• Dessert,  Fruit,  Health,  Herbs,  Recipes,  Vegan,  Vegetarian

    Black Plum and Basil Granita

    Basil plum granita 008This is an interesting and delicious way to use some of those plums that ripen overnight.  Basil is also in season, and combining it with the heavenly, winey flavor of ripe black plums is amazing.  If you grow other types of basil such as lime basil or cinnamon basil, use those instead, reducing the lime juice to 1 tablespoon.

    Granita is juice that is partially frozen, forked around a little, then refrozen.  You don’t need an ice cream maker.  Easy, quick and nutritious, too!

    Black Plum and Basil Granita
    Author: 
    Recipe type: Desert
    Cuisine: American
    Prep time: 
    Cook time: 
    Total time: 
    Serves: 8½ cup servings
     
    Basil and allspice give a wonderful depth of flavor to winey black plums in this frozen treat.
    Ingredients
    • 1 cup water
    • ⅔ cup granulated sugar
    • ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
    • ⅛ teaspoon salt
    • 6 whole allspice (if you don't have allspice berries, use a small piece of cinnamon stick)
    • 1½ pounds black plums, pitted and quartered
    • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
    • ¾ cup basil leaves (not packed)
    Instructions
    1. In a large saucepan combine water, sugar, vanilla, salt, allspice and prepared plums and bring to a boil.
    2. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, until the plums begin to fall apart.
    3. Pour into a small bowl set in ice water in a larger bowl and cool completely.
    4. Fish out and discard the six allspice.
    5. In a blender or VitaMix process plum mixture, basil and lime juice until well blended.
    6. Press the plum mixture through a fine sieve over a bowl and discard solids. If you have a VitaMix you may not have any residual solids; the granita will be cloudier but will be more nutritious. Don't worry about it.
    7. Pour the mixture into an 8-inch square glass or ceramic baking dish.
    8. Cover and freeze until partially frozen, about 2 hours.
    9. Scrape with a fork, crushing any lumps, and smooth down again.
    10. Freeze for 3 more hours, scraping with a fork every hour so that it doesn't freeze as a cube, until completely frozen.
    11. Serve in small scoops; really nice paired with little vanilla cookies.

     

  • Bees,  Gardening adventures,  Other Insects,  Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures,  Seeds,  Soil

    Hairy Vetch

    Attractive flowers and seeds.
    Attractive flowers and seeds.

    Hairy vetch (Vicia villosa), also known as winter vetch is a nitrogen-fixing plant that is used mostly for cover-cropping in monoculture fields. Native to Europe and Asia, it is a winter plant sown in the Fall and, in places where it snows, is killed off with the cold or tilled into fields.  When a nitrogen-fixing plant dies or is cut back, roots die and release the nitrogen nodules into the soil.  Here is sunny San Diego the vetch thrived since I sowed it in Spring of last year.  It is a pretty, vining plant, with lovely dark purple blooms that bees and other pollinators love.  It produces pea pods like its edible relative the fava bean, but I wouldn’t eat them.  The seeds may be bad browse for livestock as well.  The roots help hold soil during winter rains, too.

    Hairy vetch clamboring all over the place
    Hairy vetch clamboring all over the place

    Vetch can be hard to get rid of because it reseeds easily.  It will also climb up bushes, competing with the bush for sunlight.  If I didn’t know about the nitrogen-fixing properties and if the bees didn’t like it so much, I’d suspect it of being an invasive.

    To control it I take my trusty hand scythe and cut the vetch out of bushes and close to the ground.  I leave the vines to decompose and protect seedlings that I plant to take advantage of the newly-enriched soil.

    A mass of sweet peas climbing a dwarf orange.
    A mass of sweet peas climbing a lavendar.

    If you don’t want a cover crop that is so aggressive I suggest sowing a mixture of lupine, sweet peas, edible peas and fava beans in the Fall here in Southern California, and again in early Spring.  In cold areas check with your farm advisor on when to plant.

  • Gardening adventures,  Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures,  Soil

    Fruit Tree Guilds: Making Your Trees Healthy and Happy

    An unripe Buddha's Hand citron.  When bright yellow it freshens a room with a citrusy floral fragrance; is zest is wonderful in cooking and it can be candied.  Or simply stuck up a sleeve and used to frighten people.
    An unripe Buddha’s Hand citron. When bright yellow it freshens a room with a citrusy floral fragrance; is zest is wonderful in cooking and it can be candied. Or simply stuck up a sleeve and used to frighten people.

