Creative Ways With Weeds

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Ann Lovejoy
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

When To Put Weeds On The Compost Heap

After years of embattled hand weeding, I developed a more positive relationship with my worst thugs. In recent years, I’ve been steadfast about harvesting them early and often, filling the compost pile with mounds of morning glory, horsetail, giant knotweed, and vetch.

Picked before they can bloom or set seed, all these wicked weeds offer plentiful nutrients as well as deep-mined minerals brought up by those questing roots. Lush as they are, their juicy leaves make a rich and attractively crumbly compost.

Some of these weeds are not actually growing on my property, but I’ve found that a preemptive strike on my part reduces over-the-border incursions on theirs. Though not all neighbors offer to help, I have yet to experience one who doesn’t thank me for running weed patrol along our shared property line.

The Dyer’s Garden

I’m also an avid knitter, usually for other people. Among my specialties are chemo caps made from undyed organic cotton. I also create custom-designed Angel Wing shawls, prayer shawls knit with a variety of colors and textures, each of which is assigned a value or meaning such as ‘peace’ or ‘comfort’  which I hold with intention as I knit.

I also spin yarns for use in many projects, and one of my great pleasures is to dye yarn and fabric with natural dyes. I find it utterly fascinating to experiment with natural dyes, turning plain wool into lovely, delicate shades of green and gold, rust and pale orange, gold and soft yellow.

Putting Noxious Weeds To Work

What does this have to do with morning glory? Besides adding great tilth to my compost, it makes a marvelous dye for protein fibers like wool and silk. Without any color fixer (mordant), natural yarn simmered in a morning glory infusion will turn a soft yellow. With alum as a mordant, the yarn will be a clear yellow. Add a touch of chrome and you’ll get a lively golden yellow. Copper makes the dye greener, while iron deepens it to a rich olive green.

Many of my dye plants of choice are noxious weeds; not just morning glory, but ivy, Scotch broom, Canadian thistle, horsetail, and many more. It is amazingly satisfying to free a tree from its strangle hold, then cook up a big batch of the removed ivy. It smells quite sweet, rather like asparagus when cooking, and the resulting broth makes a gentle green yarn that is really beautiful

Creative Uses For Ivy

Ivy has dozens of uses, once you start viewing it as raw material. Those who work in the fiber arts use ivy leaves and stems for dying cloth, thread, and wool, as well as for paper making. The supple young vines can be woven whole into baskets and mats or soaked and stripped into strands that combine beautifully with many other natural fibers, from flax to rayon and wool.

I suspect that a weaver or basket maker could create a gorgeous piece combining ivy with Scotch broom and horsetail. In fact, once you start thinking in these terms, some of our worst weeds start to look rather enticing. Texture, color, form, they’ve got it all!

Seeking Out Natural Dye Plants

Best of all, once we start harvesting our weeds, there never seems to be quite enough of them. I’ve had to wander far afield to gather enough Scotch broom for a rich greeny-brown dye made from the ripe seed pods. I found a grand supply in a nearby park, and was immediately granted full permission to take all I wanted.

I found my Canadian thistle source at a neighbor’s, whose rough old field hasn’t yet been mowed. The ripe seeds are much appreciated by goldfinches, those charming, bright yellow little critters that are Washington’s official State Birds. While gathering stems and leaves, I also harvested a sack of fine black thistle seed to fill my back porch bird feeder.

Hidden Garden Gold (and Copper and Bronze)

Weedy or not, most gardens are full of plants that make handsome natural dyes. Marigold petals create a wide range of yellow and orange dyes, depending on the flower color and which kind of mordant you choose to make your dye color fast. (Vinegar is a very mild and safe mordant for home dyers, as is alum.)

The bright orange roots of barberry and mahonia (Oregon grape) plants yield a variety of tints of yellow, chartreuse, and soft green. Most of the spurges (Euphorbia clan) make beautiful yellow or green dyes, but be very careful not to get that corrosive, milky sap on your hands or in your eyes!

