Space To Garden, Ocean Vu

Let me introduce you to someone, my father-in-law, Bill Rihn. A retired engineer, Bill is one of those people who sees a need for something and then moves forward to make it happen. You might find him tutoring in his local public schools, working in political campaigns, or spearheading efforts to protect the environment in his California beachside community.

Most recently, Bill and his neighbors in South Laguna Beach have rolled up their sleeves (literally) and moved mountains (of dirt). They've taken a patch of land and, with the generous consent of the property owner, obtained city permits, solicited donations for plumbing, constructed raised beds, brought in topsoil, and installed a shed. As a result of their vision and sweat equity, an idle piece of real estate has been transformed into the South Laguna Community Garden. (Bill is pictured above with Shary Seltzer, who painted the sign.)
http://www.southlaguna.org/garden/Photos.html

After a summer's worth of planning and hard work, the group is installing the last few planting boxes now, and plots are being assigned. The garden is officially a project of the South Laguna Civic Association, of which Bill is president. While having an umbrella organization in place probably made some of the start-up aspects easier, any group of dedicated individuals could create such a garden.

Events to mark the garden's official opening are now being planned, and I know this group would like to start things in a big way by welcoming a very special guest. Mrs. Obama, are you interested in a trip to Laguna Beach to meet some community volunteers? You can't beat a garden with an ocean view.

Not Without Its Disappointments

It's not all good health and happy talk, you know. Raising organic crops is no different from most endeavors. Disappointments appear unexpectedly, like your cousin Ted, who knocks, uninvited, on your front door, with sour breath and a sad tale that culminates in his need for a place to crash.

You may recall that at the beginning of the summer, I planted one tiny cantaloupe vine, as an experiment really, to see how it would fare. For much of the summer, the little vine grew and grew, sending out long shoots and broad green leaves. The cantaloupe's vines entwined themselves wherever possible, circling around adjacent plants. At first, only a few flowers appeared, and no real fruit developed from these blossoms. But the vine looked healthy and was visually pleasing, so I left it alone.

By early September, things changed. Dozens of delicate, white flowers developed, from which a few tiny cantaloupes began to grow. I had the audacity to hope and found that the cantaloupe was now engendering warm, smile-inducing feelings in me whenever I checked its steady progress. My giddy reaction was reminiscent of the best days of the Obama campaign, and I liked how it felt.

By the time the new flowers appeared, however, the vine had grown exponentially from its humble beginnings, taking up scads of ground and encroaching on the neighboring herbs. An intervention seemed appropriate. What kind of gardener would I be if allowed the cantaloupe to push everyone else around. So, I gingerly redirected some of its shoots toward a less crowded space in the planting bed, and inserted a tomato cage upon which they could climb. That was it. I swear.

Although I don't know when or how this occurred, my brown thumb must have inserted itself. Within 12 hours of my so-called assistance, the cantaloupe vine was a limp and lifeless corpse. Clearly, I had made a huge mistake, although I'm still not sure what I did wrong. Eventually, I removed the detritus and threw it into the green waste bin. Did I unwittingly uproot it when I redirected a few of its shoots? How delicate can a cantaloupe plant be!

This was not the summer's only disappointment. Remember the grape vines, from which I hoped to make grape jelly. Long story short, the grapes suffered from dramatically poor timing. Unfortunately, they came of age at exactly the same moment that the Station fire erupted just north of our house, the largest fire in L.A. County history. Our local air was so polluted and the temperatures were so high, that we didn't dare venture into the yard for several days. When we finally crept outside to assess the damage, ash covered everything, including the clumps of purple fruit, some of which were already drying on the vine. Since the newscasters were warning us of how damaging the ash was for the paint on our cars, ingesting traces of soot clinging to a bunch of grapes seemed imprudent, at best. I eventually clipped off the entire crop of grapes and tossed the fruit into the bin, leaving my new jelly jars standing empty and idle in the pantry.

Some produce is destroyed by insects and other pests. Other times, human error brings destruction. And, occassionally, mother nature sends in a flood or a fire to devastate what we attempt to grow. Imagine if your livelihood depended on how much and how well your farm produced. It's probably a good thing that I live in the city, where fruits and vegetables are stacked neatly for sale and groceries grow on shelves.

