Tips
No denying – in fact no escaping – it’s basil and tomato season. The combo is everywhere, at every level of splendor. Amazingly, even in August there are restaurants awash in styrofoam agribusiness tomatoes, leathery, soap-flavored basil and mozzarella the texture of something vulcanized, but in most cases you can count on getting something pretty good, and often you get something pretty great: a combination of dead ripe, sweet home grown tomato and tender young sun-kissed basil, one of gastronomy’s finest pairings, an all time winner –
just not all the time, dammit!
Let’s consider giving it a rest, and not only because this marvy duo is less than fun when it shows up for the 10th time in a week. Time apart is also a boon to the tomatoes, which always end up playing second fiddle to their minty/musky friend.
But that doesn’t mean basil should be neglected, not when it’s so good with snap beans, summer squash, grilled fish , pasta – pesto! (recipe follows) – and if you are feeling nouvelle, nectarines.
Basil that’s ready to cut back right now. ( 3 or 4 days ago, actually) .See below for details.
* Harvesting. It’s best to gather basil at the end of the day. Flavor is strongest and sweetest then, and evening-cut stems last longer. Just be sure to get out there before the dew falls; wet leaves muck up recipes and rot fast in storage.
* Storing. Basil and the refrigerator are not friends; the cold turns the leaves black in very short order. It does pay to keep the stems in water, and since there’s nothing like having the inspiration right in front of you when you’re cooking, I usually keep a bouquet of basil (along with other tender herbs such as parsley, dill, summer savory, and cilantro) in a jar of water near the prep area. Just strip all leaves that would be below the water line before you submerge the stems; change the water daily; and keep the jar out of the sun.
* Plant maintenance and multiplication. Basil gets grassy flavored and leathery as soon as it starts forming flowers. It also stops making green growth. So don’t let it bloom.
As soon as you see the slightest indication that flower stems are about to start, cut plants back, at least 2 or 3 branches down and even farther is better. Pruned plants will rebound quickly, sending out tender stems and tender leaves. As a plus, pruned-off stems with several leaf nodes can often be persuaded to send out roots.
Choose stems that do not have flowers. Store in jars of water as described above. Pot ’em up when roots are about ½ inch long and you’ll have plenty of young plants to tide you over the swing season (frosty nights; warm days; pots of basil in the sun, sheltered from frost by the porch roof). Be warned that if you root stems that have flower nodes you will not have young plants. You’ll have new old plants, which will promptly make tough flowering stems instead of tender growth.
PISTACHIO PESTO
(from The Modern Country Cook )
This is actually more a pistachio sauce with basil than anything that could legitimately be called pesto, but it’s a nice change from the usual, for which everyone already has a favorite recipe. I used to be of the opinion that this mixture did not freeze well but I’ve changed my mind – it’s fine. Just be sure to wrap air-tight and freeze in small quantities.
For about 1 ½ cups, 4 to 6 servings:
1 large clove of garlic, minced fine
3 tbl. freshly grated Parmesan
4 oz. unsalted , shelled roasted pistachios
2 lightly packed cups basil leaves
1/3 to ½ cup light cream ( or ¼ cup whipping cream and some milk)
salt
Put the garlic , cheese and nuts in a food processor and grind until the nut chunks are a bit smaller than those in chunky peanut butter. Add basil, stir to get it under the blades and grind again, freeing the leaves with a knife from time to time, until you have a homogenous paste. Whirr in enough dairy to turn the sauce the consistency of mayo. Salt to taste that’s it.
You have to grow the lettuce in the shade (of the tomato plants, for instance) but other than that, August and September are glory time for one of the greatest food items ever assembled, that lunch of lunches, the BLT.
Can’t really say there’s only one recipe. Say rather there’s only one correct set of components .
One ingredient here is a ringer – can you spot it? Read on.
A Proper BLT:
the Bacon: Local pork. No nitrates. Put slices in a single layer in a heavy cast-iron skillet . Cook slowly, turning often, until most of the fat is rendered and the bacon is well-browned and crisp. Drain. Save fat for cornbread, fried green tomatoes and other baconfat-needy items.