Weeds That Give You The Blues

Classic European dye plants that are easily grown at home include blue woad (Isatis tinctoris), which ancients Brits used to paint their skin when the Romans were invading their country. Woad makes a clear blue dye, while tropical, shrubby indigo (Indigofera suffruticosa) makes a delicious array of smoky blues, as do invasive Himalayan blackberries.

Sweet Woodruff roots create a soft yet vivid red tint. Rhubarb roots make delicate green and yellow dyes and are also used as natural mordants (color setters) in many countries. The leaves make green or reddish brown dyes, while the stems make a soft, pretty pink.

Check the library for books that explain how to make safe natural dyes, then experiment freely with roots, bark, stems, seeds, foliage, and petals to discover the beautiful world of natural color hidden in your own backyard.

Posted in composting, Garden Prep, Natural Dyes, Weed Control | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Easy Care Garden Tips For Fall

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Ann Lovejoy
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Simple Sustainable Gardening

Over the past few months, I’ve offered you several posts about simple and effective sustainable gardening techniques. Here are a few more ideas for you to consider as the great fall cleanup time arrives.

Pinpoint Problems First

Before starting your whole laundry list of fall chores, step back and consider two great questions: Where do you spend the most chore time in the garden? Which parts of the garden are the most enjoyable for you? Rarely are these places the same. Identifying our garden’s most high maintenance areas can help us to make smart choices about which garden features to eliminate or alter.

For instance, if we constantly need to weed a cracked stretch of paving, we may decide to burn away the weeds with our flame weeder, then seal the cracks with cement. If we are constantly whacking away at a fast-growing, too-wide hedge, we may choose to replace it with a fence that will never outgrow its position.

Lessons From Nature

Before you whack your garden to the ground, take time to think about which plants might rot happily in place. Often you can reduce your workload considerably by sheet composting in the garden instead of making big heaps elsewhere.

After studying natural models, from woodlands to meadows, I’ve adapted the idea of forest duff–leaf fall rotting in place–into making “self mulching” gardens. A self-mulching garden bed is filled with plants that die with dignity and can be allowed to compost in layers or sheets on site.

Learn To Chop & Drop

I always start off with a nice thick layer of mulch, usually compost or aged dairy manure, to give new plants the best possible beginning. In subsequent seasons, I use my favorite “chop-and-drop” method of grooming to speed things up. Chop-and-drop grooming involves cutting any big foliage and thick stalks into smaller pieces and letting them rot where they fall. This idea is troublesome to the tidy-minded, but think about it for a minute. Recycling in place works in the woods, so why not in our gardens?

Leave The Leaves

When we think about fading foliage as food packets that still have plenty of nutrients to deliver, we are less apt to consider old leaves as trash to be removed. Leave the leaves to rot and the garden soil will be improved.
If big, coarse leaves are involved, mow them a few times to chop them up a bit, then let them rot where they lie (even on the sacred lawn). Naturally, diseased foliage and weeds in seed are not included in the chop-and-drop program, but most healthy plant parts can easily be shredded in situ.

As a final touch, you can add a layer of mature compost over the chopped stuff to give the garden beds a more finished look. The composting process will progress faster, the garden will look tidy, and your plants will love your kindly treatment.

Easy Care Perennial Beds

If a perennial bed needs more attention than we have time for, we may blend in easy-going evergreen herbs (like lavender and rosemary) and shrubs (like hebes and ceanothus) as well as ornamental grasses. To keep maintenance to a minimum, be sure to choose evergreen, clumping grasses instead of running grasses.

Swapping out needy and short-blooming perennials for long term performers will improve the garden’s looks in all seasons while reducing the time you spend on it.  Now, there’s a deal that’s hard to refuse.

Reducing Turf Saves Time and Resources

We may also decide to replace unused parts of a thirsty lawn with beds of drought tolerant native shrubs. In shadier areas where grass does not thrive, consider swapping out turf for paving stone paths and sheets of groundcovers that don’t need coddling. Each time we make such choices, we free up a bit more time and energy for enjoying the garden instead of slaving in it. Doesn’t that sound tempting?