    A guild in permaculture terms is, as you know, an arrangement of symbiotic plants that serve as a plant community for the benefit of the whole.  Visitors to Finch Frolic Garden often remark that planting guilds sounds so difficult; that they’d need to study so much about plants that it would be impossible for them to do.  Not so. However, it isn’t just a whole bunch of plants planted so that they are stepping on each other’s shoes. The typical permaculture plant guild is defined by plants which do these functions: an upper canopy tree (shade, mulch from falling leaves, deep tap roots, roosting for birds which poop, hunt, etc., traps humidity, catches and filters rain and fog moisture), a lower canopy tree (same functions but shorter), a ground cover (habitat for small hunters and moisture trap), a miner plant (deep tap root to bring nutrients from deep in the soil to its leaves which deliver said nutrients when they decompose, and tap root breaks up soil and gives passage for water and worms), a nitrogen-fixing plant (works symbiotically with bacteria to trap nitrogen from the atmosphere on root nodules, which release into the soil when the top dies), and a pollinator-attractor (flowers for bees and all the tiny native bees, wasps and flies).

    Buddha's Hand citron (Citrus medica) happy in a guild of yarrow, sweet peas, artichoke (the leaves of which are regularly slashed and dropped), Cleveland sage, scented geranium and a variety of bulbs.
    Buddha’s Hand citron (Citrus medica) happy in a guild of yarrow, sweet peas, artichoke (the leaves of which are regularly slashed and dropped), Cleveland sage, scented geranium and a variety of bulbs.

    The formula isn’t that complicated.  I challenge you to come up with an example of each right now.  Yes, you can do it.  (Dum dee dum… I’m waiting for you to be done before I move on. ) Have it?  Okay, here’s a quick example.  Mulberry, dwarf peach, strawberries, carrots, sweet peas, dwarf yarrow and fava beans.  The canopy trees will lose their leaves allowing sun to warm the understory plants in the winter.  Strawberries make an excellent ground cover that grows food and loves the fungus-rich loam made by decomposing leaves.  Carrots like cool weather and will thrive until ready to be pulled (and tops broken off and thrown on the ground) about when the trees fully leaf out.  Sweet peas attract insects, smell great, and as a bonus are nitrogen fixers, and can twine up the tree trunks.  Dwarf yarrow helps choke out grass, is used for many purposes including as a dye plant, and its flowers are clusters of small flowers perfect for the tiny pollinators, and bush peas are completely edible and also fix nitrogen.  See?  Easy.

    Just in time for summer's heat, a kabocha squash is rapidly covering the ground around the variegated dwarf orange and a young pink guava. I have to pull squash out of trees because they think they own the world, and it hurts to hit your head on a dangling pumpkin.  I leave the vines to decompose in place after harvest.
    Just in time for summer’s heat, a kabocha squash is rapidly covering the ground around the variegated dwarf orange and a young pink guava. I have to pull squash out of trees because they think they own the world, and it hurts to hit your head on a dangling pumpkin. I leave the vines to decompose in place after harvest.

    I have many, many trees which were all planted at the same time, and some of them have been neglected.  A combination apple tree had been planted in extremely heavy clay and it hasn’t grown much in two years although it keeps trying to produce fruit.  Bermuda grass (I cross myself when I mention it) has infiltrated the area to about four inches down.  It is helping to break up the clay, but it is also choking out everything else.  Plant guild time.

    Bermuda grass in heavy clay right next to the trunk: no good.
    Bermuda grass in heavy clay right next to the trunk: no good.

    Last weekend I spent about three hours in the morning (mercifully before the June gloom dissipated so I didn’t roast in the heat) digging up and pulling out as much Bermuda grass as I could from the clay.  I’d even soaked the area well the night before.  That was the stuff of cob ovens.  When I’d finally cleared past the tree (I’ll continue another day; there’s only so much of that my hands can take!), I shoveled in some pigeon guano that my good friends up the street deliver to me (tied with a ribbon!  Christmas comes all year for a gardener!).  The guano is very high in urea… you can smell the ammonia, but it also has feathers, corn and pigeon peas in it.  Pigeon peas are a perennial legume that set nitrogen and produce wonderful pea pods for stir-fry.  I watered it in well.

