with onions, red chili flakes and cherry tomatoes made a delicious and colorful dinner. There are still some sprouts in the fridge waiting for the next meal. I’m thinking they’ll probably accompany one of the local, free-range chickens we’ve got stashed in the freezer along with the last of the turnips.

This fascinating dish was brought to you for Post Produce for Daniel’s Your Small Kitchen Garden. Check it out for more gardening, cooking and preserving inspiration.

Not What I Expected

Today I made what was probably my last trip to the garden for the year. The aim was to harvest the last of the parsnips before the ground freezes much more. There were only a handful left. The few that I had dug up previously were really tasty. They were also surprisingly long and straight considering how much clay there is in the garden’s soil. Not so with today’s harvest! Most of these roots were forked and twisted like crazy. Only one was somewhat straight. A couple had wound around each other and intertwined but I managed to wiggle them apart. Another reminder that if I’m going to grow more root crops next year like I plan to I’m going to have to do some more soil prep.

Home-Grown Black Bean Chili

There really isn't much to this recipe but a friend asked about it so I thought I'd try writing it out. It's just something simple I threw together to use some fresh shelled black beans I had on hand. My Black Valentine bushes produced a second flush of pods late this summer that didn't have time to ripen and dry before the cold weather hit. You can, of course, cook dry beans to use or even resort to canned beans if you absolutely have to.

• 2 teaspoons canola oil
• 1/2 medium white onion, diced
• 1/4 cup peppers finely diced -- blend sweet and hot to taste
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 teaspoons chili powder
• 2 cups diced whole tomatoes
• 2 cups cooked black beans
• salt

Heat canola oil in a saucepan and in it sauté the onion and peppers. When they're softened, add a couple cloves of minced garlic and chili powder. Sauté half a minute more. Add tomatoes and cook until they're soft. Dump in the black beans and simmer gently to blend the flavors, about 20 minutes. Salt to taste and serve. When I made this I purposely tried to primarily use produce from my own garden and did pretty well. Only the oil, chili powder and salt were purchased. I'm looking into making my own chili powder but it's going to require a better cumin crop than I had this year--which would be any cumin at all. I was inspired to try the bit of frying the powder with the first round of  veggies from a lot of the Indian recipes I've made. I believe the theory is that the more intense "dry" heat brings out the flavor and toasts the spices before adding the liquid component. In any case, this was tasty for being so simple. Doubtless there are many variations I could try, especially in the home-grown vegetable department.

Post Produce: Peppers!

I'm going to spare you all the highly, excessively alliterative content I considered including in this post. Suffice it to say I'm dealing with a plethora of peppers as I participate in my first Post Produce. A couple days ago I finally called the pepper harvest over and harvested every last one of them. We may have some sunny days but it's going to stay cold and the chances of many more of them growing appreciably or even ripening are pretty slim. I selected a good quantity for freezing and then, faced with this abundance I decided it was time to try pickling some.


The first recipe I used was the basic one for hot peppers in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. It's a simple solution of vinegar and water flavored with garlic. I mixed it up by using different peppers, treatments and additional vegetables. Some recipes I had looked at called for blistering and peeling the peppers first so I did that with the largest of the remaining Chervena Chushkas. These are so good this way I may have to pressure can some next year so I have them for making muhummara. For now the commercial bottled ones will have to do.


In the end I had eight pints. Three are straight, whole jalapenos, two are the roasted sweet peppers with some carrots added to one jar, two are green Italian frying peppers with celery in one and onion in the other and the last jar is plain Ancho Gigantea--none of which were actually gigantic.


With these done and out of the way I'm still left with quite a few more green Chervena Chushka peppers. For these I'll use Ball's "Pickled Pepper Mix" recipe. This version calls for slitting and brining the peppers for twelve to eighteen hours so I'm timing that process so that I can do the actual pickling tomorrow morning.


Now my only question is how we're going to eat all these pickled peppers?!

