Unlike the rest of us, he’s also been enjoying the fragrance of  blooming Ylang-ylang, an easy bit of exotica if you have a large enough greenhouse (emphasis on the large enough).

"The solitary flower of Ylang-ylang with its strap-like petals is a chartreuse to light yellow color," says Eric. "The aroma fills the large bay of the greenhouse in which we keep this easily-grown tropical tree."

Ylang-ylang Tree (Cananga odorata)

By Eric Larson

Cananga odorata is a fast-growing tropical tree (up to 2 or 3 meters per year, which is very fast growing). They top out at around 40 feet in the wild, somewhat smaller in cultivation.

Although they prefer moderate shade, the one in our greenhouse is happy in a very exposed spot because the glass reflects some of the sun’s rays, including the UV light, and we put whitewash on the greenhouses in May to reflect additional short wave radiation. In essence, during the summer all of our greenhouse plants are growing in ‘partial shade.’

This image shows the ten foot height of our tree, with about two dozen blossoms bedecking the ends of branches. Notice the white-washed surface of the greenhouse roof, which cuts the sun’s intensity by about thirty-five or forty percent. Without this precaution, the heat gain in our glass houses would cause temperatures in the 110 to 120 Fahrenheit range.

Cananga are native to the rainforests of the Philippines and Indonesia and are also widely grown in Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. The common name comes from the Tagalog, with some uncertainty as to whether it is ‘ilang’ for ‘wilderness,’ referring to the natural areas where it is found, or ‘ilang-ilan’ which means ‘rare,’ perhaps alluding to its wonderfully delicate aroma.  The more widely acknowledged translation is ‘flower of flowers.’

Whatever its etymology,  Ylang-ylang’s  single attraction is its aroma, which is used in aromatherapy (good for high blood pressure and some skin problems), in everyday life as the basis for perfumes (Chanel #5 could not be made without Ylang-ylang) and in certain situations when an aphrodisiac is called for.

Margaret Mead reported that it was used by South Pacific natives  – especially in the Solomon Islands – for this purpose, often strewn on  the bed of newlywed couples, as if any further inducement or encouragement at  that point was needed. It is also one of the ingredients in MotionEaze, an herbal motion sickness medicine.

Flowers at the chartreuse stage

There is also an Ylang-ylang Vine, Artabotrys odoratissimus and a close relative, Artabotrys hexapetalus, the Climbing Ylang-ylang, which are in the same Custard-apple family, Annanonaceae. They too are highly aromatic.

The Custard-apple family has over thirteen hundred genera and around 2500 species, making it the largest family in the order Magnoliales.  Most family members are tropical trees, shrubs or vines but one of them, the Paw-paw, Asimina triloba, is a large shrub/small tree native to the temperate zone of  the eastern United States.

Paw paws are worthy of an entire column – or two or three – of their own, so for now I’ll just remind you that we will be hosting the last Beekeeping Seminar here at the Gardens sometime in late September or early October. Details to come on the Gardens’ web site – and in this column, of course.

(Note: Those who can’t bear to wait for paw paw columns can check out the extensive paw paw information page published by Purdue University. LL)

Disclaimer:  The views expressed within bear no relationship to Marsh Botanical Garden or Yale University or Leslie Land. This is really for entertainment value, principally my own, but if you have anything to contribute, complain about or correct, please comment. And the horse you rode in on.

The old fashioned crookneck squash and Gold of Bacu beans are from our garden; the corn’s from the farmstand up the road and the vanilla butter* is the touch that turns them from yellow vegetables into winter joy.

Official Kitchen Garden Day was August 22, but at the time I was too busy planting fall crops, harvesting the everlasting beans and squash, canning roasted tomatoes and making plum jam to do any live-blogging, and yesterday was much the same except for an evening pizza party with freshly picked peppers, tomatoes and basil and the whole family around the outdoor oven.

If you actually have a kitchen garden, every day is Kitchen Garden Day – that’s the whole point. All spring, summer and fall, you plant and eat. All winter, you eat and plan for next year.

Late summer is still planting territory: on Kitchen Garden Day I put in 3 kinds of radicchio, some cold tolerant lettuces, including Winter Density and Merveille des Quatres Saisons, and an assortment of kales. Next week, when Bill goes down to the Hudson Valley to harvest the first batch of Black Mexican corn, he’ll plant broccoli raab – and radicchio, lettuce, and kale.

Meanwhile, the beets and chard we planted in mid July are coming along splendidly, as are the scallions, dill and cilantro. Parsley, sorrel, and lovage are perking up now that it’s not quite so hot.

I will spare you the rest of the list. Suffice it to say that what with this and what with that, we’ll have plenty of fresh things to pick right up until Christmas or nearabouts, while in the meantime and going forward the freezer will be providing us with things like pasta sauce, minestrone and harvest stew, as well as that vanilla gold mélange and nearly-instant zucchini tortilla.

Zucchini Tortilla. Savory, egg-bound cakes and pancakes based on shredded summer squash are with good reason all the rage these days. Be sure to freeze enough of the squash part so you can have some at the Solstice holidays.

Also there’s the winter squash and potatoes and canned stuff and…

The price of all this great local provender is gratifyingly low in dollars but fairly high in time, especially  right now when there’s a lot of picking and processing on top of everything else. And after all that cooking you often don’t feel like cooking. The answer?

