Zucchini And Corn Fritters With Fresh BasilVegetarian, Dairy And Gluten Free

A yummy recipe to use up your garden zucchini!

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Grow Your Own Food
We've had a veggie garden for decades but it's never been as important as now. With the pandemic, we try to avoid the grocery store as much as possible so we grew extra food this season.

Happily, the garden is flourishing! We are growing four types of tomatoes, two types of beans, corn, zucchini, cucumbers, several types of carrots, shishito, padrone, jalapeño and bell peppers, red and green lettuce, radishes, eggplant, kale and more. 

It's only been a few weeks since our first zucchini, and I'm already scrambling for ways to use it all. And I have several beds of corn too. This recipe uses both so I will be making it a lot. The corn gives these fritters a nice chewy texture and together with the shredded zucchini and fresh basil, presents a beautiful and colorful dish that can be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner. And if you make smaller fritters, you can serve them as appetizers.

Serve with a dollop of non-dairy sour cream or top with guacamole and a handful of sunflower sprouts. Feel free to replace the basil with other seasonings, such as cilantro and cumin. 

This zucchini is called Pantheon, from Johnny's seeds. It's like classic Costata Romanesco but doesn't have those prickly hairs.

I have several beds of sweet corn, also from Johnny's.
This one is almost ready and I just planted another bed.

 

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Zucchini and Corn Fritters with Fresh Basil

Vegetarian, Gluten and Dairy Free

[Makes 10 fritters]

Ingredients

3 cups grated zucchini, on a large grate

½ teaspoon salt plus some for sprinkling

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 cup corn kernels (fresh or frozen and defrosted)

2 packed tablespoon fresh basil, thinly sliced

1/3 cup small diced onion or sliced scallions

Big pinch cayenne pepper (or black pepper to taste)

½ cup gluten free Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 baking flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 to 2 tablespoons avocado or olive oil

Directions

Place the shredded zucchini in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Set aside for 15 minutes while it sweats. Afterward, squeeze out the moisture as best you can. 

Place the beaten egg in a large bowl with the zucchini, corn, basil, onion, pepper, and ½ teaspoon of salt. Mix well.

Stir in the flour and baking powder until well combined. 

Heat a medium or large skillet with a thin layer of oil over medium heat and spoon the zucchini corn mixture into the skillet (about ¼ cup for each fritter.) Press down with a spatula to flatten. It will take two or more batches depending on the size of your skillet. 

Cook the fritters until they start to brown underneath, about 3 minutes. Turn over and cook another few minutes until brown. 

Serve immediately. If you have leftovers, it’s best to reheat them on a nonstick skillet so they remain crispy.

Served topped with guacamole
and sunflower sprouts

5 Tips For Coping With The Covid-19 Pandemic

Tip #1 - Make lots of soup and freeze it!

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Sheltering in Place
At this writing, as the pandemic is spreading across the world, a third of the United States has been told to stay home and isolate. The stress of waiting in isolation might naturally drive us to sit on the couch, watch the news 24/7 and eat "comfort food." Since we might be in this for the long haul, here are a few things to do to get you off the couch.

TIP #1 - Make Soup
A large percentage of the population will get the virus but not all will become seriously ill. That said, many of us will get sick, be home alone or with another family member who is also likely to be sick.  And since we are all isolated, no one will come over and take care of you. So while we are feeling good, make soup. Make LOTS of soup and freeze it. Just start with some sautéed onions, celery, and garlic. Add lots of water or broth and spices like 1 or 2 bay leaves, some thyme, oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Fresh ginger is a good addition or sometimes I just steep in a few ginger tea bags. Add your favorite beans. (If you eat meat, throw in some chicken thighs and cook for 20 minutes.) Then start adding vegetables like carrots, peas, corn, kale, green beans, a can of tomatoes, etc. Simmer until the vegetables are soft but not mushy, squeeze some fresh lemon juice into the pot. Cool and freeze. Do not add pasta or rice until you defrost and serve it. 
I have dozens of soup recipes on this blog that you can try also.

