Food

Potting Up

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

100_3766 smPlanting vegetable seeds is an easy job. Every year, I am surprised at how quickly the task is accomplished.

Then those seeds sprout and I remember that there is potting up to do.

That’s what takes forever—filling all those pots, and carefully teasing apart and planting the young seedlings.

Sometimes I think I’d be better off planting my seeds directly into pots. But every year there are varieties that simply don’t germinate. If I had filled dozens of pots, only to have them stand empty, I would have wasted a lot of effort and greenhouse space (both of which are in short supply in the spring).

So this weekend, I will spend many hours transplanting seedlings. Though it can be tedious, I don’t really mind. To spend a day nurturing plants and breathing in the summery smell of tomatoes isn’t hard to take.

Further proof that we’re nuts

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

100_3758 smToday offered further proof (though I can’t imagine it was necessary) that my husband and I are nuts.

Weekday. We all come home from work and school.

I’ve scored a small handful of extremely expensive, first-of-the-season asparagus, and we start discussing what we’ll have with our asparagus for dinner.

Next thing I know, I’m making firm polenta, and Ian is picking the herbs for a fresh parsley pesto.

What arrives on the table an hour and a half later is nothing short of extraordinary—polenta crostini topped with pesto, sautéed mushrooms and cheese, with braised asparagus on the side.

I point out to Ian that most other people are heating up TV dinners on a Thursday night…

 

Doing my best

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

100_3242 copyMy post Springtime Pests was picked up by World Organic News today, and I was bemused.

Not so much that the post was picked up, but that I’ve never particularly thought of myself as an organic gardener.

In the same way, I rarely think of myself as vegetarian.

Or as a blogger.

And, clearly, I’ve not got the blogging thing down, because I have never tagged a post as ‘organic’, and only recently thought to tag a post as ‘vegetarian’.

I grow food.

I eat food.

My only claim is that I think about what I eat and grow, and how I do it.

I am neither perfectly organic, nor perfectly vegetarian, but I do my best.

That’s all we can ask of anyone.

No Eggs

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments
Photo: Eric Weiss

Photo: Eric Weiss

All day, I dreamed of tofu meatballs with spaghetti. I drove home this afternoon thinking of them. As I did my afternoon chores, I picked the ingredients I needed. I watched the time—meatballs take a bit of extra preparation, and I’d have to start cooking dinner earlier than usual.

The time came, and I washed the vegetables and started to chop them.

And realised I didn’t have any eggs.

I couldn’t make meatballs without eggs—they’d never hold together.

It’s not a problem I usually have. I usually have more eggs than we can eat, and I have to come up with creative ways to use them.

But the chickens are on strike–my lovely hyline chickens that are supposed to lay for years…but only managed about 18 months before they were done. I thought, well, they’re just moulting…they’ll start laying again. Then I thought, well, it’s the middle of winter…they’ll start laying in spring. But, no, they are not going to lay again. They’ve retired already, much to my disappointment.

I have mostly had brown shavers before, and they are productive, but short-lived birds, and I was tired of “disposable” livestock. My attempts with heritage breeds died with the three expensive birds I bought years ago that came riddled with disease and died within weeks. So I was thrilled with the idea of the hylines—a ‘new’ breed with a longer lifespan than the shavers.

Ha. My last brown shaver laid eggs until she was 4 years old, but none of the hylines are still laying.

I have been trying to contact the local brown shaver breeder, but have had no luck, so I still don’t have a young flock on the way to point-of-lay.

And I still have no eggs.

I bagged the vegetables I had prepared and put them in the fridge. I went out to the garden and picked a different set of ingredients, and we had a lovely Indian charcharis instead.

And tomorrow I’m going to try calling another breeder. I may have to drive an hour to get my birds, but I need some new birds. Now.

Cranky Kids

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crannkicecreamChurning ice cream by hand was a rite of summer for my generation. Our ice cream maker was a big green bucket, in which we placed ice and salt. Then the metal canister full of cream, sugar, and flavourings would be sunk into the ice, the wooden paddles inserted, and the crank latched into place.

Then it was the kids’ job to crank and crank and crank and crank and crank and crank and crank, until the ice cream was frozen. We were always sweaty and tired—desperate for that ice cream by the time it was ready.

I don’t know how many children have the opportunity to hand crank their own ice cream these days. Very few, I expect.

A few years ago, I bought my husband an ice cream maker for Christmas. I had resisted the gift for years (in spite of his not-so-subtle hints), because the only ice cream makers I could find were electric ones. I hate the whine of an electric ice cream maker, and…well, ice cream just doesn’t seem home made if you don’t crank it yourself. But then I came across a fabulous hand-cranked machine that combines the best features of the electric machines and the old-fashioned hand-cranked ones.

It’s much easier to crank than the old-fashioned ones (probably because the old ones held a gallon of ice cream at a time, and this one only holds a quart), and there’s no need for ice and salt, as the inner canister is chilled in the freezer.

And best of all, the kids can crank their own ice cream, leaving the adults to sit down and relax while the kids make dessert!

