Showing posts with label burpee seed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label burpee seed. Show all posts

Monday, March 17, 2014

Snow & St. Patrick’s Day = the Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow




Like peanut butter & jelly, Romeo & Juliet, and well, Baileys and coffee, an often little-known match made in paradise is snow and peas.

It’s a day for “wearin’ the green” – and the true green is to be found, where? 
In the garden.

Here is a March Mash-Up that is a sure-fire garden success.

Some have confused the St. Patrick’s calendar-marker and think it’s the day to plant the seeds.

Good gardeners know the old adage:  “Plant your pea seeds in Mid-March – by St. Paddy’s and then pray for snow on St. Patrick’s Day.”  (Or near enough to the calendar date)

So this could be the best year ever for our peas! 
Last year was a winning tandem mash-up too.

Last week, we checked the weather forecast; and tickled with the pending snow scheduled for St. Patrick’s Day in the Mid-Atlantic/New York area, we planted our pea seeds.

This morning, we woke to a blanket of snow. 

Blanket is the operating word here.
Snow brings nourishment and insulation to the soil

March Madness

This is not some beer or Jameson-infused garden hallucination.

Rather, the snow blanket tucks in those newly-planted seeds, keeping them warm and snug; content too because they know that warm spring sun will warm them soon enough.

We use Burpee (www.burpee.com) and other cool or early seed varieties found at our local hardware store.





We plant our pea legume seeds spaced along the edible garden’s fence – perfect for trellising the pea tendrils – and further – they are so pretty to look at.  You can also easily plant peas in your containers.




photo courtesy: Butte in the Farm


So, cheers to the March Mash-Up. 

And now you can sit back, enjoy the St. Patrick’s Day parade and a day of Erin Go Braugh Food & Drink. 
See my Examiner story on Re-Discovered vintage Irish whisky cocktails to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in grand style – and sipping your drink with the smug knowledge that beer and whiskey are plant-based beverages. 
In fact, Whiskey is fermented beer!

Enjoy:


Peas, Please.

Soon enough, you will be harvesting your oh-so-tasty peas.  
photo courtesy: Gookosystem









In the meantime, you can prepare to make this scandalously-good Pea Soup Recipe from my cookbook, The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook.


This recipe is from Chef Jason Weiner, chef and co-owner of Almond restaurants – located in both Bridgehampton and New York City:








English Pea and Mint Soup with a Parmesan Flan and Smoked Bacon 
photo courtesy: Food & Wine

Yield: 6

First make the Soup Base:

4 Large Leeks (white part only, split in half and thoroughly rinsed—they can be sandy)
1 Large Russet Potato (peeled and medium diced)
1/4 Stick of Butter
1/2 Cup Dry White Wine
1 Sprig Each of Thyme, Parsley, and Tarragon
1 Bay Leaf
1 Rib Celery
1 Quart Chicken Stock (if using a store-bought product dilute with half water)
1/4 Cup Crème Fraiche
Salt and White Pepper to taste

·      In a heavy bottom pot on a low flame put the butter, leeks, potatoes, a couple pinches of salt.
·      Stir often with a wooden spoon until the potatoes and leeks become translucent. You don’t want the vegetables to take on any color so attention and a low flame are important.
·      Add the wine.
·      Tie up the herbs and bay leaf in a bundle with butcher’s twine and add to the pot.
·      When the wine is no longer releasing an alcohol aroma add the stock.
·      Simmer until the potatoes are soft.
·      Take the herbs out of the pot.
·      Puree in a blender with the crème fraiche. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Sometimes the soup needs a squeeze of lemon as well.

Now make the Pea puree:

2 cups shelled English peas
2 nice handfuls baby spinach
Salt to taste

·      Blanch the peas until they are tender in a pot of heavily salted water. Immediately transfer them to a blender.
·      Now quickly blanch the spinach in the same water.
·      Now puree the spinach and peas with about a cup of the soup base.  Cool immediately to maintain the vibrant color.

The Flans:

1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
2 yolks
Salt and white pepper.
Cooking spray

·      Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
·      In a sauce pot, bring the cream to a simmer. Whisk in the cheese and let reduce slightly. 
·      Put your yolks in a mixing bowl.
·      Slowly whisk the cream into the yolks. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper
·      Spray six 2 oz. Ramekins or shot glasses. Divide the flan mixture among the molds. Put the flans in a hot water bath, cover with a couple layers of plastic wrap and put in the oven on the middle shelf.
·      Cook until the flans are set up—about a half hour or so.

 Assembly:

1/4 cup bacon lardons
1/4 cup homemade croutons
1 tablespoon mint chiffonade

·      Divide the mint, bacon, and croutons into six warm soup bowls
·      In the center of each bowl place one flan.
·      In a saucepot, warm the soup base. Whisk in the pea puree.
·      Either serve the bowls as they are and serve the soup tableside, or divide the soup into bowls and serve.

