Herb Garden
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Spring 2006 Newsletter
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Karen's letter to Fellow Gardeners
New
Mopheads in Hydrangea Heaven
Experimenting
in the Salad Patch
Do you remember Snoopy singing the “Suppertime” song? Dancing on hind legs, head thrown back in ecstasy with ears bobbing about, and front legs spread wide to either side in glee? Doesn’t it remind you of how the gardener feels about spring? Warmer temps, swelling buds and the onset of another season to play in the soil…how could one be happier?
I must admit, emerging leaves of new seedlings and sprouting roots
along the stems of prayed over cuttings give me a similar thrill. The advent of
spring simply compounds the pleasure.
We’ve added some new oddballs to our collection. A promising favorite is the Blue Bean Tree, a.k.a. “Dead Man’s Fingers” (Decaisnea fargesii). This is definitely a plant for the gardener who doesn’t mind having their sanity questioned.
An airy large shrub/small tree with blue-green pinnate leaves, the blue bean tree is a great choice for the deciduous shrub border. Its interest lies in its fall fruit…a fat 2 to 4" blue bean with a color that falls somewhere between washed denim and slate. In China, the gelatinous interior is slurped from the pod. It has a watermelon-like flavor! Whether you choose to eat it or not, the fall fruit on this plant will definitely attract attention! Hardy in zones 6-9, the plant will handle full to part sun and give you great decorations for Halloween!
Thanks to PlantExplorers.com for the use of their photo. Definitely a site to watch. There is a link on the Terrific Links page...
Hope to see you in the coming season. Until then…
Happy Gardening,
Karen
NEW MOP HEADS IN HYDRANGEA HEAVEN
Some of you will remember the Hydrangea craze that we experienced at Foothills several years ago. Somehow, we managed to collect 31 flavors…distinctly different tastes for every hydrangea lover. It’s possible that we had a few too many. It wasn’t until they began to leaf out and grow in spring that they tripled their space requirements and took over the nursery! We laughingly called the invasion “Hydrangea Heaven”.
As is always true, our attention wandered to other things. Recently, we realized that there are now even more selections to choose from, so we began a revamp of the collection. We’ll try not to go overboard this time, but there are so many new beauties to explore! Most are hardy from zones 6-9 and reach from 4’-6’ in height. These varieties are all among the “mop head” or hortensia selections.
An introduction from UGA comes to us from the retired Coach’s garden. Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Dooley’ has huge beautiful mop head blossoms and flowers prolifically even when other hydrangea flower buds are killed by early spring cold spells. This is a must for gardeners who want more consistency in flowering hydrangeas in Zone 6. It is also a little larger growing (if allowed), and maxs out about 8’.
A second superb addition is Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Penny Mac’. One of the best of the rebloomers, Penny Mac began to bloom for us when she was only a few inches tall! More compact than Dooley, Penny Mac’s continuous mopheads will top a shrub that reaches about 5’.
A favorite from our first hydrangea bout has returned. Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Madame Emile Mouille¢re is one of the loveliest white mop heads available. Petals have a serrated edge that give the effect of lace and each floret has a central “button” that tends to show the soil ph in a light blue or pink. Too much afternoon sun may scald the flower edges.
“B’s Blue” Hydrangea macrophylla is actually a mop head with a more compact form (4’) and a metallic blue flower head. This one is perfect for arrangements and drying where a smaller flower head is desired.
I LOVE this recipe and since it’s time for fresh spinach and lettuces to sprout, I thought that I should share…the original version was in the ’94 issue of Southern Living, but living in a rural area means learning to modify recipes according to what you have available to you in the grocery store. Now, twelve years later, of course, everything is available. I’ve stuck with my version of this recipe because well, it’s what I like!
Italian Oyster Salad
2 containers of oysters, drained
2 lightly beaten egg whites
½ pkg. Herb stuffing
2 Tbsp. Blended Italian seasoning (add more or less
to suit your taste)
2 tsp. Garlic powder
Canola oil for frying
Fresh spinach & mixed greens (salad burnet is good)
4 sliced fresh mushrooms
½ Sweet red pepper
1 Roma tomato
Small purple onion, diced
4 slices cooked bacon
1. Combine ingredients for vinaigrette. (See below.) Set aside.
2. Fry bacon.
3. Chop and combine the salad ingredients and put them into the fridge to chill. If you don’t know how to do this, you might not belong in the kitchen.