Springtime pests

/ Robinne Weiss / 4 Comments
Netting covering newly-planted pea seedlings

Netting covering newly-planted pea seedlings

Pests are always a concern for me—rats and mice get into my animal feed, hedgehogs eat my cucumbers, brush-tailed possums strip the bark off trees, slugs devour the strawberries, aphids infest the lettuce—but springtime is the worst season for pests.

And English sparrows are perhaps the worst pest I deal with.

Sparrows are a problem year round. In autumn and winter, they roost in the sheds, covering everything with their droppings. They rummage through the compost pile, spreading kitchen scraps everywhere. In spring and summer, they nest in the gutters, causing rainwater to back up into the house instead of going down the drains. Or they nest the sheds, where they make an even bigger mess than they did roosting there all winter.

But the most annoying thing the sparrows do is eat seedlings. They sit in the trees and watch as I plant out my peas and lettuces, then descend upon the garden and gobble them up as soon as my back is turned. Nothing is safe from them until it is at least 30 cm tall.

Until a few years ago, the damage was minimal. The neighbour used to poison the sparrows, and their population was relatively small. Since he retired and sold his farm, however, the sparrow population has increased dramatically. The new owner doesn’t poison the birds…which I’m happy about on one hand, because it is not a humane death (I hated finding dying birds on the property–horrible to watch). On the other hand, the sparrow population has reached plague proportions.

Which means spring planting is an exercise in pest control.

Everything I plant has to be covered with bird netting for a few weeks or it is eaten to the ground. And once I remove the netting, I’m sure to lose some plants as the birds strip half the leaves within a day of the covers coming off.

I suppose I should take the Panamanian approach to planting—three seeds in each hole—one for me, one for God, and one for the pests.

Blooming Broad Beans

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100_3703 smI walked past the garden on my way to the compost pile two days ago, and smelled what has become one of my favourite smells of spring.

It is sickly-sweet, and the first time I smelled it, I thought it was disgusting.

It is the smell of blooming broad beans. And I have grown to love it as a harbinger of spring.

My garden isn’t the only place smelling like an overwrought florist’s shop. Local farmers grow huge fields of broad beans, and the smell wafts into the open windows of the car as I drive by.

Unfortunately, the first blossoms are a tease. They attract primarily bumble bees in the very early weeks of spring. The bumble bees steal nectar by chewing through the base of the flower, and don’t actually pollinate the flower. I won’t get beans from these early flowers.

Later, once the honey bees are fully active, we’ll start seeing the first little beans begin to lengthen. Until then, we’ll have to make do with the smell.

What they see…what I see

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What they see...

What they see…

It takes a good imagination to keep plugging away at the garden at this time of year. You’ve got to be able to see what isn’t there. You’ve got to be able to envision the possibilities. If you can’t, you’ll be overwhelmed by the weeds and the slugs, and you’ll give up before your garden even has a chance.

What I see.

What I see.

 

Not unlike parenting, actually. (I do think gardening is like parenting, in so many ways!) As a parent, you’ve got to be able to envision the future—envision the competent and confident adult your child can become. Otherwise you’ll be overwhelmed by the messy room, uncombed hair, terrible manners, and unfinished homework you live with day in and day out.

Gardeners and parents both have to be able to dream a little.

PB and J Cupcakes

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100_3693 smI love PB & J sandwiches. So why not a PB & J cupcake? I’ve never tried this before, and I was a little worried it wouldn’t work, so when I made peanut butter cupcakes last night, I only put jam in half of them (chocolate buttons on the other half). But next time, I’ll do them all with jam!

Just make a little well at the top of the cupcake batter and put a teaspoon of your favourite jam (I used strawberry) into the well before baking. The gooey, jammy centre is delicious inside the nutty exterior!

Cabbage Salad

/ Robinne Weiss / 3 Comments

100_3672 smAt Christmastime last year, I walked into a bookstore. I don’t remember what I was looking for, but I know I wasn’t looking for a cookbook.

But there, facing outward on the shelf was Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. The simple beauty of the cover made me stop. I picked up the book and opened it, and suddenly my will was no longer my own.

There was an entire chapter on eggplants, and another on mushrooms, and pulses, and brassicas. There was even a chapter titled “Green Things”, featuring everything from artichokes to broad beans to asparagus. All accompanied by mouth-watering photographs.

I had to have the book. So I gave it to my husband for Christmas.

This afternoon, I was faced with cabbage in the garden that either needed to be picked or weeded. I chose to harvest. I had a longing for a cabbage salad, but didn’t want cole slaw. I went to Ottolenghi’s book, and found the perfect recipe.

Not that I actually made the recipe from the book, of course. It called for macadamia nuts, two different kinds of cabbage, mango, papaya, and fresh chilli…none of which I had. But I was intrigued and inspired, particularly by the dressing, which involved lime juice, lemongrass, maple syrup soy sauce and chilli flakes reduced over high heat to a thick syrup, then mixed with sesame oil and vegetable oil.

The original salad had you caramelise the macadamia nuts in butter, sugar and salt. I did the same with pumpkin seeds. I substituted oranges for the mango and papaya, used my one variety of cabbage, and fresh mint and cilantro from the garden.

The result was a marvellously complex, fresh, and delicious salad.

And even more importantly, I learned new flavour combinations and new techniques (the caramelized nuts, and the reduced dressing) for future salads. The best kind of recipe!