The Lists

This fall I will have been four years at the “new” house and garden. My two biggest garden goals were edibles and Northwest natives. So today I made a list of what is planted so far…

Food perennials
5 blueberry bushes
semidwarf peach tree
3 minidwarf apples
self fertile kiwi
raspberries—golden and red
3 artichoke plants
hop vine
strawberries
French sorrel
garlic chives
shallots
parsley (ok—it isn’t really perennial, but it’s always there)
(no sage because I rarely use it)
rosemary
and thyme


Self-seeding all over the place
Corn salad
Arugula
Kale

Northwest natives
inside-out flower (Vancouveria)
shooting star (Dodecatheon)
wild ginger (Asarum caudatum)
Red osier dogwood
Bunchberry
Trilliums
Blue eyed and yellow-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium)
Sword fern
Deer fern
False Solomon seal
False lily of the valley
Goat’s beard (?) (Aruncus Sylvester) It hasn’t resprouted yet, so I’m not sure; it’s a woodland plant but my shady spot under the neighbor’s Magnolia may be too dry for it)
Flowering current
Native honeysuckle
Native sedums
Vine maple
Bleeding heart (Dicentra)
Monkshood (Aconitum)
Fireweed—I didn’t plant this, but it has showed up. We’ll see if we can co-exist peaceably
Darlingtonia (carnivorous!)
Sundew (also carnivorous; it’s not back up yet and I don’t know if it made it)
Fringecup (Tellima grandiflora)
Marsh marigolds
Beach strawberry (fragaria chiloensis)

It seems like a lot when I look at it written out, especially considering the number of empty patches still showing on a smallish lot. I have to keep reminding myself that a lot of this stuff will get a whole lot bigger if I can keep it happy.

Let it be a challenge to you

Fringecup and woodruff are undaunted if not impressive underneath the double whammy of magnolia and spruce.

It's a durable teaching cliche--my mom heard it in the '60s when she was getting her credential, and I've heard it a time or ten myself, though with the fashion changing from paternalistic to collaborative leadership, it's gone out of style a bit.

Let it be a challenge to you. Did your class swell to 34 tenth-graders for your 28 desks. Are 8 of them basically illiterate, not counting the 5 who are still learning English? Do they all have to pass the WASL to graduate? Let it be a challenge to you (not to mention to them).

Actually, the last time I heard that phrase in person was a decade ago when I was teaching a credit makeup class for at-risk high schoolers. Two of them had been on opposite sides of a fight that had ended in hospitalization for one and a no-contact order for the other. They and their gang wannabe cohorts in the class were supposed to spend 80 minutes together in a pint-sized classroom, peaceably working on their English and history credits. I asked my principal how to accomplish that and he suggested I let it be a challenge to me. I wish I could say I rose to that challenge in Freedom Writers style, inspiring the whole roomful to find their common ground. More prosaically, the young warriors skipped school often enough so they were seldom there together, and both did somehow manage to graduate. One went on to thrive in life; the other stopped by my house a couple years ago, understandably jumpy because he had several outstanding warrants, and we had a long talk. At the end he thanked me for listening and shambled off. Last I heard he was back in jail.

But I digress. I was actually thinking about my southeast garden patch, aka Where Plants Go to Die. Yesterday I came across a book of lists for Pacific Northwest gardeners. One list was of Trees Impossible to Grow Anything Beneath. One was a Magnolia grandiflora; three others were spruces. Guess what shades that patch: a gorgeous big magnolia and a blue spruce. My neighbor has the trunks but we share the branches, and more to the point, the aggressive, matted root systems. "Test your plant growing abilities with these!" say the authors. In other words, let it be a challenge to you. Since that patch is the view out my dining room window, I'm motivated to get something going.

I can tell you some things that don't grow there: maidenhair ferns, Japanese painted ferns, mountain laurel, lace cap hydrangea (still clinging to life, but not a happy plant), astilbe (same as the hydrangea), red osier dogwood, various spring bulbs, and other sacrificial victims whose names have gone unrecorded.