My Gazpacho Garden

Without any real planning or conscious effort, we somehow achieved the essentials for gazpacho -- tomatoes, cucumbers, and red and yellow peppers -- in our summer garden. A Spanish soup, served well-chilled, gazpacho has to be the perfect accompaniment to the sun-baked summer days found in Granada or Seville. Given how heated things had been here of late, with fires devastating the nearby Angeles National Forest and flames close enough to see from our front windows, cold soup seemed like the solution. Raw nourishment served up in a bowl. With this thought in mind, I consulted my Williams-Sonoma Soup Cookbook and set about procuring the one or two ingredients not already in the pantry or growing just outside the kitchen door.

A few days later, when the temps reached over 100 degrees and turning on the burners seemed like a foolhardy brush with heat prostration, I turned to my gazpacho recipe instead. Whatever climate you find yourself in, I provide this recipe below, in the spirit of passing on a good thing. One caveat, however: While I'm a big fan of this soup, the males in my house are, inexplicably, not as enamoured with it. They eat it, but they don't love it. On the flip side, I've served this soup at baby showers and other events where the guests have all been women, and not a drop goes uneaten. Could this be a gender thing? Perhaps a cold vegetarian soup lacks sufficient heartiness to appeal to more manly appetites, aligning it more closely with cold salmon, cucumber sandwiches, salad nicoise, and other so-called ladies' lunch fare. No matter, whatever my guys pass up, means more for me, which translates to cold comfort-- in a good way.

Gazpacho
This soup relies on a food processor, or a good blender, at the very least.

1.5 cups of bread crumbs
1/3 to 1/2 cup of olive oil
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 small red onion, chopped
4 cups of fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 cups water, chilled
2 cups tomato juice, chilled
3 to 6 tbsps of red wine vinegar, depending on your taste. (Spanish vinegar is best here).
salt and pepper
Extra cucumber, onion and bell pepper for garnish

Put the bread crumbs and 1/3 cup of olive oil in the food processor. Pulse until a thick paste is formed. (If too dry, add more oil.) Reserving some of the diced cucumber, onion, and bell pepper for garnish, put the three vegetables into the food processor and combine with bread crumb mixture. Once pureed, add the tomatoes and pulse some more. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl, cover and refrigerate until well-chilled. Before serving, with a whisk, combine the pureed mixture with the cold water and tomato juice. Gently stir in salt and pepper and the vinegar. (Note: add vinegar incrementally, tasting as you go, until you arrive at a sourness level that works for you.) Serve with extra diced cucumber, onion, bell pepper, croutons, or diced hard-boiled egg.

It's A Cucumber

According to my seed-sharing neighbor, Lisa, the odd green produce in the photo below is called an Italian cucumber. I concur that it's definitely a variety of cucumber. The flesh looks and tastes like a cucumber, although the skin is thinner and the seeds are larger than more common cucumber variations. As for it being Italian, I have no idea if this is true, and I have yet to corroborate this fact. For the record, Lisa's parents are of Italian descent and own a vineyard in Napa, so I'm inclined to take her at her word.

Ethnicity aside, our curious cucumber stepped up to plate last night and became the mainstay in a sauce that I paired with salmon fillets that were sauteed briefly in olive oil and lemon juice. Take this recipe, and enjoy. I adapted it from the current issue of Bon Appetit.

Green Gazpacho Sauce (for fish or whatever else you want to marry it to)

1 cucumber (any variety), seeded and roughly chopped, measuring about 1 1/2 cups
3 or 4 green onions, using both white and green parts, roughly chopped
Handful of fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice
salt to taste

In a food processor or blender, combine the cucumber, green onions and the cilantro. Pulse until mixture is pureed. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the vinegar, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and some salt. Pulse a few times until combined. At this point, I advise tasting the sauce. If it seems too dry or the flavors aren't vibrant enough, add the additional olive oil and the lemon juice. Chill for about an hour before serving. Makes enough for 4 as an accompaniment. Great paired with sauteed or grilled salmon. (FYI: The recipe that appeared in Bon Appetit added serrano chiles and omitted the lemon juice. The magazine paired it with seared mahi-mahi.)

Name That Produce

The greenish things in this photo are edible and were cultivated in our yard this summer. We started the plants in little cups from seeds given to us in the spring by our neighbor, Lisa. Upon seeing the finished product in our yard in July, Lisa nearly cried, her nostalgia for this item was that intense. All of us are familiar with more common varieties of this item, which are readily available at the supermarket or at the farmer's market, but I've never seen this variation anywhere else. If I hadn't known what the seeds were called, I would have been clueless about the resulting harvest.

