Recent Observations (Early August Phenology)

I haven't been keeping systematic records, so what follows is a fairly random set of observations about what's been going on lately. My last report of general observations was made in mid-June.

Red-breasted Nuthatch last winter

I commented then that we had last seen a red-breasted nuthatch on May 29. I don't think we saw any in June, but we have spotted one several times since mid-July. Based on maps of historical sightings available on eBird.org, it looks as if June sightings of red-breasted nuthatches this far south in Minnesota are quite rare, while July and August sightings are somewhat more common. The red-breasteds mainly breed to our north, and not at all in the southwestern part of Minnesota.

Our 1987 edition of Robert Janssen's Birds in Minnesota shows the breeding range as extending no further south than the Twin Cities, with the fall migration period starting probably mid-August, and the Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America shows the year-round range in Minnesota extending not much beyond the arrowhead region of northeastern Minnesota. The bird checklists from the Cowling Arboretum in Northfield and River Bend Nature Center in Faribault show the red-breasted nuthatch to be rarely reported in fall, winter, and spring, and not observed in summer. All these sources indicate that it is not historically common to find a red-breasted nuthatch in Rice County in the summer months, so we are excited to have done so.

Hairy Woodpecker

We haven't seen an oriole for several weeks. Common visitors to the bird feeders lately have included downy and (less often) hairy woodpeckers, blue jays, house finches, goldfinches, and chickadees. Mourning doves and chipping sparrows come for millet put out on our front walk. We have not been troubled by grackles or brown-headed cowbirds recently (in mid-June I reported grackles as our most common visitors). We don't often notice hummingbirds, though I did see one about a week ago. One day Dave saw six blue jays at the various feeders or in the nearby maple tree at the same time; usually we see only one or two.

On July 18 three baby raccoons appeared on our deck. One was seen again soon after on our front step. I haven't seen them since.

Baby raccoon

We have not been going out birding -- it's been so warm and humid that the idea has not been inviting. Summer isn't a peak time for our birding activities anyway, with the trees heavily leafed out, obscuring the view, but it can be fun to see turtles and families of young wood ducks in secluded ponds. After many humid days in the upper 80s and lower 90s, we are looking forward with relief to the coming week's forecast of a string of days with highs in the 70s and lows reaching down into the 50s.

Monarch and eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies have been common on our purple coneflowers the last several weeks. Joe-pye weed is also in bloom, and may be attracting them. Although I reported an early coneflower in mid-June (one that was closer to the house than most), most were not in full flower until July. 

Tiger Swallowtail

The last few days I have noticed that our garden phlox is flowering. I haven't kept records of that before.

Our half-hearted, late-started, much-neglected vegetable garden is in horrible condition. The six or so tomato plants look lush, but the swings between a cool June and extreme heat in the third week of July (up to 99 F. here, I believe, with outrageous dew points, putting the heat index well above 110) have limited the fruit production and certainly also limited my garden-upkeep efforts. I have picked a total of three cherry tomatoes (I think they are Super Sweet 100s); that plant has some more that are ripening, but nothing else is close to being ripe. I never got around to putting down a straw mulch, and the bed has been overtaken by tall grass. My attempt at bush beans succumbed to rabbits or other nibblers, and then got smothered by the grass. I have some cucumber plants that are growing well now, but not yet setting fruit. I have been cutting chives and basil for use in the kitchen, and we have a lot of lemon thyme and sage, but nothing else is producing.

I noticed my first flying geese of the season within the last week or two. There were some still-fuzzy half-grown goslings on the river not too long ago, suggesting a second hatching of the season.

Cooking with Our CSA Produce

This summer we have a share in a local CSA, Open Hands Farm. Actually, we are sharing that share -- splitting it weekly with our friends Mary and Steve. It's been quite a few years since I tried a CSA. A half-share seems just right for us -- enough produce to feel like a bounty each week, but not so much that we really struggle to keep up with it.