Pickled Green Tomatoes

I'm surprised how GOOD these things are! First, a little backstory. The other day as I was munching my lunch at work one of my co-workers happened through the break room and we got talking about gardens and the weather and all that stuff some people find boring but we don't. In the course of your chat I mentioned that I've got a lot of green tomatoes on the vines that I don't expect to ripen despite the nice warm spell we're having. She then told me about the pickled green tomatoes that were served at her daughter's recent wedding. I had one of my (frequent) "Oh, duh!" moments as she enlightened me to something I could be doing with some of that unripe fruit.

As soon as I had a chance I picked a small load of green San Marzanos and Sungolds and got picklin'. The recipe I used was found here. In the original sliced globe tomatoes were used. Since I actually have fewer globe types on the vine right now I opted for the varieties mentioned above. The San Marzanos I quartered lengthwise into spears and the Sungolds, some of which were actually ripe or beginning to color, I randomly halved, left whole, slitted shallowly or just cut off the discolored spot on the stem end. My thought was that I could compare the different sizes, degrees or ripeness and treatments of the fruit. I also substituted a quarter of the white vinegar in two of the jars with cider vinegar, both having an acidity of 5%. Even though I just made these pickles yesterday, I popped open the larger jar of spears and thought they taste pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Roasting Peppers -- I've Figured It Out

This year the only pepper seeds I started for planting in the garden were for an heirloom variety called Chervena Chushka. The plants turned out to be prolific producers and I was able to harvest a good number for roasting.



In the past my attempts at roasting peppers haven't been entirely successful. The idea is to char the skin so that it rubs off cleanly and easily and in the process the flesh of the pepper is rendered soft, sweet and delicious. The method I previously used consisted of taking the grid off one of the gas burners and laying/holding the pepper directly in the flame. When I tried that this time, I got the same results I always have. The skin blistered, blackened and peeled readily on the bulges of the pepper but stayed fresh and undercooked in the valleys, so to speak. I got frustrated with this process and decided to try the broiler method. I arranged the peppers on a baking sheet and positioned them as close to the broiler element as the oven rack allowed and watched closely as the wider parts began to blister and char while the tips remained red and fresh this time. This wasn't any better than the flame. Deciding that at least on the stovetop I could tediously direct the flame at the spots that obviously still needed it, I pulled the peppers from the oven. That's when the discovery happened. Now that the peppers had been pre-roasted or at least had the chill taken off them, they blistered and charred quickly and evenly in the gas flame.



After each pepper was completely roasted I placed it in a pan covered with foil to allow them to steam a little longer and loosen the skin.



After they'd all been roasted and rested, the skins slipped off ridiculously easily revealing the sweet, fragrant flesh.



In the end we stuffed them with polenta and goat cheese and served them with some nice roasted halibut and Tasty Evergreen and Sungold tomatoes also from the garden.

Tomatoes

I've wanted to write about tomatoes for a while now, but I just couldn't figure out how to approach the subject. To me, tomatoes are one of, if not the best reason to have a garden of one's own.

This season I "undertook" growing tomatoes like never before. I decided to get into cultivating them, coaxing them toward maximum production, treating them like the special, Chosen plants they are. The results have been fairly satisfying.



Have you seen the movie "Ratatouille?" Do you remember the scene where Anton Ego takes a taste of the special ratatouille and is immediately transported in his mind to a childhood moment where taste and memory meet? Tomatoes do that for me.



I can munch (if I had to) on the pathetic, bland commercial tomatoes from the grocery store all year and not feel a thing. There's nothing to them. But when I get my first, real local.,home-grown tomato of the summer my eyes close and I'm taken back. I don't know when it is, but I can picture exactly where. I'm at the supper table with my family and there's a plate of thick slices of vine-ripened tomatoes. They were, and still are, the best thing I've ever tasted in my life. Hands down.