And to learn more about Gardening, Register for the Spring classes at The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG)

Fundamentals of Gardening:


http://gardenglamour-duchessdesigns.blogspot.com

Be sure to enter the fun NYBG – Garden Glamour quiz – you can win $25


Friday, February 4, 2011

Snow to Seeds

Maybe I’m the ever-happy garden sprite, but when everyone else seems to be complaining and kvetching about the winter and its snowstorms (hello: it’s the season) I view it all as almost a perfect mash up. 

The winter weather forces us gardeners inside where we more or less do our winter gardening.
What’s that?  Attending lectures about gardens; reading about gardens; dreaming and drawing up new garden designs; taking care of the garden tools: cleaning, sharpening, oiling, all in preparation for the spring.

And as any dedicated, hard driving gardener will tell you – or perhaps sheepishly admit, nothing short of a blizzard will keep us out of the garden. 
So look at it like this:  we NEED the snowstorms and winter crazies to force us to sit down and take the time to choose the seeds, fruit tree varieties that will fulfill the next season’s garden desires.

So relax, enjoy the winter seasonal respite to flip through the print catalogs or the online ones – complete with colorful thumbnail images of the plants we dream will be part of our gardens.
It’s not unlike online dating.
Perhaps seduced by the too handsome or pretty image, we find our love.  Once there, we peruse the bio or stats and only then feel the chemistry. “This one’s for me!” the bubble in your head can be heard to exclaim.  Or maybe you shout out loud.

Better than Vogue’s fall issue, we love the cover shots of the boutique offerings from the smaller breeders and organic artisans.



For part of my Christmas wish list, I couldn’t resist the cherry trees from One Green World  - 1-877-353-4028 / www.onegreenworld.com
I am designing a home orchard: a double row cherry allee of compact trees near the kitchen garden or potager, located on the “back forty” as we say. That would be the backyard garden…
Last season, it was sad and curious when I asked one of the many nurseries I work with about securing fruit trees for my garden design clients; I was told they haven’t stocked them in forever. What? Why?  “Because no one grows fruit anymore.”
Pardon me, but isn’t this crazy?  Why do we have to buy imported fruit?  Most of suburban America can grow edible fruits. Most of urban residents can too.
Sigh. This is just the most recent example of lost food opportunities.

Not to be deterred. I moved on.  I would appeal to a higher resource: Santa Claus.

I needed dwarf varieties that would provide sweet, delicious, edible cherries.  My husband loves cherries – we buy Red Jacket Cherry Stomp from the Greenmarket in Union Square and my mother always makes him cherry pie for family holidays.

I wanted trees that are relatively carefree, with various blooming time that would yield fruit within the first year or so.  Some trees can take several years for cherries to bear fruit, so be mindful. 
   
I asked Santa for the Prunus cerasus  Montmorency.  This tree promises pie cherries.  They will rarely exceed 12 feet and are hardy to Zone 3.  The catalog says it produces abundant crops of firm, bright red, richly tart fruit with clear juice (yeah!)  Montmorency makes the best cherry pies!  (can’t wait to test this out!) A self-fertile and naturally dwarf tree.

I also hoped Santa would see clear to bring a sweet cherry, Prunus avium. That fat red man doesn’t wear red for nothing!  He’ll be sending two Compact Stella.  Stella – (which means ‘star’ in Italian. I know because the name of one of my most favorite garden client’s mother is Stella!)  I am hoping my sweet Stella cherry is indeed a star of our soon-to-be cherry orchard. 
The catalog describes Stella as “unique, self-fertile, dwarf cherry that will grow to only about 8-10 feet ad begins bearing fruit within a year or two and bears large, tasty, almost black fruit.” Good to zone 5

My mother remembers she and her sisters were picking their cherry fruit form the trees for what seemed forever – but that did not deter us from
We will add more trees to the mini orchard, but not before test-driving this year’s babies.
Santa was great.  He did it.

Seeds.

We order seeds from the Kitazawa Seed Co.,  www.kitazawaseed.com
 (LOVE, love, love their seed packet design!); 
Maine Potato Lady www.mainepotatolady.com;
Burpee’s www.burpee.com;
John Scheepers, kitchen garden: www.kitchengardenseeds.com
Seed Savers Exchange: www.seedsavers.org
and Comstock native Seeds www.comstockseed.com/ (and what about those cover-boy melons?) 






Just recently, I received the Renee’s Garden spring seed offerings and am very to say they have some very exciting new Gourmet Vegetables and Flowers.  I am very excited to try their new introductions, including, Sugar Pearl White Corm, Zinger Hibiscus herbal tea, ‘Beauty Heart” Heirloom Radish Watermelon, Wine Country Mesclun and Tricolor carrots.   I’ll keep you posted on the growing of the Renee’s Garden seed growing.







Today, Garden Design Magazine featured their secret and heirloom seed picks from England, Italy and Vermont. 
http://tiny.cc/yeqoq               













Take the time to indulge the season’s “snow to seed” research and selection.