TIP #2 - Develop a Routine
After a week of total paralysis, thinking every sniffle and allergy symptom I had was the virus, I finally resumed my daily work schedule. I have a business I do from home and I also help my daughter with her business remotely. Cooking, exercising, and gardening also takes up my time. So I put a to do list together after my morning tea and schedule my day. The schedule keeps me busy and lessens my stress. Give it a try.

TIP #3 - Plant a Garden
If you are lucky enough to have a little yard, start growing your own food. This pandemic will not completely go away until a vaccine is developed and everyone is inoculated. That could take well over a year. Growing food will lessen your need to go to the grocery store and expose yourself to others who may be carrying the virus. If it's still too cold in your area, you can start seeds at home under a grow light.

HOW TO BUILD A RAISED BED GARDEN BOX

BUILDING A RAISED GARDEN WITH WATER TROUGHS

TIP #4 - Self Care
It's more important than ever not to get sick or hurt yourself. Why? Because doctors and hospitals are too busy with Covid-19 patients to see you. So do everything you can to stay healthy.
  * Consume Immune Boosting Foods and Herbs - Include mushrooms, raw garlic and ginger in your diet as well as antioxidant-rich colorful fruits and veggies. Culinary herbs such as oregano, thyme, and rosemary have great antiviral and immune system boosting properties. 

  * Gentle Movement - You're home or out getting some fresh air while social distancing. So you may be thinking, "what a great time to get in shape!" Please avoid overdoing it. If you haven't been running or doing vigorous exercise before the pandemic, start slowly. Remember, if you sprain your ankle or pull your back out, your doctor is not available! Gentle movement will help pump your lymphatic system and boost the production of immune cells that actively protect us against viruses and bacteria. 

  * Dental Care -  Many dentists have temporarily closed their offices during the pandemic so take especially good care of your teeth. You are home so it's easy to brush after every meal. Floss every day and try not to chip a tooth on hard foods. Doug made popcorn the other night and I was super careful not to eat the unpopped kernels for fear of knocking out a crown!

TIP #5 - Try to Disconnect
It's very important to stay informed but don't do it 24/7. The news is grim as the cases skyrocket and you worry about your loved ones spread across the world. Catch up on it periodically but try and detach a bit. I have an especially hard time with this one.

Of course you have heard about keeping your distance, washing your hands often, and not touching your face so I don't need to harp on that. But I will say, TAKE THESE MEASURES SERIOUSLY! And please everyone, STAY SAFE. 

Building A Raised Garden With Water Troughs

Water troughs make great raised beds!

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Raised Garden Boxes
One of our most popular posts was How to Build a Raised Bed Vegetable Garden Box, that I posted in 2010. This post showed how to make garden boxes out of redwood. Nine years later, these boxes are still standing. I have to restain the wood every few years, but they are holding up pretty well. 

Building a raised garden box from redwood.

But when we decided to replace a thousand square feet of back lawn with more garden boxes, we wanted to do something that was easier. We had seen lots of those bright silver water troughs used as planters and thought that we could make them look a lot better with some paint. So here's what we did.

We purchased 7 water troughs that are 3' x 6'. Since they nest them when stored, they aren't all the same size. Keep that in mind when picking them out.

Step 1 - wash them well, inside and out, with soap and water. The inside because you will be growing your food in them and the outside to get the paint to adhere to them.

Step 2 - paint the troughs. We used Hammered Copper by Rust-Oleum. We brushed and rolled it on rather than buying the spray cans. It took two coats and around 3/4 of a can per trough. We didn't paint the lip to avoid painting inside the growing area.

Rust-Oleum Hammered Copper.

Step 3 - drill holes in the bottom of the trough. We used a drill bit that was less than 1/4" and we drilled a hole every 6 to 9 inches. Vacuum up the shavings. 

Step 4 - turn them over and cover the bottom of the trough with weed cloth to prevent the dirt from pouring out of the holes.

Step 5 - insert irrigation tubing. There is a hole at the bottom of the trough that you can use to slide the irrigation tubing through. Use whatever irrigation system you like - just set it up before you add the dirt.

Step 6 - add the dirt. It takes about a yard of compost per 3' x 6' trough. To that we mix in earthworm castings, Biochar, glacial rock dust, and mycorrhizae. We usually mix in some native dirt, but for these, we used all compost. See my husband's Magic Dirt Formula.

