Golden Gate Gardener

New Zealand Spinach in a Frittata--Recipe

Frittata Made with New Zealand Spinach

Adapted from Beyond the Moon Cookbook by Ginny Callan

This is nice as a dish for breakfast or as a main dish for supper. If you have grown New Zealand spinach, you know it can produce quite abundantly and that recipes using it are rather rare. This frittata is a delicious use for it.  (It can also be made with regular spinach, but don't be surprised if diners like this version better.)

 

Vegetables:

2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil—or use no-stick spray oil

½ cup chopped onion

2 cups coarsely chopped New Zealand spinach

 (young stem tips--about 4” long—and the leaves that are on them)

½ teaspoon dried thyme or oregano

About ¾ cup chopped tomato (fresh or use canned petite diced, drained)

1/8 teaspoon salt

 

Eggs:

4 large eggs or 1 cup Reddi-egg

1/8 teaspoon salt

A shake or two of pepper

 

Cheese:

1 cup grated cheese (sharp cheddar is good)

 

Sauté onion in oil until it is soft—about 5 minutes. Stir in the New Zealand spinach and the thyme or oregano. Sauté about 3 minutes more, until spinach is just tender. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the tomatoes. Drain if it is watery, stir in salt.

 

Beat the eggs with the salt and pepper. Use no-stick spray in an ovenproof skillet or in ramekins, and then pour the eggs into it or them. Cook over low/moderate heat on the stovetop until the eggs start to set—4-5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Add well-mixed vegetables to the top, being careful to spoon them evenly over the surface of the eggs.

Here the vegetables have been spread over the partially cooked eggs,  in 2 ramikens,

Top with shredded cheese. Broil in an oven or toaster oven, setting the frittata about 3 inches from the heat, until the eggs have solidified, and the cheese is browned. About 4-5 minutes.

The frittata has been broiled. Half has been removed to a plate and eaten. 

If you used a skillet, slice the frittata into wedges.

This photo shows a double batch, made in a skillet to serve 6 people for brunch.

Serve warm.

For dinner, serve with sliced oven-roasted potatoes and a green salad.

Try Growing a Pawpaw, a Hardy Fruit with a Tropical Flavor

I’ve heard about pawpaws all my life, but only recently had a chance to taste one. I knew they were a delicious wild fruit one could find in Midwestern woods near where I grew up, if one knew where to look. When I finally did taste a pawpaw, I understood what all the fuss was about. It has sweet, soft, fragrant, pale yellow flesh similar to that of white sapote, or custard apple a tropical fruit native to Mexico. Since the pawpaw I tasted was from a tree grown near San Francisco, I wondered why this delicious fruit was not anywhere to be found in Bay Area markets. 

Pawpaw fruit ripening on a Bay Area Tree

The book “Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit,” by Andrew Moore (Chelsea Green, 2015), explains why. First, pawpaws do not ship well. They bruise easily and become soft when ripe, so the source needs to be near the market. Second, they have a very short season, so unless an eager public is waiting for them, they may all spoil before they’re sold. And because they are still unfamiliar, only the rare aficionado notices that it’s pawpaw season.

Moore’s book traces the history of this largest fruit native to the U.S., and explains how to grow it. Moore also tells about the dedicated researchers who have been breeding superior varieties and about efforts to promote and sell the fruit. 

Where does the name pawpaw come from? Europeans, or possibly African slaves, who had come to the mainland from the West Indies, first called them by this name, a variant of the word papaya. They apparently simply didn’t choose a new name for pawpaw fruit, just used one they had used for a rather different one they had eaten on the Caribbean islands. 

Pawpaws (Asimina triloba) taste tropical, but are hardy to about 20 below zero. They grow along rivers in much of the eastern U.S. — from southern Michigan and Pennsylvania west to eastern Kansas, south to midway down the states of the Old South and then up the eastern coast. They were relished by many native American tribes, who ate them fresh or dried. George Washington liked chilled pawpaws. Lewis and Clark ate them when passing through a region where they grew. American settlers sometimes removed the trees in favor of planting cornfields, but many wild groves remain, and many a child or adult has delighted in finding them.

Pawpaws were recently sold at the Ferry Plaza Building Farmers Market, but the one nearby farm that sold pawpaws couldn’t make a go of the crop, so took it out to expand other crops. Still, pawpaws make a handsome, easy-to-grow garden fruit tree, so many Bay Area gardeners could be enjoying the fruit while we wait for solutions to the marketing problems.

The tree can reach 35 feet, but might reach only 10-15 feet where summers are cool. Its leaves, up to a foot long, give the tree a tropical look. It’s dormant in winter, then bears small, maroon blossoms before leaves return in spring. The fruits, up to 9 in a cluster, ripen in late August or September. They are 3-6 inches long, weighing 5-16 ounces oz. 

Gardeners are growing pawpaws in San Jose, Los Altos. Berkeley and Walnut Creek. The trees have few pests. Deer, rabbits, even goats, are rarely interested in nibbling the strong-tasting leaves, though raccoons, squirrels or opossums do like the fruit, so could be a problem in locations where these pests are active. The tree needs well-drained, fertile soil, with a slightly acidic pH (5-7), and a site out of strong winds. The best time to plant it (a potted seedling is best) is in spring, just before it leafs out. See the website of the California Rare Fruit Growers for more growing tips https://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/pawpaw.html.

You can purchase plants from Raintree Nursery, (800) 391-8892, raintreenursery.com, or One Green World, (877) 353-4028, onegreenworld.com, or try local nurseries. 

Added in the spring of 2021: 

There was an article about pawpaws in the New York Times on October 21, 2020. Here is a link to it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/dining/pawpaw-climate-change.html?searchResultPosition=1

The only source offered in that article was the Kentucky State University nursery and trying to find plants or seeds through Facebook fan clubs, Nextdoor, Craigslist, or Etsy, but the two nurseries listed above still carry trees as of spring 2021. In fact One Green World has 4 varieties and a 4-in-one tree. The article mentions Moore's book and lists a second one too: For the Love of Pawpaws: A Mini-manual for Growing and Caring For Pawpaws--From Seed to Table, by Michael Judd. 

And on November 5, 2014, the New York Times printed a recipe for Pawpaw pudding.  This recipe makes a pudding that you can cut in pieces to serve. Correspondents to the Times found it good, but used less sugar and liked it better. We used to make a pudding from American persimmons that grow in the Midwest, but this pawpaw pudding seems to be firmer, capable of being cut in squares. Here is the link:

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016961-pawpaw-pudding?searchResultPosition=2

 

Popup Perennial Edibles Sales

If you are looking for a single fruit tree or a entire edible landscape, you may find what you need at one of the periodic plant sales being held on the grounds of the Bay Natives Nursery at  10 Cargo Way in San Francisco. There will be one April 22 and again on May 13. On both days, at 1 p.m., there will be a talk on Edible Backyard Gardens by Mike Boss, Plant Ecologist and Garden Maker.

Available at the edible perennials sales will be trees, shrubs, vines, and non-woody perennials--everything from artichoke plants to unusual citrus. 

While you're there, check out the natives at Bay Natives, as well as their lively flock of chickens. Penned next to the nursery is a small herd of goats, also fun to watch. 

 

Open Source Seed Initiative

 

Photo by Jack Kloppenburg

Have you purchased a plant and found that the label says it is illegal to propagate the plant? Illegal to make cuttings, divisions, or to to save seed? Increasingly, when plant varieties are being patented, making it illegal for a customer to get them without purchasing them from a certain company.

A separate issue affecting gardeners who want to save seeds is the increase in the market of F₁ hybrid varieties. These are bred to display a certain set of desirable traits in the first generation, but not in subsequent generations. There is no law against saving F₁ hybrid seed to grow, but if you do so, the positive traits will break apart in the next generation (the F₂), some appearing in some offspring, others in other offspring. A certain number of the plants that grow from the seed won't have any of the positive traits of the first generation.

Older plant varieties, the so-called "heirlooms," are not F₁ hybrids. This is because throughout human history, farmers and gardeners didn't know how to breed plants to create those hybrids. They just saved seeds from their best plants from year to year. (Another word for these non-hybrids is open pollinated. So all heirloom seed is open-pollinated.) The heirloom seed movement has been finding these old varieties and selling them through their seed catalogs. 

Besides this salvaging of old varieties, certain plant breeders, university researchers or public-minded private individuals, have been breeding new open pollinated varieties with positive traits that rival the hybrids. They may "grow out" a hybrid, saving the best seed from several post-F₁ hybrid generations until they obtain seed that will stably reproduce the best traits of that hybrid. Or they may make crosses themselves, transferring pollen of a plant onto the female part of the flower of another, hoping to create offspring with the best traits of both parents.

In my San Francisco Chronicle column of January, 2016, I reported on some open-pollinated sweet corn varieties that carry the supersweet gene of some hybrids. Then, in my July column, I reported on some new open-pollinated vegetable varieties that will be useful in cooler gardens near the coast. (You can access my column at sfgate.com, with a search for Pam Peirce.)

However, in my research to locate these new varieties, I came across a new initiative that gardeners should know about. This is the Open Source Seed Initiative. Some of the new breeders of open-pollinated varieties are registering them with this initiative. By doing so, they are stating that they will not patent the seed of the variety, nor can it, or other varieties that are bred from it to be patented. Here is their logo:

 

You will start to see this logo in seed catalogs. If you are viewing a catalog online, you will often have the option of sorting the offerings to just show the ones registered with the Open Source Seed Initiative. You can also read more about the organization that registers the varieties at osseeds.org.

One of my favorite varieties covered by the initiative is 'Flashy Butter Oak' lettuce. It is a looseleaf lettuce with broad, oakleaf-type leaves, speckled with maroon. I find it to be sweet and nonbitter even when it is mature and about to form seed, and that it grows well in cold or warmer weather. (I garden in San Francisco, so my definition of warm is not what it would be inland.)

Photo by Pam Peirce

This lettuce was selected or bred by Frank Morton of Lupine Knoll Farm at Grant's Pass Oregon. At my last reading of catalogs, you could buy seed at Bountiful Gardens (bountifulgardens.com), Territorial Seed Company (territorialseeds.com), or Wild Garden Seed Company (wildgardenseed.com). (I have also been saving seed to donate to the Seed Library at the Potrero Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, but they will not always have it, as my donations may not be large enough to meet the need.)

Frank Morton has released several other nice open-pollinated varieties, several of which are under the Open Source Seed Initiative, and you will see his name listed next to his  varieties in seed catalogs. So that you can have a face to associate with these varieties, I offer his photo, collecting lettuce seed. Thanks Frank!

Photo by Karen Morton

 

 

 

 

A Shout Out for Nichols Garden Nursery Seed Company

               When I first arrived in San Francisco, many years ago, living in a rented flat, wanting to plant a few vegetables in a neighbor's yard. I discovered the Nichols Garden Nursery herb and rare seed catalog. They had everything I needed to try out my new climate and microclimate. They are still there, still carry old and new favorites, and now, of course, they are also on the web.  

               Located in Western Oregon, the nursery is experienced with cool summers, especially with cool summer nights. In their catalog I discovered many varieties that were to become staples over the years. They had purple-podded bush beans, which are your best bet to grow regular garden beans in near-coastal microclimates because they germinate well in cold soil. If those worked in a particular location, then I tried 'Roma II', a bush romano bean, the kind with broad, flat pods and a buttery texture. If the garden was too chilly for the purple bush beans, then I knew I had better plant Scarlet Runner beans, because they are, as the Nichols catalog states, "an excellent cool weather variety." If I had great success with the Roma II beans, it was time to try some regular pole beans, like 'Goldmarie', a yellow-podded pole romano or old standby 'Kentucky Wonder Pole'.

Left to right: Scarlet Runner climbing bean, 'Royalty Purple-Podded Bush Bean, and 'Goldmarie' yellow-podded pole Romano bean.

               Nichols still carries all of these bean varieties, all open pollinated, all heirlooms, and many more. And they still carry 'Early Sunglow' corn, a variety listed at 62 days to maturity. It succeeds in milder San Francisco neighborhoods, taking 90 days due to the cool microclimate, but still allowing two plantings a summer--one in May and another in July. That second planting comes out in mid-October, right before the usuals start of the rainy season. The stalks are short, but bear 2 ears. The ears are smaller than supermarket corn, but worth it for the chance to eat fresh, fresh, corn-on-the-cob.

               They also still carry overwintering cole crops like 'Purple Sprouting' broccoli, the beautiful and the delicious 'January King' cabbage. And many kinds of kale, including two packets of kale mixes that let you see the wonderful diversity of this nutritious leafy green.

               It was also the place I first found 'Stupice' tomatoes, early and tasty in cool summers. They carry 'Early Girl', 'Green Zebra', and 'Oregon Spring', all of which have borne fruit well in my Mission District community garden. And they have kept up with the times, now the sweet golden cherries 'Sungold', and offering late blight resistant 'Jasper' cherry and larger-fruited 'Mountain Magic'.

               There are many other choice varieties in this catalog that I discovered since I first saw it. They have sweet, orange cherry tomato 'Sungold', reliable and early 'Snow Crown' cauliflower, the choice color-mix 'Bright Lights' chard, striped and ribbed heirloom zucchini 'Costata Romanesco', red-splashed and long-bearing 'Flashy Butter Oak' lettuce, and 'Bull's Blood' beets, the red leaves of which seem not to interest leafminers in my garden.

'Bright Lights' Swiss Chard

               They have also kept up with the issues of the day when it comes to garden seeds. They signed the Safe Seed Pledge, which promises they will not carry seed that is transgenic or genetically engineered. They have also joined the brand new Open Source Seed movement, offering many of the varieties that are pledged never to be patented, keeping seed these open-pollinated varieties available for seedsaving and further selection by gardeners and farmers.

               The first page that attracted me to Nichols was the "New and Unusual Vegetables" page. Here I found the uncommon crop, the surprises, unusual varieties and little-known crops. Many unusual crops are also in the rest of the catalog. They have 5 varieties of hops roots, 4 kinds of potato starts, walking onion bulbs, seed for the exquisitely flavored herb, Shiso, 'Lemon Gem' edible marigold, 3 varieties of Quinoa, miner's lettuce, magenta-leaved orach, and Tromboncino climbing summer squash.

