Jun 252013
 

by Avis Licht

It’s two days after the Summer Solstice and the garden is coming into fruition. I am feeling so grateful to have a garden, to spend time in it, and to have so much wonderful food come out of it.  We also have  flowers everywhere, to bring color and joy. And to invite our friends the birds, butterflies and bees. It’s a regular gathering place for the multitudes. This unusual June rain is a gift beyond compare. Those of you in other parts may get summer rains. Maybe even too many.  But here in California a summer rain is what we call a gift from heaven. Thank you to the Powers that Be.

Here are some photos I took this morning in the rain.

We will have a bumper crop of apples this year.

We will have a bumper crop of apples this year.

 

Daylily

Daylily buds are edible and highly prized in Chinese cooking

 

Grapes

Thin the grapes early to make room for them to grow full size


Cherry Belle Radish

Radishes – Harvest early and often

Harvesting raspberries

In an unusual June rain, we adore picking raspberries.

Basil

Growing basil in pots is easy. In the ground sometimes basil gets eaten by earwigs and slugs. In the pots not so much.

Delicata squash

My seedlings of the squash have germinated beautifully and will start growing rapidly after this rain. The white flower is nicotiana, a fragrant night blooming flower.

Miniature rose

These roses have been blooming for months. After cutting them back a few weeks ago, they are starting all over again. I put these small roses all over the garden for beauty and delight. Rose petals are used in many culinary ways.

IMGP0058Variegated thyme

Variegated thyme provides a wonderful leaf contrast and I use it in cooking. I grow it near the strawberries as a companion plant.

Kale

Even though my kale has a few munching holes in it, it’s still great to eat. I don’t worry about a few pecks here and there.

Raspberries

Raspberries are easy to grow and I feel rich when we eat them. They’re expensive to buy, and cheap to grow! Watch out though, they like to spread themselves around the garden. Read about them in this post:

Squash blossom

Your plants will have many blossoms, and we often get way too many zuchinnis. So why not eat the blossoms? They’re delicious. Here are some ways to cook them: Squash blossom with ricotta.

Cucumber blossom

Once they start blossoming you can expect to get cucumbers soon and often. I plant 4 or 5 varieties, including lemon, Persian, Armenian,Thai and pickling. We love our cucumbers.

Blueberries starting to ripen

Given plenty of water, the blueberries are growing large and plump and we will harvest them over a long period of time. One of the best shrubs for the edible landscape. Read more on blueberries in this post.




Apr 092012
 
Japanese eggplant

Eggplant with basil and tofu anyone?

by Avis Licht

When deciding what to plant in your garden, in addition to the obvious parameters of site and climate, you can have fun with ideas based on what kind of food you like to eat.  Are you Italian/pizza lovers? Is your favorite dinner a Mexican style salsa/burrito/tomale? Why not plant a theme garden based on your favorite meals?  To make that homemade pizza sauce you could plant different heirloom varieties of paste tomatoes, with 3 different types of peppers and quantities of flavorful herbs.

When deciding on the vegetables for your style of garden, you can also look up recipes and find out the best herbs for your dishes.  Instead of  going from store to store trying to find the right herb, you could just go out and pick it fresh.

Asian herbs include: Chinese chives, coriander, cilantro, ginger, Thai basil, lemongrass, peppermint, sorrel  and dill. Asian cuisine is vast and covers many countries, but there are some herbs like the lemongrass that have a very particular flavor which can be hard to find in stores.  Although it is a tropical herb and doesn’t live in climates below 30 deg F. you can treat it as an annual and it will give you plenty of leaves.

Lemon grass

Beautiful in the edible landscape, Lemongrass is an unusual and wonderful herb for Thai food.

Herbs that are common to many types of cuisine and easy to grow include: onions, cilantro, garlic and basil. Mediterranean herbs like rosemary, marjoram, oregano, parsley, sage, thyme and bay leaves are easy to grow and should be in everyone’s garden.  It’s hard to describe the difference between fresh and dried herbs to those who don’t use fresh herbs.  I guess it’s like the difference between breathing in the fresh air at the ocean and using an oxygen tank with tubes up your nose. Well, that may be a little extreme, but you get my drift.

Thai Basil

Thai Basil has a unique flavor- grown with beans in this photo

Some unusual vegetables that you would use in Chinese and Japanese cuisines include bok choy, Napa cabbage, daikon radish, green onions, snow peas and soybeans. You can find seeds for these plants in any of the catalogs in my Resource page.

For a Mediterranean garden you would plant all of the following:  tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers,asparagus, Tuscan kale, Savoy cabbage, radicchio, endive, artichokes, zucchini, fennel, bell peppers.

For Mexican cooking, legumes (black beans, pinto beans), corn, and a variety of peppers (poblano, jalapeno, ancho, serrano) are key. And don’t forget the squashes. They’re easy to grow, taste great and keep well, (that would be winter squash).

beauty in the vegetable garden

Themed gardens are beautiful as well as productive

Stay tuned for landscape plans for theme gardens. Subscribe to my blog and you won’t miss any of the information you need to keep your garden healthy, beautiful and bountiful.

