Green and Tasty Lavender

I’m pruning back my green, almost chartreuse, lavender [Lavandula virens]. Seen here is a flower of the green lavender with a typical blue lavender color. I’m cutting as far back on wood with some buds still visible. These prunings don’t go to the compost pile. They go to the grill to cook chicken in a way you probably haven’t imagined. As described in my book The Lavender Garden, here is the recipe for a spice/herb you’ll never find at even the farmer’s market:

Chicken "Pressada" with Green Lavender

"Pressada" is the my coined American/Italian term for chicken pressed between two layers of herbs. This adaptation is based on a dish made with thyme which I enjoyed in Italy while traveling south of Naples. The recipe cooks chicken very quickly and infuses an intense lavender flavor throughout the meat as the oils of the lavender “steam” the chicken. The act of cooking Chicken Pressada is more theatrical than any other barbecue method I know, and is a great way to impress your friends. This is a true gardener’s recipe because few non-gardeners could afford to buy the amount of fresh lavender it calls for.

Serves 6 to 8.

Utensils

Barbecue pit or grill.

A medium-sized bag of briquettes.

Fire-starter paper, wooden kindling and matches.

A 10-by-20-inch cast-iron pancake griddle.

A cookie sheet as big or bigger than the griddle.

Five to 10 bricks.

Two pairs of long barbecue tongs.

Cooking oil (olive oil works fine) and a natural-hair pastry brush.

A serving platter with garnish.

Ingredients

6 to 8 boneless and skinless chicken breasts, or other boneless cuts.

A five-gallon bucket loosely filled with lavender foliage and flower-stalks.

Without the grill on, light enough charcoal briquettes to form a layer one or two briquettes thick beneath the entire surface of your griddle. Use newspaper and kindling to start the fire so the petrol taste of lighter fluid is eliminated. After the coals have white edges, put the grill on and the griddle on top of the grill. Make sure the griddle is directly above--less than one-half inch--the hot charcoal.

Harvest the lavender while the coals are heating the griddle. Trim more foliage than flowers, as the leaf adds more flavor. (You can use this as a chance to trim back plants to a more compact form.) Woody stems are not a problem, but younger, more succulent growth will release more fragrance.

Remove the skin from the chicken (if not already deskinned). Rinse chicken parts thoroughly under cold running water and pat dry.

Once the flames are out and the briquettes are glowing white at the edges, rearrange the coals in a layer beneath the griddle. When the griddle becomes nearly orange hot, and a drop of oil dropped on the grill will dance and sizzle, you're ready to begin.

Cooking the Chicken

Quickly coat the griddle with the olive oil. This is to keep the herbs from sticking and to make it easier to clean the griddle. Don't use a brush with plastic bristles as the intensely heated metal will melt the bristles.

Quickly layer up to two inches of lavender prunings on the griddle with the stems all running in one direction. Be sure to cover the griddle thoroughly with the lavender and leave no holes.

Quickly lay the boneless chicken breasts across the top of the lavender, with the lengths of the pieces perpendicular to the lengths of lavender.

Quickly cover the chicken thoroughly with another two inches of lavender foliage. Put the cookie sheet on top of the chicken-and-lavender "sandwich." Stack the bricks evenly on top of the cookie sheet to compress the lavender and chicken together (the “pressada” part).

Because the heat supercharges the volatile oils in the lavender, the steam and oil mixture quickly cooks the chicken. If the griddle was nearly orange-hot, the chicken may only need five to ten minutes per side (it may take fifteen to twenty minutes per side if the charcoal wasn’t hot enough).

After the proper time (which you’ll learn in short order by practicing), remove the bricks and the cookie sheet and use the tongs to turn the entire "sandwich" over as quickly as possible (applause is permitted). The lavender and chicken will usually hold together enough to allow you to turn it as a unified whole. You'll either amaze your friends or have to reassemble the lavender-and-chicken sandwich while eating humble pie. Practice make perfect.

After the proper length of time on the second side, remove the bricks and cookie sheet. Remove the top layer of the lavender, lift the chicken off the bottom layer of foliage and place on a platter.

Remove the lavender and the griddle from the grill. Quickly restoke the coals to a hot temperature and place the chicken breasts on the grill diagonal to the line of the metal . Brown briefly. Turn the chicken to create a brown cross-hatching. Repeat on the other side.

Serve the browned chicken on a rice pilaf or a bed of colorful mesclun salad greens.