In case you're not sure what a CSA is, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture. A local farm sells shares at the beginning of the growing season and then throughout the season the share-owners (members) get a weekly allotment of whatever is ready to be picked that week. This provides members with a steady stream of fresh-from-the-farm produce (in some cases going to the farm to pick it up, or even sometimes to pick some of it themselves in U-pick fashion; in other cases, picking it up at a convenient distribution point) and allows them to get know their farmers and where their food comes from. The arrangement, importantly, also gives farmers an upfront source of capital for the year and lets them spread out the risk of farming to some extent. If it's a typical year, members have paid a fair price for a steady supply of fresh, local produce. If it's a bumper year, the members benefit -- they get more than they paid for, so to speak. If production is down or crops ruined due to bad weather, disease, or other factors that affect how well plants produce, the members take home less than they'd hoped for, but the farmer doesn't bear the entire financial brunt of the losses, because they were paid upfront. It's still a huge amount of work, but the greater financial stability can make the difference for these relatively small-scale farmers.

The CSA helps keep me on my toes, nutritionally. I tend to get lazy about fixing what I think of as "real dinners," but with fresh produce in the house and the promise (threat?!) of more coming in a few days, I do get spurred on to make more salads and incorporate more produce into our meals. The growing season starts off mostly with greens -- tender lettuces, mixed salad greens, spinach and cooking greens like small bok choy. Early root vegetables like radishes and salad turnips have also been in the mix, and we've had modest quantities of small but sweet and intensely-flavored strawberries (this very rainy June hasn't been the best for strawberries). Now, near the end of June, more substantial foods like summer squash and broccoli are already coming in, along with sugar snap peas, green onions and beets, chard and kale. These are all wonderful, and hint at the glories of the peak of the CSA experience, when you're taking home bags of tomatoes, squash, corn, beans and cucumbers every week.

We've been having a lot of salads, needless to say, and I made a really good stir-fry a few days ago using about half a dozen CSA ingredients. Dave also made a big batch of tabbouli a few days ago, using green onions from the farm. A batch of tabbouli can get us through several days of lunches or dinners, served with pita bread, feta cheese and/or hummus. That first night he also made chicken kebabs on the grill, using a Turkish seasoning mix as a rub, which went great with the tabbouli (shown in the photo at right).

And then we fell in love with cooked greens. To accompany a meal of leftover chicken kebabs, cut into smaller chunks and sauteed briefly with mushrooms, I made lemon-spiked garlic greens, following a recipe in 1,001 Low-fat Vegetarian Recipes by Sue Spitler (Surrey Books, 1997). Having about six large kale leaves, I cut the leaves away from the central stems (discarding the stems) and coarsely chopped the leaves. I heated some olive oil in a saucepan and added some chopped green onions and a handful of finely diced leftover red bell pepper that I happened to have on hand (most of it was used with the kebabs). Then I added a good teaspoonful from a jar of garlic puree, but one could of course use diced fresh garlic, and stirred it all until fragrant. Then I threw in the chopped kale along with about a third of a cup of water, stirred it all up, turned down the heat a notch and put the lid on the pan so the greens would braise. When after a few minutes the greens were looking wilted but there was still quite a bit of moisture in the pan, I took the lid off and continued to stir-fry for a few more minutes until most of the moisture had evaporated, and then seasoned the mixture with a good squirt of lemon juice and some salt and pepper.

The result was intensely satisfying, with a bold but not bitter "greens" flavor and a fresh, not-overcooked texture that was a perfect accompaniment to the milder-tasting chicken and mushrooms, and with a lingering garlicky finish that we were still enjoying an hour later. I only wished we had had more kale so we could have had seconds. Can't wait for next week's delivery!

Summer's Bounty

We're halfway through the summer Eat Local Challenge, so in abbreviated form let me comment on some of my pleasures of the season:

• A batch of "dilly beans" marinating in my fridge right now, made from string beans our backyard neighbor gave us from his garden, and dill from our own. I don't make enough to can these, but I follow Jane Brody's recipe for a batch big enough to enjoy as a side dish for several days.
  