It's probably not surprising that most of the keepers so far are Northwest natives who are used to the shady, competitive life of the undergrowth. Plus sweet woodruff, of course, which is sort of a starling of the plant world--attractive and adaptable and altogether too much of a good thing. I've got reasonably happy goatsbeard, fringecup (Tellima grandiflora), shooting star (Dodecatheon), inside-out flower (Vancouveria hexandra), wild ginger, and native bleeding heart. A native flowering current may also make the cut; it's too soon to tell. So it seems possible that spring and summer will look welcoming out there in another year or two. I'm still looking for small evergreens that can take the punishment and provide a view in winter.

Next school year when I'm sitting at the table working on curriculum, trying to figure out how to connect my students to literature and to each other, I'll be looking out at that patch. Chances are it will be dark out there, but I still want to know that something has taken root, that "Impossible to Grow" is just another challenge.

Sour Tastes for Locavores

Oxalis oregana is a sweet (and sour) little Northwest native.

Northwesterners aspiring to a foodshed diet may pine for the taste of sour. If you pass by the grocery displays of lemons and limes and don’t fancy swigging local vinegar, what’s left? Some people seem born with a craving for sour tastes. One of my daughters would suck on a lemon slice in preference to scarfing a brownie, to my chocoholic amazement. Years later when we met some of her birthrelatives, we learned that a slice of lemon was also her great-grandmother’s standard treat.

Recent taste studies involving identical twins indicate that the neural receptors for sour tastes do in fact vary markedly with family genetics. People who have fewer receptors for this flavor tend to crave more sour; folks with an abundant supply are quicker to reach overkill. Maybe they are the ones who keep the sweet pickle manufacturers in business.

Sour tastes and hot weather seem to be a natural pairing, and hot-climate cuisines have developed a wider array of flavorings than we commonly see in the Pacific Northwest. Amchoor, the powdered green mango popular in Indian cuisines, is one astringent example. Tamarind, common to both Asian and traditional Mexican cooking, is another.

If you want homegrown sourness, here are some possibilities.

Local nurseries carry Meyer lemons and other dwarf citruses. The Meyers are generally considered the easiest and hardiest for Northwest gardeners. I’ve had mine for a decade and it’s been outside into the high 20s a few times. When it’s indoors for the winter its glossy foliage and waxy, heavily sweet-scented flowers are an extra holiday treat. This year I used it as my Christmas tree. Having said all that in its favor, I have to admit mine has produced very few actual lemons--the real point of the quest for sour--in the past few years. I think a repotting is in order.

Sumac—The small berries of the staghorn sumac yield a flavor that is better known in the Middle East than here. In Europe it was a well-known souring agent before the importation of citrus fruits. It’s a nice, fresh taste, tart but not bitter, and when used for herb tea or “lemonade” it makes a lovely pink. Sumac powder, either plain or mixed with thyme and sesame--the spice combo known as zataar--is sold at the Mediterranean Deli behind Sehome Cinema. It is used in lamb dishes, including the eponymous Iranian soup ash e-somaq.

If you want to grow your own, sumacs are beautiful little trees with velvety branches and flamboyant fall color, but be forewarned that they spread very aggressively. Be prepared for constant vigilance if you don’t want your specimen to turn into a grove.

Sorrel
There are at least two genuses called sorrel, the culinary variety Rumex and the multiple wild and ornamental types--Oxalis. All taste fresh and sour, and all are edible, although the Rumex varieties are the only ones generally used in cooking. French sorrel is a hardy perennial that sends up its blade-shaped light green leaves in early spring. Like its pestiferous cousin, dock, it is a chore to dig up once established and it lives for years, so choose its spot carefully. Oxalis plants are the various ground-covering creepers with clover-like leaves and delicate flowers, usually white but sometimes yellow. I like to grab a few leaves while hiking. Their bright taste is as good as a rest stop, almost.

A good introduction to cooking with sorrel is Green Soup, which has so many versions it is more a technique than a recipe. Serious locavores and vegans can easily adapt this recipe to their needs (skip the nutmeg, use soy milk, etc.). Coconut milk might be a tasty variation, moving toward a Southeast Asian flavor combo.

Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter
half a medium onion, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 quart chicken stock
salt and pepper
2 cups fresh sorrel leaves or a combination of tender greens
2 tablespoons dry sherry (optional)
1/2 cup light cream
freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
chopped parsley
chopped chives

Instructions
Melt butter in a heavy saucepan and cook onion until soft but not brown.

Add potatoes and cover with stock. Season with salt and pepper and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Pour a cup of soup and a handful of greens into the blender and purée at high speed. Repeat until all the soup and greens are blended. The mixture should be a nice fresh green.

Return mixture to saucepan, add sherry (if used) and reheat. Add a little more stock or water if the soup is very thick. Stir in cream, heat, and correct seasoning.

Add several grinds of fresh nutmeg (if used). Serve hot, garnished with parsley and chives.

Serves 6.

Rhubarb
People who only use rhubarb for pies are missing out. Just as a squeeze of lemon improves just about any seafood, a simple rhubarb sauce is a great foil for fish. It’s also a beautiful garden plant. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually bought any at the store. As with zucchini, there always seems to be a neighborhood surplus.

Ingredients
2 cups rhubarb, chopped
1/3 cup tomato paste
3 tablespoons olive oil
sugar to taste (from none to 3 tablespoons)
1/2 cup water
salt

Instructions
Put these together in a medium saucepan, bring to a low boil, and then reduce to simmer. Cook until rhubarb is tender and serve over baked or broiled fish.

A health note
Citrus gets its sourness from citric acid. The various sorrels and rhubarb get theirs from oxalic acid. Nutritionists warn against overloading on oxalic acid because it interferes with the uptake of important dietary minerals, especially calcium. A general rule of using these plants for flavoring and treats rather than as a dietary staple will keep diners out of trouble.

A Bit of Mitigation

I spent most of the last week--Spring Break!--at my new cabin, a lot of it pacing the subfloor, stoking the woodstove, and wishing the rain would at least slow down a bit so I could work outside. When it did, I made my first attempt at a rain garden. The cabin's footprint is fairly small, and the winter runoff wasn't severe, but there were puddles in the dirt road below that I don't think needed to be there.

One side effect of new construction is that topsoil gets scraped away. What's underneath at this site is mostly sandy soil that perks like crazy, but in some sections we hit a layer of clay, where runoff from the gutter slides across like grease on a skillet and heads downhill.

So I leveled out a section on the slope, piling up the clayey soil into a berm on the lower rim. Then I hauled in buckets of topsoil from the miniature mountain left by the backhoe. I would definitely have hauled this lovely fluffy dirt by the cartload instead of the bucket had one wheel not blown out early into the operation. After that, my routine was four trips with the five-gallon bucket, followed by a stroll through the nearby woods, admiring whatever trilliums the deer hadn't eaten and gathering nettles for the compost pile, while my bucket-carrying arm and shoveling elbow took a break. You can see the difference between the hauled-in topsoil and the subsoil in the photo.

Once I had about a foot of topsoil, I planted a red osier dogwood, some yellow-eyed and blue-eyed grass (which are actually tiny irises despite the common name), and a fringeflower. All are moisture-loving Northwest natives.

The runoff from the roof already had a clear path down the hill, so all I had to do then was to wait for the next spate of rain. I didn't have to wait long. It began to sprinkle, then to pour, and a rivulet headed down the hill to the new dark patch of level ground. To my delight it stopped there, spread into a shallow puddle and then soaked in within the hour. I could see no sign of any runoff moving on toward the road.

If the deer spare these first plantings, I'll add some more. If not, I can either fence in the spot or simply wait for the elderberry to colonize it.

Other "greenish" features of the cabin project

• Low-flush toilet and pretty green enamel kitchen sink bought used from the RE Store.
• Ceramic tile for splash guard from RE Store.
• On-demand water heater
• Reconditioned kitchen range from Appliance Depot
• PaperStone kitchen counters made in Hoquiam from pulp mill waste. We got an odd-lot directly from the factory, bringing the cost for this small kitchen down to manageable.
• Floors and window trim from trees that had to come down to clear the building site, milled on site
• Most of the wood waste chipped and used for mulch