The Great Garlic Scape

If garlic were art, it would be a triptych, deserving of a place in the most holy of culinary shrines. Garlic gives of itself thrice in a single season. In May, when the young garlic plants pop up, we're treated to an aromatic garlicky scallion called spring or green garlic （青蒜 qīngsuàn）, wonderful in eggs and soups and pastas. In the fall, the garlic itself is ready to harvest, to be stored hanging in the basement throughout the winter, with the perennial hope it will last until the following fall harvest. But in between these two deliveries, we have the lesser-known, and some might even say lowly, garlic scape (蒜苔suàntái, 蒜芯 suànxīn, 蒜苗 suànmiáo, or 蒜毫儿 suànháor, depending on where one is in China). My first experience with garlic scapes came in Beijing in the fall of 1988 when I was attending Peking University . Back then, I was a carnivore, and one of my favorite Sichuan dishes was 鱼香肉丝 yúxiāng ròusī (shredded pork in garlic sauce). Usually the dish is served with a green vegetable such as 空心菜 kōngxīncài (water spinach), 芹菜 qíncài (celery) or 莴笋 wōsǔn (celtuce, also called stem lettuce, celery lettuce, asparagus lettuce Wikipedia). However, our favorite place to eat, the Restaurant Number 5 at the Friendship Hotel, 20 minutes from our dorm by bike, used garlic scapes whenever they were in season. And these babies will last for months in the fridge, so they were available for at least half the year.

A fairly large and robust garlic crop this year. I've raved about this wonderful Italian variety in previous blog posts.

The scapes are actually the flower of the garlic plant. As such, it pays to remove them when they're still young and tender as the plant can then concentrate its energy in developing large bulbs and the 5-6 big cloves this variety is known for.

I think they're king of cute, like a pig's tail.

Yikes. This is but one third of the harvest. I better get stir frying. Perhaps to make my go-to replacement for 鱼香肉丝, 鱼香茄子 yúxiāng qiézi, which replaces the pork with eggplant. Quite delicious.

Red Russian Kale Collusion (Recipe)

In this rigged kale recipe, the red Russian kale colludes with lacinato kale in a simple one-bowl meal that will please even the most picky and partisan palates. Make it vegetarian or vegan. I modified and merged  a couple of recipes (hence the collusion) and came up with this slow cooker version of a classic dish, made healthier with short grain brown rice. Leave out the dairy and you can be even more self-righteous. Red Russian Kale is the bomb.

Red Russian kale, an heirloom variety from Seed Savers in Deborah, Iowa.

Lacinato kale, also from Seed Savers.

The kale and mushrooms really cook down, but I halved the rice from the original recipe.




Completely unnecessary picture of onions cooking and might just as well be a stock photo, as far as the viewer is concerned.

Slow Cooker Mushroom Risotto with Brown Rice, Kale, and Mushrooms

10-16 oz kale (I used lacinato and red Russian) washed and cut into 1-inch pieces

8-12 oz. mushrooms (I used crimini and oyster), thinly sliced

5 cloves garlic (the original recipe called for NO garlic. Can you imagine?)

1 small yellow onion cut into small pieces

3 cups of veggie broth

1 cup short grain brown rice

½ cup white wine

1 tablespoon chopped thyme 

salt and pepper

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for serving

2 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons olive oil

Bragg’s nutritional yeast (optional

Step 1    

In a large enameled cast-iron casserole, or large wide saucepan, heat 1-2 tablespoons
olive oil. Add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

Step 2   

Add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil to the casserole. Add the
kale and cook over moderate heat until wilted, 3 minutes. Add the kale to the mushrooms and set aside.

Step 3   

In the casserole, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil (3 of olive oil for a vegan version). Add the onion, season with salt and pepper and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the rice and thyme and stir until coated with oil and lightly toasted, 2 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring, until wine has evaporated. 

Step 4

Pour rice and onion mixture into into a 4-quart crock pot set to high. Add the broth. Cook for 1 ½ hours. Add the mushrooms and kale. Cook another ½-1 hour or until most of the broth is absorbed.

Step 5

Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1/3 cup of cheese stirring, until the risotto is creamy. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with oil and serve with more cheese.

For a vegan version, omit the butter and cheese, and sprinkle with a little Bragg’s nutritional yeast.

Drip Works

Good news! The drip irrigation system I installed really works. Since I installed it last week, we have had consistent rain every other day or so, and I haven't had to water.

The tomatoes have really started to take off. I can't wait: 24 plants; 16 varieties of heirlooms.

Unfortunately, the cilantro is always ready before the tomatoes. Hmm...plant later next year? 

Everything looks pretty good—no diseases and looking pretty healthy. Might have a few cabbage worms lurking but they're easy to get rid of.