DECONSTRUCTED BLTS (Panzanella, look to your laurels)

I feel strongly about the construction of a proper BLT, but have to confess there’s a lot to be said for making a salad in the Mediterranean mode instead of going for the more conventional construction.

That’s mode, not ingredients; for this particular sandwich the components are both sacrosanct and American. Only one transgression – the bread. For success with the salad you want slightly stale ciabatta or something similarly crusty, chewy and non BLT-ish.

Cut the bread into roughly 1 inch chunks. Cut some dead-ripe super juicy tomatoes into chunks a bit larger than the bread. Add a generous glump of Hellman’s mayo and mix. Let sit for 10 minutes, give or take, long enough for the bread to absorb most of the free tomato juice but not so long it gets disagreeably soggy. Right before serving, stir in chopped lettuce and plenty of crumbled bacon.

* Vanilla butter:

Melt ½ lb unsalted butter over very low heat. Split a vanilla bean, scrape in the seeds, then cut the pod into 1 inch lengths and add it too. Cook – or rather don’t cook, just keep hot – for about half an hour.

Remove pod pieces. Let the butter solids settle, then pour the now-clarified vanilla butter into a sterilized jar, where it will keep for about a month. Use a seasoning/garnish, not a cooking medium, with vegetables, chanterelles, shellfish, pancakes…

Bill, being an honest and trusting soul, set up this photo without remembering that people have been known to stuff baskets with filler and put a layer of mushrooms on top. So just for the record that IS four pounds and nine and three-eighths ounces of black trumpets and the only reason it isn’t more is that we left the littler ones to grow larger for later.

Now what?

Trumpet brie is one of the easiest, tastiest things to do with black trumpets and you don’t need many, either

Trumpet and caramelized onion pizza is also quick and delicious.

Jackpot, bonanza, mother lode… all descriptive enough in their ways, but the inescapable conclusion is that the thesaurus, never having gone mushrooming and found hillsides blanketed with black trumpets, is simply not up to the task.

Look closely, then imagine this coverage going on for a considerable distance in all directions

We’ve had good years before – 2009 was among the more noteworthy – but this one is already off the charts and it’s only August. Other things being suitably propitious, they’ll keep coming until the end of September or later.

And not just for us. Reports of abundance are widespread and local greengrocers are selling them for around $20.00 a pound.

Useful things to know about Black Trumpets (Craterellus fallax)

1. They’re notoriously hard to find because they blend so well with the forest floor. Plus they’re small; a couple of inches tall and about an inch wide at the top is par for the course. The largest one we found the day of the basket was a bit more than 4 inches tall and 2 inches or so across at the flare.

Plus they’re frequently under ferns

2. They’re unusually durable, in the field and in the ‘fridge, because of a two part cell structure that makes them less watery than most common mushrooms.

Store loosely wrapped in waxed paper – not plastic! – and as long as they were dry when put away most of them will last indefinitely, gradually becoming rather wan-flavored dried mushrooms. Which brings us to

3. Black trumpets are good candidates for drying. The thin flesh desiccates quickly and the woodsy, smoky flavor is pretty well retained.

Reconstitute simply by adding to whatever preparation; doing the soak in boiling water/save liquid routine is unnecessary.

4. Dried trumpets reduced to powder are an excellent seasoning. Try a spoonful or two in the ground meat for hamburgers; add to pan sauces for steaks and chops; incorporate in pasta dough; add a pinch to punch up the flavor of  just about any mushroom dish.

ALL PURPOSE COOKED BLACK TRUMPETS

Trumpets should be cooked thoroughly, but are delicious used as though they were raw – in sandwiches (great with avocado!), salads and things like the stuffing for devilled eggs. To cook without diluting flavor or adding the flavor of fat, just spread in a single layer on a plate and microwave on high for 45 – 90 seconds, depending on the size of the mushrooms and power of your microwave. They’re done as soon as they’re wilted and evenly black.

TRUMPET BRIE

The better the brie the better the finished product, of course, but don’t hesitate to make this with the standard industrial triple cream sold in better supermarkets from coast to coast.

All you do is sandwich a layer – or two – of chopped cooked trumpets in a split wedge of cheese, wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate to let the flavors mingle. The longer the better (within reason) but give it at least a day. Allow to come to room temperature a couple of hours before serving.

Historic image showing all-purpose cooked black trumpets. I used to make this with whole split mushrooms. Beautiful but otherwise not so good; you get more flavor – and more mushroom – if you chop them and the cheese is easier to cut and spread.

For best results, split the cheese in half (or thirds, if you’re going for triple decker) while it’s still cold, then let it warm up and soften before pressing on the mushrooms and reassembling.

TRUMPET PIZZA WITH CARAMELIZED ONIONS AND TWO CHEESES

The mushroom flavor is strongest when the pizza is lukewarm, rather than burn-your-mouth-on-the-cheese hot.

For one 14-inch pie:

2 tbl. butter

1 large onion, cut in 6 wedges, the wedges sliced across to make strips

1 lb. pizza dough

4-5 oz. black trumpet mushrooms, cooked as described above

2 generous tbl. fresh thyme leaves (omit if unavailable)

3 oz. Gruyere, the drier and nuttier the better, shredded

8 oz. Mozzarella, shredded

1. Melt the butter in a heavy skillet over low heat, add the onions and cook, stirring often, until they’re reduced to golden brown threads, about 20 minutes. Season with salt after they’re cooked. Heat the oven to 450.

