Pillow Road

Artichokes are ready to be picked. And so are asparagus. These green vegetables are really the first taste of spring.

I have about five mature artichoke plants and three more which were planted late in the fall and are still small. Now the only task is to get to them before the earwigs do.

I steamed two artichokes for dinner Saturday. The leaves were thin and tender, not fibrous as some are. Very flavorful. I let Glenda know we were eating them, just to make her envious.

The asparagus are coming up, too. I cut about a dozen stalks. They are still a bit on the scrawny side; I may have to replant the bed next year. I also steamed the asparagus and they were delicious with steak and boiled potatoes.

The lambs are about three months old now. They certainly have put on weight. Their tails are now short, the longer part having fallen off. We docked the tails by applying a rubber band to cut off circulation. The longer part of the tail shrunk over the course of six weeks or so and finally fell off.

This duck needs no introduction.

Last weekend, I planted seeds — I’m usually overeager to begin this rite of spring. I go through the catalogs and I see what seeds I have on hand from previous years. I try to remember what seeds worked well last year. But this is couch work. Gardening starts calling you outside.

Each season begins with seed starter and seeds, and the idea that warmer weather is not too far off. First, I planted turnips from seed out in the garden. The soil may be too cool for them to start but I thought I’d try sowing two rows.

I also started five kinds of tomato seeds in the greenhouse, along with several other vegetables that can be planted weeks ahead of the last frost date. (I’ve been away for the week after planting them and I came back today to find that many had sprouted.)

There’s a lot to know about seeds — how long they last in storage, for instance, and the different ways to coax seeds to germinate. I followed one recommendation to start seeds on a moist paper towel, which is wrapped up and placed in a plastic bag.

As I was working with a range of seeds, I noticed just how different various seeds actually are from one another — even from plants that you might think would be more similar. So here’s an exercise — identify the seeds in the photo below. I’m practically giving you the turnip to start and there’s two root vegetables in the mix.

Click through to the annotated version of this photo on Flickr to see if you know your veggies and their seeds.

I do believe my chickens were taking a dustbath out in the yard now that we’ve had several days of dry weather. (We had a high of 79 degrees today.)

Dust Bath: A behavior pattern whereby chickens dig themselves a hole in the ground and immerse themselves in the loosened earth, rolling around and trying to get as dirty as possible. Dust bathing is an important defense against mites and lice, and if they don’t have access to a dust bath, they need an artificial dust bath set up indoors.

(from a glossary on mypetchicken.com)

Indoors, you say?

You can say it the way the Monty Python skit says “The Larch,” to embark on a subject of study. I present to you the slimy, goo-producing, hermaphroditic, stretching-out stomach-foot, the unappetizing slow-crawler of the night. The Slug.

• “Slugs and snails are classified as gastropods. They are more similar to clams and mussels than to other common garden pests such as insects.” (from Colorado State University Extension service.)
  
• “The word gastropod is almost funny: It’s derived from the classical Greek word gastros meaning stomach, and podos meaning foot. Watching aquarium snails grazing, you may think that “stomach-foot” is a good name for them!” (from Backyard Nature.)
  
• “A total of seventeen native species (of slugs) in six genera are
  known from California.” (from “Slugs: A Guide to Invasive and Native Fauna in California.“[PDF])
  
• “Both snails and slugs are the only terrestrial mollusk. … Essentially, the only difference between slugs and snails is that snails carry coiled shells on their backs while slugs don’t. Both have eyes at the tips of short stalks arising below the base of much longer, more slender tentacles – these tentacles feel what the simple eyes may not see. The radular mouths of these gastropods are directed downward so that food can be taken from the surface over which they travel. And finally, all gastropods have a single, broad, muscular, flat-bottom foot which propels them with the help of a special gland in the foot that secretes mucous. (from DavisWiki.)
  
• The common garden snail is the slowest moving animal and can travel about 0.03 mph (0.05 kph).” (from DavisWiki.)
  
• “One adaptation enabling land snails and slugs to survive on land is their ability to produce plenty of slimy mucous. This mucous prevents the animals’ body moisture from being soaked up by dry terrain and protects the animal’s fleshy underparts from sharp objects. Snails and slugs can actually glide across a razor blade without being cut. During the dry season, snails and slugs bury themselves in the soil or another protected spot.” (from DavisWiki.)
  
• “Mucous also serves as a defensive mechanism when a predator such as a toad snatches up a seemingly defenseless slug. The slug secretes such quantities of the stuff that after the toad chews a few times, it finds its mouth clogged with sticky, gooey slime.” (from DavisWiki.)
  
• “Slugs are trans-gender, hermaphroditic with both male and female sex organs. They are first males, developing female reproductive organs when mature. Slug courtship is not for the faint-hearted. It is elaborate, sustained, and usually results in the transfer of genetic material between two slugs.” (from Oregon State University’s Nursery IPM Slug/Snail pages.)
  