So far the tomatoes I've harvested this summer have become snax-off-the-vine while gardening, salad items, sandwich additions and tasty side dishes all on their own. I've also cooked them into thick sauce with and without spicy local Italian sausage. Today I oven-dried a big batch which, of course, became a little batch of concentrated savory/sweet flavor. They'll be stewn on pizzas and folded into pastas over the coming months and taking me back to this time when ripe tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes are easy to come by.

Onion Bandits!

The onions have grown, to put it mildly. It shouldn't be surprising, but I can't help marveling at the fact that the wilty, pencil-thick plants I stuck in the ground a while back have turned into the pungent orbs I regard as a vital kitchen staple. A few are larger than anything I'd pick up in the grocery store, as large as a softball, or so I'm told by certain women we know.


The onions have been pulled and were curing in the sun/shade on the deck before going into storage. Unfortunately, certain striped rodents decided they would try tasting the produce. In the end they were thwarted by none other than the softball-savvy women we're lucky to have in our home right now. Garden Justice prevails, and future meals will be a testament to their bravery.

Increase

Yesterday I picked the last of one varieties of beans I grew to dry this season. It's Jacob's Cattle Gasless. As luck would have it, I had a record of how much I planted. Compared to what I harvested, discounting the bad ones I threw away, I got out twenty-four times as much as I put in. The ounce of seed I planted yielded a pound and a half of dried beans. I'm curious now to see how that yield relates to other beans.



Were I to save all these beans, plant them next year and get a comparable harvest, I would be looking at a full thirty-six pounds of beans! My guess is that that is more beans than we eat in a year. We definitely wouldn't eat the 864 pounds we'd have the year after that if I did the same.

Update: As mention here, I completely forgot to account for the beans that were planted but for whatever reason failed to grow and produce. Beans are even more productive than I realized!

A Quick Garden Update

With temperatures approaching those found on the surface of the sun and humidity in excess of 150% we haven't been spending a lot of time in the garden this week. Still, an occasional visit is necessary to make sure everything's OK and to pick the beans so that they keep producing more than we can eat. We tell ourselves we'll freeze some and eventually we will. We're currently only picking the Pencil Pod (yellow) and Royal Burgundy (purple) bush beans. The rest of the beans are being grown on to the shell or dried stage. I harvested both yesterday.



All the while I was doing it the resident hawk was all, like "OMG! You're picking beans! That is so cool!!!"



I also checked how the other crops were coming along, especially the tomatoes and peppers. I picked a couple more really ripe Sungold cherry tomatoes that went straight into dinner's salad. There are a bunch more that will be coming on soon.



The larger varieties are holding a lot of fruit right now that just needs to start turning red, except of course for the Tasty Evergreen that never will. I wonder how I'll know they're ripe. Here are either some Carbon or Italian Heirloom. I forget which.



In the pepper department the first poblano is starting to get some color on it.



It's going to be dark and tasty while the Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying Pepper near it is turning an inviting bright red.



A good bunch of Early Jalpenos are forming, too.



On the way out of the garden I passed one of the community fruit trees. It'll be interesting to see if the fruit is allowed to ripen. One of the drawbacks of community gardens is that there is pretty intense competition for shared resources. I don't even bother looking over the shared raspberry plants anymore. People are so anxious to get them before someone else does that the majority of them are picked when they just start to turn color. For the time being, the little pears are pretty and I can enjoy them at this stage just hanging on the trees.

Seeds

The way I like to describe the weather over the last couple of weeks is "less consistently wintery." Sure, there's still snow on the ground and more on the way today--accompanied by freezing rain. Yay. But there have been some warm days recently that have done a good bit of melt damage to the accumulated snow. In fact, there are some bare places near the house where the drifts had nearly reached the windows. There aren't any crocus yet. Yes, I looked.

