Lettuce is one of our winter crops in Los Angeles – this red lettuce, Merville des Quatres Saissons (Marvel of the Four Seasons) is more like Marvel of the Two Seasons here –
our
summers are way too hot to grow this lovely French belle, but in
cooler months this is a true delight that is as tasty as it is
beautiful – and it's really beautiful! Alongside it, not as
gorgeous, but still a very good choice for salad is Tango, a reliable
and tasty companion in the garden and on the plate!
As
the Summer crops begin to decline, we now get ready to see the
seasons change in a dramatic fashion, those who say there are no
seasons in California have not really taken notice of a garden here
in September. The plants that have given you tomatoes all summer,
are mostly a heap of sad, brown vines. If there has not been any
difficult diseases, I prefer to leave the vegetation where it lays.
I chop it up using my trusty pruners or a machete – or a shovel, if
it is handy and will do the job. The cut up plant debris is left
where it lies and fresh mulch is piled up on top of it – to three
or four inches deep. The paths are filled with wood chips if I don't
have a clover or other green manure crop growing there. The old
vegetation will break down and will be composted in place. Diseased
foliage is removed and placed either in trash or in the compost pile.
Some diseases, like mildew, I accept and simply deal with year in
and year out – other diseases, like Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) have
to be taken – carefully – off site.
To
the degree I can, though, those plants that are healthy and have
drawn nutrients from the soil are left in place, allowing some of
that nutritional value to be returned to the soil.
When
we harvest a tomato, we are really harvesting the soil's fertility
that has been converted via the sun's energy into the vegetables from
our garden. Putting the tomato plant back into the soil, without the
tomatoes you harvested, represents a net loss for the soil. That's
where the additional mulch and compost come in – we try to replace
the vegetables we have eaten with organic matter that will allow the
soil to recreate its bevy of nutrients nourishing our next season's
garden. It is not sufficient, in the long run, to just add
fertilizers – we need to add things that will provide sustenance
for the fungi, bacteria and other critters living in our garden's
soil; a thriving soil ecology will provide better nutrition to your
plants without spending needless dollars on fertilizer, most of which
will only become pollution in our ground water or vaporize off into
the atmosphere.
In
a garden where perennial weeds are not a huge problem, I encourage
everyone to plant a perennial crop that will assist in nourishing the
soil. I like any one of several clovers or alfalfa or whatever else
that will take mild foot traffic and will do something to add to the
fertility of the soil. If this crop is mowed in a sustainable manner
– like with a hand sickle, for a small area, to a scythe for larger
areas – the clippings can be put right back into the beds or added
to a compost pile for more greens. Unfortunately, growing in most
community gardens, control of perennial weeds is only as good as the
worst gardener. If one gardener doesn't keep them in check,
perennial weeds will infest the pathways and there is no good way to
get rid of them without shredding the ground cover as well.
Keep
in mind that some kind of soil regeneration must be happening all
the time or the soil will eventually not support food crops. It
is better to do this regeneration little by little in our smaller
gardens. Folks with larger areas, or a long vacation coming up, can
plant cover crops to increase the soil's fertility over a season.
For gardeners in Sunset Zones 22 and 24, that means a part of the
garden can be left without growing crops to harvest every single
month of the year. In areas where there is not a huge problem with
perennial weeds, the paths supplement this soil enrichment by growing
something like clover year round to improve the soils vibrancy. In
any growing season, it is better to have the soil covered with some
crop – even a crop of weeds is better than leaving the soil barren.
Although it would be ideal if you were to get rid of the weeds
before they began to go to seed. Just sayin'....
I've
had a great crop of peppers this year – which, I find a tad
disturbing, because this year was lousy for eggplants due to a lack
of consistent heat, and if it didn't get hot enough for one, I'd
think it wouldn't be acceptable for the other. Still I have a lot of
peppers, go figure. We pickled about 5 pints of the Sweet Banana
peppers so far this year, but the jalapeños, I'm letting stay on the
vine until they turn red so I can dry them until they are crispy.
Then I want to grind them into powder for a teentsy little zip in
some recipes over the coming months. A little bit will go a long
ways, so I might have settled on some holiday gifts for this year
without even trying.
One
thing to remember when preparing or cooking with hot peppers: either
wear rubber gloves or make very sure to wash your hands thoroughly
before you touch your face – especially your eyes – the juice in
hot peppers are just about one of the most painful solutions you can
get into your eyes. Or other very sensitive parts of your body.
Measurements
of heat in peppers are in Scoville Heat Units (SHU's), which is based
on the amount of capsaicin in the pepper. Here is a chart
comparing a selection of different peppers and their varying amounts
of capsaicin. If you know the SHU of a pepper, you can avoid
blasting the top of your head off. But, remember, along with the
note on keeping capsaicin out of your eyes, if you dry peppers, the
heat increases by a factor of ten. That's an increase worth
remembering!
