Fava-licious!

We planted fava beans (they are actually a legume in the pea family) as an overwintering cover crop back in September. Over the course of the fall and winter as they grow, favas will pump nitrogen back into the soil so by the time planting time comes around, the soil will be rich and ready to go. Little did I know that by the time springtime rolled around I would be head over heels in love with this plant!


The idea is to till the plants back into the soil when planting spring crops and these guys will bring even more nitrogen in that way. By that time though, the favas had begun to bloom these pretty little black and white pea blossoms. I couldnt bear to till them in so made space around them to plant my seeds and starts. They continued to bloom and grow quite a bit taller and now are producing beans.

The beans are a bit labor intensive to cook, but well worth it. They require two peelings; first peel the outer pod then you have to pop them out of the inner peel that encases these lovely little beans. Blanching ("to make white") them for a few minutes in boiling water makes the second layer easier to remove. The first ones we cooked were very young and tender and we ate some still in the white casing without realizing that was the second peel. Then we peeled some and ate the tiny bright green bean found buried inside this little gem. The first trial batch was such a hit none of them made it into a recipe or even seasoned for that matter. They are so good, even a picky toddler named Sorrel who rejects all things green ate them and loved them. (Exhibit A: blue plate that once contained favas found empty on serving tray.)



We cant wait for the rest to ripen! They are hard to find in the grocery, possibly easier at the farmers market, but best of all they are probably the easiest crop Ive ever grown. At the time of this writing, the beans arent totally ripe yet and the plants have grown to be about five feet tall. Since they wintered over, they tolerate the cold and with our Oregon winters I never actually watered it myself once!

As a bonus for men and the women who love them, it has an affinity for men's reproductive health. Which, if you notice the way the beans hang off the plant, the "doctrine of signatures" is quite obvious on that one. Jason and I read in James Duke book, Herbs of the Bible, the stems of the fava plant were used for prostate health in Biblical times. How bout that?!

It's Crisp time!

Our community garden has a bad track record when it comes to attendance and lately its been really bad due to the rain. Even the gardening obsessed gardeners haven't been willing to spend too much time out there. Today I decided to brave it. Despite the rain, we still needed greens!

I was rewarded the moment I walked through the gate. Waiting to be picked, there were 4 beautiful luscious dark red raspberries that had just ripened up. The first raspberries of the season. What a treasure. Anyone who has ever had fresh raspberries right off the plant knows they are best that way. They seem to start losing their zest moments after they have been picked. There were a few more on the other side of the bush so I gave myself a few and saved the rest for the man and child...I know I'm much too nice to them!

The rest of the garden was abundant in greens. The greens are just about the only ones that have been loving this weather. For some reason even though the slugs are out of control, they haven't been attacking the lettuce, just everything else. The peas were going off as well and I picked about a pound and a half of them. YES! The first major harvest from pea plants I seeded directly back in February. Some of the plants are from seeds I saved from last year as well, second generation pea plants. They are looking great and have tons of purple, pink, and white blossoms. I also walked away with two plastic produce bags of greens (red lettuce, romaine, baby chard, the last of the spinach, and sorrel). Salads for days!


On my way out I found a smallish, ripe rhubarb and a few strawberries. I also had a fresh pint of strawberries at home in the fridge and some grocery store bought pears. A strawberry-rhubarb crisp was in the making. If you have ever had rhubarb before, it is very tart, you do not need a whole lot, and you usually need another sweet fruit to balance it out. The stalk was very small and there were going to be more strawberries than anything else in the crisp so it was going to be perfect.

The recipe I used came from the "Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking With Whole Foods" by Cynthia Lair. I got the book when Sorrel was born as a gift and it has the easiest, healthiest, and best tasting recipes ever. The author was a faculty member at Bastyr University (a naturopathic college located outside Seattle) so she knows how to make food that's good for you and tastes really good...and the artwork on the cover is by Nikki McClure a fabulous artist from Olympia, bonus points. Most of the recipes include foods that can be set aside and adjusted (pureed, steamed, etc.) to give to baby. Major bonus points.

I subbed maple syrup for the delicious Hood River honey we got last weekend and kept the rest of the recipe the same. Lets just say I'm glad I took a picture of it before I put it in the oven because it disappeared soon after I took it out. To quote Jason, "It's crisp time! I hope there's some vanilla ice cream in here!" And there was along with four red raspberries set aside for garnishment. Viola!