Posted in composting, Easy Care Perennials, Garden Prep, Sustainable Gardening | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Harvesting, Storing, and Cooking With Pumpkins

Posted on November 4, 2010 by Ann Lovejoy
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Harvesting and Storing Pumpkins

Plump, glossy pumpkins seem humble, yet they are actually a prima donna crop, requiring lots of everything, from space to food and water. They certainly do not thrive in containers unless the pot is perfectly enormous; a tree pot can support a single plant as long as only a few pumpkins are allowed to ripen.

I plant my pumpkins in the ground, not in pots, because deer do not (so far anyway) eat their coarse, hairy leaves. In the garden, pumpkins grow happily in mounded beds in full sun. They do best when given transplant fertilizer at planting time, then fed every few weeks with a mild (5-5-5) all-purpose feed.

Keeping Them Clean

To avoid mildews, keep pumpkin and squash foliage dry and use drip irrigation or leaky hose lines under a compost mulch. In wet seasons, keep your growing pumpkins above the damp soil by placing them on boards to avoid molds and mildews.

Harvesting BIG Pumpkins

If you are going for The Big One, measure your pumpkins daily as harvest time draws near to be sure they have stopped growing. Harvest pumpkins when fully colored, with a well-hardened rind that’s difficult to scratch with your fingernail. When your pumpkin is ripe, trim off the vine with a sharp knife, leaving 2-3 inches of stem.  Wipe off all dirt and moisture and store on racks or open shelves in a cool, dry place. Garages are often good, but many basements are too damp for vegetable storage.

Pumpkins In The Kitchen

Pumpkins and winter squash can be used interchangeably in many recipes, from breeds and pies to soups and vegetarian golden lasagna. Add chunks of fresh or frozen pumpkin to soups, stir fries, and stews. Many small winter squash like Delicata, Sweet Dumpling, and Carnival, can be eaten skin and all if halved, seeded, and baked until tender (usually about 30-40 minutes).

Baking Whole Pumpkins

Baking is the traditional way to cook pumpkins, but for the best texture and flavor, microwave any recipe that calls for pumpkins or winter squash. Because microwaves vary in power, experiment with small pumpkins before trying bigger ones.

Fill small pumpkins or squash with diced apples and nuts or bread stuffing and bake for a hearty side dish. For a quick and pretty dessert, microwave cored mini pumpkins for 3-5 minutes, stuff with brown sugar, butter, and nuts and bake again for 1-2 minutes.

Microwaved Pumpkin

1 small (5-6 inch diameter) pumpkin

Puncture a whole pumpkin in several places with an ice pick or skewer. Place in a microwave and cook on high for 3 minutes. Test for doneness by poking with a fork. If not tender, repeat cooking in 1 minute increments until done. When tender, cut in half, remove seeds and scoop out pulp or peel and dice cooked pumpkin for use in soups, stews, and vegetable dishes. For smooth puree, put diced pulp into a ricer or a food mill. Extra pumpkin may be frozen for up to 3 months. One small pumpkin makes enough puree for 2 pies.

Baked Pumpkin

2 medium (6-8 inch diameter) sugar pumpkins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut sugar pumpkins in half, scoop out the seeds and place them cut side down in a baking pan with half an inch of hot water in it. Bake at 350 degrees until pulp is soft (about 40-50 minutes). Peel and dice or process as described above.

Whole Baby Pumpkins

4 baby pumpkins (2-3 inch diameter)
1/4 cup orange juice concentrate
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes

Puncture each pumpkin in several places with an ice pick or skewer. Place in a microwave and cook on high for 2 minutes. Test for doneness by poking with a fork. If not tender, repeat cooking in 30 second increments until done. When tender, carefully remove tops with stems, remove seeds and scoop out pulp.  Mash with orange juice concentrate,  salt, and hot pepper flakes. Spoon back into shells and serve at once. Serves four.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

High in protein and low in carbohydrates, pumpkin seeds make an excellent snack food and an unusual, crunchy garnish for soups and salads.

