Lemon Renaissance

The little potted Meyer lemon tree is finally coming into its own. There is a noticeable difference this season in size and abundance.

We acquired it by mail order in February 2009. It arrived in a cardboard box with the largest quantity of Styrofoam pellets I've ever encountered. It seemed to take forever to scoop them out and slowly uncover the tiny tree with two huge yellow lemons dangling like gaudy oversize earrings from twigs that could barely support them.

We gathered about five lemons the first year which I picked too soon in my eagerness, and none the second year because they kept falling off while still dark green and the size of a fingernail.

Whence this bumper crop? Maybe the time is right; it does take fruit trees a while to get going. Or perhaps it's the effects of compost tea and rock powder.

Each winter it needs protection from the frost. I've been watching the weather carefully and covering it sometimes when the forecasts skirt too close to 32 degrees. We've had no freezes yet. Will the lemons keep ripening even when frost-kissed? The label says it produces flowers and fruit year round in USDA Zones 9 and 10. We are Zone 10 so here's hoping for a Christmas harvest. B. says just to be safe we should bring it inside and make it into our Christmas tree. For one thing, it's already decorated!

"Barnival" at Green String Farm

There's another crop of interns at Green String Farm. Last Saturday they put on their community event, so after I filled my cloth bags with lettuce and potatoes from the farm store -- there's no gardener's guilt in buying produce here to supplement our home-grown fare -- I wandered out to the "Barnival." This event was aimed at little kids so all the big kids were in costumes. Or maybe it was the lingering influence of Halloween, which is an over the top event in these parts.

Passing up the cider press (too much sugar) and the petting zoo (too crowded) I found myself at the transplant booth. Two interns (secretly dubbed by me as Sam Gamgee and Galadriel in honor of the little box of magic dirt that Galadriel bestowed on Sam) were giving away lettuce seedlings to any children who would do the transplanting themselves, right there at the booth. They kindly made an exception for a senior citizen.

With Butter lettuce seedling in hand (and secretly promising to do justice to this magic dirt), I continued my journey and found myself in the cavernous old barn which was lending its name to the event. The last time I was here, in August, this was a lecture hall. Now it was transformed into a huge storage area for the storable crops.








Admiring the ample bins of winter squash, threshed grain, and potatoes, I was glad all over again about discovering this local cornucopia. Well done, winter interns.

In Which I Discover an Ootheca

I was quietly watering the newly installed bed of fava bean seedlings that runs in a narrow strip along the back fence, when I noticed an odd protuberance from one of the fence boards. Our neighbor put up the fence just a few months ago so it still has the blond coloring of unfinished lumber. The strange little outcropping was the same color as the wood and could easily have been a knot hole or imperfection, but something about it made me look closer. It reflected light with the subtle luminosity of something alive.

To the touch it felt delicate and vulnerable -- not like wood at all, more like very fragile Styrofoam. Oval, about an inch long, with fine ridges and a large ridge down the middle like a zipper, it was firmly attached to the fence. Ahh, a new backyard mystery. What could it be?

Touching it triggered some long dormant memory of the praying mantis egg cases we kids used to find back in Virginia, along with a comical image of my mother flapping a dishcloth at swarms of tiny mantis nymphs that had just hatched out in our kitchen, hanging in wiggly green streamers from the cupboards and window ledges. We never found the egg case or figured out how it ended up in the kitchen. Clearly, an egg-laying mantis is resourceful.

The egg cases of memory were rounded and usually discovered adhering to a twig. This modern California version felt the same but looked quite different. Perhaps mantis resourcefulness includes adapting the shape of the egg case to the available surface.

On the hollyhocks only a few feet from the spot on the fence, I had recently seen a large pale green mantis with characteristic folded front legs, elongated body, narrow triangular face and bulbous eyes. The first one I had ever seen in this yard, it was gone by the time I came back with a camera.

On the internet it didn't take long at all to find photos of mantis egg cases that look exactly like the mystery object. As a bonus, I acquired a new word and a bit more insight into the whole process. The case is called an ootheca from the Greek roots for "egg" and "purse" or "pouch". It's the kind of word that carries a built in exclamation. "Ooooh, look at that, an ooooootheca!"

The mama mantis extrudes a lot of soft foamy goo to enclose her eggs. The goo hardens and becomes the ootheca, which keeps the brood safe through the winter until spring comes and hatching occurs. Evidently she can do this several times, so I am keeping my eyes open!!

First Freeze -- Last Fruits

Last night, during an all-too-short interval between a day at work and a night-time event, I found myself out in the garden with a flashlight, stripping the remaining tomatoes, eggplant, and trombetta squash off their respective plants. Freezing temperatures were predicted.

After covering the little potted Meyer lemon and bidding a fond farewell to the basil and nasturtiums, I dashed off to store the last fruits of the summer season in the garage and the kitchen. Clipped branches of tomatoes were hung in the garage, dangling above the one huge, pale beige trombetta that had managed to transition into a winter squash. The eggplant, loose tomatoes, and still-green trombettas went into the house.

This morning I went out to check on the carnage. The basil had turned black overnight, so the expected killing frost had occurred as foretold. The drooping nasturtiums were still green, as were the tomatoes, eggplant, and squash, but they all had lost their will to live, cells burst open by shards of ice that formed inside.