    This apple was planted in clay in this planter.  Never create a planter around an existing tree; mulch around the trunk will kill it.
    This apple was planted in clay in this planter. Never create a planter around an existing tree; mulch around the trunk will kill it.

    I had purchased some plants for the area, but to keep costs down just chose some that would fill out and help choke out the angry Bermuda grass bits yearning for revenge.  Also, the tree is close by Harry Mud, the cob oven, so I wanted  pizza-themed plants for easy picking.  I planted strawberries right by the trunk inside the gopher cage in which the tree is planted.  They will help retain moisture without compromising the bark of the tree.  You never want to pile mulch up around the base of a tree above the root ball because you will rot your tree.

    I also planted a tomato, a perennial basil, garlic chives all around the edge (bug protection), sunflowers, a prostrate rosemary and French tarragon.  The pigeon peas and corn will very likely sprout.  What I didn’t have was an upper canopy, but the tree is on the east side of a shed which protects it from the worst of the summer afternoon sun, and there is a grapevine nearby which produces leaf litter.  When daffodil bulbs are readily available in the late Fall I’ll plant a ring of them around the drip line.  Gophers don’t eat them, they help keep away the grass, they break up the soil and they are one of my favorite flowers (ranking second to sweet violets).  All these plants as they grow up, down and across will help the apple tree, and the apple tree will help them.  All of them produce food within easy reach of the cob oven and outdoor dining, are attractive and smell good, too.  The tree should flourish.  I don’t kid myself that I won’t be pulling Bermuda grass in the future, but the plants will help control it by shading and crowding out.

    It doesn't look like much now, but there are eleven support plants/seeds to help the apple tree now.  Friends!
    It doesn’t look like much now, but there are eleven support plants/seeds to help the apple tree now. Friends!

    If you have citrus trees you should plan a little differently.  When trying to understand a plant, think of where it came from and in what growing conditions it thrived.  Avocados are from South America, with humidity, rainfall, protection from intense heat, deep leaf litter and adequate drainage.  Stonefruit are from areas with cold winters; their leaf drop keeps the roots protected from the freezing that triggers the trees to set fruit (chill factor).

    This citrus was planted before the bamboo grew up to shade it.  Notice how the leaves grow straight up, and none below?  It is aiming to collect light at noon, which is the only direct sun that it receives.  He needs to be moved.
    This citrus was planted before the bamboo grew up to shade it. Notice how the leaves grow straight up, and none below? It is aiming to collect light at noon, which is the only direct sun that it receives. He needs to be moved.

    We think of citrus trees perfuming the air of Spain, Greece or Arabia, but actually they come from Southeast Asia and before that, New Guinea and Australia.  All of these places have warm or hot temperatures and plenty of sunlight.  Although you can plant stonefruit close together, for citrus it is best to ensure that the trees receive lots of direct sunlight or they will drop leaves and have stunted growth.

    This citrus receives sun all day, and is very happy with the tomato, roses and sage that surround it.
    This citrus receives sun all day, and is very happy with the tomato, roses and sage that surround it.

    Raking all the leaves out from under your trees is so wrong.  The tree drops leaves because it needs them on the ground around its roots, not because its careless or its waiting for a human to come by and clean up its mess.  Leaf mulch makes the ideal conditions for microbial growth and perfect soil, so let it sit.  Augment the mulch by giving your tree company of other plants.  Unless the tree is allelopathic (secretes a substance that keeps anything from rooting nearby so that it doesn’t like competition, such as walnuts and eucalyptus) then in nature it reseeds close by and allows other plants to grow under it.  Give your trees some appropriate company, and you’ll be rewarded with lots of food, medicine, habitat and very little work except for harvesting.  Can’t beat that with a stick.

     

  • Animals,  Chickens,  Humor,  Pets

    Release of the Pullets, and No More House Chicken

     

    The Fowl Fortress and its many inhabitants.
    The Fowl Fortress and its many inhabitants.

    It was time.  The little chicks were half-grown and beginning to eat scratch and pelleted chicken food along with their chick starter.  They had finally figured out how to go upstairs at nighttime although it took several tries where I had to pick them out of their chick pile and shove them through the upstairs egg window.  A couple of times when I’d let the big girls out into the garden, I had let the little girls out into the Fowl Fortress.  They had run around stretching their wings and barreling into one another. So it was time for them to join the big girls as one large flock.

