When I think of spring, I think of this salad. Fresh, green, earthy, full of life. Luckily for us southern climates, winter tends to feel like spring most days, so I’ve had the ingredients for this salad growing in my garden all season and this recipe makes perfect use of them. As the superstar of [...]
legumes
I admit it — if fava beans weren’t so good for the soil, I likely wouldn’t grow them at all, edible or not. Hidden inside those fat long pods are handfuls of delicious beans, but they make you work for it. Really work for it. Shelling the beans is a labor-intensive process, one that should [...]
Legumes have long been known to be good for your garden by fixing nitrogen and improving soil fertility. These legumes come in the form of common peas and beans, as well as cover crops that act as green manure in the off season. But how exactly do they “fix” nitrogen in the soil, and what [...]
After an abundant summer, my bush beans have finally bitten the dirt. I harvested the last of the beans — all 15 pounds of my Dragon Tongue, Royal Burgundy, and Beurre de Rocquencourt varieties — and after many three bean summer salads, spicy stir-fried beans, grilled beans, braised beans, and buttery bean casseroles, there’s only [...]
Last week, I came home to an overflowing garden after spending five days in the mountains. I’m convinced that as soon as I leave town and stop “supervising” my veggies, they decide to have a growth spurt overnight. That ginormous squash? I swear that it wasn’t there the week that I left. But when I [...]
Last week I had the honor of hosting Jere Gettle (as in the Jere Gettle from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, pictured at right) and Paul Wallace (the man in charge of Baker Creek’s west coast branch, the Petaluma Seed Bank) at my humble little abode. They were only in town for a day or two, [...]
My chickens free-range in the backyard most of the day, with unrestricted access to the vegetable garden. I don’t fence or otherwise protect my raised beds, and they’ve been very good about our unspoken “beaks off” policy when it comes to my vegetables. The trick? Giving them a “salad bar” that they can call their [...]