Spring is a countable number of days away and my intention to start some seeds for the garden ahead of time has got me thinking and planning what to do and when. Seed catalogs have been arriving fairly regularly. In the depths of winter I got a little crazy and ordered dozens of them. It's a little escape to page through each one as it arrives and dream about actually picking the luscious vegetables in the pictures. However, if I read the phrase "very unique" one more time I may flip out. Most of these catalogs are going to turn out to be just references, though. I've got sources.

First, across the street from my office is an extremely well-stocked garden center. It's got everything I need in the way of seeds and later it will have started plants should my own attempts to make little seedlings fail. And, second, one of my dear friends is a serious collector of seeds who shares them generously. Consequently between the ones I've purchased, saved myself and gotten from him, I have a list so extensive it will be a miracle if I can grow even half of it. And this isn't even including the tomatoes and peppers I'll be selecting later.

Alyssum , Carpet of Snow
Arugula, Apollo
Arugula, wild
Basil, Italian Genvese
Basil, Purple Petra
Bean, Bush, Baby Lima 'White Dixie Butter'
Bean, Bush, Pencil Pod
Bean, Bush, Red Calypso
Bean, Bush, Royal Burgundy
Bean, Bush, Tavera
Bean, Fava, Windsor
Bean, Lima, Henderson Bush
Bean, Pole, Trionfo Violetto
Bean, Soy, Green, Butterbean
Beet, Bull's Blood
Beet, Burpee's Golden
Beet, Burpee's Golden
Bok Choy, White Stem
Bok Choy, Tatsoi, Rosette
Bok Choy, Tatsoi, Rosette
Broccoli Raab,
Calendula, Mixture"
Calendula, Pacific Beauty Blend
Carrot, Rainbow
Carrot, Scarlet Nantes
Cowpea, Southern, California Blackeye #5
Cucumber, Armenian Burpless
Cucumber, Japanese Soyu Burpless
Cucumber, Lemon
Cucumber, Parade
Escarole, Broadleaf Batavian
Fenugreek,
Garlic, Bavarian Purple
Garlic, PVT
Garlic, Tai Lang
Garlic, Western Rose
Gourd, Autumn Wings
Kale, Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch
Kale, Chinese, Kailaan, White Flowered
Kohlrabi, Purple and White Vienna Blend
Lettuce, Butterhead, Marvel of Four Seasons
Lettuce, Butterhead, Tom Thumb
Lettuce, Leaf, Lolla Rossa
Lettuce, Leaf, Red Sails
Lettuce, Leaf, Tango
Marigold, Starfire Signet
Melon, Charentais
Minutina,
Mustard, Ruby Streaks
Nasturtium, Peach Melba
Nho Gai, Vietnamese Coriander
Oregano, True Greek
Parsley, Italian Dark Green Flat
Parsley, Rooted, Hamburg
Parsnip, All American
Pea, Snowbird
Radish, D'Avignon
Radish, Easter Egg
Radish, Helios
Radish, Winter, Chinese Rose
Seasoning Celery, Amsterdam
Shinguku,
Silverbeet, Five Color
Spinach, Bloomsdale
Spinach, Bordeaux
Spinach, Olympia
Squash, Summer, Early Golden Crookneck
Strawberry, Alpin,
Strawberry, Alpine, Mignonette
Summer Savory,
Zinnia, Cut and Come Again

Garden Day 208

I'm kind of embarrassed about how little I've posted over the last several months. It's not for lack of material, quite the opposite. But ironically when I've got a lot of interesting things going on, I'm more likely to be doing them rather than writing about them. In any case, today I finally got up to the garden when it was actually light enough to take some pictures. For the most part, it's empty, at least of edibles.



As you can see, the dominant crop is marigolds! I'll get to those after I hit the remaining vegetable highlights. If you look over on the left side of the garden you should see a blueish-green squash. Our garden neighbor, Jeff is growing those and said we could take one. He doesn't know what kind it is, just that it's some African variety that a friend had given him. I need to look up info on how to tell when a squash is ready to pick. He said it's a pretty light, mild type.