While eating, you can add the leftover lavender foliage to the coals to produce a hazy romantic atmosphere infused with a heady smoky-lavender fragrance. Or, use the leftover lavender to grill pork chops, turkey drumsticks, turkey breasts, salmon, hot dogs (don’t waste these on the kids), tuna, or sausages for use during the coming week.

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Good Flowers, Good Bugs

Most gardens need more flowers during the mid- to late-summer because it's the bugs that are also blooming. Why? Because good bugs (properly called insects) use the pollen and nectar of flowers to fuel their relentless pursuit of what we call pests. Bug scientists (entomologists) have discovered plants which seem to attract beneficial bugs. Many of these helpful plants belong to the parsley and sunflower plant families.

The parsley, or carrot, family of plants has a large flat-head of tiny flowers—often white or yellow. The tiny flowers make it easy for small bugs to tank-up. Many culinary herbs belong to the parsley family—anise, dill, parsley, caraway and fennel. Other parsley family attractors of beneficial bugs include: angelica (Angelica spp.) and carrots (Daucus carota)—when left to flower.

The cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) (along with CA poppies) pictured here is a spice in traditional Mexican cookery. The small, accessible nectar-bearing cilantro flowers have been observed by entomologists to attract a large array and high number of good bugs—specifically a beneficial fly called the Tachinid fly which is a parasite of grasshoppers, beetles, sawflies and caterpillars.

The sunflower family, the Composite Family, also has tiny, readily-accessible flower parts. A tremendous number of our ornamental flower garden plants are in this large, floriferous family. Examples include: marigold, dahlias, daisies, Artemesia spp. (wormwood), chamomile, zinnia, asters, cosmos and ornamental thistles. Edible Composites include: burdock, dandelion, chicory, calendula (flowers), sunflowers, lettuce, endive and both the Jerusalem and regular artichoke. Some Composites found by entomologists to attract good bugs are: camphorweed (Heterotheca subaxillaris), coyote bush (Baccharis pilularis), wild lettuce (Lactuca canadensis) and yarrow (Achillea spp.).

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Foggy Tourists

Poor tourists. They read about sunny California and come for their summer vacation traveling the scenic Highway 1 only to find days of fog. Fall and late spring often have much less fog than in the height of summer.

I just returned from two wonderful days on the coast 100 miles north of San Francisco. I got lucky with glorious fog-free weather. What visitors and locals fail to notice along the coastal Highway 1 is the extra 32 to 123 inches of "rain" each year. Although actual summer rain is scarce-to-nonexistent in the Northern California Mediterranean coastal zone where I live, another type of "rain," consisting of droplets of condensed fog, is a frequent occurrence. Moist summer fog condenses on the leaves of plants, mostly tall trees.

Shortly after moving to my mountain ridge, I noticed that a foggy summer evening produced the sound of steady rain beneath the tallest trees, while the meadow 20 feet away remained dry. I became obsessed with fog drip.

I put a rain gauge beneath a 125-foot tall Douglas fir tree near my garden and another 100 feet away in open grasses. The needles of the Douglas fir have an immense surface area for condensation. The Douglas fir tree averaged up to 2-1/2 times more "rain" year-round than the open field a mere 100 feet away. I discovered over 10 years of records that this single tree can gather one or more inches of water during a single heavy fog—six inches during one very foggy August! That rare six-inch fog drip equaled 163,000 gallons of water for every acre of tree foliage! It is fog drip that helps water the edges of redwood grove just around the corner from my house and allows the redwoods to expand their growth into the adjacent fields, shrubs, and smaller trees. (The trees at the edges of the forest get much more of the fog drip than those inside the grove. The perimeter trees strip most of the fog moisture from the sky.)

Fog drip is so uncommon that it is rarely found even two miles inland from my garden. I learned that microclimates can indeed be very small, special places. A microclimate that never shows up on the evening weather report. Nature sure has extraordinary niches as part of its fabric of life.

Alas, coastal-bound tourists are not impressed at all with fog drip. It rains on their parade— especially if camping in a tent beneath coastal redwoods.

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Go Pher Them

Pocket gophers, with Botta's pocket gopher (Thomomys bottae) being most widespread of the five species found in California, are a gardener’s the greatest fear in the west. [Those who garden east of the Mississippi river are free of these elusive pests.] When the Russians settled just north of Santa Rosa on the coast in 1812, the story goes “we could have made a good living if it weren’t for the land rats”.

These pesky critters are burrowing rodents that get their name from the fur-lined external cheek pouches, or pockets, that they use for carrying, and short fur that doesn't cake in wet soils they dig and tunnel constantly. If they don’t constantly make tunnels their teeth will curl up toward the brain and pierce it.

