Salad Daze

today's harvest, tonight's salad

just because they're peaking

One Seed Chicago

2011 marks the fourth year One Seed Chicago is uniting Chicago-area gardeners in an annual project planting a common seed as part of a season-long celebration of urban gardening and local food. A project of NeighborSpace, Chicago’s land trust for community gardens, One Seed Chicago grows each year, as home, school, and community gardening continues to rise in popularity.

The project begins with the announcement of three seed candidates followed by democratic selection of the kind of seeds we'll be growing. Voting has already begun, and continues through April 1, 2011. The winning seed will be announced at the annual Green and Growing Fair, April 30th at the Garfield Park Conservatory. If you live in the Chicagoland area and would like to vote, please visit OneSeedChicago.com. Following the announcement of the winner, participants will receive a free packet of the winning seed mailed to their home (or school) for planting in their own gardens.

Last year's candidates were three favorite native forbs: nodding onion, bee balm, and purple coneflower, with bee balm bee-ing the winner. This year's choices are eggplant, (yum!) Swiss chard, (beautiful!) and radish (my choice!) I chose radishes since they were the first vegetable planted and harvested in the first vegetable garden my family ever planted when I was a skinny little ten-year-old kid. I guess you could call them my gateway plant, since I've been gardening all my life, starting with those radishes.

Radishes are easy for beginning veggie gardeners, including children, to grow. They don't need a lot of space, and are perfect vegetables for containers and other small urban growing spaces. Involving children in gardening, especially vegetable gardening, can be a healthful, fun, hands-on educational experience. Gardening gets kids outdoors and provides healthy exercise, fresh air and sunshine, and is a wonderful family activity. Research has shown that kids who grow vegetables, whether at home or at school, "eat them regularly and with gusto."

Radishes can be ready to harvest as little as four weeks after planting. The satisfaction of enjoying these crunchy, delicious nuggets so early in the gardening season is quick reward for both new and experienced vegetable gardeners, young or old. Succession planting while the weather is still cool can provide weeks of wholesome snacking and colorful salad additions. As they're harvested, their space in the garden can be replanted with warm-season vegetables.

Radishes are rich in vitamin C and other anti-oxidants, minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients, and fiber. The entire plant - root and leaves - is edible. (I think the leaves are best cooked, but young, tender leaves can also be used as salad greens.)

One Seed Chicago aims to introduce more Chicagoans to the joys and benefits of gardening, and has distributed over one million seeds to Chicago-area residents since 2008. If you live in the Chicago metro area, we'd love to have you join us! (While those outside the Chicago area aren't eligible for the free seeds, we'd love to have YOU join us by planting the winning veggie in your garden too!)

Tuscan Kale Salad

This is a colorful, elegant salad that's a pleasure serving with love and a toast to good health, made from one of the most nutrient-dense vegetables available. One cup of this delicious salad provides 1,300% DV vitamin K, 200% DV vitamin A, 88% DV vitamin C, and many other nutrients including protein, minerals like manganese, magnesium, calcium, and copper, antioxidants like Superoxide Dismutase, sulforaphane, lutein, kaempferol, and quercetin, and other phytonutrients including at least 45 different flavonoids.

Tuscan Kale Salad

Ingredients*:

4-6 cups loosely packed, finely sliced kale leaves with center ribs removed. (I use Lacinato (dinosaur) kale. Any variety of kale can be used.)
two shredded carrots
one diced red, yellow, or purple sweet pepper. (Either raw or frozen peppers work well in this salad.)
juice of 1 medium lemon
1 tablespoon organic raw apple cider vinegar
3-4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 small or l large clove(s) garlic, mashed
1/4 c fresh chopped parsley (or 2 t dried)
1 T fresh chopped basil (or 1 t dried)
1 T fresh chopped oregano (or 1t dried)
Celtic or Himalayan salt & pepper to taste
red pepper flakes to taste
2/3 cup grated Pecorino Toscano or other flavorful Italian grating cheese like asiago or parmesan

*Use as many organic ingredients as possible. Feel free to substitute your choice of herbs.

