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Work in the garden has been very slow over the past month, since we’ve been busy with our darling little baby. Also, the weather has been foul over the past week. The warm rain is a blessing for the pasture, and lots of the vegetables (especially the corn) are thriving on it. Still, it’s hardly conducive to slipping outside for a bit of weeding, and I can already see blight on the tomatoes!

Bean teepees

Kevin and I feel very glad that we completed almost all the spring planting before Owen was born. It was wonderful to have fresh peas in the pod, snow peas, lettuce, zucchini, kohlrabi and carrots waiting in the garden when we came home with our new baby. We have also been picking and eating the first of the Dalmatian beans — a variety of green bean that is covered in pretty purple streaks.

One of the last tasks we performed before Owen was born was constructing three bean teepees out of bamboo and planting the Borlotti beans around them. Now we are amazed to look out the window and see those beans reaching the top of the teepees already. Apart from the delicious beans that we are looking forward to, we think the teepees make an interesting feature in the garden.

Spring planting is well underway in our vegetable garden. This season, we have extended the garden to include another three beds. This has taken a lot of work, since the soil in that area was rock hard with a sandstone pan in some places, and the whole area was covered in rampant kikuyu grass. We followed our usual routine of covering the area with black plastic for several months to knock back the kikuyu before we prepared the beds. Kevin has had a lot of exercise from preparing these beds — with all the digging, breaking up stubborn clods of clay, and hauling cow manure and compost. I have stayed away from the heavy digging and hauling part of the job, but have been gainfully occupied by pulling out as many as possible of the numerous ropes of kikuyu rhizome that remained in the soil despite our efforts to kill them off. We are both very satisfied to see the new beds completed.

Rows planted Three Sisters style

Over the last couple of days, I have undertaken the exciting project of planting these new beds with Indian Flint Corn seedlings (started in flats). We decided to plant some squash at the ends of the corn rows, in hopes that the runners will spill down the slope in front of the beds. I’ve also put in some seed for climbing beans next to some of the newly planted corn. All going well, the beans will be able to climb up the corn stalks. With the wide raised row formation we are using, this doesn’t conform to the traditional Native American “Three Sisters” planting — but it is neat to be trying (in some form!) the age-old formula of growing corn, beans, and squash together. Let’s hope it works out ok.

Our “Three Sisters” planting is experimental for us in another way, too: The corn, bean, and squash varieties that we are growing in these beds are all newcomers to our garden this season. The Indian Flint Corn is meant to be a multi-coloured variety, good for drying and grinding up to make corn meal. This is our first attempt at growing heirloom corn, and I was enchanted by the luminous quality of the kernels as I planted them in the flats. As we plant the corn, we find ourselves wishing that a bit more of our land was on a flatter contour. It would be much easier to deal with the corn if we had a decent-sized flat field for long rows! Still, all going well, we hope to continue to grow a viable population (at least 200) of heirloom corn year after year so that we can save our own seed for this important crop. We may spend a few seasons experimenting with different corn varieties and growing methods before we choose a favourite for saving. The squash in the “Three Sisters” bed is called “Musquee de Provence.” It is a moschata squash, so won’t cross with any of the other kinds we are growing. It is supposed to have a delicious flavour and good keeping properties. The beans are a drying variety called “Selugia,” given to us by a kind friend. They are very beautiful — dark and glossy brown/black speckled. It will be interesting to see how these vegetable varieties perform in our garden.

With the spring, we are enjoying lots of fresh salad greens from the garden. We are growing two kinds of lettuce this season — green “Tree Lettuce” and “Asian Red.” Both are delicious and proving very pest resistant so far. We also have herbs, green onions, chrysanthemum greens and edible flowers to add to our salads, and the red orach should soon be ready as well.

Salad

We enjoyed the first new potatoes of the season yesterday evening. I hadn’t really planned to harvest any yet, but these were volunteers in a garden bed that I was trying to clear. I was amazed at how big and plentiful the potatoes were already. I hope all our potatoes will crop so well.

Broad beans (fava beans) are another spring garden treat for our dinner plates. Somehow the pollination seems not to have been so fantastic this year (despite all the bees I was seeing on the flowers), and the crop is not as large as we had hoped. The beans are delicious, though. Below is our favourite recipe for broad beans, taken from the August/September 1999 edition of “Kitchen Gardener” magazine. (Sadly, this magazine went out of productions some years ago.) We have leeks, celery, bay, oregano, and flat-leaf parsley in the garden at the moment, as well as the broad beans, so this recipe suits us very well. Our tomatoes won’t be producing fruit for several months, yet, so we are still using preserved ones from last season’s crop.

Meze of Garden Beans

1 onion or 1 leek, chopped
2 stalks celery, sliced
4 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
4 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped (fine with bottled ones, or even some tomato puree)
1 bay leaf
3 Tbs. fresh oregano, stripped from stem and crushed between fingers
2lb fresh fava (broad) beans, shelled
2 Tbs Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large saucepan, saute the leek (or onion) and celery in about half the olive oil until very tender. Add the tomatoes, bay leaf, and 2 Tbs of the oregano. Use all the liquid from the tomatoes, and supplement with a little water if necessary. This will be your braising liquid.
Add the beans and simmer gently over medium-low heat until they are tender — Perhaps 10 or 15 minutes, but could be a good deal longer depending on the size and freshness of the beans.
When the beans are just tender, add 1 or 2 Tbs. additional olive oil, the parsley, and the remaining 1 Tbs. chopped oregano. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot or at room temperature. This is especially nice with fresh bread.

Caution:
Fava or broad beans can cause a severe reaction (a life-threatening form of pernicious anemia), in people with an inherited susceptibility. This condition is known as Favism, and is most likely to occur in men of Mediterranean descent. I don’t know how common this problem is, but please be careful! (Thanks to IL for alerting me to this problem associated with broad beans.)