! cup raw, hulled pumpkin seeds
1 teaspoon olive or canola oil
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Toss all ingredients and spread in a single layer in a rimmed baking sheet. Bake pumpkin seeds at 350 degrees F. until crisp (6-8 minutes). Store i a tightly sealed glass jar for up to 2 weeks.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Beautiful and intriguingly spicy, Roasted Pumpkin Soup combines baked pumpkin with fresh orange juice, ancho peppers, toasted pumpkin seeds and cilantro.

1 medium (8-10 inch) pumpkin
1 ancho chili pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 organic orange, juiced, rind grated
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 quarts vegetable OR chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream (organic tastes best)
2 tablespoons cilantro, stemmed

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Cutting straight across, remove top inch of pumpkin with stem. Place pumpkin cut-side-up in a baking dish and bake at 425 until tender (about 30-45 minutes). When tender, remove seeds and scoop out pulp, taking care not to damage outer shell.  Rinse seeds and bake at 350 degrees until crisp (6-8 minutes). Mash pulp with ancho peppers, orange juice and rind, and salt to taste. Transfer to a sauce pan, stir in 4 cups broth and cook over medium high heat until hot through, adding cream as needed to fill pumpkin shell. Place pumpkin shell on a platter, fill with soup and serve, garnishing each serving with pumpkin seeds and cilantro. Serves 4-6.

Spicy Pumpkin Stew

2 teaspoons virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon chipotle chili flakes
1 red sweet bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 white or yellow onion, chopped
2 cups Florence fennel, finely chopped
2 cups diced pumpkin or winter squash, fresh or frozen
6 cups vegetable OR chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/4 cup cilantro, stemmed
1/4 cup jack cheese, coarsely grated

In a stew pot, heat oil and garlic over medium high heat until golden (1-2 minutes). Add chipotle flakes and  brown quickly. Stir in bell pepper, onion, and fennel and cook, stirring, until barely soft (3-4 minutes). Add pumpkin, cover pan and reduce heat to medium low and cook until vegetable juices flow (3-5 minutes).  Add broth and heat through (8-10 minutes). Season to taste with salt and serve, garnished with cilantro and cheese. Serves 4-6.



Posted in fall/winter crops, Pets & Pests In The Garden, preserving food, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Getting The Most From Aromatic Vegetables

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Ann Lovejoy
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

How To Make An Italian Battuto

Aromatic vegetables such as onions, leeks, garlic, and shallots, can add remarkable depth and finish to savory dishes. Interestingly, the amount and even the kind of flavor aromatics will bring to a dish can be influenced significantly by the way you cut them. Slow cooking caramelizes all of them to some degree, whether done on the stove top or in a roasting pan. Grilling works well with small to medium sized onions or young, tender leeks. Chop garlic too fine and it tastes bitter and burns quickly. Big, coarse chunks of onion cook unevenly, while the greenest parts of leeks can have the mouth feel of bamboo (not the tender shoots, but the stuff you might make flooring with).

Italian cooks bring out the fullest flavor of aromatic vegetables by chopping them into a very fine paste called a battuto. In Perugia, where I learned to cook, a battuto always included onion and celery, both the stalks and the greens, and might also involve a bit of carrot, some parsley, or fresh basil. Many cooks include a piece of salt pork or pancetta in their battuto when the dish will include fowl or meal. For seafood, the fat is often replaced by chopped olives or olive oil.

Use a large, heavy knife to help you chop your ingredients finely. Don’t use a food processor–somehow the mechanical grinding does not give the right quality to the mixture, which should be a bit rougher than a processed puree. Don’t worry if your battuto is not uniform or perfectly chopped; you should still be able to visually identify the various ingredients.