2. Roll the dough very thin and fit it into a 14  inch pizza pan, leaving about 1 1/2 inches of overlap for the rim.

3. Spread the mushrooms over the dough in an even layer and sprinkle on the thyme. Spread the cooked onions over the mushrooms. Loosely, gently roll up the rim.

4. Bake until the dough has risen and is starting to set and brown, about 5 minutes. Working quickly, take the pizza out of the oven, sprinkle on the gruyere, then the mozzarella. Return to the oven and keep baking until the cheese is bubbling and browned and the dough rim looks well toasted.

Photographs of basket and trumpets in the wild by Bill Bakaitis.

All you have to do is get it from Finest Fried Maine Seafood, where the succulent, crisp crusted haddock, scallops, clam strips and shrimp are the platonic ideals of their kind and it’s probably better not to speak of the homemade potato chips.

Seren Huus, of FFMS, portioning out the chips. (That’s my hand holding ‘em up for your visual delectation.)

FFMS is genuinely fast. Even when the lines are long, as they generally are, it only takes a few minutes to get your order. And it’s genuinely food, in the slow food sense. The haddock, scallops, clams and potatoes are fresh. The shrimp, being local Maine shrimp, were frozen in shrimp season (Any restaurant that sells “fresh Maine shrimp” between roughly April and November is lying in its teeth.)

And of course it’s fried. All of it. The seafood of choice is dipped in flour, egg and milk wash and plain, unseasoned unpreserved cracker crumbs, then passed through a frialator filled with frequently changed peanut oil. The whole potatoes are machine peeled and spiral cut, not quite to order but pretty damn close, before their hot oil moment.

A simple menu doesn't mean choosing is easy.

End of description. You can buy soft drinks and bottled water. There’s a condiments table with salt and pepper, bottled hot sauce, vinegar and lemon wedges as well as catsup, presumably for the chips, and a vat of undistinguished but not horrible commercial tartar sauce with which you can pollute your seafood should you be inclined.

This being a hard world there is of course a catch in it – several, actually, all connected to access. FFMS is a one-outlet family operation, started by Chuck Huus in 1982. It only operates in summer. And there is no fixed location; the restaurant is a concession stand that travels on the Maine fair circuit; the only way to get at the eats is to go to the fair(s).

Maine Antiques Festival, just yesterday, our most recent dining experience at FFMS and the inspiration for this post

Still to come:

Union Fair August 22-28

Windsor Fair August 29 – September 6

Common Ground Fair September 24-26

Fryeburg Fair Oct 3-10

Then that’s it until June 2011.

The fair websites give a good idea of what to expect from each. Union, Windsor, and Fryeburg are all in their own ways “worth the journey” if you’ve never been to a big, old fashioned agricultural fair, and Common Ground is double “worth the journey” if you have.

Full disclosure: FFMS is owned and run by old friends and although it’s been about a decade since we saw each other outside of the fairs, affection is undiminished. If you don’t know me very well you might think this is relevant.

Photos by Bill Bakaitis

Blueberry Peach Upside Down Cake ( actually this one is about half white nectarine)

My friend Nancy is not big on baking, but she does love belonging to the Maine Slice of The Cake Committee, so I suggested she try the impressive-for-how-little-fuss-it-takes Blueberry Peach etc. cake from The 3000 Mile Garden. Then I got to feeling uneasy, on account of not having made one for quite a while…

Decided it might be smart to bake one up, just to be sure I was still proud of it. Did. Am. But

I am here to tell you the people who say multitasking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be have a point.

This is an easy cake:  no complicated procedures, no split second timing, so (conveniently forgetting the part about having to photograph the damn thing) I figured I could sort of do it on the side while occupied with several other things.

Plenty of raspberry whipped cream is always a good idea

As the pictures show, it came out very nicely… unless you look at them closely, in which case you will notice that the crumb of the cake is suspiciously pale.

This didn’t register at all while I was fooling around with the camera; mostly I was worried about losing the light. Photography was followed by Bill eating two pieces but also – in retrospect somewhat suspiciously –  saying nothing about its deliciousness before going out for a night’s fishing.

Those other tasks I mentioned occupied me for some time, so a couple of hours passed before I got around to tasting it. Aargh! How on earth could I have put my name on such an uninteresting piece of pastry – and included it in a book, no less? Talk about a heart-sinking moment. It wasn’t absolutely awful but it sure wasn’t good. Definitely too sweet, for one thing, also a little dry and kind of bland in spite of all the fruit.

Then the aha moment: forgot to put in the butter!

Well then, probably fine, but of course now it’s really essential to put it to the test. And of course now I’m out of nectarines, peaches, even plums. Even canned versions of these fruits. Nada.

“No big deal,” I comfort myself, “the thing that must be tested is the cake. You can still bake it without the fruit layer and learn whether it’s ok or not. (Fortunately there were plenty of blueberries).

But given that I had to bake another cake, why not do something with it – and while we’re at it, why not a few cupcakes?

Summer Cake

This recipe reflects the fact that I’m really more of a pie person – between the peaches on top of it and the blueberries in it (and the raspberries beside it), there’s almost as much fruit as cake. You can bake it in a 9 inch pan if you don’t have a 10-incher, but the cake to fruit ratio will change and not in my opinion for the better, even though it’s still pretty good, especially if you like cake.