Method

"Massage" the shredded kale leaves with clean hands. This helps tenderize it and develop sulforaphane. Combine kale, shredded carrots, and diced pepper.

Whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, herbs, salt, pepper. For an extra kick, add a pinch (or more to taste) of hot red pepper flakes.
Pour over kale in serving bowl and toss well.
Add 2/3 of the cheese and toss again. Garnish with the rest of the cheese.

This salad should be prepared at least a few hours in advance, and keeps well for a couple of days covered in the refrigerator. Many raw fruits and veggies are difficult for me to eat due to my digestive disease. When I first tried kale, both raw and cooked, it didn't seem to be a vegetable I could tolerate. Advance preparation of this salad though, combined with lemon and raw cider vinegar, not only helps develop the sulforaphane, it also tenderizes the kale, making it easily digestible even for someone like me with a very sensitive digestive system.

Superoxide Dismutase is Expialidoshus

Redbor kale at Chicago Botanic Garden (September 2010)

Superoxide Dismutase is Expialidoshus,

Even if the sound of it is something quite atrocious.

If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious,

Superoxide Dismutase is Expialidoshus!

Kale is rich in antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer nutrients. For example, Superoxide Dismutase (SOD,) is an important phytonutrient, an antioxidant abundantly present in kale. Kale is an all-around nutritional powerhouse; rich in calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, lutein, beta-carotene, omega-3 (ALA,) at least 45 different antioxidant flavonoids, fiber, and vitamins A, C, and K. It's a sulfur-rich vegetable, which in part accounts for its reputation as a detoxifying, medicinal superfood. Sulforaphane is formed when sulfur-rich cruciferous vegetables such as kale are chopped and chewed. Sulforaphane triggers the liver's production of detoxifying enzymes, helping the body cleanse itself of some of the dangerous environmental and ingested toxins we're exposed to in this chemical age.

We're growing kale in our garden for the first time. I didn't know much about it when it was planted, only that it looked cool, and would be one of the hardiest vegetables I'd ever grown. While this might be the first time kale has grown here, it won't be the last now that I know what a fantastic food it is. And, while most of the veggies are now toast following a killing frost last week, our kale is still beautiful and delicious. We can expect to still be harvesting it for weeks to come, even here in our zone 5 garden. In fact, like brussels sprouts, the flavor of kale improves and becomes even sweeter with the frost and typically chilly weather of November in Chicago.

There are many delicious ways to enjoy kale, either raw or cooked. It can even be a beneficial addition to a beloved pet's diet. George enjoys it immensely. He eats his kale raw, finely chopped and mixed in with his homemade, whole-foods diet. Kale is one of a variety of nutritious vegetables recommended by George's new holistic veterinarian. It's so rewarding knowing I'm growing some of the food that is nourishing him through his remarkable recovery from a number of geriatric health challenges.

Back in September, when I met up with Monica, Diane, Rose, and Beckie at Chicago Botanic Garden, we saw Redbor kale not only in the vegetable gardens, but also in ornamental plantings throughout the gardens. As you can see in the photo, it is really beautiful. For ornamental gardeners who don't have dedicated vegetable growing space, consider adding kale to your ornamental beds for its beauty, and be sure to harvest some for your kitchen for your own inner beauty and good health!

Non-GMO Month

Knowlege is power. We can make a difference by educating ourselves and voting every day with our wallets. Together we can push to the tipping point what may be one of the most pressing health issues of our time. For the health of our children and their children, if you haven't already, please educate yourself and share your knowledge with family and friends. For more information please visit The Institute for Responsible Technology.

Today's Harvest

Yay - the first cucumber! Last year cucumbers were started in the basement around May 1st, and they produced like crazy beginning in early July. We had such a bumper crop I ended up making several jars of bread and butter pickles with the extras we didn't consume or give away. We've been enjoying the delicious (if I do say so myself) pickles since, and the last jar is almost empty.

