The sweet smell of autumn

Autumn is right around the corner, and -- despite the 90 degree day that we are facing tomorrow --there is no more insistent a reminder of this turn of seasons than the scent of concord grapes. The arbor hangs thick with ripening fruit right by the door of the garage. I arrive home every evening to the heady scent of sun-baked grapes. The birds are getting a lot this year, and I am not sure I have it in me to make grape jam this season (especially since we never finished the jars from last year!). But the vines are worth it just for this sensory luxury of inhaling the scent of their fruit.

Concords can startle people with their scent, as for many their sheer grapey-ness conjures memories of Welch's juice and PBJ sandwiches and hard candies. There is no subtlety to the perfume of the concord -- it smacks you in the nose with its fruitiness. But I love the rich aromas that hit me as soon as I step out of the garage -- the ripening concords are a gentle salve to the wounds of a hard work day. We often find our son sitting below the small arbor, sniffing ardently as he maneuvers his trucks.

I arrived home today with a sense of relief -- my month of burdensome work hours is over and I can return to the normal pace of life. Leaving for the hospital before dawn, I have missed the quiet mornings in the garden with my son. The garden looks ragged and deflated, a horticultural reflection of my inner self right now. Fortunately both I and the garden will soon be renewed by late mornings and early afternoons spent outside, enjoying the fall weather.

A Good and Sweet Year

Tonight begins the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah. Apples and honey are the traditional foods, symbolizing a sweet new year. Our family is not observant -- actually not religious in the slightest! --but I try to celebrate the traditions of my mother-in-law and her family with my young son. He is an easy mark on Rosh Hashanah -- what 3 year old wouldn't want to dip apples into honey as a snack? As a gardener, I also gravitate to a new year celebration tied to the autumn harvest....it seems more in keeping with nature's cycles than the usual January gloom of the secular celebration.

Round challah bread is traditionally served on Rosh Hashanah as well, symbolizing the cycle of the year. I am making this recipe from Martha Stewart tonight-- it will get a second rise in the refrigerator while we sleep and tomorrow will it bake up into a gorgeously round loaf. The recipe gives a delicious twist on the traditional challah by incorporating apples directly into the dough. The resulting bread is eggy and rich, but not cloying. It is a comforting way to start this new year...and may these coming months as good and sweet as the bread.

The second coming of the nasturtiums

July was a cruel month to my nasturtiums and, by the end of the month, they had withered away to straggly, yellowing stems. I ripped the nasturtiums out of the corner of my yard, as the dying foliage looked particularly horrible against the lush August green of the rest of the garden. As I tore out the plants, I noticed little rootlets hanging off the main stems. I decided to replant these rooting stems and see what would come of it.

A month later, I have a thriving little nasturtium plant. It isn't the length of my old plant, but this salvaged little chunk of rooting stem has impressed me with its vigor. What otherwise would have gone into the compost pile has surprised me with a second life.

I had grand plans when this project started to pickle the seed pods as a homemade version of capers. No seeds appeared on the first growth of the plant -- I think it withered in the heat before it could think about reproducing. Maybe this second chance will offer some seeds. I know what to look for, thanks to an educational post from Mr. Brown Thumb. I fear there may be no homemade capers in my future....if there are, I will post them next month in the final installment of this project.

“I’m growing Nasturtium ‘Spitfire’ for the GROW project. Thanks, toRenee’s Garden for the seeds.”

Passiflora incarnata alba

The most anticipated flower in my garden bloomed today -- passiflora incarnata alba, the passion flower. I started these seeds early in the winter and have been nursing this plant along ever since, first under a cloche and then against the onslaught of the slugs.

All of my careful ministrations were worth it when when I returned from a long day of work this evening to find two blossoms quivering in the wind. The scent is tropical and the flowers look other-worldly. Neighbors gathered around for examination and discussion, as the vine is climbing my front fence. I have a feeling these passion flowers may be "shoplifted" off the vine, much like the moon flowers that grow nearby. Every morning, I notice a blossom or two has been plucked off. Such is the fate of showy flowers grown along a busy sidewalk.