( For a while there I was doing the bacon in the microwave, sandwiching it between unbleached paper towels according to micro directions. It got very crisp and was notably ungreasy, but all that lovely bacon fat was lost and the crispness of the bacon was an oddly dry, industrial crispness reminiscent of fake bacon bits. )
the Lettuce: Preferably from the garden. Crisp but not agribusiness-romaine crisp; it has to play well with others while adding a light, fresh note to the ensemble.
the Tomatoes: Ripe on the edge of falling apart but not falling over it. The ones in the picture are, clockwise from top: Aunt Ruby’s German Green, one of the sweetest heirlooms available; Japanese Trifele, a high-yielding, deep-flavored “black” ; and the unfortunately-named Sophie’s Choice, a new, supposedly early variety trialed this year and not destined for repeat although it tastes pretty good ( plants are small, low-yielding, and not significantly earlier than main crop tomatoes).
the Mayonnaise: Homemade mayonnaise is all very well, but NOT on a BLT, which should be made with Hellmann’s. period. The jar in the picture contains a version made with lime juice for the Latino market and alas not available everywhere. Good though.
And thus we come to the ringer,
the Bread: That’s a ciabatta in the picture and it did make a tasty sandwich, but a naturally-leavened bread full of big holes in the European style is not right for a BLT. What’s wanted is old fashioned Pullman bread, aka pain de mie, the bread that got debased into wonderbread. Properly made, the square, soft-crusted loaf has a very tight, even crumb and just a tiny touch of sweetness to go with the blended flavors of milk and yeasted wheat.
supposedly comes from the fact that cucumber skin is cool to the touch, even when the weather is hot – a gift from the fruits’ water content and from the vines’ sheltering leaves. The analogy first shows up in print in 1732, meaning pretty much what it means today.
Not quite that much antiquity for my favorite cucumber, but Boothby’s Blonde does go back a while, too, somewhere around 5 generations in the Boothby family of Livermore, Maine.
a baby Boothby Blonde, spines still too young to color
It’s short and blocky like a pickling cuke, and it does make excellent sweet cucumber pickles ( assuming you like sweet cucumber pickles), but the great thing is that unlike every other cucumber in creation it doesn’t get nasty when it starts to get ripe.
The flesh stays flavorful and crisp even when seeds are well developed, and the seeds themselves are almost sweet in all stages of development. This is useful to know, because like alas all too many vegetables they tend to arrive at the farmers market only when they are way bigger than they should be.
Ideal size is about 4 inches long and a bit more than an inch in diameter, at which stage the skin is white to very pale primrose and the black spines are barely there. Boothbys you see at the market tend to be more like 6×2, with golden skin ( and bumps where the spines were, the spines having been rubbed off). Of course, that’s only insofar as you see them at all, they’re one of those heirlooms that’s poised on the brink but hasn’t yet become a marketing clichaé.
In addition to their other merits, they’re madly prolific, and reasonably quick to bear – about 60 days from seed to first bite. That means it’s a bit late to start a fall crop in the Northeast, but if you garden in a sheltered spot, or anywhere south of New Jersey; there’s still time to give ’em a try.
Lots of specialty seed companies carry Boothby’s Blonde, but why not buy from the outfit that has done so much to keep heirlooms alive: Seed Savers Exchange.
It’s little. It’s weedy-looking. The simple 4-petaled flowers are a washed out purple-pink and they close when the sun shines on them.
The beauty part is a night fragrance as strong as any in the garden and a great deal more refined than most. Instead of the heavy tropical spice of brugmansia or the decadent perfume of lilies, night scented stock offers a combination of vanilla and new mown hay.
Its botanical name is Matthiola longipetala, aka M. bicornis, genus name pronounced Mat-ee-O-la because it’s named for Pierandrea Mattioli, a 16th century Italian botanist who knew a good thing when he smelled one.