Step 7 - finish your irrigation and plant your veggies!

To prevent weeds, we also placed weed cloth over then entire garden area. We then covered it with about 6 1/2 tons of gravel.

I also place a few ceramic pots filled with herbs and flowers around the garden area to give it some color.

Pots with rosemary, lemon thyme
and geraniums.

Growing your own food is great! I take a basket out every morning and "shop" in my garden for our daily meals. If you have any room at all in your yard - even your front yard, put in some raised beds and start growing your food. Grass is a waste of water. We've ripped every inch of lawn out from our front and back yards which are now all covered in fruit trees and vegetable gardens. We also have a few acres of Pinot Noir plants which yielded 7 tons of grapes last year. I grew up in a small apartment in New York City and always had a dream of living in the country and farming. My dream became a reality 11 years ago when we moved to Sebastopol and turned 3 acres of dirt into our farm!

Grow Carrots Easily With Carrot Tape

Carrot tape makes it so much easier to plant those tiny seeds.

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Those Tiny Tiny Seeds!
Carrot seeds are so tiny. When I try planting an entire row of them, they almost always get washed away with the first watering. After a few bad carrot experiences, I finally gave up. But this year, I discovered carrot tape and it's working like a charm.

The tape holds the tiny seeds and you just plant a row of tape, 1/4" down, in rows a foot apart. Now I will say that they put too many seeds on the tape which makes them hard to thin, so I took a tweezer and carefully removed some of the seeds before planting. Every seed came up!

Gurney's offers 8 types of carrot tapes.

Plant the tape 1/4" down in the soil.
Water them well and thin if necessary after they sprout.

This is Gurney's  Envy Hybrid Carrot, 10" to 12" long

Some of the seeds come in a 12"x12" seed mat but I haven't tried that one yet.

This is the seed map for Gurney's Yaya hybrid carrot.

Doug's Magic Dirt FormulaHow I Got 60 Butternut Squash From 1 Seed!

I got 60 butternut squash from ONE seed!

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My Husband, the Amazing Farmer
Our friends always laugh when they see the size and yield of the vegetables from our garden. It's simply unbelievable how much our garden produces from a single seed. This year the winning vegetable was our butternut squash. One seed yielded a plant that produced 60 butternut squash, each weighing between 2 and 4 pounds - about 200 pounds of squash in all. A few even weighed as much as 5 pounds! I used a year-old seed from a packet of Johnny's JWS 6823 PMR Organic Squash Seed.  Their website says the average yield for this seed is 4 to 5 squash per plant. I can't wait to write to them to tell them that we got 60!

I believe the secret is Doug's magic dirt formula. Since everyone always asks us, "what's in your soil", I thought I'd write this blog post. It's kind of tough to create a recipe for this since he "adds a little of this and a little of that" and deals in huge quantities, but I think this will come close.

Doug's Magic Dirt Formula

Requirements:
Wheel barrel 
Shovel

Ingredients
1 cubic foot of native soil from your yard
1 cubic foot bag of organic compost
2 pounds earthworm castings
1 cup Biochar
1 1/2 tablespoons glacial rock dust
1 tablespoon mycorrhizae

Directions
#1 - Dig up a cubic foot of soil from your yard and place it in a wheel barrel.

#2 - Add a cubic foot of organic compost to the wheel barrel and mix well.

Compost is decayed organic material such as leaves, grass, etc. which greatly enriches your soil. You can buy it or create a compost pile from your vegetable scraps.

#3 - Add earthworm castings.

This is basically worm poop and is used as a fertilizer in organic farming.

#4 - Add Biochar.

Biochar is burnt, carbonized biomass which is used as an amendment for soil to help retain water and nutrients.

.
#5 - Add glacial rock dust.

Contains a wide variety of trace minerals that replenishes the soil. Glacial rock dust is a natural product produced from glacial action taking place over thousands of years.

#6 - Mix it all together in the wheel barrel and then add to the planting area. 

#7 -Sprinkle mycorrhizae in the hole where you place your seeds or cuttings.