Drip Irrigation: Because I'm an Environmentalist *and* Lazy

I finally got around to adding drip irrigation lines to my six raised beds. One would think a lazy person such as me would have added this system last year as it really will cut down on the work of watering, but I just never got around to it; apparently, Mr. Lazy Bones ran into Mr. Mañana. I ordered the materials from a very knowledgable woman in Salt Lake city, Kathlyn Collins, whose website, The Gardening Coach, is a trove of useful information. And she will willingly talk to you at length over the phone to answer questions and give advice. The hard part about this all is just figuring out how to get started; once that happens, it's pretty easy to work things out, and even ad-lib. Kathlyn's prices are also very reasonable, so there's not much of an up-charge for getting advice as well as materials.

The drip lines I used have emitters every 4 inches, and the lines are placed every six inches across each box to allow for blanket coverage. This type of coverage is essential for square foot gardening.

The design the Gardening Coach website espouses looks like a good arrangement for boxes set out on a flat surface, but I quickly discovered it would be problematic for my boxes which are terraced into a hillside. I opted for a different approach where I would run the ½-inch sub main across the inside top of each box, and attach the drip tape with Starter 6mm Barb x 5/8" Tape Swivels and ⅝" tape end plugs (see below).

I ran the ½" sub main line across the end of each box. I also attached each section to a piece of 2x2 cedar so it can float on the soil at the end of each box (see next pic below).

Sub main header ready to install.

To enable the use of my hoops and cover, as well as trellises and tomato cages, which sit on the top of each box, I had to lower the sub main headers below the tops of each box. I started this by drilling 1" holes on each end corner.

Then I used a reciprocating saw to clean up each notch.

Next, I prepared each ½" sub main line for the installation of the barbed swivels to which each drip tape line would be attached. I used a 7mm punch for this, a great little time saving device well worth the 8 bucks I paid for it.

Attached drip tape swivel. Only 35 more to go.

One header down, five to go.

Sub main attached to 2x2 header board and floating in the box. This design will also facilitate winter removal of the lines as all I have to do is unscrew the connector that attach it to the next box.

The lines between boxes are enclosed in ¾" PVC pipe to prevent damage from heavy-footed bi-peds. I also used a piece of 1 ½" PVC to cover the connectors sticking out the end.

After the headers are all installed, the next step is to attach each 8-foot piece of drip tape to each swivel.

After pushing tape onto end of swivel, simply screw the cap over the tape.

After all lines are connected, and water is flushed through the system to remove any possible debris, the end plugs are similarly attached to the drip tape.

After careful placement across the box, each drip tape line is secured by a landscape staple.

Each run of sub main is capped off by a screw cap that allows the lines to be flushed as well as drained for the winter should you decide to leave them in place.

This side of the yard is ready to attach to the water supply, in this case a hose coming from one of the two house spigots. On the end is the pressure reducer which is attached to the filter, which is itself attached to the swivel-t. These three bits are the only parts that have to be removed in the winter.

The final touch is adding a timer to each line. I will start by watering every other day for 10 minutes and modify from there.

'Bout Danged Time

Finally got the garden fully planted. Weird spring weather made it later than usual. Note my post from last spring when just the opposite was the case. Climate change is really making farming predictions tough. Made a few notable changes based on my extremely long learning curve. Chucked the potato boxes (well, not the boxes just the spuds). The weather was so cold so late I wasn't able to get my taters in the tubs before the eyes were two feet long. Spent a lot on those heirloom French fingerlings when I bought them from Seed Savers a couple of years ago. Oh well, when harvested, they weighed in at about five bucks per (and they were fingerlings, mind you.

So this is what I did instead: Herbs and onions. 

Herb box number 2.

Onions galore.

My salad greens and winter squash box (right). Note the lettuces in the back left that wintered over. In the left box, summer squashes (blue, green and yellow petit pans) and brassicas. Several varieties of chard as well that are too wee to see. Straight back of the salad box is an entire bed of garlic. A fantastic heirloom variety that I've grown for the past three years.

I finally added a border to the rather unsightly borderless patch of grass I had before. These were some nice and friggin' heavy limestone pieces taken out of the back yard when we built the new garage a couple years back.

This is what I mean about unsightly.

Much better me thinks. And a heckuva lot easier to mow.

Back in Mac

This post should actually be dated mid-April, but I had my nine-year-old MacBook Pro in for a graphics issue, and that turned into a month of no computer. They kept second-guessing the problem, first a graphic's cable, then a new LCD, then a graphics chip on the logic (mother) board, then a new mother board after they destroyed the old one trying to fix the graphics chip. They admitted their mistake and charged me only for the LCD, cable, and while there were in there, a new battery. Grand total: $350. About half the cost of a new logic board, and about a tenth the cost of this Mac when I bought it nine years ago. The upside is that this 'ol quasi-extinct 17-inch hunk of unibody should be good for another nine years. SO, this post is old news, but I will persevere. Now back to the garden.

First, just what the hell is this shot of? It's a shot of me transplanting a mini ¾-inch soil block into a 2-inch soil block, that's what. And a hard shot to make, with only two hands.

Newly transplanted mini blocks.

This year, I limited myself to 16 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, herbs, brassicas, onions, peppers, and marigolds.