Seeds are widely available. Plant some next spring ( you could try it even now and get lucky if it’s a long fall).
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With garlic, it’s almost impossible to fail completely. Plant one clove, get one multi-clove bulb, pretty much no matter what. The catch is that it’s quite easy to fail partially. I did for years, simply because I kept planting softneck garlic, the most common kind, even though I was in Maine and the garlic wanted to be in Southern California. Over and over, I got small bulbs filled with small cloves that were very tedious to peel, a defect slightly mitigated by the fact that the garlic was so incredibly strong and hot you didn’t need (or want) much.
What I’ve learned since:
* If you live in the North, plant hardneck garlic, the kind with the stiff stem running up the middle. It’s much hardier than softneck garlic. Bigger and sweeter, too. ( it doesn’t store as well, but it stores well enough).
* Big cloves make big bulbs. When you get your seed garlic, either at the farmers’ market or from a source like Filaree Farm; plant only the large outer cloves. Eat the smaller cloves at the center or plant them in the perennial border and let them stay there indefinitely, making larger and larger clumps of their gorgeous, twirly stems.
* Plant in well-drained, fertile, weed-free soil, in late September or early October. Goal is to have good strong roots but only short green shoots when hard frost puts growth on hold until spring.
* Garlic comes up early. So do weeds. Mulch helps, but you’ll probably still have to pull a few. The plants are too narrow to shade anything out and they have small, shallow roots that do not compete well.
* The combo of increasing warmth and lengthening days tells the plants to stop making leaves and start making bulbs. Energy to do this comes from those leaves, so the goal is to have them get as big as possible as soon as possible. ( A little fish emulsion at intervals never hurt anybody).
* Bulbs keep putting on size until mature and must be mature to store well, but if they stay in the ground after they’re ready, they split and spoil quickly. Generally speaking, it’s time to harvest when about half of the leaves have fallen over or turned brown or both. Dig on a dry day, brush off dirt, then spread the plants on racks ( screens on bricks, for instance) to dry. Ideal spot is a barn or shed that’s warm, dry and dark. Let the bulbs cure for about a month, then cut off the tops; hardneck is not braid material.
* Eat lots. No matter how you store it, it will start sprouting by February. We like:
Garlic Roasted With Olive oil and Potatoes: several head’s worth of peeled cloves for about 2 pounds of small , new potatoes. Big splash of oil in a jellyroll pan. Be sure potatoes are thoroughly dry, so they don’t stick. Roll everything around to coat well, then bake in the upper third of a 400 degree oven until interiors are soft and outsides have lots of crisp brown spots, about 45 minutes. Stir with a flat spatula from time to time. Malden salt at the half hour mark or at the end but not at the start.
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There are about 22 species of Digitalis, all of them known as foxgloves, but today’s special is D. purpurea, the common foxglove, a weed of the English hedgerows and a weed in its willingness in gardens across the US northern tier. ( The farther south you go, the less delighted they are.)
They’ll bloom for months if kept deadheaded, but are most glorious in early summer, just reaching their maximum 5 or 6 feet as the peonies start declining. And foxgloves can be almost as permanent as peonies, even though they are biennials (or short-lived perennials), because they self-sow so prolifically.
Each flower is good for at least a hundred seeds – usually, there are far more – and a happy plant will produce anywhere from 60 to more than 100 flowers on its roughly 5 to 9 spikes. (The woodland world is not paved with foxgloves for the same reason that the woodland streams are not paved with trout; most of the babies don’t make it. )
As D. purpurea suggests, the species flower is purple ( purple-pink, actually, with maroon spots – scroll down to see). But there is a selection: D. purpurea f. albiflora that is, as ITS name suggests, white, and it does pretty well at staying white through generations of mixed breeding.
Foxglove growing tips:
* Alkaline soil helps, but is not essential. What really counts is good drainage. Foxgloves like a lot of moisture but rot swiftly if roots stay wet.
* Foxgloves are often on lists of shade-bloomers, but that doesn’t mean deep shade. They do best where they get filtered light all day or plenty of morning sun.