For a 10 inch square, anywhere from 10 to 16 servings:

Fruit layer:

butter for the pan, @ 2 tbl.

½ c. sugar

(grated zest of) 1 lemon

4 large or 5 small firm-ripe nectarines or peaches, peeled and cut into @ 1/3 inch wedges

1 tbl. flour

Batter:

2 c. all purpose flour*

½ c. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. kosher salt

½ c. cold butter

2 room temperature eggs

@ 3/4 c. milk

1 1/4c. wild Maine blueberries**

Topping:

1c. heavy cream

1 c. raspberries, crushed (strawberries may be substituted)

1 tbl. Cointreau or similar

2 tbl. sugar, or to taste

1. Heat the oven to 400 (375 for a glass pan or a 9 inch pan). Thickly butter a 10x10x2 inch baking pan.

2. Mix the fruit layer sugar and lemon zest and distribute it as evenly as possible over the butter. Pave with the fruit wedges, in very closely spaced but not overlapping rows. Sprinkle on the flour.

3. Put the batter dry ingredients in a wide mixing bowl and stir with a wire whip to thoroughly combine. Cut or rub in the butter to make a mixture the texture of coarse meal – a little finer is better than too coarse.

4. Break the eggs into a 2 cup measure and beat well with a fork. Add milk to make 1 ¼ c. liquid. Using as few strokes as possible, stir it into the dry mixture, adding the blueberries about halfway through. The batter will be very thick.

5. Distribute the batter over the cut fruit, gently spreading to the edge. Bake until risen, browned and pulling from the sides of the pan, about 20 – 25 minutes. The “toothpick emerges dry” test would work if you could find a blueberry-free place to insert the toothpick, but this is not possible.

6. Cool on a wire rack for two or three minutes, then reverse onto a serving plate. While the cake is cooling, beat the cream until slouchy, then stir in the raspberries, liqueur and sugar. Serve the warm cake in squares with the topping on the side.

* Bleached flour makes lighter cake; don’t say I didn’t warn you.

** “Wild Maine blueberries” means the low bush kind, about the size of small peas, that grow all over the northern US but are I’m happy to say most closely associated with Maine. Cultivated high bush berries – aka rabbit eye or “New Jersey” – are too large to work in this recipe.

Lousy Cake Lesson #2: Before baking the original cake I’d promised to bring it next door for dessert at what turned out to be about 10 minutes after the revelatory taste test. There wasn’t anything in the house to substitute at the last minute, so being grateful next door is family I brought it anyway, with the story, an apology and the butter dish (it was marginally better split and spread with butter as though it were still the muffin that gave birth to the recipe).

Response from Jeff and Lois, who had admittedly had wine with dinner, “It’s fine, what’s the big deal?” Response from Eli, presumably moved by the wine toward truth, “It tastes like those healthy cakes I’m always getting in the city; better than a lot of them, actually.”

What’s the lesson? Don’t bother with healthy cake; it’s unhealthy to think this oxymoron has any basis in fact; whatever the thing lacks in fat it probably more than makes up for in sugar and the carbohydrates in the flour haven’t gone anywhere either.

Blueberry Coconut Pecan Crunch Cake (or Cupcakes)

As above except for the fruit layer and topping.

After thickly buttering a 9 inch square pan or dozen muffin cups, “dust” with dried unsweetened coconut as though you were dusting with flour, making an even and complete layer all over the bottom and sides.

Sprinkle the bottom(s) lightly with sugar and thickly with coarsely chopped pecans. Proceed as above, baking at 375. Turn out on wire racks and cool completely.

For topping, beat the cream stiff instead of slouchy, stir in the crushed berries etc. and use the result as frosting.

The crunch doesn't show up very well, but at least you see the correct color of the crumb - also that I rather overmixed the batter, but nobody complained.

For information about the Maine Slice of The Cake Committee, send them an e-mail at

the.cake.committee.maine@gmail.com.

Our 2010 cherry tomatoes, left to right: Black Cherry, Gajo de Melon (yellow), Maglia Rosa, Sun Gold (orange), Green Grape, and Juliet, with Matt's Wild Cherry on top.

Like most Northeastern gardeners, I planted this year’s tomatoes with fear and trembling, still in shock from last year’s late blight and almost afraid to hope.

A certain amount of apprehension remains – in gardens it’s never too late for disaster – but so far, so more than good. Like everything else goosed forward by heat waves, the Hudson Valley tomatoes are way ahead of schedule. There are a lot of them and they are delicious. (Nothing like nights in the 70′s to make a tomato plant happy, no matter what they do to the rest of us.)

Unintended consequence: we are drowning in cherry tomatoes

Because they seemed to be more blight-resistant than full sized tomatoes, I planted more of them than usual. But as one of the reasons for their strength (I think) is the enormous plants they make, the fact that they are quite healthy means we’re looking at a potential tsunami of the little dears, to eat out of hand and give away – and try to decide whether to skin before using in recipes.

I don’t cook with them a lot but we do have favorites, like pasta with cherry tomatoes, prosciutto and basil cream, and cherry tomatoes stir-fried in butter. Allow me to recommend it:  just cherry tomatoes and butter, over highest-possible-without-burning heat for only long enough to heat through (and brown the butter), with a sprinkle of coarse salt at the end. A revelation – in cherry tomato season, anyway.

