The Slowest Performing Art

Here's a quote I read this week that I want to share:

"Gardening Is the Slowest Performing Art"

...the more you think about it, the more it seems to unfold in your brain...

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This week I wanted to share a few of my favorite seed variety requests:

We heard from a family in New Jersey who had just bought a horse and wanted to know if they could buy some grass mix to grow in the windowsill to take to their new horse for winter treats. I explained that it probably is much more practical to rely on carrots and apples, which are perennial horse favorites. In actual fact, unless you have some additional artificial light boost, it's really pretty hard to grow things on your windowsill in the winter, let alone enough grass to satisfy a horse' s treat tooth. But what a charming image this makes anyway!

Then we got a request for dandelion greens to feed tortoises from a woman in Southern California who is an avid tortoise hobbyist. I suggested that I could buy some seed for edible dandelions and her tortoise hobby group could distribute it to other members if they liked. Edible dandelions are a popular salad in France and that's where I would go for the seed if she is interested.

I would love to hear from other customers who have nontraditional pets they would like to grow food or treats for. I'm hoping that our blend of 4 different organic grain seeds for "cat grass" will meet most needs, but I'd be interested to know what folks need for other pets like hamsters and lizards, etc. Getting these kinds of questions and requests is what makes this job fun and makes me feel like we are connected to the everyday lives of so many of our customers.

Here's my latest answer to that perennial question: What to make for lunch:? It's a really delicious and vitamin- rich salad dressing that's a scrumptious way to use up any parsley that might still be available in the garden:

Creamy Parsley Dressing:
1- 1/2 cup of chopped fresh Italian parsley
3 green onions chopped
1/4 cup fruity olive oil
1 clove garlic minced
generous pinch of salt
generous grinds of fresh black pepper
1/4 teaspoon fish sauce or use 1/2 teaspoon anchovy paste
1 cup fresh plain yogurt -- whole milk is best but low-fat is fine
Blend all together well and enjoy on crunchy greens with sliced cucumber and colored bell peppers strips or over leftover cooked vegetables. A whole meal if you add cold sliced chicken or chilled salmon or shrimp.

Cover crops and fall salads

The last few weeks have been busy as we finish removing and building new compost piles with all the vegetation from our summer crops and generally cleaning up. We clean, sharpen and oil our garden tools before storing them, and tackle the inevitable task of organizing our garden storage shed after a busy summer of pulling things out without putting them away properly. (Now if I could only be as organized about all the CDs piling up around my stereo or at least act on my last year's resolution to get them onto my computer so I can listen to them when I work! )
Trial garden manager Lindsay and her assistant Mila are busy sowing fava beans as a "green manure" crop in many of our biggest garden beds that grew heavy feeders this summer and will lie fallow over the cold season. Although we get hard frost here, the sturdy fava beans will grow through the winter and both fix nitrogen in the soil and produce lots of top growth. When they begin to bloom in spring, we will pull them and compost all the green material so they end up being entirely recycled. ( Of course we always save a little patch to grow the beans to the shelling stage and harvest them. I particularly like to quickly steam young ones to make fava bean pâté with fruity olive oil, minced garlic, lemon juice and salt-and-pepper!)
In our upper garden beds, we are enjoying looking at and eating a late crop of our "Summer Bouquet lettuce" trio. Alongside is a small bed of Merveille de Quatre Saisons butterheads, one of my other favorite late-season lettuces for their bronzy color and sweet flavor.
These tasty lettuces make really appetizing fall salads combined with a few fresh chives, a big handful of Italian parsley and slices of golden orange persimmon with a sprinkle ruby red pomegranate seeds and toasted sliced almonds over the top. New harvests of fall fruits like these are in the markets now as we head for Thanksgiving.

I've been lucky to have had a persimmon tree for years but it got split by lightning last fall and what remains of it has taken a year off from fruiting. Our local farmers market continues weekly through the end of November and I've been going regularly to buy persimmons, artichokes, new crop walnuts, almonds and raisins.
Finally, we've grown out our King Midas carrots. They are ready to harvest now although we'll probably keep some in the ground to sweet up even more with the frosts. Little Pepper, the adorable ( but feisty) dog that Lindsay takes care of when his owners are away, has been a regular trial garden visitor and love his carrots. Here's a picture of him guarding them and another of my harvest basket yesterday afternoon.