I imagine a a teenage girl took one of these giant moon flowers, to tuck behind her ear, like a flamenco dancer. The petals look like rumpled white silk. I personally would pick the passion flower, although the numerous ants scurrying on the underside of the flowers would be an unwelcome surprise in the hair.

Of course, I should just rest on my laurels and enjoy the flowers, but now I am calculating the days until the first frost and wondering whether the vine will set fruit. Given the autumn chill and winds right now, it is hard to imagine I will have any passion fruit cocktails in my future. But a long Indian summer may be right around the corner, so who knows? And if not this year, perhaps next - the woman who sent me the seed says it is hardy to zone 5 if mulched carefully.

Time warp

No matter how carefully I tend my home life of urban farming and slow cooking, there are times when my professional duties overwhelm any homesteading reveries. The past 10 days have been a harsh reminder that the skills that pay my bills have less to do with my green thumb, and more to do with my medical training. I am tending patients right now, not plants. I leave early in the morning and come home in the evening, exhausted. As I stumble through my garden on the way to my house and bed, I am lucky if I remember to pick the ripe tomatoes off the plants. Forget about cooking with them! They are getting thrown in the freezer, for a big batch of sauce once my workload eases in a few weeks.




I will admit that given the small size of my garden, I sometimes micromanage every single pot and bed. I take great pleasure in this daily intimacy, watching every seedling emerge, charting the slow growth of an individual fig, plucking each withering leaf off the tomato plant. This time of intense work has forced me to step back and let my garden grow on its own, untended. Despite negligent watering, my fall container lettuce ('pot and patio blend' from Territorial) is up and thriving.

The red kuri squash is large and deepening in color. The last I checked, they were yellow and fist-sized, with the blossom still attached!

My pole beans are finally nearing harvest, at least two weeks later than last year. Fortunately my bean plants grow right by my back door, so I will remember to grab a bowl of beans before I head in to crash on the couch.

The heavy work load has made me watch my garden in time warp. Rather than the slow, minuscule daily changes, I am now only able to observe week by week. My garden feels more productive -- is it because we are now in the heady days of early September or because a watched horticultural pot never boils?

The year of the pepper

Every year in my garden, one plant does very well, outpacing all others in productivity and vigor. Each year a peculiar set of elements - rain, light, perhaps whatever I laid down as mulch the year before -- combine to create near-perfect conditions for one of my edible crops. 2006 was the year of basil, 2007 the year of the tomato, 2008 the year of the zucchini, 2009 the year of the green bean. This year, there is no doubt: 2010 is the year of the pepper. My cucumbers ran a close second, but they all recently fizzled out, while the pepper plants are still going like gangbusters.

I am growing three varieties of pepper this year: orange thai (pictured at the top, drying), spanish padron (pictured above), and a mystery pepper (pictured below). The mystery pepper came in a seed packet labelled "pizza my heart" that billed it as seed for a 3-inch conical container pepper. Check out this link or this one for what the "pizza my heart" pepper was supposed to look like. Instead I am getting very large (read: not container-friendly) plants with 5- to 6-inch elongated peppers, pictured below. What gives? Looks more like a NuMex Joe Parker to me!

It is a felicitous mix-up, since the mystery peppers are by far our favorite. I am roasting them for pizza, pickling them in vinegar and drying them for winter use. The padron peppers are okay -- more thin-walled than the mystery pepper, and the heat varies from sweet to sweat-inducing burn. According to one source, they are officially considered a mild pepper, but thanks to a genetic variation, every tenth pepper is hot. Apparently, they are most often sold and eaten green. Lazy gardener that I am, many have turned red on the plant before I can harvest. At this point, the Spanish dry them and grind them into a paprika. I have been stuffing them with feta cheese and herbs, to much acclaim.