* Fertilizer makes large plants gigantic, but also makes them more prone to fungus diseases. Don’t use it in damp years or where the plants are crowded ( which is where they are most charming).
* Because plants bloom in their second year and frequently die at the end of same, you have to plant from seed 2 years running to get a good stand of them going. Not difficult, but seed must be fresh for good results. If you have a friend with foxgloves, just ask them to let a stalk go to seed. If you don’t , buy a blooming-size plant from a garden center and do the same. When most of the seedpods have dried ( those on the bottom will have already split) just cut the stalk and wave it around where you want foxgloves. Seed forms in August or September, and baby plants should be up by the end of the season.
* Foxgloves are shallow rooted and frequently heave out of the soil in winter. But it’s hard to get around that with mulch because the plants spring back to life long before the freeze-thaw cycle is over. They’re also prone to rot in prolonged spring damps. The moral: do not move or thin them until after soil settles and weather warms and you know how many you have.
* The secondary spikes will be stronger if you cut those giant lead ones well before all the flowers open, when about a third are still in bud. It’s painful and I don’t always do it but when I do I just put them in a vase. They keep opening for quite a while, though after 5 or 6 days the purple ones start getting paler and paler.
Nomenclature Department: The dominant explanation seems to be that foxglove is a corruption of folksglove, idea being that the flowers are gloves for faeries but faeries do not like to have you say their name and will retaliate unpleasantly. They must be called “the little folk,” preferably in a soft voice that does not attract their attention.
Pretty story but unlikely to be true, given that the earliest use is Old English foxes glofa, which means just what it sounds like it means. Foxes, like faeries, inhabit the hedgerows where these flowers grow, and foxes have smaller paws than you might think.
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Why is the number 40 beginning to echo in my mind? Why does the word plague, applied to the slugs and snails, seem especially appropriate?… Better not to answer, even if the ongoing rain, in both New York and Maine, is making one wonder if something – how shall we put it ? – special , is afoot. Having 3 hundred-year floods in less than 12 months does make you think there may be more to this than random luck.
We ourselves ARE lucky, actually, nothing wrong with our place except a soggy basement and a world-class collection of slugs and snails, on, among other things, a whole bunch of otherwise very happy hostas.
A happy hosta, in part because its leathery leaves are hard for slugs and snails to chew.
There are a variety of controls that do not involve metaldehyde, the most common mulloscicide, and this is a good thing because metaldehyde kills just about anything else that ingests it, including dogs, cats and birds. Dogs are especially vulnerable because the bait put in to attract the slugs also – they’re dogs, right? – attracts them, too.
So I spent years putting out tuna cans filled with beer, spreading diatomaceous earth, banding my raised beds with copper foil, doing all the approved organic things… but no more. Now I use what might be called Okslugbait, known to its friends as iron sulfate, marketed under trademarked names like Sluggo and Escar-go. It costs quite a bit more than old fashioned poisons, and you have to reapply it more often. But it doesn’t kill anything except mollusks and it’s environmentally benign, a fertilizer in the amounts needed to keep the average garden from being terminally ravaged.
The cost doesn’t make a lot of sense – iron sulfate is cheap – they just know they have you over a barrel. And have you they do, unless things have changed in the couple of years since I tried to buy some (which I figured I could combine with bait in the privacy of my own kitchen).
No dice. Googling turned up plenty of iron sulfate suppliers, but all of them sell it by the boxcar load. So if there are 2 or 3 hundred of you out there who’d like to go in with me…
I jest. But it is great stuff. Makes slugs and snails stop eating, so they eventually starve. The action takes days, however, and although they stop eating almost right away, they’re still THERE, thumbing their slimy little noses at you. So I also use the old-timer’s remedy, ammonia and water in a spray bottle. Near- instant knockdown, very gratifying and ammonia too is a fertilizer in the doses required. Most plants have no trouble handling the spray, though I’ve noticed that salvias and violets sometimes get minor leaf damage. The old timers mixed it 50-50; I usually use about 1/3 ammonia to 2/3 water, but as the “about” suggests, there’s no real need to measure.
