Good

[greenstorm]

Good talks with Avi. He's pencilled in end of July/beginning of August. I suspect there may be a Tucker return after that. I love these people a lot, you know?

If I did calligraphy I'd send an invitation registered mail to Nicholas.

My foot is healing up quickly; I'm giving it lots of breaks and time up in between gardening. There's still some swelling, I'm hoping it gets circulated away rather than needing to abcess. The pain is way down, anyhow, even as much as two hours after being on it.

Corn is almost almost all in. Just some flour corns left to go. Most of the enormous amount of painted mountain is in finally so just the various magic mannas (cream, starburst, and mixed), papas blue, oregon blue, and montana morado to go. Well, and Morden. And a succession of gaspe. But still. The ground is pretty dry, they keep calling for rain and we keep not getting it. That plus my heel make tilling a little harder and that plus the fascinating composition of the soils in those fields means that the plantings are a little ad hoc, but that's ok. The flints are at least segregated in the wood field, the dents are surrounded by painted mountain in the middle, and the flours will go at the end of the far field. I'm putting in blocks of beans etc as spacers in some cases. I'm mixing in a bunch of greens and herbs, both scattered and in rows. I don't know that the greens will have longstanding great quality given they're competing for moisture with the corn and they're on a south slope, but at worst I'll harvest a little and they'll go to seed, giving me weeds that are not wild mustard. There is a little bit of lamb's quarters growing, which I should try to leave to go to seed, but it's a very clean field since it was under grass for so long. Wild mustard and a little cress are pretty much the only weeds right now.

Okay. Facilitating the landrace gardening group meet'n'greet tomorrow morning. I'd better get some sleep. Just, I need to not forget to seek out and spend time with my people. It's good for me.

Comments

[squirrelitude]

Glad to hear your foot is healing well!

What's the goal in letting the lamb's quarters go to seed? When I have it in my garden I generally let it get to about 30 cm tall so I can eat the leaves, but then I yank it because I don't like how woody and tall and *prolific* it is. (The leaf/stem ratio is much more favorable when it's young, basically.)

[greenstorm]

The goal is to have a larger proportion of lambs quarters to other weeds next year, with thy eventual goal that all my weeds are super tasty things I love to eat; that means those things need to be most of the top couple inches of the soil's seed bank.

[squirrelitude]

Got it, so it's the "greens are a free action" thing. :-) This time of year we get chickweed, broad-leaf plantain, violet, dandelion, and lamb's quarters. Later we'll have lettuce and whatnot from the CSA, but I think I could be very happy on just weeds as greens.

Here, though, the lamb's quarters quickly becomes a tall woody plant without much good eating on it, so I largely try to suppress it in favor of the others.

[greenstorm]

"Greens are a free action" indeed.

We have such a short season, lamb's quarters has a run of maybe three to four weeks? But that's a huge run generally, and so we go stinging nettles -> lamb's quarters -> oh look it's time for domestic veggies

I also especially love its flavour. Though it has a bitter look-alike-when-young plant I'm trying to eradicate.

I think the only true green I'd be unhappy without, from the suite of domesticated greens, is romaine lettuce. Well, and sorrel. There's a lot to be said for a good dandelion-heart salad instead of chicories, for instance.

Hm, ok, I'd miss gai lan too. And napa cabbage, but that's more a storage crop.

[squirrelitude]

I've only had stinging nettles a couple of times -- just a quick snack when hiking, a few leaves carefully rolled up and eaten raw. It seemed nice. I was surprised that when I got stung on the tongue by a stray hair, it didn't hurt -- it just tasted spicy!

Lamb's quarters has this odd powdery layer on the leaves that I can taste and feel. (Under the microscope, it looks like tiny beads of liquid.) I wonder what that's all about. The flavor is pleasant, although it has a certain sourness that makes me think there might be high oxalic acid, which I try to keep in moderation. I guess I should reserve it more for cooked dishes if I decide to care about that.

[greenstorm]

I've been eating stinging nettles a lot of my life, they're really the first easy green here for when store stuff is expensive and one doesn't have a reliable garden to grow kale in because of a lot of moving. I always cook them, though. My entry-level suggestion is either in soup or blanched, mixed with feta, and put into a pie.

Yeah, I know that layer you're talking about. They're also succulent and have a very green/asparagus taste to me, not sour at all. I eat them when they're 4-6" tall? I wonder if there's a flavour difference by location or if this is interpretation? One of my very favourite things about undomesticated foods is that there can be such a huge flavour range from one plant to the next (not really with lamb's quarters, but with berries and spruce tips and such) since there hasn't been as much of a genetic bottleneck usually.

I mean, I do love sour (see sorrel) so there's that.

[squirrelitude]

Hmm, it has been a while since I've had lamb's quarters, so I'm working from stale memories. And we've largely weeded it out (well, depleted the seed bank by eating it young) in our container gardens. But in a couple of days we'll have our first CSA pickup and I'm bound to find plenty of it in the fields there to refresh my memory. :-) The sourness I remember isn't overt, though. It's more like what you get in spinach, which I guess makes sense.

Actually, what do you mean by sorrel? That's the name I use for a tasty little Oxalis that grows everywhere here, probably yellow woodsorrel (Oxalis stricta). Are you referring to Rumex acetosa, which I know as narrow-leaved dock?

[greenstorm]

Huh, I wonder if you're referring to something I perceive as a texture, which is the oxalic acid or whatnot.That is to say, I also don't find spinach sour! I do find taste super fascinating though.

I mean french or garden sorrel (rumex scutatus or acetosa, I use them interchangeably)?, which is a relative of sheep sorrel (rumex acetosella) that I eat from roadsides. I don't mean the oxalis, with clover-like leaves, though I'd likely enjoy them they don't grow here.

[squirrelitude]

Ah, OK. Hmm. I think we might have different Rumex species here! I'm pretty sure we have curly/yellow dock (R. crispus) and broad-leaved dock (R. obtusifolius) but not the ones you mention. They're OK eating, but I suspect more bitter and tough. Broad-leaved dock is also just invasive as heck here, so I should try eating it again. :-)

The oxalis is delightfully sour and tastes something like lemons. Great as a tiny snack, especially in hot weather. Absolutely loaded with oxalic acid though, I'm sure.

[greenstorm]

My sorrel is cultivated, not wild, and has that delightful lemon taste-- as does sheep sorrel. The dock you mention we also have here, or at least down south a little, and I don't find them palatable.

[squirrelitude]

Interesting!

You know, there is actually one other thing I've heard called sorrel, and it has that same vaguely arrow-shaped leaf, except more bulbous -- and tastes lemony sour. It's *small* and would pop up in the garden here and there. We just called it "garden sorrel". Having trouble identifying it though.

...and aha, I think it is in fact sheep sorrel! The photo on the Wikipedia page was entirely unfamiliar, but other images like this one are dead-on.

[greenstorm]

Yep, that's sheep sorrel and it's basically a miniature version of my garden sorrel, down to leaf shape even.

Such a good flavour. If you ever have a chance to make a cream soup, or a cream sauce over fish, with it you will not be disappointed.

[greenstorm]

Wait, do you know it /under cultivation/ as narrow-leaved dock?