Plants I'm Growing: Garden produce

The garden is finally starting to produce. We got a late start this year because I was away in Japan in April – just when we normally set out starts and plant seeds – and this has been an extraordinarily cool summer so far. Something I read suggested  Northern California has been having its coolest summer since some time in the 1980s. Normally, the grapes have fully taken on color by now, but veraison has barely started. Harvest will be late.  

However, we're still getting lettuce and spinach, and we're now getting green beans, arugula, mustard greens, zucchini, other squash, poblano peppers, Fresno peppers, and green peppers. The first tomatoes have been a small variety called "Jaune Flamme" (or "yellow flame") that I've not grown before. It's not a cherry tomato but it's not a full-sized tomato either. It's one of those hat has fruit about the size of a golf ball. It's meaty and very flavorful. I'll look for it again in the future. 

Plants I'm Growing: Hot Peppers

I bought several pepper plants at the start of the season and one of them has done extraordinarily well. These were supposed to be Jimmy Nardello peppers, which are a sweet variety. I harvested some recently and roasted them with a little salt and olive oil and nearly died after the first bite. They turned out to be very, very hot, about as hot as a cayenne pepper. 

I was rather confused until a couple of weekends ago I talked to a grower at one of our local farmer's markets and he said that there was a seed mix-up at one the major suppliers of starts and that it was likely mislabeled. I have no idea what these actually are, but I'm going to dry them and use them (very judiciously) as a seasoning. 

Food I'm Eating: Fast, Easy, Adaptable Six-ingredient Pasta

If you're tired of your own cooking and looking for something super easy to make for lunch or dinner, here's a recipe I like because it's tasty, easy, and fast--you can prepare it in the time it takes the pasta to boil. Only six ingredients are required, but you can make additions and substitutions.

Ingredients: 

1. Black olives (fresh, pitted--not those horrid little black tires they put on pizza at the big pizza chains)

2. Capers 

3. Anchovies (the kind in the jar, not a can (although those work in a pinch): I like the Agostina Recca brand)

4. Fresh garlic 

5. Chili flakes (I like chipotle flakes) 

6. Fresh parmesan cheese (shaved, not the powdered Kraft stuff) 

7. (Optional): Baby spinach, snow peas, other greens

Directions: 

Boil water for pasta. While waiting for the water, chop the olives, capers, anchovies, and garlic finely but not too finely. Set aside.

When water is boiling, add the pasta. If you normally salt your pasta water, in this case don't: the olives, capers, cheese, and anchovies provide plenty of saltiness.

In a large skillet, heat a little olive oil and butter. When the butter is melted, add the olives, anchovies, capers, and chili flakes. Stir. Reserve the garlic and parmesan cheese. Turn down the heat.

About four minutes before the pasta will be ready, make a space in the skillet for the garlic, turn up the heat again (medium-high) and add the garlic and more butter so that the garlic sautés in the butter. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Turn down heat if necessary after the garlic takes a little color, which should be just before the pasta is ready. If you add greens, put these in along with the garlic so that they're just cooked as the pasta finishes.

When pasta is ready, drain and add to the pan with the other ingredients. Turn off the heat and mix well. Last, add the Parmesan cheese. The residual heat will melt it. Serve immediately!

I like to make this with baby spinach, which adds some nice color. If you're a vegetarian, you can omit the anchovies. If you don't like spicy foods, omit the chili flakes. If you like things spicier, this works well with fresh minced jalapeño or Fresno peppers (or hotter varieties, if you like). The photo here shows it with snow pea pods instead of spinach. Dinner last night. :)

Organic Fertilizer Bounty

Thanks to an amazing homemade organic fertilizer I learned about from a neighbor (who attributes it to a farmer in Wyoming with a YouTube video), our garden this year is producing an overwhelming amount of food. Summer squash, zucchini, Japanese turnips, green beans, bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, cayenne peppers, Fresno peppers, Italian horn peppers, lemon cucumbers, peaches..... Soon eggplant and tomatoes will start coming as well.

Very easy to make this fertilizer, which has only three ingredients: Alfalfa pellets, blackstrap molasses, and fish emulsion. Feed stores generally have the pellets. A big bag will last all year. Any good garden store will have the fish emulsion (should be marked 5-1-1 or very close to that). The molasses (unsulphured) is available online. The one-gallon jug of the molasses and the fish emulsion I bought are not even half empty and I started this regimen in April.

Put one pound of the pellets in the bottom of a five-gallon bucket (I've found that a one-liter measure filled to the brim with pellets is about a pound). Put about a gallon of water in and let the pellets soak up the water and swell up. There should be enough water that you're left with a soupy mixture with liquid, not mush. After a few hours, or overnight, add 150ml each of the fish emulsion and the blackstrap molasses (about 2l3 of a cup maybe. Measurements don't have to be exact). Stir well and let sit for a couple of hours.

This I dilute again for use, putting one gallon of the mixture into a five-gallon watering can--so, diluting 1:4. It sounds more complicated than it is. Once you've done it a couple of times, it's quite easy. Apply once or twice a week. As plants start to flower and produce fruit, I add an organic guano-based 0-4-3 fertilizer to the mix called HDK (25ml/five gallons) easily available from the cannabis hydroponics stores if you live in a cannabis-legal state. This all-organic mixture works wonders!

Places I'm Visiting: Santa Rosa Farmers' Market (August 2011)

I went to the Santa Rosa Farmer's Market again this past weekend, hoping to find good tomatoes--but still nothing. I continue to rely on the heirloom tomatoes at Whole Foods, which are finally down to a more reasonable $3.99 a pound, but haven't had a truly great tomato yet this year. At the Farmer's Market, I did, however, come across some rather photogenic fruits and vegetables.