Normally, skinning cherry tomatoes would seem silly, overrefined and maybe even a tad pretentious, but there’s no silver lining without its cloud. It may be just-right-for-tomatoes hot, but it’s also just-wrong-for-tomatoes dry and those incredibly sweet juicy morsels are wearing leather jackets.

Tasting Notes:

Black Cherry: Like all “black” tomatoes actually a dusky purple with occasional green shoulders. Rich, deep flavor with a hint of grapefruit when fully ripe, either sour or flat and insipid (go figure) right up until then.

Gajo de Melon: The bright yellow color deepens to near-apricot and the bottom gets a pink flush when they’re ripe. Flavor is sweet, mild and strongly aromatic, almost floral. Anything even a little unripe is surprisingly hard and sour.

Maglia Rosa: They all seem to have those points, and wonderful streakings of gold, apricot and green over pink. Deepening of the pink signals ripeness, but they’re pretty sweet as soon as they’re soft. It’s the complexity and classic tomato flavor that develop last.

Sungold: As usual, terrific when they hit dark gold, then sweet and spicy beyond compare at the almost orange stage. One benefit of the dry season/tough skin situtation is that they’re splitting less than usual.

Green Grape: Still slow; we’ve only had a couple of ripe ones but so far experience remains consistent: they’re bigger, fleshier and sweeter  in Maine, with more of the meaty base notes that make them, when they are at their best, my favorite cherry tomatoes.

Juliet: Like Sungold an old reliable. Quite tasty as a fresh tomato though not in Sungold/Gajo/Green Grape territory. Excellent for stuffing – great nibbles! – and drying; the two uses to which they’re commonly put around here.

Matt’s Wild Cherry: Sharp and very sweet at the same time and scarcely a tomato; there really is a wildness to the taste. Also to the way the berries are attached to the stems. Firmly. If you try to pull them away they tear as often as not. Best to harvest by the cutting the whole branch, even if it means there are a couple of unripe ones at the tip.

“This is what happens when your I-phone lens gets dirty,” Eric explained when he sent this picture,” and of course I have a plastic cover on it to protect the poor device from my unhealthy-for-digital-equipment lifestyle. Sorry for that. But the Switchgrass just behind the sculpture adds an interesting texture, with a life of its own on a breezy day.”

This round, Eric’s Pet Plant is from Storm King, and his article is a reminder of two very important things:

* When you have help that’s really helpful, whether it’s from interns like Eric’s at Marsh Gardens or pros like the invaluable Kristi Niedermann at my place, say thank you a lot – and it doesn’t hurt to bestow a present now and then, either.

* Get out and look around. When your own garden is doing well (though still needing work, likely as not) it’s easy to just stay put. Don’t. I never hit as many of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days as I think I’m going to, but I do try…

Storm King, Summer Interns and Switch Grass (Panicum virgatum)

By Eric Larson

Storm King With Interns

Every summer, we take a field trip with our staff to one of the many gardens, arboreta or other attractions within a couple of hours ride of New Haven. In the past we have been to Smith College’s fabulous arboretum/gardens, to the New York Botanic Gardens and Wave Hill in the Bronx among others.  This year we went to Storm King Arts Center, in the Hudson Valley.

Its history includes having been a farm and estate, then being purchased by an industrialist who started the arts center in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s, they decided that their strengths included a certain scale of presentation that would best be suited to monumental outdoor sculpture.

Since then they have installed works by David Smith, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Mark di Suvero and Maya Lin, among many others.  One of our favorites was the long serpentine wall by Andy Goldsworthy through the woods and the pond and over meadows.

The day was “made out of diamonds” as Van Johnson said in Miracle in the Rain, with a pleasant breeze, low humidity and a nice mid-eighties temperature. The property is about a thousand acres, and can be viewed on foot in a few hours. There is a tram that will help move you around if you have less time or energy for walking, and they also rent bicycles.

We rode the tram for a full circle, had a picnic lunch (although there is a café there, it is only open on select end-of-week days) and then split up to view different areas that interested each of us.

Heading back to the parking lot, I noticed a large meadow planted in Panicum virgatum, shimmering as a backdrop to several pieces of large sculpture.  I thought “What a great place for a picture, and a great plant to feature in this column.”

Because we met there, I also took the opportunity to snap a picture or two of our two full-time summer interns (we have a third who started in late June, and works semi-part time: I will write about him later, before he heads off to his first year at Colby).

Our summer interns are barely tolerating my presence in this picture on a couch made of nickels, which was more comfortable than you would think.

Next to me is Michelle Shortsleeves with Sibongile (Bongi) Sithe on the other end. We would not be the same garden without their good work and other contributions too numerous to mention.

Bongi is a native of Cincinnati entering her senior year at Yale. She majors in English, but has an interest in just about any aspect of culture, from music to film.  She applied for the job in the spring, despite being in Scotland for the semester.

She introduced me to ‘Skipe’ so that we could have an interview. I never would have thought that I would be doing that by computer and satellite, but indeed it happened. It must work, because we couldn’t be happier with Bongi’s work and her great sense of humor.  Her laugh is absolutely infections, and she is also an absolutely fabulous cook and baker: a cake appeared close to a cluster of staff birthdays in early July, and it was not lost on us that baking in an un-air-conditioned apartment is indeed a labor of love.

