My Love/Hate Relationship with Yarrow

June 24, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Growing up, yarrow was a flower to be dried for arrangements. An innocuous plant that grew along the roadsides. I liked the flowers, and I loved the insects and spiders it attracted.

It wasn’t until I moved to New Zealand, where yarrow is a pernicious weed in my garden, that I began to consider yarrow more closely and learn more about it.

Yarrow is native to Europe and parts of Asia, but has been spread widely, because of its many uses.

It is referenced in Homer’s Iliad as being used for stanching wounds, and has been used all over the world for many other medicinal purposes—from reducing fevers and soothing earaches, to curing urinary problems and head colds.

Yarrow was probably originally brought to New Zealand as a medicinal plant, but it has other uses that are more valid than the medicinal ones.

Today yarrow is a common pasture plant. Its deep rhizomes make it drought resistant, and it is higher in certain key nutrients than either ryegrass or white clover. I discovered this when I began to worry about the goat paddock. After two dry summers, the yarrow was taking over a big swath of the paddock. I worried, knowing that to remove that much yarrow would be a Sisyphean task—dig it out and any bits of rhizome left in the soil will simply resprout. Even herbicides are largely ineffective against yarrow.

So I was thrilled to learn that its virtues went beyond pretty dried flowers, and that I could ignore it in the paddock.

Of course, it grows everywhere, and isn’t bothered by mowing. But that has benefits, too. This past summer, when all the grass of the lawn was brown and dead, the yarrow remained some of the only spots of green.

And then there are the insects it attracts, which I naturally love.

And so, I love yarrow…and I hate yarrow. Either way, I have to live with it.

Evaluating the garden year

June 23, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

A jumbo pink banana squash–one of last year’s winners.

The new seed catalogue will be out in a little over a week, so it’s time to consider which new plants did well and which didn’t last summer.

It’s difficult to really evaluate varieties I hadn’t tried before, because last summer was so devastatingly hot and dry, but I got a feel for them by how my tried and true varieties did.

Tomatoes were a bust—all varieties—it frosted extremely late, and then was just too dry. But I did find that one of the new varieties I tried—bloody butcher—was extra sensitive to the neighbour’s herbicide overspray. So that one’s off the list for next season.

Same went for the yard long red noodle beans—they didn’t recover from the overspray until March, and then it was just too late.

The blue corn was preferentially eaten by the rats, and none survived past seedling stage. Doesn’t mean I won’t try again next year, but I’ll need to protect it better.

Jumbo pink banana squash was a winner, though. Not only was it a spectacular plant in the garden (anything that can grow half a metre in one day has my vote), but the fruits were equally spectacular. They have good flavour and texture, too. The only real drawback is that it’s difficult to fit one in the oven, because they’re so big.

The purple carrot, pusa asita, was also a winner, though its germination was spotty, like all the purple carrots seem to be. The colour was worth it though, as the purple goes all the way to the centre.

And the fire candle radishes were fantastic—delicious, spicy, and slow to bolt.

I’m looking forward to the arrival of the new catalogue and the chance to try out some new varieties for the coming year!

Preserving the Harvest

June 22, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Gardening is a never-ending struggle against the elements.

Seeds must be stored cool and dry to maintain viability.

Then they need to be kept warm and moist in order to germinate.

But not too moist, or they’ll rot, or damp off once sprouted.

Then the plants need to be nurtured with just the right amounts of sun, shelter, water and nutrients so they will grow and produce. They need to be protected from pests.

With luck and hard work, the gardener can nurture the plants all the way to harvest.

But even once that produce is harvested, a gardener continues to fight—some foods can be canned, dried, or frozen so they keep longer, but others can’t. Or, maybe they can, but they’re better fresh. Or maybe there’s no room in the freezer for them.

It’s about now that these fresh foods begin to show their age.

Members of the onion family—shallots, onions, garlic—are stored as living bulbs. When the solstice is past, they want to grow, so they begin to sprout, even hanging in their riestras in the shed or the kitchen.

Then there are the pumpkins. In theory, some can keep for up to six months or more after harvest. That is, in ideal conditions—cool and dry, sitting on dry straw and not touching one another. I don’t have ideal conditions, nor the space to spread out my pumpkins. They hang in mesh sacks from the rafters of the cool, but damp shed—the only way to protect them from the rats.