This year I started cukes from seed in the west veggie bed in mid-May. Unfortunately cutworms destroyed all the seedlings within days of their emergence. So about a week later I started more seeds in the basement, and let the plants grow there until they started vining. They started producing male blooms weeks ago, and finally, finally the female blooms are coming. It will be a late harvest, but I'm thrilled finding the first ripe cucumber of the season this morning. Needless to say, I'll be keeping the cucumber seedlings in the basement in the future until they're sturdy enough to foil the cutworms.

It's been a great year for tomatoes. Every couple of days I gather the ripe ones. The photo is representative of what I harvest several times a week. We really don't need thirteen tomato plants, but I've been enjoying experimenting with several heirlooms I've never grown, along with the usual staples I've loved for years. We've been enjoying them all for weeks. The yellow pears came from a volunteer plant that I left in the east veggie bed. They're not my favorite cherry-type tomato, but they're not bad and they're kind of cute.

Except for a few tomatoes that have fallen to the ground and gotten yucky, not a single one has gone to waste. Several batches of salsa have been made, some have been eaten out-of-hand, especially the cherries, others have made wonderful pasta sauces, and many have been shared with friends and clients. For sauce, after cooking the tomatoes and running them through a sieve, I add a small can of tomato paste to thicken them up instead of boiling them down forever. Adding the paste minimizes cooking time and heating up the house during what has already been a hot enough summer.

There are beets out there ready to harvest, and I even picked a few beans I missed yesterday. The peppers picked yesterday ended up in a delicious Thai curry dinner, made with leftover jerk chicken, organic coconut milk, peanut butter, garlic, onions, herbs, spices, and peas, and served with organic brown Basmati rice. Guess what's for lunch today!

gratuitous dragonfly photo

Speaking of bumper crops, we've had a bumper crop of dragonflies this year. I've had several up-close and personal encounters with them, having them land on me and land nearby. A couple of weeks ago one landed on a daylily in a client's garden, and seemed to be checking me out quite intensely, for a really long time. As I moved around the garden, he followed, and was my companion for at least 20 minutes. I've wished the camera was with me to capture images of the dragonflies encountered this season.

This one was resting here for a nice long time, and was accommodating enough to wait for me to grab the camera. I believe it's a female Green Darner.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

August Garden

This season marks seven years since moving here and starting our shade garden. Slow and sometimes frustrating in earlier years, it feels like this season the garden has finally come into its own. While the garden will continue to evolve and tweaking will continue as long as gardening here continues, this season, all season, as I look upon the garden, I feel pleased.

In the second year of our west-side, side-yard veggie bed, I was so happy with the harvest from the part-sun bed last year, I added a bed in the east side yard early this spring. Almost identical crops are planted in each bed - an experiment to see what grows best where. Tomatoes are happier on the west side, and peppers on the east.

Lettuce, assorted greens, beets, beans, radishes, and herbs seem equally happy in both beds.
Peas thrived until early July in the west bed, and cucumbers are now climbing the trellis in their place. Cucumbers have been dissapointing this year, since cutworms attacked the seedlings of the first sowing. The second sowing was done indoors, and the seedlings were allowed to start vining before they were planted out in the garden. They're thriving, and covered with male blossoms. The female, fruiting blossoms should be coming along soon. Cucumbers grow fast, so while I expect a much smaller harvest than last year, I still hope to have lots of cukes in a few short weeks.

Every gardening season brings challenges and rewards, and this season has been no exception. With more rewards than challenges this year, in spite of the above-average high heat and humidity, it's not a stretch to say this has been my favorite year yet gardening here in the shade.

A New Veggie Bed

This long, narrow space in our east side yard was, for many years, home to an arborvitae hedge. In decline the last three years, the ice storms of winter 2008-2009 weren't kind to the ex-hedge. All but three of them were removed last fall.

The neighbor's ivy, which had previously been allowed to roam freely here, was cut back and dug out. A barrier was sunk into the soil to keep it at bay. Regular maintenance will probably be needed to keep it out of the new bed. The clump of daffodils was removed to make more space for veggies. The arborvitae stumps are ugly and take up space, but rotator cuff and biceps tendinitis will keep me from removing them. Leaving them isn't optimal, but since neither the Lawn Man or I are in optimal condition to remove them and since my budget for this bed doesn't allow professional removal, the stumps will remain for now.