Walking Onion is a scallion (green onion) that propagates by stem-top bulblets.

I have only ordered seed from Nichols Garden Nursery, but they sell many other products, from essential herb oils, herbal teas, and 2 kinds of sourdough starters to ingredients and equipment for making beer cheese and wine.

               Nichols Garden Nursery is a family-owned business founded in 1950 by Nick and Edith Nichols and run currently by their daughter Rose Marie Nchols McGee. They are located at 1190  Old Salem Road, in Albany, Oregon. At their brick and mortar nursery, they sell herb plants and seasonal seedlings, including many specialty plants they don't sell through the mail. You just missed their annual Plant Day, with the traditional serving of Lavendar/Ginger ice cream, but it is the Saturday after Mother's Day, in case you are planning a trip through Oregon next spring.

               The website of Nichols Garden Nursery is nicholsgardennursery.com. Pay it a visit and discover a treasure for our west coast gardens.

Peppers Leafing Out After Winter

In the post I wrote about Peridot pepper, I said it was not leafing out again in spring, and that I thought it would not be a perennial plant in San Francisco. But perhaps I spoke too soon.

As background, I should say that even common garden peppers, the ones in the species Capsicum annuum, are perennials in a tropical enough climate. I have overwintered them in San Francisco. They lost their leaves, but did leaf out moderately well and bore a small crop the second summer. They were not as productive as in the first summer, and since in San Francisco, they weren't hugely productive the first year, I decided overwintering them wasn't worth the trouble.

One species pepper is fully perennial here. That is the rocata pepper, in the species Capsicum pubescens. It keeps almost all of its leaves over the winter, and, with moderate pruning of damaged branches, keeps right on going in the spring. The peppers are usually very hot, though some varieties have fruit that is milder when it is green. Plants are  shrubs, up to 6 feet tall in milder parts of SF.

 
This is what Rocata pepper looks like. It keeps most of its leaves all winter, just needs light pruning in spring.

Peridot peppers are in the species Capsicum baccatum. They grow in the lower elevations of the Andes, where nights are cool, so they can bear a crop in cooler Bay Area sites. And they are a sweet pepper, with only a flash of heat now and then. (See earlier post on Peridot pepper for more photos and details.)

Peridot Peppers bear in September and October then lose most of their leaves in winter.

I also grew a second variety of C. baccatum last year, which had long fruit, similarly mild, that ripened to orange. I thought it might be Aji Amarillo, the hot pepper often used in ceviche in South America, but apparently not. (Aji Amarillo seems to be a shorter pepper, in addition to being fiery hot.) From looking at web descriptions of C. baccatum varieties, I think I grew Peru Long Orange. The fruit reached 7 inches long, the plant was five feet tall, and it bore very late, into November and December. (It was great to have peppers in winter.)

This is the one I call Peru Long Orange, before the fruit turns orange.

Here is how it looks in winter if you leave it on to ripen. Notice the leaves are becoming yellowish.

So now its spring. I left the plants in, to see what would happen. First, a fine, deep green shoot emerged at the base of the Long Orange plant. Then little shoots appeared here and there on that plant as well as on the Peridot. The best, most vigorous, shoots were often lower on the branches, not at their ends. I began a careful pruning program, cutting branches back just above strong shoots. That is, I was letting the plant leaf out first, to guide me as to where to cut. I also worked some aged manure into the soil near the plants (I had turkey manure.) to give them a boost.

By May the Peru Long Orange plant has become quite leafy, lots of big, dark green leaves. It is a foot or two shorter than it was, due to my pruning, but growing nicely. The Peridot shoots are not quite as vigorous (and I don't have a good photo of it yet). Perhaps the fact that Peridot bears fruit earlier in the season is related to its being slightly less able to recover from winter. However, it is too soon to tell whether either plant will bear a good crop this year. I'll let you know.

Peru Long Orange leafing out in the second year, shown in late April.

Close-up shot of Peru Long Orange leaves in second year, showing their healthy size and color, and a pruning cut (center)

I must say, however, that plants in a friend's garden are not leafing out as well. The Long Orange in that garden was cut back heavily, before it began to grow new leaves, so perhaps this was an error. The Peridot in that garden was allowed to hold onto much of its ripe fruit through the winter, so perhaps it used up too much energy ripening seeds to have much left for regrowing. (I ate most of my Peridot peppers green, finding the flavor nicer than when it was red, and took off the last fruits in about December.)

I have put in new plants of each, next to the old plants, and will be comparing their performance, to try to decide it is worthwhile to overwinter these plants.

Annie's Annuals anniesannuals.com, grew both kinds of C. baccatum this spring, and even offer Aji Amarillo. If anyone grows any of these plants and has new info to impart, please send a comment.