Meanwhile, the spinach, kale, and broccoli were standing tall: "Ah, a bit of frost -- just the refreshing pick-up we were craving."

November is the Month of Greening

In many respects November in our little corner of the cosmos behaves as a proper fall/winter month should. Days get shorter, nights get longer, cold winds and rain blow falling leaves through chill air.

But at the same time a whole other narrative unfolds. In a Mediterranean climate like ours there are really only two seasons: wet and dry. The dry season runs through what is traditionally known as spring, summer, and early fall: May through October. The wet season runs more or less from late fall to early spring: November through April.

When the first rains fall, announcing the shift from dry season to wet, the parched brown earth responds immediately with tiny shafts of new green growth pushing up through dead thatch. Out in the countryside dusty hillsides take on a pale greenish blush and gradually get covered with luminescent carpets of gaudy green.





In our backyard there are newly fallen leaves layering the ground and vigorous seedlings sprouting beside them.






Our backyard "meadow" changes -- with some help, consisting mainly of removing the dead debris -- from a stand of dried up Queen Anne's Lace, wild fennel, and mallow to a quasi-lawn: the only time of year we have what could remotely be called a lawn.






The winter garden surges: spinach, kale, lettuce, peas, broccoli, chard, leeks. The paths start filling up with lush volunteers: arugula, lettuce, kale, yard chard galore, along with the usual roster of weeds. Alongside the flourishing winter growth, the summer garden languishes as the plants turn limp and yellowed: tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, eggplants, basil.

I'm always reminded of the lines from Bob Dylan (It's Alright Ma): "He who is not busy being born, is busy dying."

Insanely Great Pasta Sauce

It was the continuous supply of eggplant that led to B.'s latest culinary breakthrough. Even though the season is just about over (after all, it's November!), the memory lingers on and will provide inspiration for next spring's planting decisions.

Two plants of Hansel eggplant and two of Fairy Tale produced gorgeous platefuls of glossy purple fruit that sat around on the dining room table, just asking to be made into something wonderful.






It wasn't the best season ever for tomatoes but there were still enough on hand (Early Girl, Black Trifele, Sun Gold, Yellow Pear) to fill their own plates and provide their own entrancing palette of color.







Since they were meant to be together -- like moonlight and music -- it was only a matter of time before they ended up simmering together in the same pan with some olive oil and crushed garlic. The little Fairy Tail teardrops didn't even need peeling, they were so tender. They disappeared completely into the sauce. The Hansels were peeled and sliced up and cooked until soft along with the tomatoes.

Sometimes B. would blanch the tomatoes first to get the skins off, and sometimes just quarter them and set them in the pan, skins and all. Pictured above is a skins-on batch. Whole basil leaves, just picked, were added towards the end of the cooking time.







Voila! A sauce that is so utterly simple yet subtle and rich with the tang of fresh tomatoes and the smokey undercurrent of eggplant, so silky it coats the noodles with flavor that lingers in the mouth and in the mind.






Another approach that draws out of the savor of the eggplant even more is to roast them whole for an hour in the oven. Just cut off the tops and prick them with a fork, coat lightly with olive oil and set them on an oiled baking sheet. Take them out when soft and collapsing into themselves, slit them open and squeeze out the yummy paste.






The eggplant is then combined with oven-roasted tomatoes. These were cooked for half an hour in an iron skillet with a layer of olive oil and some crushed garlic. When done, set the skillet on the top of the stove, add the eggplant paste and simmer gently until the mixture forms a sauce.







The roasting method produces a smoother sauce because all of the eggplant disappears into the magical meld of mouth-watering goodness.

Whatever route you take to get there, it's an insanely good pasta sauce.

Easy Refrigerator Pickles

As of early October we had a goodly pile of lemon cucumbers in the refrigerator, the last survivors after our one very prolific plant had succumbed to mildew and been removed. For months we had been eating the cukes fresh and giving them away. We were tired of them and so were our neighbors.

I had never made pickles out of anything but it seemed worth a try if it didn't take too much time. As usual, a little internet sleuthing yielded some good suggestions.

The recipe I ended up following was compiled from several sources. It had to be easy and not sweet -- no sugar. Mostly it had to be easy.







The cucumbers sliced up nicely into six cups worth. To this was added some chopped cilantro and some chopped green onion.






I brought to a boil two cups of vinegar, plus spices (1 tablespoon each of celery seed, mustard seed, and turmeric) and pickling salt (2 tablespoons), and let it cook for a minute or two.

However, this ended up being way too little liquid to fill the seven pint jars I had crammed the cucumber slices into. Perhaps I hadn't packed in the cucumbers tightly enough, or perhaps removing sugar from the recipe reduced the volume of the mixture. Anyway, I just boiled up four more cups of vinegar with more spices and salt and hoped for the best.

The filled jars were allowed to cool down and then put into the refrigerator where they will stay until all used up. Supposedly they will keep for months, but we won't get a chance to test that out since we are going through them pretty fast.

They are crunchy, spicy, and delicious, although a bit strong for eating more than one or two out of hand. (Next year, I will try diluting the vinegar mixture with water or packing the jars better.)






We've been enjoying them in salads, cut up into small pieces, or, best of all, as a garnish for veggie burgers along with garden tomatoes and lettuce.

Mmmmmm. And so easy. Even with the mistakes, making the pickles took not much more than an hour.