Sumptuous Shrimp In A Heavenly Cream Sauce

The silky, sumptuous sauce in the recipe below is based on the heavenly heavy cream from the Fresh Breeze dairy in Lynden, Washington. This small organic dairy was originally homesteaded by a Dutch couple in 1901 and has been run by five successive generations using techniques that would be recognized as organic today. The present owners, Shawn and Clarissa Langley, decided to formalize their program and are now a fully certified organic dairy, running about 180 cows on 400 acres.

Fresh  Breeze is the only organic dairy in Washington that bottles their own milk and cream. Both are used by many Washington chefs, who recognize their outstanding quality and flavor. The first time I gave my husband Bud a glass of Fresh Breeze milk, he got teary eyed and said “This tastes like milk I drank as a child.”  That full, rich flavor comes from grass; Fresh Breeze cows are pastured from April through October, and you really can taste the difference.

Local Cream Makes Good

The cream is so thick that it whips in a flash; you have to be careful not to make butter (though if you do, be ready for a total treat–it’s just as silky and flavorful as the cream, of course!). That gorgeous, clean, fresh-tasting cream was showcased in our dinner tonight, which consisted of the last fresh corn from a friend’s farm in the Skagit, fresh salad from the deck garden, and a shrimp dish inspired by an Italian cookbook. The original recipe called for a stick of butter and a cup of cream, but the luscious Fresh Breeze cream is so rich, half that amount was plenty (and I only used a tablespoon of butter). See what you think!

Shrimp With Basil Cream

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream (organic tastes best)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 white onion, halved and sliced
2 stalks celery, with greens
2 red Gypsy peppers, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon dried hot pepper flakes
1 pound shelled, deveined shrimp
1 satsuma or tangerine, juiced (with pulp)
1/4 cup coarsely grated parmesan cheese (or any hard cheese)

With an immersion blender or food processor, puree basil, heavy cream, and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt (don’t whip it, though), set aside. Chop together 1 tablespoon each of onion, celery, celery greens, and peppers to a fine paste (this is what Italians call a battuto). In a wide, shallow pan, heat oil, butter, celery seed and pepper flakes over medium high heat for 1 minute. Add the battuto and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden (4-6 minutes). Add remaining vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender -crisp (5-7 minutes). Add shrimp in a single layer, cook for 2 minutes, flip and cook for 2 minutes. Add satsuma juice and bring to a simmer. Add cream, cover pan, reduce heat to lowest position and simmer for 3 minutes. Serve hot over Citrus Garlic Rice, garnished with grated cheese. Serves 2-4.

Rice With Character

Rice can be a bland backdrop for a spirited sauce, but a few simple additions make any kind of rice more memorable. Citrus peel and/or juice, savory seeds, toasted nuts, or a few drops of sesame oil give plain rice a higher profile in any meal. In the recipe below, plump cloves of garlic cook along with the rice. The soft, cooked garlic is mashed and combined with fresh citrus juice, then tossed with the hot rice. It’s spunky right away and even better the next day, when the flavors have time to marry. Use any extra rice in an omelet, add it to soup, or reheat it gently with a bit of broth or water and top it with a zippy sauce and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Citrus Garlic Rice

1 cup short grain brown rice
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
5 cloves garlic, peeled
2 satsumas or tangerines, juiced (2/3 cup, with pulp)

In a rice cooker, combine rice, salt, and whole peeled garlic with 2 cups water and cook until done. Remove garlic, fluff rice with a fork, mash garlic and add to citrus juice, then drizzle over rice and fluff again. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes before serving to develop flavor. Serves 4.

Basil and Tomatoes In The Sunporch

The big pots of basil I brought indoors to our unheated sunporch in September are still going strong. I pinch them back every time I need a bit of fresh basil, and the plants are still big and bushy. Even though the porch is not heated, it gets enough sun to keep the tomatoes growing nicely as well. Next year, though, I’ll bring in some cherry tomatoes rather than big guys like the Brandywines. Cherry tomatoes are more productive indoors, even as the weather cools off. Still, a tomato a week and all the fresh basil I can use in exchange for a little floor space is a pretty sweet deal.

Posted in fall/winter crops, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment