A New Year: The Garden I Have Now

early January, aloe vera blooming

In April of 2011, I moved to southeast Louisiana to join my husband, who had been hired as a wildlife refuge planner (Natural Resource Planner) for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Tom had already been working in Louisiana for ten months. In the almost four years since I have lived here (twenty-five years ago we lived in another Louisiana town while Tom finished his PhD at Louisiana State University and I taught there in the Department of English), I have really enjoyed year-round gardening and recording my gardening experiences on this blog. I first began the blog in 2007--in a different town, in a different state-- as a way to keep myself connected to the world--to demonstrate to my children that even though I had given up on my career, such as it was, I hadn't given up on living and creating a meaningful life beyond a paycheck. In these past four years, I have been involved in social justice issues (creating and writing a blog for a social justice group, attending meetings of the Louisiana legislature, educating myself and then writing letters to local leaders against allowing hydraulic fracturing in our parish with its sole-source water aquifer, among others) and in helping encourage transparency in local government (attending and taking notes at the Planning and Zoning Commission meetings in our small town and publishing those notes on the Facebook page of our local "sustainable growth" organization). Many of my friends here are far more politically active than I am, but I am happy to have done my part--as long as that part did not take me away from my garden too long.

And despite the very wet weather we experienced the last week of the old year and the cooler weather we're experiencing now, the garden is still producing. Our loofah experiment was mixed. The plants grew very quickly, taking over the bamboo trellis Tom built for them and then spreading past the garden and into the yard. The fruits grew huge, but as they were still green when we had our first frost, we were afraid we would lose the entire crop. However, Tom managed to harvest several large fruits that had matured to the fibrous texture of bath sponges, and he is now trying to cure them out. This requires peeling them and soaking the spongy interiors in a solution of bleach and water. The hot, humid Louisiana climate made them moldy, but we will be able to salvage some of the loofahs for sponges.

loofahs

The arugula, mustard mixes, and dill that I planted in the fall are doing very well. Home for the holidays, our daughter suggested that I make an arugula pesto to serve with pasta. I found a recipe online and was very pleased with the result (recipe below).

arugula, mustard, bronze fennel

dill

Our winter garden also includes garlic, which won't be ready for harvest until June, green shallots (onions), and looseleaf lettuce and mesclun mixes. The radishes we planted did not do very well this year. And while the gourd plants grew very promisingly, most of the gourds dropped off the plants and rotted in the humid Louisiana weather. I managed to salvage a couple of gourds, one which I emptied of its seeds and made into a decorative box for my daughter and the other which I painted and kept intact as a musical shaker.

Usually at this time of the year I begin planning my spring garden, but this year we're expecting some big changes in our lives, and so I am enjoying the garden I have now.  

Recipe: Arugula Pesto (Original recipe here)

4 cups packed fresh arugula
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup pure olive oil
2 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted, plus 1 tablespoon (I used pecans because that is what I had on hand)
1/8 teaspoon vitamin C (optional) (I did not include)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Prepare an ice water bath in a large bowl, and bring a large pot of water to a boil. Put the arugula in a large sieve and plunge it into the boiling water. Immediately immerse all the arugula and stir so that it blanches evenly. Blanch for about 15 seconds. Remove, shake off the excess water, then plunge the arugula into the ice water bath and stir again so it cools as fast as possible. Drain well.

Squeeze the water out of the arugula with your hands until very dry. Roughly chop the arugula and put in a blender. Add the garlic, salt and pepper to taste, olive oil, 2 tablespoons of the pine nuts (I used pecans), and the vitamin C, if using. Blend for at least 30 seconds. In this way the green of the arugula will thoroughly color the oil. Add the cheese and pulse to combine. The pesto will keep several days in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator.

Pull out before dinner to get to room temperature. Before serving, add the remaining 1 tablespoon toasted pinenuts (or pecans or walnuts).

Recipe courtesy Michael Chiarello


Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/michael-chiarello/arugula-pesto-recipe.html?oc=linkback

gourd box with a crocheted surround that I made

bottom of the gourd box--I made up the pattern as I went along, so I'm glad the crocheted bit turned out as well as it did.