Note: When we were preparing for the podcast , Dean reminded me I have already sung the praises of iron sulfate, at about this time last year. True. If we have this weather again in ’07, I’ll praise it again then, too.
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The big three of forest consumption: gypsy moth larvae, Eastern tent caterpillars and forest tent caterpillars are again this year munching their way toward a tree near you, if they aren’t already in it. Some tips for taking action:
* All these caterpillars pupate into moths, which don’t feed, by around the end of June to the middle of July. The trees then make new leaves – or try to – and that’s where the trouble really starts because weak trees get exhausted and fall prey to other insects, diseases and climate stress. Thus the most important protection for trees is simply to keep them strong: Water young and newly planted trees regularly; water older and established ones if there is a long dry spell. Mulch to prevent competition from weeds, keeping the mulch away from the trunks so it doesn’t rot bark or lead to insect infestation. And hold off on the strong fertilizer, especially if the trees have been attacked. Whether chemical or organic, food supplements encourage soft growth that’s especially vulnerable to bugs, diseases and (later on) freezes
* While they’re eating, spray with Bt — the younger the caterpillars, the more effective this is, because they have to eat it to die and they don’t die right away. It can also help to band the trees loosely with burlap and apply Tanglefoot or something else sticky. Idea is to keep them from climbing up and down and expanding their range.
* Remove the tents and destroy the occupants. A long stick will usually snag the tents, then you can smoosh them underfoot, drop them into pails of soapy water or – if you’re squeamish – leave them in the center of busy roads. Old timers used to burn ’em out and that’s still a tempting way to go, but it’s very easy to hurt the tree as much as you hurt the caterpillars.
* Later in the summer: Turn off porch lights and garden lights from mid-July to mid- August . Adult moths are attracted to lights from as much as several miles away, and once in your yard will look around for a good place to lay eggs.
* Even later ( next winter in February or March): Use dormant oil sprays in to kill egg masses.
Entomological note: The forest tent caterpillar actually makes resting mats, rather than true tents. Not a saving grace. Kill ’em.
July 12: Benefit Luncheon Garden Party with Don and Patrisha McLean
At “Lakeview,” their Camden home. Starts at 12:30 with Champagne, appetizers and stroll through the organic gardens full of heirloom roses. Includes lunch and a talk by Eric Rector, former president of MOFGA, and ends with a 3 o’clock Q&A session presided over by yrs. truly.
$75.00 donation, for the Castine Historical Society. Space limited. (207) 326-4118 or on the net.
July 16: Georges River Land Trust Garden Tour
The 15th anniversary tour, 10 AM to 5 PM rain or shine. Eight gardens , including mine. Tickets $20.00 in advance, 22 bucks the day of the tour. Details through the Trust: (207) 594 – 5166 or on the net.
September 15-17: Maine Fare
A 3 day celebration of all things downeast and delicious , with a gala tasting, a food vendors’ marketplace, cooking demonstrations and assorted talks, including a panel discussion ( led by moi) on Eating Local in a Cold Climate. Information at 207 236 8895 or on the net at mainefare.com.
Funny word when you say it enough times, which is easy to do when they are defoliating large swaths of the Eastern forest. Tips for defending your own trees follow, as soon as I get the rest of the callas in and the tomatoes mulched. But first, a word about defending your dill, which can also be defoliated by a caterpillar.
Unlike the ones that are eating the forest, which grow up to be small, drab moths of no special aesthetic distinction, the caterpillars that eat dill, parsley, and fennel become black swallowtail butterflies (Papilio polyxenes).
Fortunately, there’s no need to kill them to preserve your herbs – they like Queen Anne’s lace just as much as they like other umbellifers, so you can just gently pick them up and move them to wilder pastures. There are 3 generations a year, but unless you have acres and acres to tend, it doesn’t take long to relocate all threats to the tabbouli.