Mycorrhizae are fungi that form a symbiotic relationship with your plants' roots. They allow your plants to increase their ability to absorb water and nutrients from the soil. The plant provides food in the form of carbohydrates to the fungi. A match made in heaven!

Well, that's it. Sounds like a bit of trouble but the results are worth it! You will not need to fertilize your plants - this will do it all. You can double, triple, quadruple or cut this recipe in half. 

Warning: this recipe may result is lots of cooking, canning, freezing, dehydrating, and searching for friends and neighbors to take your vegetables!

When To Pick PearsSome Favorite Pear Recipes

Is it time to pick pears?

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When are Pears Ripe to Pick?
For years we've had a small espalier pear tree. It's more for decoration but it yields a dozen or so pears each year. And each year, by the time I pick them, they are too mushy to eat. 

Like many people I assumed this fruit ripens on the vine so I'd go up and squeeze the pears and see if they have ripened. Since they were always hard as a rock I let them go a bit longer.

Well it turns out that pears don't ripen on the vine which makes it a bit more tricky to know when you should pick them. But here's what to do.

Put the pear in the palm of your hand and pull it towards you until it's completely horizontal. If the pear comes off the branch easily, it's ready to pick. If it holds on the to branch, it's not ready.

Holding it horizontally, give it a little tug.
A mature pear will come off easily.

So now you have a bunch of hard pears - what to do next? If you have a lot of them, put them in the fruit bin in your refrigerator. They will store for months (at least that has been my experience and the experience of my friend Ray who has way more pears than I do.) When you want a few ripe pears, take them out and let them sit for a week or less at room temperature. 

Some say that you can tell a pear is ripe when the neck softens. But I think the best way is to smell it. When it smells like a ripe pear, it's ready to eat.

Here are some of my favorite pear recipes:

Strawberry and Pear Crisp with Nutty Hemp Seed Topping



Black Bean and Pear Taco Sliders



Pomegranate, Pear and Orange Salad



Raw Vegan Pear and Apple Crisp with Raisins



Organic Apple and Pear Bundt Cake with White Whole Wheat Flour

How To Grow Pole Beans 7 Feet High A Better Use For Tomato Cages!

A simple way to grow pole beans.

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Facebook and Pinterest.

Pole Beans 
One of the most enjoyable things about growing beans is to see how tall and how fast they grow. But let's face it, we are all tempted to grow bush beans, especially if we don't have anything for beans to climb on. Here's a really easy way to grow pole beans in a very small space with something you probably already have!

A Better Use for Tomato Cages
Tomato cages are probably the worse design in history. As the tomato plant grows, you are constantly trying to figure out how to stuff the thick stems through the narrow bottom circular ring. There are much better ways to grow and stake tomatoes, such as a square cage made of hog wire. 

As an engineer, I look for ways to use failed contraptions and since I have a pile of useless tomato cages, I thought, "why not build a tower for my beans and other climbing vegetables?" (I am also using this technique to grow cucumbers.) Here's what I did. I asked my husband Doug to demonstrate.

#1 - Place a tomato cage upside down on the growing site.
The picture shows the regular size tomato cages but for my beans, in the pictures below, I use large tomato cages. They will create a 7-foot tower. 

#2 - Insert a second tomato cage right side up into the bottom cage.

#3 - Align the cages so that they are perfectly straight.

#4 - Stake the cages in place with one or two pieces of rebar or other types of stakes.
Beans are pretty top heavy so use 2 stakes.

 #5 - Plant a bean seed at each vertical bar.
As they grow, train them to grow up the bars.

#6 - When the plant grows laterals, tie some twine from the bottom wrung to the top to provide additional vertical bars for the beans to grab.

#7 - Watch them grow!
In a very short time, my Romano beans grew 7 feet tall! And now they are cascading over the top and will make their way back down.

You might even see a hummingbird using it to take a little rest!

Several weeks later!

My Favorite Beans
My favorite beans are the Italian Romano Beans. They are quite prolific and very easy to grow. Here's what they will look like at harvest.

Last year's harvest of Romano beans.

Here are some recipes for Romano Beans:

Romano Green Bean and Garbanzo Bean Salad.

Julienne Cut French Style Green Beans.