Pepper
Type
|
Heat
rating (in Scoville heat units)
|
Pure
Capsaicin
|
16,000,000
|
Red
Savina Habanero
|
350,000
~ 575,000
|
Habanero
|
200,000-300,000
|
Pequin
|
75,000
|
Tabasco
|
30,00-50,000
|
Cayenne
|
35000
|
Smoked
Jalepeno (Chipotle)
|
10000
|
Serrano
|
7,000-25,000
|
Jalepeno
|
3,500-4,500
|
Poblano
|
2,500-3,000
|
Pasilla
|
2,500
|
Anaheim
|
1,000-1,400
|
Ancho
|
1,000
|
Bell &
Pimento
|
0
|
About
half-way into the month, it usually becomes cool enough to sow
arugula, beets, carrots, lettuce, peas, parsnips and turnips. My
leek and fennel seedlings ought to be ready to transplant out, as
should broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, chard,
endive all later in the month. Lettuce is one plant I’ll usually
direct sow in the garden AND start in six packs to set out – there
are advantages to both and so I’ll use both. Root crops –
carrots, beets, radishes and turnips – must be sown where they will
grow. If you ignore my advice and try to sow root crops for
transplanting, you will find beets, radishes and turnips will produce
a crop, but they are so set back by the transplanting process it
really isn't worth it – carrots and parsnips simply do not perform
at all unless you are incredibly meticulous and then it's just not
worth the time.
As
September wanes, probably the most productive time in the Southern
California potager begins. If you are eating from your garden, now
is the time you can really feast for awhile, the last of summer –
peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, okra, sweet corn, basil – is still
out there to eat and the first root crops or lettuce will be big
enough to munch a bite or two. I enjoy eating BLT sandwiches and for
a brief moment in spring and a second brief moment at this time; the
homemade BLT is one of my rituals. I bake my own bread, and the
tomato and lettuce come from my garden so the only non-homemade items
are the bacon and the mayo. It's almost a mystical experience,
especially when the bread is still warm from the oven. Finish it off
with a dessert of figs heated on the grill or in a broiler, drizzled
with a bit of honey on them and a dollop of some fairly stout Greek
yogurt. Oh, to die for! Not some store-bought fig shipped in from
far away, but a fig that got ripe on a tree in the back yard or from
a local farmer at your farmers' market.
Fava
beans, lentils and peas are being planted now, too. All of these
grow best in our cooler winters. Fava beans were the only bean in
the Old World before the American plants became part of the European
pantheon; all the other beans are American (as are tomatoes, peppers,
and potatoes among others – one wonders how in the world the
Italians and French survived long enough to arrive at a culinary
tradition!). Fava bean plants, as well as lentils and peas, make a
marvelous addition to any soil building program and favas, when
combined with artichoke hearts, make a Mediterranean stew so
delicious that my taste buds flutter just to remember.
If
you missed starting sweet peas (Lathyrus
odoratus) last month, you can still try to
have these deliciously scented flowers
earlier than anyone else, they must be in the ground by the first
weekend of September. Please note that 'sweet peas' refer to a
flower, while peas (Pisum sativum) refers
to the food plant. The sweet pea flower (which I think has the most
divine aroma!), is strictly an ornamental as the seeds are poisonous!
Not smart to confuse the two – gives a whole new import to the “no
TV for you until you eat your peas!” line. If you succeed with
your early sweet pea flowers, I don't want to hear about it. It'll
take years off my life to have been beaten in this category.
If
you don't start your own seeds, find broccoli, cabbage, kale, chard
and onion plants in a good nursery. Don't scrimp on your
plants – if they have been cared for with indifference (like one
might find at a big box store with minimum wage employees who may
even hate working in a nursery) you might not get the quality plants
that will produce the best (or the most) food. You are going to
invest considerable time in growing these plants before they will be
your dinner. Buying a cheap plant is flat out 'penny wise and pound
foolish.' If you have to hoard some pennies, skip a couple cups of
coffee rather than buy cheap plants.
I
think it's better to start your plants from seed, instructions abound
and you can learn it easily enough! If you can, find the seminal
seed starting book, The New Seed Starters' Handbook by Nancy
Bubel. That was the book that started me on the road to starting
almost all my plants from seed and is still the best book on the
subject. I see it sells for about $14.00 on Amazon; I got my second
copy (the first went a-wandering) from a close out bin at Borders for
$3.00. Oh gosh! Remember Borders?
