Garden 34th Street: A Buncha Peppers

I just decided to harvest a few of my chili hots--apparently the more you pick 'em, the more peppers you get. I'll report on heat levels next week...

Maxixe, Take Two

Maxixe, Zucchini, Corn, & Basil Salad

• 2 maxixe, sliced (or 1 Kirby cucumber, sliced)
• 1 small zucchini, julienned
• 1/2 cup fresh raw corn kernels (preferably from early-season corn)
• handful basil leaves, julienned
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients and serve.

Maxixe Time

The happiest thing in the garden upstate seems to be the Brazilian maxixe (also known as the burr-gherkin), the cucumber-like alien pod vegetable that's been this summer's fun little mystery. The plants are loving the cool, wet summer, and the vines have taken over large sections of the plot. And as maxixe grows with built-in weaponry (the entire thing--leaves, stems, and fruit--is incredibly prickly), it seems practically impossible for a thieving groundhog with the munchies to steal the little ripened orbs. So, as long as the plants haven't floated away during this week's monsoon-like rains, we should have many, many more maxixe this weekend.

Last night, I finally shared a bunch with Tony, who brought the mysterious seeds from Brazil. The enlightenment began. The most important thing to note is, instead of peeling them (as we North Hemispherians had been), just scrape the spines off with a knife. It's sooo much easier and, even better, preserves the wonderfully tasty skin.

Eating them raw is obviously the easiest way to partake of these little babies. We've been slicing them and popping them into salads, and I also marinated thin slices in white vinegar and green onion, which created an amazingly flavorful sort of maxixe pickle.

There are also lots of recipes for cooked maxixe. Tony lightly sautéed thick slices in minced garlic, resulting in a crunchy, flavorful side dish. Cooks also use Maxixe in farofa (one of my favorite Brazilian staples), and a traditional stew from Brazil's northeast, Maxixada, which I'd like to try making. (I found a recipe in English here, and here's one in Portugese.)

UPDATE: For the curious, Maxixe basically tastes like Kirby cucumbers, a little sweet and sometimes bitter.

Garden 34th Street: While I Was Away...

Well hey, apparently I can grow hot peppers in my window! While I was upstate weeping over the garden at Stony Kill, the chili hots in the city were soaking up a little bit o' sun. And yesterday morning, when I opened my shades, surprise! I'm curious as to how hot they've actually become, but I'm going to leave them to ripen a for a few more days before the first taste test of summer.

Garden: Extended Weekend Part 2 -- On The Bright Side...

As depressing as much of the gardening has been this summer, there are some happy tidbits to share. Some of the things are actually doing pretty well, and as long as we can plant some things to make up for the giant tomato tragedy, we still have a shot at making good at Stony Kill this summer.

The alien pods...er...I mean maxixe is going gangbusters. I'll write more in a separate post, but if the plants continue to do as well as they are right now, we'll have loads! Good thing the maxixe turned out to be yummy, or we'd be in trouble.

Nancy harvested the first of her red cabbage on Friday. While she's absolutely gaga for the colorful stuff, I've long been more passive, and I don't miss it if I don't have it. But now, I have to admit she's right about the stuff we grow in the garden. Amazingly complex and peppery, it's totally worth raising. Looks like it's a good year for cabbage, so the three remaining plants out there should be just as good--as long as the deer that continue to tromp through our plot don't eat it!

The hot peppers are also happy. The few Brazilian varieties out there are growing like gangbusters, but I think they need a few hot days before they'll flower. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll get some good sun this week... The chili hots have tons of little peppers, and the plants continue to grow and flower. I had a little chat with the sun and asked it to come out and help these little babies ripen. I hope it listened.

We harvested our first cayenne pepper, and I'll report back when I try it later this week. There aren't many more coming, but it looks like some more buds are beginning to appear, so hopefully we'll get more in August.

The collard greens continue to do whatever collard greens do. Our neighbor, Susie, says we can't harvest them until the fall (sad!), but I'm going to do a little research. In the meantime, they look happy, so I'm happy.

And finally, in the unexpected results department, it turns out we have acorn squash! I thought I'd planted yellow squash (that's what the seed packet said, anyway), but apparently there was some sort of mix-up. Who knew?!

Garden: Extended Weekend Part 1 -- F*@*&%$#@K!

Nancy's right: it's an ass year for the garden.

Our tomatoes are all gone now. Actually setting eyes on the plots at Stony Kill is a sad, sad thing. There are very few tomato plants left not sick with late blight, and unless they're miraculously a variety with some natural resistance (which apparently doesn't exist, from what research I've done), it's only a matter of time. Most of the gardeners haven't given up, so the garden area is a sea of suffering plants with black leaves and unripe fruit covered in large black spots.

Nancy picked whatever fruit was on the vines as they pulled the plants up, but although they have a nice tomato plant smell, they're unusable. We couldn't even make fried green tomatoes...

And now, to add insult to injury, we're losing the squash. Friday, two of the beautiful zucchini plants looked seriously compromised, the leaves were turning brown and droopy. The next day, a neighboring plot-owner said, "Oh, it looks like you have bugs." Sure enough, the roots were undulating and being eaten by some sort of nasty little chomping something.

Great.

And the rain continues...downpour upon downpour. Please, Mother Nature, could we have some sort of proper August, so the rest of our plants do well? Pretty please with sugar on top?

More Tragic Garden Tales

I had to share this sad, sad gardening story from Cathy in Ephrata, Pennsyltucky. Seems to be continuing this summer's "Garden Frustration" theme.

She writes:

I’ve been watching one single red hot pepper growing slowly for the past month, dreaming of the day when I would harvest it, add some of my homegrown garlic, and have a lovely pasta dish.

Until yesterday …

Sabra [14] was at the house all day. I came home and she said “that hot pepper from the garden was REALLY hot.” She had picked it and eaten it raw.

So now I wait for another baby pepper to ripen …

Lots More Inspiration

Today's Minimalist is a fantastic list of 101 summer salad recipes.

(The Dining page also links to two pieces in the archives: 101 20-minute picnic recipes and 101 10-minute meals.)

Garden: RIP Little Baby Tomato Plants

Just got word from Nancy...most of our tomatoes had indeed been infected with late blight. They had to dig up and bag many of the little guys, and basically, what's left doesn't stand a chance. The Stony Kill plots are completely full of sick plants, and many of the other gardeners just don't understand they need to remove anything that's been infected...so the disease is just going to continue to spread.

I'm especially heartbroken, as I'd raised most of those plants from seeds in my window on 34th Street... It's been a tragic summer for my little baby seedlings: A bag full of peppers and other things were abandoned on a train by a forgetful friend trying to be helpful (and FYI, the MTA immediately discards food and plants, so I had no chance of recovering them at Grand Central's famous Lost & Found); critters devoured the baby jiló; and now the blight has killed the tomatoes.

I guess I wasn't meant to be a farmer. It hurts too much...

In memory, let's celebrate the too-brief life of our little tomatoes with a few photos. Rest in peace, little ones (cue melancholy music)...

A Bounty of Inspiration

A great list of 100 easy summer recipes from The Guardian/Observer. I always love lists like these, as they're chock-full of creative inspiration.