The little arborvitae in the foreground was layered from a low branch of it's now-defunct parent a couple of years ago. It's now growing on its own roots after being severed from the parent plant when it was removed last fall. The baby will be moved in the next couple of weeks.

The soil will be loosened and amended, and this new space will be used for growing a few more veggies, and giving a little more flexibility for rotating our 'crops,' a challenge with limited veggie-growing space. Although this space doesn't receive optimal sunlight for a veggie garden, successfully experimenting with a few tomatoes and peppers amidst the ivy last year makes me confident this space will provide more fresh, delicious, organic veggies for our table.

The original veggie bed in our west side yard is ready to go! In honor of St. Patrick's Day last week, the trellis was put in, along with seeds for peas, radishes, lettuce, beets, and bunching onions. After many years without a veggie garden, we're looking forward to our second year successfully growing veggies in part sun with our new veggie space.

Apologies to Balisha for losing your comment - Blogger did something weird shortly after I published the original version of this post. The post disappeared and I had to start from scratch.

This Tiny Vegetable Garden

Now sleeping with a thick layer of leaves and grass clippings that should make a nice mulch in the spring, the veggie bed is a good spot for overwintering a few plants that didn't quite make it into the shade garden or front foundation beds this fall. We had walks and the patio replaced this fall, and I lost a small border on one side of the house in the process. Plants grown for Native Seed Gardeners were in that border. They were transplanted for safekeeping into the veggie bed back in September, and will be moved to new homes early next spring.

Also overwintering in the veggie bed are several Baptisia australis plants started from seeds back in July or August. They're so small, I hope a few will make it through the winter. Tall bellflowers from my trip to Mom's back in September were given a temporary home in the veggie bed too. Since so much of the shade garden was chewed to ground (probably by rabbits,) while I was away, I couldn't really tell where it was safe to plant. That's also my excuse reason for once again not planting bulbs this fall.

Our veggie bed is only about 4' x 10,' and gets less than 5 hours a day of direct sun. Still, it produced an amazing abundance of produce all spring, summer, and fall. We grew lots of lettuce and greens, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, peas, garlic, beets, radishes, squash, and several varieties of peppers. The bed was planted intensively using square-foot, interplanting, and succession-planting methods. We enjoyed beautiful, fresh, delicious, healthful organic produce every day, all through the gardening season, and had more peppers, green beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes than we could eat.

I shared some veggies with family and friends, and made tomato juice, blanched and froze extra green beans, diced and froze extra peppers, and made pickled jalapenos, pickled green tomatoes, and bread-and-butter cucumber pickles. . . all from our new little raised veggie bed in a part-sun side yard, built late last fall using retaining wall pavers with a thick layer of newspaper at the bottom to kill the grass, and alternating 'lasagna' layers of compost, fallen leaves, and grass clippings. Over the winter the layers aged. By spring we had the most beautiful garden soil, rich, crumbly, and full of earthworms.

Newspaper-lined, lasagna-style, raised, mulched beds have made a believer out of me. I don't think I pulled more than ten weed seedlings from the veggie bed all season. Watering was minimal, limited to about six weeks midsummer when we had no rain. The soil held moisture very well, and the mulch helped prevent evaporation. I've never had such a small vegetable garden before. I'm still amazed how little work, and how productive our little bed was. I can hardly wait for next year!

Lakota Twins

The twins are doing great - growing nicely, getting a little bigger every day.

Sitting at the edge of the garden picking lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, or beans; big, bright, bold, beautiful squash blossoms perfume the air with the promise of more squash to come.

This year I planted two varieties of squash - Lakota and Red Kuri, both in the hubbard squash family. The twins are Lakota squash, a mid-1990's open-pollinated introduction developed at the University of Nebraska by Dr. D. P. Coyne. Dr. Coyne experimented with crosses and selections to assure more uniform pigmentation of this beautiful squash before making it available to the trade.