So there you have it, 2010, the year of the pepper. This is not idle naming -- indeed, it has become a critical way for me to mark life's passages. 2007, the summer of my son's birth, is forever entwined in my memory with the flavor of sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. I recall 2006 -- our last summer before the baby -- as a sweet, heady time redolent of pesto. I will now recall the summer of 2010 whenever I bite into a spicy pepper. I find it especially appropriate since my sister's recent marriage took place in New Mexico -- a land abundant in green chilis and gorgeous red ristras of dried peppers. This, too, has been a summer of personal loss, with days that smarted and burned, much like that tenth hot-as-hell padron pepper....but, as with life, you keep on. Close your eyes and bite in. You never know -- this time it may taste sweet.

Dispatch from the IGC Show

The Independent Garden Center Show took over Navy Pier this week -- and though I am but a humble local garden blogger, I thought it worthwhile to stop by and check out what the area garden centers would be growing, promoting and teaching in the upcoming year. The show has educational sessions and speakers, but the main action seemed to be the giant hall full of vendors. There was row upon row of garden product vendors, including my favorite seed companies, like Renee's and Seed Saver's Exchange.

In terms of trends, I was impressed by the amount of vendors who were marketing various systems for urban gardening/raised bed gardening. There were a lot of innovative systems and prepackaged kits, including one from the original Square Foot Gardening man, Mel Bartholomew. There was a definite focus on edibles, from seeds to fruit trees. Finally, there seemed to be a lot more rain barrels than composters -- it made me wonder why composting is not a hotter business for garden centers.

Due to my work schedule, I couldn't make it to the speaking session by the ladies of Garden Rant as planned, but I was able to go to a fascinating talk on marketing heirloom vegetables. The lecture was given by David Cavagnaro, who worked for eight years at Seed Savers Exchange. It made my heart leap with joy to hear his advice to garden center owners:

• Encourage your clientele to be stewards of living genetic diversity with heirloom seeds
• Educate your clientele that there are specific heirlooms for specific uses (i.e. sauce tomatoes versus stuffing tomatoes, or cider apples versus pie apples). Sell both early and late maturing varieties.
• Grow what you sell so that you can speak to consumers from authentic experience. If you can't grow it yourself, enlist local gardeners who can test and advise.
• Sell heirlooms suited to your region. He brought up the excellent example of the over-exposed Brandywine: it has become the reigning queen of heirloom tomatoes despite being quite a challenge to grow successfully in certain areas.

He also discussed some heirloom varieties that are his particular favorites -- I am definitely going to try the Feher Ozon pepper next year!

I encountered many a booth hawking mulch, pots and hardscaping items -- all fairly standard garden center fare. Proven Winners and their ilk abounded as well, with the usual big-box perennials, including a plant with a breast cancer tie-in. Sigh. Then there were the booths promoting the garden-center-as-boutique idea, with table upon table of "presents for the mother-in-law": soap, sachets and wire tchotchkes. I don't begrudge the garden centers these items -- they are shelf-stable, and probably help fill in the retail slump-times when folks aren't picking out their spring transplants. But still, it chafes me when I go to a garden center and there is one or two seed racks tucked in an out of the way place to make room for the carefully displayed herbal perfumes and garden trowel charm bracelets.

There were some real gems, however: vendors with high-quality products that made me want to whip out my wallet right there! I hope some local centers checked out the tools by Clarington Forge, or the canning and gardening tools by Burgon and Ball. I salivated over the modular chicken coops by Creative Coops and longed for the cold frame by Maine Garden Products. One of the cooler things I saw was a bulk seed display by Livingston Seed -- it works in the same way as buying rice and nuts at the health food store. Just scoop, weigh and pay for the desired amount. Why haven't I seen this before ? (Here's a guess -- there's a bigger profit margin in selling seeds in a pretty paper package). Anyway, such a good idea, especially for urban gardeners who only need a small amount of each seed.

The IGC Show was overall a much more heartening experience than the springtime Chicago garden show....and now I hope local centers start carrying some of the cool products that were featured and promoting the ideas espoused by David Cavagnaro!