Michelle Shortsleeve is mostly Irish, but with an ancestor from France who was a member of the royal archers, hence the last name.  She hails from Massachusetts, and has just completed a master’s degree in education program at Yale, preparing for a full time job in one of the public schools here in New Haven.

We couldn’t have asked for more from a summer intern, as she has an attention to detail and an interest in gardening and nature that belies her more academic background.  She gets the Golden Roots Award for being the best weeder; this award comes with a gift certificate for carpal tunnel repair surgery.   Michelle has many charms, not the least of which being she will make a GREAT public school teacher.

SWITCHGRASS (PANICUM VIRGATUM)

Switchgrass is a native perennial grass, its range extending across the middle of the continent, from Saskatchewan east to Nova Scotia and south to Mexico.  It shares the tallgrass prairie biomes with Indaingrass, Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, sideoats grama, eastern gramagrass and many species of forbs, like sunflower, coneflower, gayfeather, prairie clover and in Texas, the bluebonnet.

In thinking about writing this article, I tried to research reasons for the common name, Switchgrass, to no avail. It is not explained anywhere I looked.  It could be so named because in some locations it grows tall enough to be used as a ‘switch’ to encourage the horses in a wheeled conveyance, say a buggy or even a Conestoga wagon.

A bit darker interpretation would suggest corporal punishment, but let’s leave that one alone.  Perhaps Northern Europeans used it for the after-sauna stimulation.  The genus name comes from the Latin word for millet, which it resembles somewhat.

Switchgrass is highly adaptable and widely avaialable. It grows best in full sun, in deep fertile soil: think the prairie. But it will also live in marginal areas with thin soils, wet and boggy areas, soils with salt intrusion, alkaline soils, sandy and gravel soils and clay.  You can buy seed for large-scale plantings, or you can find many ornamental varieties in pots  at nurseries.

Let’s talk about ornament first: This is a warm season grass, so does well in the summer.  With a very upright growth habit, it will rise from 2 to 10 feet depending on the variety and conditions.  There are selections and varieties of Switchgrass with steel-blue stems and leaves with a bright yellow fall color, some with red seed-heads and yellow autumn coloration. They aren’t just green, but change hues subtly through the seasons.

The upright growth habit is equally useful in the border and as an accent in the landscape.  During the winter, the thick fountain of dried leaf stalks makes an interesting wind sculpture, and freshly fallen snow adds a bit of poignancy to the scene.

In spring, before new growth starts, it is best to cut the dried stalks to the ground, so that they don’t interfere with the young tender growth or detract from the look of the plant in the early part of the season.

Besides its wonderful ornamental pulchritude, Switchgrass is a major player in the biofuels debate. Unlike corn, which is an annual that must be planted and cultivated in good crop land every year, Switchgrass is a perennial. It can be harvested without the extra effort of corn and also grows well in marginal land, so using it wouldn’t automatically reduce our abilities to grow food.

In addition, the deep root system is a carbon sink, removing carbon from the air and fixing it in extensive roots that go down at least five sometimes ten feet in the ground.

Switchgrass is also used for soil conservation, for the same reasons: good deep perennial roots, lives in marginal soil, grows rapidly and lives a long time. It’s good for forages and grazing, and for game cover, too.

So bring a bit of the prairie into the garden, and enjoy the three seasons of interest that Switchgrass can provide.

Disclaimer:  The views expressed within bear no relationship to Marsh Botanical Garden or Yale University or Leslie Land. This is sort of a blog, which means, as far as I can tell, that first of all it’s free, and second there is no guarantee of the accuracy of the information – although I can assure you I won’t be making claims that might get a minor functionary in the Agriculture Dept. fired. But I will try to be as accurate and forthright as possible.  That’s how I was raised.

(Sculpture Note: The red zigzag is Tal Streeter’s Endless Column, which continues out of the frame to a total height of 70 feet. The Nickel Couch is by Johnny Swing. LL)

This picture was taken on 7/22, after what will no doubt come to be called The Deluge of 2010. If you don’t know what our  tiny creek looks like in late July, you see a fair amount of water. If you do know, you see Niagara Falls.

Rain gauge

When we left for  an evening opening at  Caldbeck Gallery, in Rockland, I put an empty bucket in the driveway, carefully avoiding measurement complicators like overhanging trees and dripping eves. When we got home (after crossing three low spots that should by all rights have stopped the car, since the water was up to the doors), it was overflowing. That is not a doctored photo; we got over 8 inches of rain in less than 4 hours.

Also the lightening was nonstop throughout. Also a giant elm branch fell on the sailboat parked in my neighbor’s yard. Also many roads were washed out; basements flooded…

People are pretty much alright, however, so I’m free to say the unusual storm is a perfect symbol for the usual Summer Crescendo: way too much of everything all at once.

Fruit is ripening - fast! These blackcaps came and went in about two (glorious; I made jam) weeks.

Mushrooms are popping up everywhere. (I fried these chanterelles in butter and froze them; they were the third batch this size in 8 days.)

The second planting of lettuce has bolted

And a whole bunch of other stuff is happening but right now let’s talk about the lettuce.

Thing 1. Heat makes lettuce bolt – rise up and go to seed. All lettuce gets bitter when it bolts. But some varieties are bolt-resistant, much slower to switch from making leaves to making the next generation, and others (far fewer, alas), remain tasty even after bolting, their bitterness so modest it’s more or less inconsequential.