They spend a lot of time on the surface at night and are the prey of barn owls. Many vineyards, in their futile attempt to appear environmentalists, build barn owl boxes. They don’t know that the great-horned has a territory of up to ¼ of a mile from its nest. The one near my house and next to a vineyard, has this large predation area and keeps out the barn owls. Ever year I hear the great-horned owl gradually find each other for mating with hours of hooting. The vineyard is 100 feet from my house. Not many barn owls near me. Furthermore, the usual diet for a barn owl eats only one gopher each night. Thus, the gardeners in my area have resort to trapping (killing) these “ground rats”.

Unlike moles, gophers “throws” or mounds are crescent- or horseshoe-shaped when viewed from above. [See the left photo.] Mole mounds appear circular and have a plug in the middle is more likely volcano-shaped. Unlike gophers, moles leave a raised ridge to mark their path. Also, moles are carnivores and gophers are vegetarians.

Pocket gophers live in a burrow system that can cover an area of 200 to 2,000 square feet. Feeding burrows are 6 to 12 inches below ground, whereas they nest and food storage chamber that may be as deep as 6 feet. [I’ve dug into food stashes of dozens of gnawed carrots.] Gophers seal the openings to the burrow system with earthen plugs. Short, sloping lateral tunnels connect the main burrow system to the surface and are created during construction of the main tunnel for pushing dirt to the surface.

The University of New Mexico says “… [gophers] may occur in densities of up to 16 to 20 per acre”. Ha! They’ve never been in my garden!

So, trapping is a must. The other photo is a eight-inch long gopher caught in a California box trap. These ingenious traps worked on the fact that gophers maintain their main “highways” six to 12 inches below the surface, not the surface feeding tunnels. If the trap is put in the main run with the metal strip on the top-rear of the box slightly raised and all sides covered with dirt. This allows air to escape but excludes light. Usually the gopher wants to protect its main “highway” when it feels air rushing out. Running toward the open hole, the gopher is in the trap before it knows it because there is no light to give it a clue as to the breach of the tunnel. Gotcha!

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Invasive Exotics

California alone is home to 4,200 native plant species, and is recognized internationally as a "biodiversity hotspot." Approximately 1,800 non-native plants also grow in the wild in California. Here’s a short list of just some of the invasive plants in California alone.

Data is from the USDA. NAL. National Invasive Species Information Center.

It’s strange that this list does not include three major invasive plants: ice plant [pictured here, Mesembryanthemum ssp.], pampas grass, [Cortaderia selloana], and Periwinkle [Vinca ssp.].

The photo on the left shows how ice plant is invading the native Buckwheat [Eriogonum spp.] The photograph on the right shows a native lupine [Lupinus spp. and subtle red hills covered almost completely by ice plant. Sadly, ice plant was introduced to help stabilize sand dunes. It has escaped from captivity and has spread with a vengeance.

NOTE: "3:1 rule: For every year you delay controlling an invasive plant infestation, it will take three years to regain control."

Air Potato (Dioscorea bulbifera) Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) Beach Vitex (Vitex rotundifolia) Brazilian Peppertree (Schinus terebinthifolius) Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense) Chinese Tallow (Triadica sebifera) Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) Common Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) Dalmatian Toadflax (Linaria dalmatica) Diffuse Knapweed (Centaurea diffusa) Downy Brome (Bromus tectorum) Fig Buttercup (Ranunculus ficaria) Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) Hairy Whitetop (Lepidium appelianum) Houndstongue (Cynoglossum officinale) Japanese Stilt Grass (Microstegium vimineum) Japanese World Climbing Fern (Lygodium japonicum) Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) Japanese Spiraea (Spiraea japonica) Johnsongrass (Sorghum halepense) Kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata) Leafy Spurge (Euphorbia esula) Medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae) Mile-A-Minute Weed (Persicaria perfoliata) Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans) Old World Climbing Fern (Lygodium microphyllum) Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) Princess Tree (Paulownia tomentosa) Purple Star Thistle (Centaurea calcitrapa) Quackgrass (Elymus repens) Russian Knapweed (Rhaponticum repens) Russian Olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia) Saltcedar (Tamarix spp.) St. Johnswort (Hypericum perforatum) Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) Scotch Thistle (Onopordum acanthium) Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) Tree-of-Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) Tropical Soda Apple (Solanum viarum) Whitetop (Lepidium draba) Witchweed (Striga asiatica) Yellow Star Thistle (Centaurea solstitialis) Yellow Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris)