Care to take a guess? Here's a hint: It has seeds in the center, which can be eaten or removed depending our your preference. The tomatoes in the photo are provided to give you a sense of scale. Prize for the winner....how about some tomatoes?

When Does One Reach Tomato Overkill?

Your refusal to comment on whether Dennis and I should install raised planting beds in the front lawn (see previous post) gives me pause. I have to assume that you think the idea is cracked brain, and you worry about our standing in the community. You're loathed to encourage us in what might well be a misadventure, although I doubt it would reach more than minnow proportions. At worst, we might encourage the squirrels and the crows to linger even longer at our house, given the possibility they might nip a bite of fruit or pilfer a fat worm. From the humans, some passers-by might roll their eyes and cluck a bit, or we might find ourselves the subject of a little neighborhood gossip for being "different." All are possible.

On the other hand, no one wants to be the one who dampens our spirits and just says, "No." You're not willing to finger-wag and tell us, "No front yard veggie patch. Not now. Not later. Not ever. You live in the suburbs, and not in California's farm belt. Besides, you already have an overabundance of tomatoes. Do your really want more produce? "

I have to admit that the tomato surplus is an excellent point. When does one cross the line with the crops? When does one arrive at too much of a good thing?

For the record, 60 tomatoes of mixed sizes and varieties -- after being skinned, seeded, cooked and pureed -- yield 8 cups of tomato something or other. You could call it a marinara sauce if you like, but it's more of a base, really, on which to build other dishes. One could add meat, or broccoli and eggplant, or shellfish, or just some garlic and mushrooms. I know the yields and quantities from personal experience. I've stood at the stove for hours this summer and processed tomatoes in this way. As I write this, a medium-sized pot of tomatoes, to which ground beef, red wine, and herbs have been added, bubbles gently in the kitchen, evidence of my labors.

Truth is, the bumper crops we experience every year (because my husband, instead of being conservative, gets greedy and installs dozens of tomato plants each spring that explode with full and unbelievable production by August) are a trial. I mean this in a good way. We share the bounty with anyone who expresses the tiniest interest. We eat lots of salads and soups. And I cook tomatoes until my hands are red and my fingers are wrinkled in order to freeze quite a bit of puree for later. Sometimes I reach my limit.

Of course, come this October, when I'm thawing out a few cups of home-grown tomato sauce for lasagna or some pasta, I'll be grateful for the amazing taste and the fact that it didn't come from a can or a jar or a supermarket shelf.

Tomato Watch-- Summer '09

Tomatoes, tomatoes, and more tomatoes. Mid-summer is here, and we are in full tomato production. In the past weeks, I've made a vat of gazpacho, many bowls of summer pasta, bruschetta, corn-tomato salsa, and caprese salad. Got any other ideas?

We delivered tomatoes to all of the neighbors -- more than once. I don't feel so bad now about never getting around to giving them any home-baked Christmas cookies last December. Flavorful organic tomatoes have to compensate for that oversight. With one neighbor, we've initiated an open-gate, barter policy. They are free to come in our yard anytime to harvest tomatoes. In return, they've granted us full access to their overburdened orange tree. Already this week, we've consumed two big pitchers of fresh-squeezed juice.

Most of the other vegetation is keeping up, too. A couple of red bell peppers are about ready to pick, the basil recovered from its earlier slug onslaught, and the grapes are plentiful and will hopefully ripen in a month or so.

Given the drought, we've been considering expanding our edible garden project beyond the fence and onto the front lawn. The local dry conditions have made it almost unpatriotic to water the grass, and brown lawns are everywhere. Why not remove some of our scratchy dry grass and install a few more raised beds?

But this is how it starts, right, the slippery slope to eccentricity. Soon we'll have a permanent scarecrow standing in front of the house, not just a Halloween decoration, and Dennis and I will be begging the passing dogwalkers and stroller mothers to cart off a rutabaga or two. Neighborhood kids will avoid our house. "Not that street! That corner is where the spinach pushers live." You can see how this idea might get out of hand. But still, it's under consideration.

What do you think? Should we install a few raised beds streetside, yea or nay?