Three months from harvest, the first pumpkins are beginning to rot. I discovered them today when I selected pumpkins for a galette for dinner.

Now comes the race to bake as many pumpkins as possible and freeze their pureed flesh before they go bad, and before the freezer is full.

I can fit about eight pumpkins at a time in the oven, unless they are jumbo pink banana squash or musquee de Provence, which only fit one at a time . There are sixty-six pumpkins left in the shed. That’s a lot of baking!

Don’t be George Bush: Eat Broccoli

June 5, 2016May 31, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

As the cooler weather finally hits, we slip into winter eating. That means the stored foods like pumpkins and potatoes, but it also means the cool-weather crops, like broccoli.

Broccoli gets a bad rap, and anyone who has ever eaten overcooked, mushy broccoli has my sympathy. But it’s worth giving broccoli a second chance, even if your first experiences with it were less than delicious. Because it can be grown year-round here, it is a staple in our diet.

Broccoli can be good raw, lightly cooked, or well cooked—it’s all a matter of choosing the right level of cooking for the dish. Here are some diverse and delicious ways to eat this maligned vegetable:

Add raw or very lightly steamed broccoli to a green salad.

Dip raw broccoli florets in your favourite cheese dip.

Lightly steam long broccoli spears and serve with butter, salt, and a squeeze of fresh lemon.

Add chopped broccoli to pizza or pasta sauce, or layer it into a potato gratin.

If you’re feeling adventuresome, make a broccoli soufflé—the broccoli, cheese, and egg combination is delicious.

Marinate and grill long broccoli spears.

Roast broccoli florets along with other vegetables in the oven.

Fabulous Fennel

May 31, 2016May 31, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

There’s not a lot coming out of the garden at the moment. The summer crops are pretty well finished (though we’re still scrounging the odd pepper or eggplant from the tunnel house), and the winter crops barely had a chance, with the hot dry weather we’ve had until last week. But among the few crops that are available right now is fennel.

This little-used vegetable is versatile and delicious in the kitchen, and attractive and useful in the garden. Leaves, seeds, and bulb are all edible.

Fennel grows year-round here, though the cooler months are when we appreciate it most. I plant it in both spring and autumn, but it seeds in readily, and we eat as many volunteer fennel as we do planted ones.

Fennel has a mild anise flavour that goes well with many other vegetables. When raw, the flavour is refreshing and numbing.

Raw fennel, sliced thin, makes a crisp and refreshing addition to salads. Or it can make a salad all on its own.

It can be braised and eaten as a side dish, or chopped and added to stews or casseroles. It goes particularly well with potatoes in a cheesy gratin, and makes a delightful risotto.

Fennel leaves can be added to salads and stews, even if the bulbs aren’t ready to harvest.

The ground seeds make a zesty addition to burgers, chai, and cookies, too! Or just crunch a few between your teeth after a meal to sweeten your breath.

In the garden, fennel’s big yellow flower heads attract all sorts of beneficial insects that help keep pests in check, and when the plants get too big and rangy, I can feed them to the goats, who love fennel as much as I do.

Sew Lovely It’s Raining

May 24, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

One of the best things about finally getting some rain is the excuse to spend my weekends and evenings sewing, rather than working in the garden. Not that I don’t enjoy working in the garden, but I enjoy sewing, too.

And with all the nice weather, the sewing projects have been piling up.

With the help of the wet weather this past weekend, I managed to complete a garden holster (to hold the hand tools I’m always losing among the weeds), and a new set of curtains for the office.

Next up are some new clothes for me—some jeans, a couple of shirts, and probably a new jersey…

Here’s hoping for more rain!

The Winter Staff Have Arrived

May 22, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Some of the girls, enjoying what’s left of the peas and eyeing up the newly planted broad beans, protected by netting.

I don’t know whether I appreciate my chickens more for their eggs or for their winter garden maintenance.

I turned the girls out into the vegetable garden for the winter today, and was happy to see them rooting around for grass grubs, which were a serious problem this year, and eagerly grazing on weeds.