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Deceptive Flies

The syrphid fly, also called a hover fly, (Syrphidae spp.) is often mistaken for a bee or wasp. With the various horizontal yellow and black striping they look like a pest. The subsequent larvae eat lots of aphids. Often a single larvae can eat many more its body weight in aphids. The adults should be treasured as the fly from flower to flower to gather the nectar and pollen to survive. Here we see one on a poppy. Because the larvae look like tiny slugs they are also mistaken for a pest and squished or sprayed. Poor little guys get it on all fronts. And don’t forget that all sprays organic or chemical will kill its favorite – aphids; but, as well, all insects whether they are beneficial or not. So, hand strip the aphids or spray them off with water and watch to see if the plant has such a low level of aphids that it is not a problem and leave the plant alone as nature maintains its natural balance. The good guys can’t survive without some of the bad guys.

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Palms in Bondage

Only in LA. A group of palm trees tied together.

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Asian Bounty

There are dozens of types of Asian pear tree cultivars (varieties). I’ve grown six cultivars and tasted many others. Today I’m picking the one known as ‘Hosui’. In my small orchard, this fruit usually ripens late August or early September. So it’s right on time.

All Asian pears have the distinction of being crispy while ripe on tree. However, the fruit bruises very easily. This means it rarely shows up at a grocery store or even framers’ market in an appealing form. Ah, but not a problem for the home gardener (orchardist). The fruit can picked at its prime. Just gently lift the fruit, if the stems detaches with no pressure it’s time to harvest.

The ‘Housi’ is my favorite cultivar because as it ripens it produces a strong odor and subtle taste of brandy. This is unlike any other Asian Pear. A delight only home gardeners can appreciate. And the fall color offers another round of color to this special tree. [As seen to the right.]

Graft a scion[a stick of the variety you want to taste] onto an existing pear tree, or, more preferably another Asian pear tree. Enjoy the bounty , flavor, and fragrance in the second year.

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Pink Beauty

I’m harvesting my ‘Pink Pearl’ apples this week and next. I grafted scions onto a ‘Sierra Beauty’ apple three years ago and there is a bumper crop this year.

Back in 1980, nobody [except for a few rare fruit enthusiasts] had seen or tasted the special apple called ‘Pink Pearl’. It was introduced in 1944. It was developed by a California plant breeder, Albert Etter who lived in Ettersberg, Northern California. It has been said the ‘Pink Pearl’ was crossed with an apple named ‘Surprise’, a red-fleshed rather sour variety. Perhaps this latter apple was derived from a century old variety of red-fleshed Turkish crab apples.

The apple is easy to spot in the spring when tree is blooming. The photograph here shows how much pink the flowers display.

The skin of the fruit is a pale and dull yellowish-brown skin with a slight blush of pink barely showing through the skin. Typically the apple is a bit misshapen. However, the ‘Pink Pearl’ marbled with a pretty pink crisp interior, the flavor is sweetly-tart. Some say its taste is has overtones of lemon custard with a raspberry finish. The flesh is crisp, fine-grained and aromatic. Ripens at my coastal-influenced house in late August and early September.

I grafted onto a tree in the neighborhood in 1982. I harvested plenty of apples in 1985. Doug Gosling made the apple tart pictured here. Little did we know the heat would flush out the entire flesh from marbled pink to a hot, deep pink. This was probably the first time anybody cooked the fruit this way. A picture of the full tart is on the back of my book Designing & Maintaining Your Edible Landscape - Naturally. Sold on my web site.

Here’s a simple recipe:

Pink Pearl Apple Sauce

Pink Pearl apples, cored, peeled and sliced (Use about 2 pounds)

Apple juice

Sugar

Salt

1-2 tablespoons butter

Fresh thyme (or lemon thyme)

Place apple slices in a heavy pot and pour in apple juice to reach halfway up the apples. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until apples are tender. Add the butter, any sugar, salt, or thyme to taste. I like chunky apple sauce. If you want a smoother apple sauce, use a hand blender.

Now some growers sell ‘Pink Pearl’ apples at local Farmer’s Markets in northern California.

You can purchase bare root tree of this cultivar from: Trees of Antiquity, 20 Wellsona Road, Paso Robles, CA 93446 phone: (805) 467-9909

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Bounty from Comfrey

Comfrey has so many uses. Perhaps the most important, is using it as a liquid fertilizer during the growing season. This is not a new method “from across the pond”. For many decades British gardeners have used a liquid form of comfrey for a soil drench during the summer. [The photograph is a closeup of a comfrey flower.]