• Dinner tonight: 1000 Hills Cattle local, grass-fed beef hamburgers on bakery buns with slices of the first ripe slicing tomato from our garden, plus sweet, buttery corn on the cob from Grism's stand on Water Street
• A dozen or so new Sun Gold cherry tomatoes ripen every day or so in the garden - extremely prolific, early to ripen, and utterly delicious
• Enough zucchini from my two plants over the past two or three weeks that we have made zucchini-cheese bake, zucchini muffins, chocolate zucchini cake and oven-roasted zucchini "fries" (melt-in-your-mouth wonderful)
  
• The ever-wonderful local tortilla chips (both yellow and blue corn varieties) from Whole Grain Milling Company in Welcome, Minn. A terrific addition to practically any occasion.
• A mind-bogglingly enormous cabbage from a recent farmers' market made a nice big batch of Asian coleslaw, and we've still got some cabbage left over
• Potato salad from local farmers' market potatoes
  
• Cucumbers from my colleague's garden, plus some more of my own. I eat them many ways, but one favorite way is to chop them up and put them on top of a quesadilla that's first topped with good salsa, either homemade or Salsa Lisa (made in Minneapolis)

Things I still look forward to this summer: ripe cantaloupe (there's plenty around; I just haven't bought any yet); enough big ripe tomatoes to pile up on my kitchen counter and make lavish tomato sandwiches and fresh salsa with lime and cilantro; perhaps a blueberry-picking outing to the lovely Rush River Produce at Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, overlooking Lake Pepin (their website says that their midseason Nelson crop has failed, but they expect good picking from the Elliots in late August).

What are you enjoying eating this summer?

July Garden

I'll start with herbs. The truth? I like them for their color and scent in the garden and am usually happy to just let them flower and go to seed. I will pick and slice some basil leaves onto a pizza or pasta dish occasionally, but otherwise, I never really grow enough of anything to do much with, such as make pesto. I do have a perennial sage plant, which we have picked and dried at the end of the season; in fact I still have most of last year's harvest. Above is a cilantro plant going wildly into flower. It's lacy and pretty and I imagine the bees and butterflies like it. Good enough.

This purple basil has been a very pretty and hardy addition this year. Note the tiny volunteer tomato plant in front of it; these are springing up everywhere from the seeds of last year's fruits left to drop and rot in the garden. We had a lot of split tomatoes last year, resulting in fewer eaten and more left to reseed themselves. I pull most of the volunteers up, but occasionally I let one see what it can make of itself.

Above is a low-growing lemon thyme, which I almost lost track of when I put down the straw mulch. A few days later I remembered it and had to dig around to find it again. I don't know that I've ever used fresh thyme in anything; I'll have to look for recipes.

Above: Wall o' tomato plants in the background, herbs and perennial, grow-like-a-weed daisies in front. I don't like to mow them, so they just pop up out of the lawn; we often also have yarrow doing the same as summer goes on. June's slow start was followed by a burst of growth at the end of the month, as a week of heat and humidity gave the tomatoes exactly what they had been waiting for. The plants seemed to grow an inch a day, if not more, and the two-foot-tall plants of June 23 are now well over four feet tall and lush with foliage, flowers, and at least on some plants, small green tomatoes.

Above: Sungold cherry tomatoes developing. This plant is the most advanced of my nine tomato plants (seven varieties) in terms of fruit production; it probably gets the best early-day sun of any of them, being on the east end of the row. One on the far western end barely seems even to have any flowers yet, though the plant is big and bushy. I think the cherry varieties do tend to be earlier producers than the large-fruit types.

Above: a kneeling view looking up at the tomatoes for Dramatic Effect; in the foreground are two kale plants (out of four originally) that survived early rabbit depredation to come back with some vigor. I haven't grown kale before, but I suspect I should harvest it fairly soon.

Above: the kale plants again.

Above: tomato flower (neighbor's garden with bean plants peeking through beyond my tomatoes).