Starting
from seed, as you saw if you have browsed any decent seed catalog,
offers you the most diversity in what you have available to plant and
control over when you plant as well – which is a delightful way of
keeping your garden looking its best. Mind you, this takes patience
and time – but the rewards are equal to those investments. Isn't
that the way of everything, though? Mind you, as well as giving you
the ultimate control over what goes in your garden and giving you
access to twenty or thirty times the varieties available at all your
local stores combined, it is way less expensive and way more
productive! With so many reasons why growing from seed is preferable
and the only reason to not grow from seed is 'I'm too
impatient, ' which way are you going to swing? Gardeners, start your
seed catalogs!
This
is an exciting time to be gardening. Grab your imagination and look
at where you are planting. Think about the eventual size of what you
are planting – it's OK to make mistakes – that's how we learn!
When I'm teaching a class, the truth of it is, I have probably killed
more plants than anyone else in the room and yet, they are the ones
saying “I have a black thumb.” That's probably the biggest lie
they can tell me. When I kill a plant, I usually know why it died
and sometimes it isn't my fault. When it IS my fault, it's usually
because I wasn't paying attention. Death by inattention isn't a
'black thumb' issue unless you do things like forget to turn your car
off; or forget to go to work in the morning. Death by inattention is
reformable – it's simply changing your patterns.
Be good to yourself and you'll learn. It's all good.
I
know that traditional 'Dog Days' of summer are July through August,
but a case can be made for our Dog Days to come from August through
September. Usually our cooling trends don't begin until September
15th or thereabouts. Often, just to make life a little
harder on the gardener, you'll find a hot, dry dog day coming between
two rather cool nights – or worse, two cool twenty-four hour
periods. Planting your cool season seeds (especially carrots) will
net you a big fat nothing but a lot of extra work if the days come
back too hot. You might be able to mitigate it by watering them a
bit in the early afternoon every hot and dry day. Seeds of all
plants must be kept moist until they have germinated. This is
especially true of carrots and lettuce and other small seeds.
But
by mid-September, we ought to be OK – cooling should be in the wind
and evidence of yellowing leaves start showing up signaling imminent
leaf drop and the season of Fall. Take advantage of the cooler
temperatures to be in your garden more this month. The days are
appreciably shorter and soon, those of us with day jobs, will be
gardening in the evening with flashlights. Those of you who just
laughed, be warned: Gardens require attention and don't stop having
weeds and water needs just because the sun isn't up in the sky!
Flashlights and headlamps – styled after the miners' lights – are
effective tools that help a poor gardener through the shorter days of
winter. If you think this is the raving a lone, lunatic (and I use
that word judiciously!) gardener, keep gardening. One evening,
you'll do it too. If you don't end up trying to cure insomnia one
early morning in your pj's first. Gardeners who have a few seasons
under their thumbnails are nodding and smiling in agreement.
Here's
a recipe to help you with some of those extra tomatoes. I use the
'roma' or paste tomatoes in this recipe, but any tomato will do –
the fresh eating tomatoes, the “non-romas,” will probably be
better served to cook a little longer and get rid of some the extra
water. Right now I'm sold on San Marzano Roma tomatoes although the
less productive Golden Romas make a sweeter, and golden sauce from
this recipe.
One
summer, I had so many tomatoes, after I had eaten all I could stand
and had filled my freezer with sauce (a lot of which I gave away),
the final tomatoes of the year were left on the vine. I had too much
of a good thing!
Start
These In Containers
|
Start
These In The Ground
|
Move
to the Ground from Containers
|
All
cabbage family crops
|
Fava
beans
|
Any
cabbage family plant big enough to survive.
|
Leeks
|
Potatoes
(tubers)
|
Leeks
|
Fava
beans
|
Beets
|
Onions
|
Lettuce
|
Carrots
|
Herbs
|
Spinach
|
Parsnips
|
|
Fava
beans
|
Lentils
|
|
Shallots
(seed)
|
Peas
|
|
|
Garbanzo
beans
|
|
|
Garlic
(bulbs)
|
|
|
Shallots
(bulbs)
|
|
|
Lettuce
|
|
Refer
to the text for exact dates.
Roasted
Tomatoes
2
Table spoons, olive oil (to cover the bottom of the pan)
1
Medium Onion, Finely chopped (or 2 or 3 leeks)
3
Cloves Garlic, Finely chopped
8-10
Plum Tomatoes, halved lengthwise (to fill the pan)
2
Tablespoons chopped parsley (or basil or thyme or oregano)
Salt
and Pepper to taste
1
Tablespoon sugar
Note:
The amounts on all the above ingredients may be varied; substitute
liberally! Peppers and other vegetables of a similar size (and
cooking time!) to the tomatoes may be added as well.
- Preheat oven to 425°F.
- Layer in a baking dish, slathered with olive oil, in the following order: tomatoes, olive oil, onion, garlic, parsley (or other substituted herb) then salt, pepper and sugar. Bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
- Use as vegetable side dish or puree roughly and (freeze too) use as sauce for pizza, pasta or whatever.
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