Many British gardeners have a “vat” in their garden,. The process of turning the leaves into a comfrey fertilizer is simple. Take any container without holes in the bottom-add a faucet for easy collection of the liquid-fill it with comfrey leaves.

[Make sure to gather only the leaf, NOT the crown of the plant as it might make it through the process and root. England is full of roadside patches of comfrey as bits of the root have spread it everywhere – one of their most noxious weeds. The founder in the US of the style called the French-biodynamic gardening was Alan Chadwick. He cultivated gardens in many parts of California. I visited one such abandoned garden and found it to be littered with comfrey and lemon balm. The comfrey spread as bits of the roots lasted through composting, and were unknowingly released to every raised planting bed and pathway in the garden.]

Place a heavy object on top of the mass. Wait for ten days or more for the leaves to ferment and turn into a thick slurry. Don’t add water. I made that mistake in the1970s and the foul stench was overwhelming.

I saw a creative comfrey “tea” maker in England. It was a six inch diameter PVC tube with a small faucet screwed into bottom with a heavy metal cap to settle and compress the rotting comfrey. The comfrey solution can last for several months if kept in dark, cool place. But why not just use it fresh in the garden?

There is wide range of ideas as to the NPK content of the leaf. One account rates the leaves a proportion of 1.8-0.5-5.3. This is compared to kelp meal with a NPK ratio of 1.0-0.5-2.5. Some say after forming the slurry the NPK can increase to 8-2.6-20. Quite a range. Dilute the slurry ten to 20 times with water. Now the NPK can be as high as a NPK of 0.5-0.4-3.8. - a high amount of soluble potash for enhanced flower and fruit.

This is the original “compost tea”. And it’s virtually free.

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Fasciation [not a typo)]

I’m fascinated with fasciation. The origin of the word means bundling or flattening. No matter what the translation of the word means, I’m always on the lookout for fasciated plants.

I have a collection of dried fasciated plants. But the largest one I’ve ever seen is pictured on the left. [Except, perhaps, some cactus plants in Arizona which surely carry the record of the heaviest fasciations.] Alas, I could only photograph it and not add it to my collection. Usually the fasciation is a broad widening of the top of a limb. What makes the photo of on the left so amazing is the upside-down skirt. So, not is it the largest fasciated plant, it is the only one I know of with a shape other than splayed out in flat plain. The usual growth of this Echium pininana is found in the background. In the photo on the right is one I have grown. This plant grew to the height of 24 feet. For more examples search “fasciated” in Google images,

The cause of this phenomena is not understood. Reasons for this freak event include: damage to the apical bud [tip]; viruses; herbicides [which surely doesn’t happen in the wild where I have found the most examples]; bacterial infection; cytokinin that appears to have the ability to stimulate the proliferation of a wide spectrum of cell that is found in the xylem. Cytokinin is thought to proliferate cells in the plant; spontaneous mutations; bacterial infection, mite or insect attack; or chemical or mechanical damage. Some plants may inherit the trait.

Among the examples in my collection are: Echium fastuosum [Pride of Madera], an oak stem [it’s rare to find fasciation in hardwoods like oaks], cockscomb celosia [Celosia argentea var. cristata is one of the few plants that passes the mutation on as a true “fixed” fasciation], and evening primrose [Oenothera spp.].

Let me know if you've found a fasciated plant.

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Wet Spots & Flavor

It's summer time and the time for a refresher. (From my book Drip Irrigation for Every Landscape and All Climates)

In this illustration, in-line emitter tubing moistens the soil the entire length of the line but slightly below the surface, where the bulbous-shaped wet spots come together to form one nearly continuous moist zone. The emitters come pre-installed in tubing with 12-, 18-, 24-, 36-, and 48-inch spacings [they can be custom ordered at just about any interval—for an extra fee], but the type most commonly sold to gardeners is the 12-inch interval. The emitters inside the hose are rated to dispense either one-half- or one-gph [actually 0.6 and 0.92 gph]. The cost ranges from$22 to $30 for a 100-foot roll depending on the emitter [its emitters flow rate and whether or not it’s pressure compensating.]

If you've grouped your veggies by similar water zones it's time to think about reducing the amount of water a bit to enrich the flavor. Tomatoes are a great example. Over watered 'maters have nothing over store bought. But if tapered off of water once fruiting, the reduced water in the flesh concentrates the flavor. In some climates, you can gradually reduce the water all together by August for the best flavor as the roots are well established after growing throughout the continuous zone of moisture at the beginning of the season. Experiment!


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