Chance encounter - lambs quarters

After days of heaviness and dismay, I rode out into Brooklyn for a scheduled garden design appointment. The world looked the same although it was very different. On my way home again, later, I stopped in the park and realized I'd been holding my breath for a long time. The trees helped me breathe.

In a secluded spot I found a patch of bright green, young lambs quarters, a new crop after rain.

Usually a summer green, it is a treat to see them now. I prefer them to spinach. So I took them home.

Lambs quarters are the perfect ingredient for gnudi or malfatti (I can't decide which name to use for this most tender iteration of gnocchi). 

The recipe for lambs quarter gnudi is over on 66 Square Feet (the Food).

Retreat

After a garden design appointment on the other, eastern side of Prospect Park recently, I cycled home via the more winding, scenic route, through the park. I hadn't intended to stop, but when I caught a glimpse of this electric gingko, I went off-road, to the water.

And later, into the woods.

Sunchoke soup

You'll find my recipe for sunchoke soup on Gardenista. I loved my sunchoke aka Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) plants; one of the most interesting crops I have grown. And, for the record, neither the Frenchman and I have been affected by the alleged (f)articoke syndrome. Cooking them in water fixes that. In case you are AFRAID!

Don't be. They are delicious. And in shops and markets now. Assuming you live in the Northern Hemisphere.

We have not actually had much appetite, lately. But soup is acceptable.

You can also drown yourself in it if it gets too much.

Open Gardens Constantia 2016

Photos: Marianne Alexander

Hello, Cape Town. I miss you.

This weekend the biennial Open Gardens Constantia takes place. Four beautiful private gardens will be open to the public for two days only.

Tickets are R60 if you purchase them at the following garden gates:

29 Brommaert Avenue, Constantia (plus tea, cake!)

72 Starke Road, Bergvliet (plant sale)

5 Susanne Avenue, Constantia

5 Parade Crescent, Constantia Hills

Advance tickets are R50 online, at WebTickets.

You can also buy R50 advance tickets from the following shops:

Ferndale Nursery, Brommersvlei Road, Constantia

Peter Gilder, Constantia Village, Constantia

Sherwood Hardware, Ladies Mile

The Greenhouse Nursery, Montebello, Newlands

One ticket purchase gives you access to every garden and includes a garden tea (29 Brommaert Avenue), plus all the home-baked cakes, muffins, sweet loaves and sandwiches (made fresh all day) that the Constantia and Constantiaberg Garden Clubs can produce. And that's a lot.

The gardens range from grand to manageable. Three are in Constantia, one is in Bergvliet.

Gardens are open on November the 12th from 10.00am - 5.30pm, and on Sunday the 13th from 10.00am - 4.30pm. 

There are food gardens, shade gardens, indigenous gardens...

In addition to the gardens and tea, tickets also give you access to the plant sale. Members of the garden clubs have been growing and propagating plants for the last two years. Snap up shade-loving Haemanthus albiflos:

Ticket sale proceeds are donated to Abalimi bezekhaya and Soil for Life, two established and highly-regarded not-for-profits that provide essential infrastructure, support and training for food gardeners working mostly on the Cape Flats. These food gardens help provide income for microfarmers, as well as food for the farmers and their neighbours. Abalimi's CSA box is available from Harvest of Hope.

In 2014 my mom was able to had over sizeable checks to both beneficiaries. Help be part of their success again.

Enjoy the gardens, post on social media (#opengardensconstantia), and have some cake for me.

Gifts for Gardeners - Tools with Teeth

Just in time for the death of Daylight Saving Time and the beginning of the bulb-planting frenzy comes my first in a series of Gifts for Gardeners posts. May the thought of goodies to come warm you in the Northern nights.

In late summer the Brooklyn company Uncommon Goods sent me a set of garden tools to review, on the understanding that I would only if I liked them. I do! I have been test driving (digging?) them since September.

To back up a little: Last year I bought a pointy trowel with a dangerously serrated edge. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was the only one our local hardware store had in stock in November, and I had to plant bought and gifted perennials in the now-ripped-up front garden, fast, before the first freezes. Turns out I like serrated edges: very useful for cutting through rootballs. But that trowel is very skinny and more like a bulb-planting tool, so it is not helpful for actually carrying little loads of soil. It took forever to dig a hole.

Enter the handsome Garden Works Soil Scoop. The name says it all: it can actually scoop and hold enough soil for potting, or dig holes effectively.

It's also very useful for digging out established plants whose roots have filled a pot, because its sharp teeth help zip through them. Recently I used it for the unglamorous job of digging up established jewelweed whose season has at last come to an end (cutting the four-foot plants down exposes you to the rapid light arms fire of their furiously exploding seed pods - goggles would have been nice).

Anyone who has pulled as many weeds as I have in the last year will understand that a tool described as a 'weed weapon' would appeal to me. Part of my weed challenge is a path of pavers where weeds insinuate themselves into hairline cracks. The weed weapon's sharp, forked tip helps me winkle them out without destroying my already blue-collar fingernails.

The angle weeder also extends my reach into the bed, so I can lean in, dig down and rake towards myself, severing weeds as the weapon travels. It's very satisfying. It is so narrow, like a scythe, that I can usually do this without damaging the plants I mean to protect, like garlic shoots, young arugula or lettuces.The angle weeder's length and sharpness also mean that I can zap the damn morning glory seedlings with having to squat and pull every single one. They keep coming.

In fairly typical fashion I have not looked after my new tools very carefully. They live on my stone potting table in all weathers and their birch handles have fared very well and the stainless steel is spot-free. They look as good now as they did months ago, and the handles have remained very smooth to hold.

Yes, I will clean them (the picture above was taken when they were brand new) and bring them indoors for winter. In spring the weed weapon will have to start all over again. Both tools are US-made, from parts to assembly. The scoop is $21.95, the weed weapon is $23.95 - good investments, and neither breaks the bank.

Next week? Soap for dirty, dirty gardeners.

November is for persimmons

More about growing and preserving persimmons in my story for Gardenista.

The scrambled season

I am a fool for tulips in late fall. I know it contradicts my seasonally appropriate life, but I never claimed to be a fundamentalist. They reappear now, in the cool weather, in bunches outside bodegas and delis. The ones here were a birthday gift from the Frenchman. As was the shiny new espresso pot on the right of the stove. You can never have too many espresso pots. We both fell in love with this Alessi model when we spent a September weekend upstate with friends.

I am still drying persimmons, hoshigaki style. 

These are the American persimmons I foraged recently, just peeled, and hanging in our sunny southern windows, with the Thai limes. They are small and dry fast, and I have the rounded 'Fuyus' and 'Hashiyas' (pointy bottoms) for comparison, in the other window. They take much longer.

Otherwise, there are mushrooms to clean and process and cook and test in recipes, a fresh haul of acorns, another batch of persimmons, gardens to design, stories to write, a house to clean and a garden to put to bed.

I think I just panicked.