Slug Drama

I hate it when my garden turns into slug food. Unfortunately, that has been the theme this year with all this rain. If it seems like a break in the rain is imminent I run out to the garden, but when I get there I'm often just assessing the damage!

Finally Ive caught on to their survival strategies (i.e. eat everything young, tender, and succulent!) and have gone on the offensive to try out some of my own survival strategies. In the past, I can get by with picking the little boogers off and throwing them over the fence. Labor intensive and somewhat cruel, but it seems to work in the short term.

The level of destruction this year is unbelievable. The marigolds we put out were stripped down to stems in nearly one night and the bush bean sprouts were attacked almost as they came out of the ground. A lot of my herbs were decimated in a rather short amount of time as well. I can say that I honestly have not dealt with slug destruction like this before.

I tend to avoid the "beer trap" strategy as it seems too high maintenance especially with rain on the horizon. The beer gets washed out when it rains and its really gross when the slugs die in them. It does get expensive when you have to keep changing the beer out and the check out person at the grocery store is starting to wonder about me, the woman with the baby buying endless amounts of Steel Reserve.

Finally, I broke down and bought the slug-bait-for-organic-gardeners. Kind of expensive and I had to go to two different stores to get it!! I guess I am not the only one in Portland having to bust out the big guns. I will cross my fingers and pray for all this slug drama to be over. In the meantime I will try and think of what the slugs are trying to teach me. Perhaps a lesson in perseverance because I know it's not a lesson in pacifism!

Local Loco-ness

Last Saturday, a mom friend of mine kicked off a great idea she has been brewing...a community supported farmer's market at her house in NE Portland that provides fresh foods and meats to neighbors and friends. Wendy did the research of finding the goods and she goes out to the farms to fetch them after people make their orders . Ethically treated animals, only organic produce and eggs, raw milk, yogurt, kefir, and kombucha were just some of the things she was ordering for folks. On her store-front porch she had available to buy dried herbs and herbal infusions, wildcrafted Morels, canned jams and fruit, dried fruit and fruit leathers (nothing added), locally roasted coffee, and the best honey Ive ever had in my life (no joke). She also managed to round up some potted plants as well and put those out. The honey and some of the dried fruit came from her mother-in-law that lives in Hood River, which is still pretty close to Portland.

In the future the idea is that it will morph into a larger at home market where friends and neighbors can bring the things they've been making to share and sell to others. This person isnt doing it for profit, she simply wants to create a space for people to build community and get to know their neighbors through the abundance of good food that is grown here.

Jason and I went home with a quart of honey for $12, which we thought was very well priced and (I'll explain this later) a potted comfrey which Wendy was more than happy to see go. When we got home, Sorrel and I tried out the honey by-itself-spoon-style and it was amazing. I eventually had to cut ourselves off, but the rest of the night I found myself sneaking back in the kitchen for more hits of honey. It made me realize that this is what honey is supposed to taste like and Im not so sure anymore about that other honey we've been eating.

The funny thing about the comfrey is that I had actually been looking to acquire some to use herbally. Gardeners know it well as it can be quite a pest when it pops up in the garden and it spreads like crazy in recently tilled garden areas. If you try to dig it up and just a small part of the root gets cut off, up pops another plant. (Dont even think about rotatilling it!) I'm keeping mine in a pot of course and I have lots of ideas for it. The fresh leaves make a potent green salve and the tea is great as a nutritive hair tonic. I'll also tincture the leaves and dry some for teas. This winter during cold season, comfrey will make a great addition to cold care teas as it aids in the healing of tissues damaged from illness. Think of it as an all around awesome tissue healer with a really bad reputation for mayhem. It does serve a purpose in the garden too, the bees love the blossoms and the leaves are mineral rich so you can cover the compost with them. In the picture above, comfrey is looking kind of sad and still adjusting to pot life, but will come back to health in no time.

I'll keep you posted on Wendy and her "Metropolitan Buying Club". It changes month to month and seasonally of course so she let us know that there will be more to come for next month like blueberries, strawberries, and perhaps some raspberries...did I mention berry season is my favorite time to be in the NW?