4. Put herb stuffing into a plastic baggie and crunch it into tiny crumbs with a rolling pin.
5. Add the Italian seasoning and garlic powder. This is your breading for the oysters.
6. Dip oysters in egg white and coat with the breading.
7. Heat enough canola oil for frying in the same skillet you used to fry the bacon. (I do remove all but 1 Tbsp of the bacon grease.)
8. Heat to 350° and fry the oysters about a minute on each side. Drain them on paper towels.
9. Top the salad with the oysters, salt and pepper, and the red wine vinaigrette
Red Wine Vinaigrette
¾ cup olive oil
3 Tbsp. Burgundy wine
3 Tbsp. Red wine vinegar (I use an herbal red wine
vinegar that I make, but the recipe is fine
with just regular red wine vinegar.
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp Worcestershire
1/8 tsp pepper
Combine and shake, shake, shake…
EXPERIMENTING IN THE SALAD PATCH
Once in a while when spring rolls ‘round, the urge to try something new in the salad patch causes the gardening chef to peruse the multitude of offerings in the garden shops and catalogues.
A favorite find that will definitely find a space again this year is a Japanese Green called Misome (My friend Jan calls it Gimme some). Fleshy rounded glossy green leaves have a mild nutty taste that is great in fresh salads. Older leaves contribute color and flavor to any stir fry, and the plants can be harvested well into the heat of summer. When the flower buds do form, they can be cut and used like small buds of broccoli in salads…even the flowers are an edible treat.
Another better-known favorite is Arugula. Also called Rocket, this leafy lettuce adjunct offers up tangy, nutty flavor to add zing to any salad. If left to flower, it will reseed prolifically to carpet its own little garden corner (where you might catch me grazing).
An interesting addition called Salsify turned out to be a treat. Commonly called the oyster plant, salsify is grown for its thick white roots. When harvested and cleaned in late summer or early fall, they can be sautéed and used as a crispy oyster flavored topping on a bed of greens. They were surprisingly great.
A perennial friend in the salad patch sends up great long leaves of green each year and spreads to fill its corner of the raised bed. Horseradish has turned out to be terrifically easy to grow and keeps well when its roots are chopped and bottled in vinegar in the fridge. Warning: the longer you wait after chopping before adding the vinegar, the hotter the horseradish becomes!
This year we plan to try a cauliflower that promises to be tinted orange. I’ve had little interest in cauliflower since the day that my nutrition professor pointed out that “Cauliflower has about the same nutritional value as cardboard.” Perhaps the orange tints mean an increase in beta-carotene, but I’m not sure how appealing my cream of cauliflower soup will be…
Another first for us, this plant was a staple crop for Native Americans in the plains states. Members of the parsley family, we are growing two forms of the biscuitroot this year, each of which has distinctive functions.
The Spring Gold Biscuit-root (Lomatium utriculatum) reaches 16” in height and is the first to bloom. Lacy dark green leaves emerge in late winter and brilliant sunny-yellow flowers follow soon in a seemingly never-ending supply. Spring leaves may be eaten fresh or cooked as a green. The taproot was harvested by Native Americans and eaten like a carrot. Seeds of Spring Gold Biscuit-root look and smell like dill.
Barestem Biscuit-root (Lomatium nudicaule) on the other hand, was valued for both its tender, nutritious celery-flavored spring greens, and the root, which was collected and stored much like the potato as a staple carbohydrate. Its 3’ height means that the flowers appear to be “exploding umbrellas of lemon-yellow balls made of tiny clustered flowers.”
Very drought resistant once established, both of these perennial herbs are hardy in zones 5-9. The Spring Gold biscuit-root prefers full sun, while the Bare-stem biscuit-root will tolerate full sun to part-shade. Given that they are native to plains areas, my guess is that sharp drainage will be the key to success with this perennial herb.