Here’s a great recipe I found for Homegrown Pizza Sauce – all ingredients from the garden:

How to make Homegrown Pizza Sauce

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Ingredients

“I’ve always made pizza sauce based on my mother’s recipe, starting with a can of tomato sauce. This year, I started with paste tomatoes from my garden with great success. You’ll notice that the amounts in the ingredient table below are rough; please add veggies and herbs according to your taste

  • 3 pounds very ripe tomatoes, washed, stemmed, quartered, and seeded
  • 1 yellow onion, very small dice
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tbl. dried oregano
  • 1 tbl dried thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tbl. olive oil
  • sea salt, black pepper, and sugar to taste.
  1. Place quartered tomatoes in large saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently. The tomatoes will let go of a surprising amount of juice.
  2. Remove from heat and strain off solids. Set solids aside and return juice to the stove.
  3. Simmer juices, uncovered, until reduced.
  4. Add tomato solids back into the saucepan and stir in all remaining ingredients except sugar.
  5. Bring sauce back to a simmer and cook, stirring regularly, until the onions are translucent and the sauce has reduced to the desired consistency.
  6. Taste.
  7. Add a small amount of sugar, mix thoroughly, and taste again. Repeat until you achieve an acidity that tastes good to you.
  8. Sauce should keep in the refrigerator for about a week, in the freezer for a few months, or may be canned.” From www.opensourcefood.com.

Don’t forget, it’s not too late to start your Spring Garden. To help you I’ve put together a handbook on the steps you can take to be successful in your garden. Included is information on soil, sites, annuals, perennials, fruits and much more. This is a 20 page guide to get you started on your edible landscape. Forty years of gardening has given me plenty to share. If you have enjoyed my blog, be sure to get my booklet.

$4.99 – such a deal

Spring Garden Made Easy

Jan 042012
 
A garden full of herbs for birds, butterflies and humans

by Avis Licht

A garden full of herbs for birds, butterflies and humans

Herbs are wonderful plants for the edible landscape -beautiful and healthy

 Herbs have many uses in the landscape.  Many have a culinary use, many are used medicinally, they are generally easy to grow, their flowers are an excellent source of pollen and nectar for birds, bees and insects, often drought resistant and long lived.  Well, it doesn’t get much better than that for a multi use plant.

In the two previous posts, I talked about making garden design decisions based on your climate and place and on your desires. When choosing plants to fill in the landscape you not only want to use plants that are pretty and useful, but also “belong” there.  By belonging I mean that they fit in with the style of your garden, whether formal or informal, that they will thrive in the conditions and that they work in the scale of the garden.

A mixed herb and ornamental garden

Herbs are interplanted with ornamentals near the house for easy access

This is a newly planted garden.  The herbs are young and small. When mature they will fill in the area and create a feeling of beauty and lushness. When the herbs have been harvested at the end of the season, there will still be ornamental plants in the garden that keep it looking good over the winter. This is one of the best tricks in an ornamental edible landscape design.  Combine your annuals with shrubs and perennials so that you don’t have periods in the garden that look bare.

Purple and Green Basil

Mix your foliage colors for interest

Salvia, basil, parsley and thyme

Multiple herbs, both annual and perennials work together

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This particular herb garden has thyme, sage, oregano, tarragon, dill, chives, parsley, cilantro and several varieties of  basil. We also used rosemary and thyme to cascade over the wall, with nasturtiums for added color.  Many of these plants have edible flowers. The herbs grow quickly and fill in the garden.

The ornamental plants in this bed include Azalea, Pieris, ferns, and Polygala. These are shade loving plants, which we put closer to the tree. We put the herbs in the sunniest part of the bed.  It was a little tricky, but you can see by the photos that the herbs grew well even in part shade.

Rosemary is larger and long lived

Give your Rosemary plenty of sun and room to grow

Nasturtiums cascading over wall

Mixed annual and perennial herbs cover the retaining wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few of the herbs that are planted more for beauty than culinary use include lavender, salvias, yarrow and ornamental oreganos.  By going to your local nurseries you will find appropriate herbs for your garden’s beauty and health. Peruse some of the catalogs in the Resource page of my website and you will find many herbs both common and unusual that will be just right for your garden.

Pink Yarrow - Achillea millefolium

Pink yarrow lives a long time and requires little care or water

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 262011
 

Nasturtiums cascading over wall (click to enlarge)

There are some beautiful, easy to grow and fun to use herbs for the edible landscape. In the photo above, you see the Nasturtium (Traepolum sp.) hanging over a concrete retaining wall. This is one of the multi- purpose edibles that everyone should know about.  It is pretty, it grows easily and different part of the plant can be used. Leaves of nasturtiums are tangy and great in salads. The flowers have a spicy flavor and you can use them to decorate many dishes and also eat them. In mild climates they last through the winter, and in cold climates you should treat them as an annual.

Close up of Nasturtiums

Mixed herbs in the landcape

In the photo above, you will find thyme, sage, basil, both green and purple, parsley and tarragon. You should place these herbs close to the house where you can come out of the kitchen while you’re cooking and harvest them right as you need them. Fresh herbs are SO much better than dried herbs.

They make a nice edging along the deck and are easy to reach.

Purple and Green Basil

This is a close up of purple Basil.  It has a dramatic color in the leaf, but tastes the same as traditional Basil.  Green Basil can be seen in the background starting to flower.  Like Nasturtiums, Basil does not overwinter in cold climates. If you plant enough, you can make a great Pesto sauce and freeze it for a wonderful winter Pasta dinner.

Follow this simple recipe: so easy and so good!

1/3 cup basil leaves, chopped

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons Parmesan, grated

3 tablespoons walnuts, chopped

1 clove garlic, sliced

Salt

Put the basil in the blender with the olive oil, cheese, walnuts, and garlic.  Blend until smooth: then season with salt.

This pesto can also be used to garnish pizza, soups or vegetable dishes.

More great herbs to follow,  check back soon.

 

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