The Fink Farm Dirt

Another spring, another hand-knit tomato trellis. It certainly is a California rainbow over the garden plot! Unlike past tomato trellises, this one is made of bulky acrylic yarn, knit on US 19 knitting needles. It's super easy to make. Cast on 82 stitches -- or more if you want and your needles are long enough. Knit it in stockinette stitch: knit the first row, purl the second, and repeat until the piece is as long as you like.  On the last row, bind off four stitches, then drop a stitch. Repeat this, keeping the first stitch that you bind off after a dropped stitch loose, until you come to the end of row. Thread yarn through the last stitch and weave in the end. Voilá, a tomato trellis. I experimented with dropping off more than a single stitch, but it seemed to make the trellis too loose.  I also stitched on fabric casings for the poles that support the trellis.  There are about four, evenly spaced casings. It makes it easier and more stable to string up the trellis. Th...

It hasn't been easy during the coronavirus shut-down to know what is open and what is not. The Fink farmers were certain that nurseries were closed. We shook our heads and murmured about how it looked like it was going to be a fallow year for the garden. Then -- overhearing gossip -- we learned that nurseries were open to those who wear masks and keep appropriate social distancing. Farmer Karen leapt into action and bought pony packs of tomatoes (Romas and cherry), marigolds, Italian basil and assorted lettuces. We're overstocked with tomatoes for the space we have -- and understocked with marigolds to keep the tomatoes free of bugs. We've taken a cross-your-heart, pinky-wrap vow to prune the tomato vines as the summer unfolds and to keep the suckers plucked.   We're also experimenting with growing a tomato plant in a pot with a Rube Goldberg arrangement to climb on. (One day we'll get around to putting masonry screws on the cinder block wall that ...

Swiss chard are the only vegetables that have the same color P-O-W as flowers. I just love the brilliance of red chard. Our chard was a slow starter. While the cauliflowers and Brussels sprouts jumped up from the ground, the chard barely grew for the longest time.  Now we're nearing harvest and the question is what can we do with it? I get stymied about how to fix it. I just found a wonderful sounding "New York Times Cooking" recipe for Swiss Chard Slab Pie. Essentially, it's two layers of dough with a chard, onion, white wine and sour cream layer between.  The edges are crimped, the top slitted and washed with egg whites, then baked for 50 to 55 minutes.

Sweet peas bloom in my birth month (April) -- and I love them. I love the soft colors, the complex flowers, the scent and the seasonality. This year, when someone asked me for a birthday present idea, I said, "How about some sweet peas?" I was standing in a farmer's market staring at buckets of bundled blossoms. A bouquet of sweet peas was what I had in mind. The delivered gift was a half dozen sweet pea plants tightly rolled in newspaper pots. I just got them planted in the garden at the edges of the knitted trellis. They'll be fighting onions for ground space.  We don't have the soaker hoses set up yet so they will be at the mercy of whoever mans the watering can. Will they bloom this late? Do they make edible legumes?

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. ...

The cabbages are balling. The scallions are bulging. The red chard is bolting.  The volunteer yellow grape tomato plant is filling out with tiny green tomatoes. Kate just put in some strawberries. The first distinctive leaves and tendrils are rising to attach themselves to the bamboo trellis we have for peas and beans . . .  It's a beautiful day in the garden.

Actually, the adventure took root a year ago in a 10-foot by 12-foot plot in Karen's backyard. Karen and I (Jeannette) have spent a couple of years nurturing a pair of recalcitrant DIY compost bins, always believing that one day we'd move the compost over to the plot and start a garden. Karen had been intensively cultivating yarrow in the plot. She spent a spring digging and amending the plot. We'd both planted a few things that hadn't survived snails, summer heat and erratic watering. But last year, the whole thing came together. Karen's gardener rototilled it.  Kate, Karen and I dug up wandering yucca plant and magnolia tree roots. We added steer manure and a variety of soil amendments as they tickled our fancies. Soon we had a tomato jungle, climbing beans, Turkish eggplants, mutant carrots and three radishes. Until we put in nasturtiums and zinnias, all efforts at flowers failed.  (Perhaps decades old seeds aren't viable . . . ).  Our most productive pla...