Lettuces planted in early July to be ready in mid August when needed for BLT's. The spiky one in the left hand row is Italienischer, with some blushed leaf Craciovensis spilled from its own row second from left. Frilly Panisse - not quite as bolt resistant as the other three, but this is Maine - is to the right of that. Anuenue, a heat tolerant header reminiscent of iceberg, is on the far right, needing reseeding because the borage that used to be even farther right fell over and smothered it. (Seed sources at end of post)

Thing 2. Keep replanting, ideally at 3 week intervals but realistically at least 3 or 4 times a season. Even when it doesn’t bolt, home grown lettuce stops tasting home grown as soon as it matures.

Thing 3. Lettuce doesn’t need to lie in its own bed. Very short rows of seedlings can be divided into individuals and transplanted into open spots anywhere.

These bolted bozos are about to be cut down before they overwhelm the young bush cherries they were planted between. (The cherries were tiny when they came and are therefore in a “nursery bed” until they get big enough to move to the field.)

Cutting the bolted lettuce brings us to Thing 4: Lettuce in this condition is still delicious; you just have to cook it – and not for long. Cut the central stem at @ 1 inch intervals, leaving leaves attached. Wash by swishing in a big bowl of water (see Washing Spinach for details). Allow to dry off a bit then stir-fry in very hot butter just until wilted. Season with salt and a tiny pinch of sugar. Bolted lettuce is also tasty braised in chicken broth as though it were escarole.

Shopping for Lettuce Seed at brick and mortar stores isn’t so easy at this time of year; most garden centers have pulled down the seed racks to make room for fall bulb displays. I get Panisse and Anuenue from my friends at Johnny’s Selected Seeds, the Italienischer and Craciovensis from Fedco. Both are also excellent sources for the next round – cold-resistant lettuces like Winter Density and Mervielle de Quatre Saisons, and all the delicious specialty greens that carry us through the fall: radicchio, mache, broccoli raab, Portuguese cabbage, kale…

Chanterelle note: Whatever else you do, don’t forget to make a couple of quarts of Dianna’s Chanterelle Vodka.

Creek and rain gauge photos  by Bill Bakaitis

Ornamental millet ‘Limelight', in a bed with peppers (at right) and Verbena bonariensis. That's the tomato patch in the background.

Not long ago, I found and wrote a brief post about an amazing millet bug – amazing in that it was huge, gorgeous, and something I’d never seen before.

I was hoping somebody would recognize it. So far no luck. Also, at least so far, no one who shares my appreciation of its beauty. Commenters have been silent, but e-mails and conversations with friends have reminded me that for many people, bug = disgusting.

Too bad. Some insects are just plain creepy – earwigs come at once to mind – but a lot of them are drop down gorgeous, however disgusting their behavior.

The bug, a stinkbug of some sort I think, appeared the very day we left the Hudson Valley for Maine, so I have no idea whether there will be anything left of the millet by the time we get back.

By then it won’t matter. I did plant the millet on purpose, unlike commenter Lynn, who has hers “coming up from the birdseed.” But I wasn’t hoping to harvest food. My goal was those beautiful green seed heads, very useful in flower arrangements.

So most years it’s all cut and gone long before there’s anything that resembles grain; when I don’t pick it, helpful friends do. But every once in a while a head or two makes it all the way to ripeness and then as far as the birds are concerned I am growing it to feed the family.

Maine crab and lobster mushrooms inside that crunchy crust

At the risk of jinxing things I have to say this is shaping up as a boffo mushroom year (in Midcoast Maine, anyway.) We haven’t had much chance to go out, but when we do we are finding things, including lobster mushrooms, which seem to be unusually abundant.

I am of the school that feels they get their name from their brilliant color. To me, the flavor is meaty, not fishy. But others claim they also taste faintly crustaceanlike. This isn’t as farfetched as it sounds; mushroom cell walls are primarily composed of chitin, the same material that makes crab and lobster shells.

Either way, they have a great affinity for Maine crabmeat, one of the world’s greatest seafoods.

Those bright red bits are the mushroom

Maine Crab and Lobster Mushroom Cakes

For 4 roughly 3-inch cakes, rich enough to be dinner for 4 if there’s something else fairly substantial on the menu:

4oz. lobster mushrooms, weighed after cleaning (see below), enough to make  @1 cup cooked and chopped*

8 oz. Maine crabmeat

2 tbl. thick homemade mayonnaise, half olive oil and half peanut oil*

½ tsp. chopped capers, or more to taste

½ tsp. minced lovage, or more to taste – omit if you don’t have any

1 cup panko

1 lemon

1 egg

2 tbl. butter

peanut oil for shallow frying

1. Put the pieces of cleaned lobster mushroom in a shallow pan just large enough to hold them in one layer. Pour in water to come up a scant ¼ inch. Bring to a simmer, cover the pan and cook until the mushrooms are fully cooked; they will look translucent.

2. There will be some liquid in the pan, how much depending on mushrooms, pan shape etc. Remove mushrooms with a slotted spoon, boil liquid until it’s reduced to thick syrup, then lower heat, replace mushrooms and cook, stirring, until there is no free liquid. Turn off the heat. Let the mushrooms cool in the pan.

lobster mushrooms ready to be cooked

cooked lobster mushrooms being chopped (I forgot to shoot them when they were still in large pieces).