I used to injure myself every spring when it was time to clear the winter’s weeds and prepare the garden beds. Now I employ the chickens in the garden all winter, and my springtime bed preparation is a breeze (comparatively speaking, anyway).

They keep the weeds down and reduce the pest populations, and the love the rich foraging the garden offers, as their summer paddock is practically bare by now.

Of course, there’s always a risk—now and again the chickens will get into the winter crops—but the benefits are worth it.

The chickens think so, too.

Too Late

May 17, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Newly sprouted, out-of-season apple leaves.

The weather finally turned last night. After five days of hot, gale-force winds, after seven months of summer weather, we finally got a hard southerly storm. Three centimetres of rain, a bit of hail, and howling winds—a proper ‘winter’ storm.

But it’s too little too late. By yesterday afternoon, half a dozen shrubs around the property had simply given up in the heat and dry. The apple trees, having lost their leaves to drought six weeks ago, had already flushed again with the unusually warm weather. Those leaves will almost certainly be killed by frost, if not tonight, than another night soon. The trees will struggle to leaf out in the spring, because of their wasted effort now.

The lawn is little more than dirt in patches. If anything resprouts, it will be weeds, not grass. And the winter crops in the garden had already bolted from the heat.

I’m thankful for the rain. I’m pleased to have a full rainwater tank, and the early spring crops that are just now putting on growth will benefit from the water now.

But for the sake of the groundwater, I hope it keeps raining, because we need a lot more.

Chick Pea Salad

May 10, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

Who would have thought we’d still be eating tomatoes and eggplant in mid-May?

But since we are, my husband made baba ghanoush on Sunday, and we had a lovely Mediterranean meal of baba ghanoush, freshly baked bread, homemade goat cheeses, and chick pea salad.

I looked at a number of chick pea salad recipes on-line, then ignored them all and used what we had in the garden. The result was quite lovely.

1 cup dry chick peas

1 sweet red pepper, chopped

2-3 medium tomatoes, chopped

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

12 large black olives

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

salt and black pepper to taste

Cook the chick peas until tender, and allow to cool. Drain. Mix the chick peas, tomato, pepper, parsley and olives in a bowl. In a small bowl, whisk oil, vinegars, salt and pepper. Toss the salad with the oil and vinegar.

This salad holds up reasonably well to refrigeration (I just ate the last of it for lunch today, two days later, and it was still good), but is best eaten at room temperature on the first day.

Any day now…

May 3, 2016 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Okay, it’s allowed to rain now.

Any day would be fine.

Just a little?

And maybe something a bit cooler than t-shirt and shorts weather to go with it?

Please?

Six years ago, the beginning of May looked like the picture above—we called it the black days of May. That was a bit too much rain, but normally we’ve had some good rain by the beginning of May.

Not so, this year. This year, it’ll be the brown days of May. We had plans to do a lot of landscaping this fall, but the soil is still bone dry—new plants wouldn’t stand a chance, even if we could water them. Almost every bit of promised rain has failed to materialise. The little that has fallen has evaporated within a day under summer-like heat.

It feels like summer will never end.

I’m still watering the garden, though the summer crops have mostly given up out of drought and exhaustion. The winter crops are likely to bolt in this weather, even with watering.

And who knows how long I’ll be able to water. It hardly rained last winter, and last summer was particularly dry, too. Canterbury water is over-allocated. The water table is dropping, and some people have already had to deepen their wells. How long before we run out?

Water is still being managed for short-term profit here—to ensure maximum output of dairy and crops. Environmental concerns and future supply are given lip service. That will come back to bite us. Climate change models predict less rain for Canterbury. If we keep on like this, at some point, we will run out.

Do we have the will to change before that happens? Experience in other parts of the world says no.

I do my best to conserve water here—using greywater to water plants, watering sparingly, mulching heavily, planting shrubs that can handle the dry—but I’m a tiny player, surrounded by farms hundreds of times the size of my property. The water I conserve is just a drop in the bucket.

A drop in the bucket would be nice about now. But the meteorologists are predicting no rain at all for the month of May in Canterbury.

Robinne Weiss

Fantasy / Sci-fi / Non-fiction

gardening