Lakota squash was developed from seeds obtained by the University from Nebraska's Fort Robinson, once a prairie Cavalry post, later an agricultural site, now a National Park. The variety it was derived from is no longer in cultivation. It had been grown by Native American peoples along the Missouri Valley for centuries before the arrival of Europeans to the continent. This indigenous squash was also cultivated by the troops stationed at Nebraska's Forts Atkinson and Robinson, and by early Nebraska settlers.

Since my maternal gardening roots go back several generations to the family farm in Nebraska and include Native American ancestors, the heritage of this squash spoke to me. I had to try it in my first veggie bed in more than five years.

Besides being delicious, winter squash is a nutritional powerhouse high in nutrients such as vitamins A, and C, potassium, manganese, folic acid and other B vitamins, omega 3 fatty acids and fiber, and low in fat. In addition, properly cut from the vine, cured, and stored under the right cool, dry conditions with space between them for air circulation, winter squash can be stored for several months.

When ripe, the twins will be deep orange and green. Lakota squash is described as having a sweet, smooth, nutty flavor, similar to Red Kuri, which I love.

If I hadn't tried Red Kuri squash a couple years ago and then couldn't find it anywhere again, I might not have a veggie garden this summer. I can hardly wait to try these squash, and the Red Kuri too!

Squash and other vining plants can be trellised and grown even in a small garden like mine. Growing them on a trellis saves space in the garden, leaving room for growing more veggies. Even in larger gardens such as Mom's pictured below, trellising works very well with squash, improving air circulation and helping prevent fungal diseases, and keeping the fruit and foliage off the ground, freer of insect damage.

It seems most people have a love it or hate it relationship with squash. Since I was a little girl I've always loved it. What about you - love it or hate it? If you love it, what's your favorite variety?

A Visit to Mom's

Spring Fling Saturday - Rick Bayless Garden

A couple of years ago, just as I was starting my business, I was contacted by a potential client who wanted to re-create Rick Bayless' garden in her backyard. Aside from being uncomfortable with the idea of copying someone else's design, frankly, since I'd only seen the garden on TV, I was pretty intimidated by the idea. Taking on such an ambitious project so early after starting my business seemed a bit overwhelming. The client envisioned the project taking place over time, and was realistic in not expecting that everything would be done in one season. Still, I ultimately decided I was probably not the best fit for the project.

Gail from Clay and Limestone! What a joy it was to meet her.

The backyard garden of Chicago chef and restaurateur Rick Bayless and his wife Deann was the first stop of Spring Fling's very busy Saturday. We were treated to a tour of the garden by Bill and Lori Shores, the husband and wife team who take care of it. I was wowed by many elements of Mr. Bayless' garden, both the ornamental and food production aspects. The things that impressed me most were how accessible the materials used in the garden are, how creatively they were put together, and how 'real' the garden is.

Being a celebrity and all, I think Mr. Bayless could probably afford a hoity-toity back yard. This place was lovely, don't get me wrong, but it was also very 'normal.' It was rustic, warm, family-friendly, unique, wonderful for entertaining, and just so darned down-to-earth. It was a garden that had clearly developed over time, and continues to evolve, just like the gardens of most of us average, everyday people.

Small personal touches brought character into the space.

A conduit trellis supports an espaliered apple tree. Nothing fancy - this is something just about anyone could do. I loved the creative use of very ordinary, accessible materials.

Another accessible, affordable idea, a mister system cools and moistens the soil, aids in seed sprouting, and facilitates succession planting even in the hot, often dry summer months in Chicago.

Bill Shores showing and telling us all about the kitchen garden.

This is a serious production garden - organically-grown produce from this garden is used in Rick Bayless' two restaurants. The annual value of produce from this garden is estimated at $20,000. That's a lotta lettuce growing in a relatively small space.

Bill and Lori Shores, our hosts for this tour. They couldn't have been more warm and welcoming.

The tour of Mr. Bayless' garden was a highlight of Spring Fling Saturday - an inspiring and educational event. I came away with lots of ideas for my own tiny veggie bed, and some creative inspiration for the use of found objects and personal keepsakes. Thank you Rick and Deann Bayless for sharing your garden with us, and Bill and Lori Shores for the wonderful tour!