3. Chop the mushrooms into roughly quarter-inch chunks, big enough to taste , small enough to blend with the crabmeat. Mix with crabmeat, mayonnaise, herbs and a pinch of salt. Taste and adjust seasonings.

4. Put the panko on a plate and grate the lemon zest over it. Toss with your fingertips to mix. Beat the egg in a shallow bowl. Set out a wire rack to hold the cakes.

5. Divide the mixture in 4 parts and form each into a patty about ½ inch thick. Pressing firmly should be enough to have it (barely) hold together. If necessary, bind with a bit more mayonnaise.

6. As each patty is formed, put it in the beaten egg and turn – gently! – to coat. Place it on the panko. When all the cakes have been formed, coat each heavily with the panko, turning and pressing to get a thick, even covering.

As each is completed, put it on the rack, then let them sit at least half an hour to firm up. (Refrigerate if you must hold them longer than about 75 minutes, then let come back to room temperature before cooking.)

7. Melt the butter over medium heat in a shallow pan  large enough to hold the cakes without crowding. Add enough oil to make a layer @ ¼ inch thick. When the oil is hot, add the cakes and fry, turning once, until both sides are richly browned, about 5 minutes a side. Drain briefly on paper towel or newspaper, then serve with

Cilantro Nectarine Sauce for Crabcakes

For about 1 3/4  cups:

1 cup thick thick homemade mayonnaise, half olive oil and half peanut oil*

2/3 cup finely minced cilantro

1 very ripe small white nectarine, peeled and chopped to pulp, @ 1/2 c. pulp

1 tsp. lemon juice, or more to taste

pinch of salt

Mix thoroughly, taste. Adjust lemon and salt.

*Substitutions:

Actual lobster can be used instead of the mushrooms, but it will of course elbow aside the more delicate crab.

Commercial mayo – Hellman’s, please – is ok, but it’s thinner, sweeter and more aggressively flavored than the homemade kind. This will make more difference in the sauce than in the crab cakes themselves. Be ready to correct with more lemon juice and maybe choose a slightly less ripe nectarine.

Preparing Lobster Mushrooms

The first thing to know is that lobster mushrooms (Hypomyces lactifluorum) are really lobsterized mushrooms. The color, flavor and texture are all created when a parasitic mushroom – the Hypomyces – colonizes another mushroom.

The host may be any of several species of Russula or Lactarius, but their individual traits are overwhelmed by the lobsterization. From the culinary point of view, all that’s left is the shape and sometimes not even that.

As the process proceeds, the host becomes yellowish, then orange, then flaming red, then flaming red with burgundy weepings. Flavor and texture are best at the orange stage. Red is alright if and only if the mushroom is firm and the inside is white when you cut into it. Anything soft or discolored ( brown or grey) is decaying and should be discarded. **

left to right: Just starting; Just right; Just gorgeous, but probably over the hill

The next thing to know is that lobster mushrooms are often extremely dirty.

Freshly picked lobster mushrooms. Notice the dirt. Know that there is a lot more dirt inside the funnels and inside the inside creases.

So step one is wash the mushrooms. We’ll save the discussion of whether one should wash mushrooms for another day. Suffice it to say there are some mushrooms that must be washed and if you don’t think lobsters are among them please don’t invite me to dinner.

The most flavor conservative way to wash is to cut the mushrooms as necessary to expose the dirt, brush off all that can be brushed off, then immerse the pieces one by one in a bowl of tepid water and gently rub off what remains.

Now you have a bunch of wet mushroom parts. Put them on paper towel and let them dry for an hour or two. You can use them damp in recipes where they will be immersed in liquid; let them dry thoroughly if they will be sautéed.

Washed lobster mushrooms set out to dry off

Loosely wrapped in waxed paper, lobster mushrooms keep well refrigerated, both before and after washing – IF you let the washed ones dry thoroughly before putting them away. Don’t be alarmed by white bloom that forms on the surface or shows up on the waxed paper; that’s just the spores, reminding you that the mushrooms are rapidly maturing and should be used up promptly.

** To be absolutely safe, you should know what the host species is, in the unlikely case it’s one that should not be eaten. Out here in reality, once hypomization is well underway, there’s no way to identify the host without lab equipment, so you have to proceed at your own risk, something I have been doing for more than 30 years.

As the authoritative Milk Mushrooms of North America (Bessette, Harris and Bessette, Syracuse University Press, 2009) puts it “Hypomyces lactifluorum is a very popular edible mushroom even though the identity of the host species is usually undetermined.”  The only poisoning Bill has ever dealt with in all his years of consulting came not from the lobster mushrooms per se, but from the fact that the mushrooms in question were rotten.

Photography note: The first time I tried to photograph the cakes it was at night, with predictably dreadful results. (So far I draw the line at learning about lighting).

But there were serious deficiencies in the styling, too. No matter what I did, here were these intractable dark brown disks with pale, light-reflecting sauce. Mayo on top – no good; on the side – better;  underneath – probably the best solution but then there was this naked hockey puck that looked very silly crowned with a spring of cilantro.

So before trying again in daylight I googled crab cake images, hoping to kite off some useful ideas and you know what? Nobody can photograph crab cakes, at least nobody in the first 60 offerings, after which I gave up.