    Four of the seven little girls. L-R: Belle, Charlotte, Esther (or Myrtle. They look and act the same), and Mulan (please don't be a rooster!).
    Four of the seven little girls. L-R: Belle, Charlotte, Esther (or Myrtle. They look and act the same), and Mulan (please don’t be a rooster!).

    And then there was Viola, the house chicken.  She’d been a house chicken for over half a year, enjoying her special front yard paradise, coming when called, stealing some dog and cat food, caging herself at night, and crooning away whenever I sneezed or made noise while she slept.  I really loved to have my house chicken.  However she was alone a lot.  She protested her aloneness by shrieking horribly for long periods of time.  She could shriek with both exhaled and inhaled breath so that the noise didn’t stop.  Even when at the end of my rope I yelled at her to shut up, she shrieked.  She was becoming a spoiled and lonesome chicken.  Her leg, the reason for her separation from the flock, was doing well again.  I thought that if there was ever a good time to reintroduce her it would be at the same time that I let loose the little girls.  There would be less hostility against Viola when the hens reinforced their pecking order.  It was a very hard decision to make, but I thought it was for the best.  I left the cage up in the house, though, just in case.

    Madge: not just a rescue anymore!  Uber hen!
    Madge: not just a rescue anymore! Uber hen!

    Last week I gave Viola a surprise and brought her down to the coop when I let the hens out of their chicken tractor.  Viola wasn’t happy about it.  Immediately Madge, the one-eyed Rhode Island Red who had been caged with Viola at the feed store when both had been seriously pecked, who had been her only friend for a year with my other girls, decided to punish Viola for her absence and make sure she knew she was at the bottom of the pecking order. She didn’t just give Viola – who is smaller – a peck, she tried to remove feathers.  She jumped her and chased her.  I had to get between the two of them.  Pushing the vicious Blind Pirate Madge away just made her more intense, so I tried picking her up and giving her attention.

    Paritally blind Madge... who'd have thought that she'd give the others the fish-eye?
    Paritally blind Madge… who’d have thought that she’d give the others the fish-eye?

    That worked better.  Still, Viola had to hide.  With Viola between my legs for protection I released the little girls.

    Viola staying close.
    Viola staying close.  L-R: Madge’s butt, Malaika, Esther (or Myrtle), behind is Bodacea, crouching is Belle, Charlotte, in the back is Myrtle (or Esther), Mulan, and on the right is Lark.  Not pictured: Chickpea and Miss Amelia, the flock leader.

    The big hens… pretty much ignored them.  The little girls were so happy to be free.  I kept their food inside their coop and propped the door so that only the smaller birds could get in there, but the big girls managed to shoulder themselves in anyway.

    Madge shows her ranking to Myrtle as others look on in alarm.
    Madge shows her ranking to Myrtle as others look on in alarm.

     

    Lark, the Barred Rock who has been barren since she survived egg binding and who has been enjoying her work-free status has developed some kind of uncomfortable swelling.  At first I thought she was just fat, but her tummy swelled like a balloon over several weeks.  She lost her feathers on her red rump.

    Lark's uncomfortable ailment.
    Lark’s uncomfortable ailment.

    It became awkward for her to walk so I gave her a couple of Epsom salt baths in the kitchen sink, and she became a house guest for a couple of days.  She wasn’t as pleasant as Viola, but enjoyed the new experience.  I returned her to the coop, and just today the swelling seems much less, thank goodness.  The whole illness has not, however, affected her appetite.

    Belle, the crossbill Americauna, had such difficulty eating that she is smaller than the rest and seemed to always be famished.

    Belle, the Americauna who has the cross-bill trait.  Small but sassy, and usually covered with mash.
    Belle, the Americauna who has the cross-bill trait. Small but sassy, and usually covered with mash.

    I finally found a small, deep tupperware container that I could wedge between a piece of wood and the side of her coop where it wouldn’t tip over easily, and filled it with chick starter and water mash.  Belle was eating heartily for the first time since her bill began to cross and for once she had time to spend goofing around with a full tummy.  And a messy face and breast.  Since I’d tried trimming her beak, and since I make the magic mash for her now, she has become not only an energetic chicken but a devotee of me.  While the other ingrates run away as if I were an axe murderer rather than the vegetarian that I am, Belle flies onto me at any chance.  With Viola between my ankles and Belle running up my back I feel very much a part of the flock.

    Ah haz a friend!
    Ah haz a friend!