Above: A couple of squash plants gaining some size, but no flowers yet. I forget if these are the zucchini or the yellow squash. I also have some cucumbers that I should provide supports for - they have always grown well for me when trained up a tomato tower or other staking/trellising system. The cucumbers hang down which helps them say straight and avoid picking up insects or rot from contact with the ground.

So, it's getting to the really fun time of year, where soon I will be able to go out and pick dinner. Or at least bits of dinner. Can't wait to be eating cherry tomatoes like candy!

Another Toad - and, Finally, a Garden

On Saturday, while I was clearing the weeded area where we saw a largish toad last week, a smaller, rather dirt-encrusted toad suddenly appeared and took small hops away from where I had been digging. I understand they bury themselves in the soil to regulate their temperature. This one took shelter nearby in the shade of some tall grass next to a bag of composted manure.

Chives are in full flower now, and I love them for their reliable gift of color to the early garden each year.

I sowed some lettuce seeds several weeks ago, and some of those have made an appearance, but the really noticeable lettuces came up on their own, having self-seeded from last year's mixed-salad garden. The red oak-leaf variety is large and striking looking against the bright green of the curly-edged variety. (Yes, I know the ground is weedy and needs mulch. I'm working on it.)

Here's a decent look at about half the length of the garden bed. The area on the right - the whole north side of the long, east/west-oriented bed - was filled with daylilies and other perennials as well as a lot of tall grass until the past couple of weeks, when we moved most of that out to make more room for edibles. My digging muscles got a good workout. Now I've got nine tomato plants in the ground and some squash seeds planted along that side. It will be great to have so much room to work with.

In the foreground, above, are cilantro (just planted and not quite perked up yet), a pepper plant, sage (a perennial) and parsley. Beyond that is basil, lettuce and kale. Behind the viewer, from this photo's perspective, will be zucchini and cucumbers.

Here's a close-up of one of the strong, sturdy tomato plants from Big Woods Farm that I bought at Just Food Co-op's plant sale three weeks ago. This one is a new variety to me: Tasty Evergreen, which is supposed to produce large fruits that stay green when ripe. I kept the plants under a grow-light indoors until recently, since it has been so cool. Tomatoes like warmth, and of course they really go wild when we got those hot and humid mid-summer days. Until then, the growth should be steady but sedate. I can't wait until it's time to start picking.

More Adventures with Greens

A while back I wrote about my first experiences with chard. This week I've tried for the first time another of the dark, leafy greens: kale. The curly, firm-bodied leaves were too pretty to pass up at the co-op this weekend, and I chopped some up and added it to the fish chowder I was making. Absolutely wonderful -- how did I wait so long to discover how good this is? It keeps its body after cooking, rather than turning completely limp like spinach, so it added a nice texture as well as a good contrasting color to my soup, which is also filled with local yellow potatoes, carrots and squash. Kale is a member of the cabbage family, and I wondered if the chowder would take on a strong odor, but two days later it doesn't seem to have.

According to a Wikipedia entry, kale is among the most nutritious of vegetables, being high in beta carotene, vitamin C, lutein and zeaxanthin (which I've never even heard of before) and reasonably rich in calcium, and was the most common green vegetable in Europe until the end of the Middle Ages. I like it better than chard. It's going to be a new regular in my kitchen!

This Week at the Farmers Market

Having resolved to eat more local foods, I'm hoping to make it to the Northfield Farmers Market just about every week this summer. Rather than shopping with particular foods in mind, I'll see what's ripe, plentiful, beautiful or otherwise appealing and then think of what to do with it.

Today's haul: Red potatoes (recently washed and still shining like jewels), a bag of dried Black Turtle beans and Italian parsley from a small family stand, tomatoes and green beans.

Potatoes, green beans and tomatoes always immediately suggest to me Salade Niçoise, which would traditionally include anchovies (or tuna) and olives, all beautifully arranged on a large plate and dressed with a vinaigrette or Italian salad dressing.

I had an interesting talk with the proprietor of Kirsten's Kitchen, a stand selling natural sodas (cherry, lime and rose hip-hibiscus), made via fermentation with live cultures. I particularly liked the lime.