The parsley plant got big fast! We've already made one big batch of tabouli and are set to make another. Next to the parsley, the arugula got too big before we could eat much it, but I harvest the small, inner leaves and have tried cutting whole plants back to see if we can get some more tender new growth.



This year's garden looks like it will begin and end in lettuce. A month ago, when I thought at best we had a couple of weeks left to garden I planted some greens. I wish I'd done more, especially spinach as only one plant came up and it is just now really growing. My garden notes will include a line for next year reminding me to be optimistic about the length of the season into the fall. There's little to lose in that approach.



One of the pleasant surprises of this year's garden was tatsoi. A friend gave me seeds and I didn't plant any last spring but finally did with this last round of greens. I was expecting them to be more like bokchoi with more bulb/stem than leaf, but they're not. Our plants are a little tattered yet from the hail storm but I still think they're attractive little rosettes of green. We've been enjoying it braised with garlic, ginger and galanga.



Now, about the marigolds. I planted them back when I planted the beans to keep away bean beetles. Either they worked or there just weren't any bean beetles to keep away. In any case, I greatly underestimated how much they would grow. In my shady backyard garden they never get much larger than they were when I bought them, so I planted quite a few of them fairly close together in the garden. They got huge! When I was tearing out the dead veggie plants last month I was set to rip them out, too but just couldn't because they looked so nice. Instead I decided to keep them and maybe make some garlands or a rangoli when Diwali came around. I may have to change those plans, too.



Today I noticed there were several kinds of bees, butterflies and moths feeding on the flowers. Since marigolds are so pungent I never thought of them as being attractive to insects. There are so few other flowers around now that imagine nectar is at a premium. The poor little guys' days are numbered, of course. But I just couldn't see depriving them of a source of food.



So I guess I'll leave at least some of the marigolds for a few more weeks--frost permitting. It's not like there are any vegetable plants to compete with at the moment. And they're looking remarkably good given that I haven't watered them at all during the current drought.

Pizza

Whole wheat crust, home-made tomato sauce, tallegio, kalamata olives, Hereford (three syllables) pancetta, sweet white onion, red bell pepper, herbs...

Cherry Blossoms

Garden Day 1

I've started working in our garden plot. As I mentioned before, we applied for a plot in the Eagle Heights Community Garden this season. Recently we found out we got one and this past weekend was the official opening. Yesterday I set aside an hour after work to get up there and start doing I didn't really know what, but I did know I wanted to get going. It's a good thing I dug right in.



As it turns out, our particular plot was in need of a lot of cleanup. In the foreground you can see two raised areas, the one farther back bearing a mysterious heap. Beyond them is yet another bed that spanned the whole plot, half of which belongs this year to someone we haven't yet met. It is, as the foreground bed was, covered in plastic mulch surrounding some kind of abandoned cabbagey plants. Sprinkled thickly through the paths and on the mounds are patches of quackgrass. After half an hour of desperate hoeing, cultivating and cursing (quietly--it's a family garden after all) I realized the only way to get rid of it was to painstakingly dig out each plant with a trowel. Even this way I know I'm not getting it all, but if I can set it back significantly it will help.

The mysterious heap appears to be where someone dumped what should have gone to the compost heap when they didn't feel like traveling that far. It's a mess of soil, plant parts--including more quackgrass!--and scraps of landscape fabric. I hauled some of it away but am now thinking it will be easier to just rake it out, pick out the weeds and trash and let it finish composting in place.

Day one was discouraging. I'm terribly out of shape so a single hour of chopping, digging and hauling has left me a little stiff and sore. I've decided I can't really in good conscience have the plot tilled as I had planned to. The process would just chop up and redistribute the quackgrass. So, I've got hours of trowel zen in front of me. There's no quick, brute strength solution. I'll just plod on believing there is going to be a really fantastic salad at some point in my future.

Next time: What I may grow