The Fink Farm Dirt

We've been so starved for rain these past five or six years, I was starting to forget what it was like. The past two months, we've had a series of nice, durable, gentle rains.  Heavy enough to soak but not to wash out. Frequent enough to foster growth, but not so often as to drown the seedlings.  For us farmers, it's like having a self-gardening plot: we just have to go out every week or so and "ooh" and "ahh" over how fast everything is getting big. Of all the gardens we've ever planted, I think this one has been the most rewarding.  The conditions -- timing, moisture, sun and season -- have come together perfectly.  We have plenty of mulch down so the weeds aren't even raising their heads. We grew cabbage one summer (probably not the best season for that) and it seemed to take forever to see anything cabbage like. It's too early to see any embryonic cauliflowers, but the transformation from one week to the next is dramatic. ...

i've always been crazy about arugula.  The peppery tingle it gives your tongue is as far from iceberg lettuce as it gets.  Discovering it in chi-chi restaurants, I always envisioned it as a hot house plant. On a recent trip to Italy, it was everywhere. Rocket, roquette, rugula and rucola -- it's all arugula. Scientifically, it's called Eruca Sativa .  Not surprisingly, it's a member of the mustard family. It natively ranges the boundaries of the Mediterranean from Portugal and Morrocco to Lebanon and Turkey. The nutritional data for arugula is astounding: 2.5 calories for a half-cup serving!! with high doses of vitamins A and C, folate, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium and potassium to boot. The Romans grew arugula both for its leaves and its seeds.  They used the seed to flavor oil and empower aphrodisiacs.  It was a convention of Roman meals to offer a salad of greens such as arugula, romaine, chicory, mallow or lavender seasoned with a cheese sauce. ...

A cabbage harvest in July? In California, it works.  (We planted late in a mild winter.) That means just in time for out door dinners, we have the basic ingredient for coleslaw. But with this gem-like vegetable sitting on my kitchen counter, I couldn't bear the thought of traditional coleslaw: cabbage shreds drowned in mayo and sugar.