• “Slugs reach maturity after about 3 to 6 months, depending on the species, and lay clear, oval to round eggs in batches of 3 to 40 beneath leaves, in soil cracks, and in other protected areas.” (from PESTNOTES from UC Davis.)
  
• “They can stretch to 20 times their normal length enabling them to squeeze through tiny openings to get at food.” (from Golden Harvest organics site.)
  
• 
  “Spring and fall are also the best times to control both slugs and snails. Feeding generally occurs at night. In the morning slime trails can often be seen where slugs and snails were the night before.” (from Living with Bugs.)
  
• “To sum a slug, it is magnificently designed to deconstruct. This can be a little unsettling to those who like to produce.” (from Oregon State University’s Nursery IPM Slug/Snail pages.)
  

This is all to say that slugs are fascinating on paper but in the garden, they are devastating pests. At this time of year, with all the rain, they are everywhere. They eat everything. We fill some shallow plastic containers with old beer. The slugs slide into this taverny trap and never leave. Below is a life-ending slug swimming hole buried among the strawberry plants.

Final note: “Leaving dead slug bodies in the traps may also attract slugs.” (from
(from Oregon State University’s Nursery IPM Slug/Snail pages.)

In January, I found a variety of mushrooms around the yard and photographed them. This was just before some heavy rainfall that wiped them out.

I shared the photos with Joe Szuecs of Renga Arts who knows mushrooms and he helped me identify them. (Having a couple of photos of a mushroom is not the same as identifying them in the field.)

Amanita Muscaria

Laccaria laccata or L. amethysta

Not sure

probably some sort of Mycena

Boletus zelleri

Helvella lacunosa

Cauliflower Mushroom

This cauliflower mushroom was quite large — and brain-like. It is also edible so I brought it inside. While washing it in the sink, I found dozens of insects from earwigs to millipedes living within its folds.
I boiled the whole mushroom — so big it wouldn’t easily fit in the pot. I added some pieces of it to a stew. The taste was mild and it had a woody scent, pretty much what you’d expect. I created a broth from the mushroom but I found I couldn’t really tackle eating much of the mushroom itself. Maybe it was the thought of more insects. Maybe it was the tortuous foldings. Maybe it was too old.

Okay, I was squeamish. Such as it is.

The rain pelted West County this week. As of tonight, my weather station recorded 8.75 inches of rain from the storm. The most rain fell on Wednesday, 3.05 inches. We’ve had 11.22 inches this month. Last year, we had .92 inches of rain in January.

There was a break in the rain this morning but it rained off and on today – about a third of an inch. I walked around checking on things and I took some photos.

I let the lambs and their mother outside their pasture on Saturday. The lambs would run away from their mother, amuse themselves for a bit and then run back. I caught a segment of them playing on video when they notice that Mom is moving on.

Some years ago around Christmas, I visited Argentina and fell in love with empanadas. They are small pastries that usually come with a meat filling. In Buenos Aires, you can find small shops that sell them as a specialty. They are ordinary, everyday pleasures but also a delicacy.

I’ve wanted to re-create those empanadas. I’ve been disappointed several times when I’ve ordered them in a restaurant, and even a version I had in Spain didn’t match the little treats I enjoyed in Argentina.

So I made my own empanadas over the holidays and here’s how they turned out.

The secret of empanadas is the pastry, which means that butter makes all the difference (1-1/2 sticks). I made the dough in advance and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few days until I was ready to make them.

I found a good recipe in Cook’s Illustrated online. (It requires a subscription.) Here is a similar empanada dough recipe at laylita.com. You mix the ingredients in a food processor and roll it into a ball. This can be refrigerated and it is a good idea to do so even if you are making them the same day.

When you’re ready to make the empanadas, roll out the dough on a floured surface. I read that the dough should be about 1/8 of an inch thick. Next, you’ll cut out circles. The recipe said to use a 3″ biscuit cutter. Mine was about 2.5″ in diameter. Choose different sizes if you like. The small ones are nice as appetizers and in a tapas-type of meal. You can make them larger, but there’s something nice in keeping them bite-size.

I put the discs on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. I cooked a meat and cheese filling, which wasn’t particularly special. I also made a spinach filling for my family’s vegetarians. A teaspoon of filling on half the disc is all that’s needed. Then fold one half over the filling and use a fork to press and seal the edge.

I made about two trays, totaling about 40 empanadas. I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. Before they went into the oven, I brushed egg yolk over the tops. I cooked them about 25 minutes and then let them cool down a bit.

I served them with a beet salad, made with rainbow beets from the garden and a homemade split-pea soup, which was based on a nice Deborah Madison recipe that didn’t call for blending the vegetables.) The empanadas stood out, and everyone loved them.

I had some dough leftover and several days made another batch of larger-sized empanadas, served again as an accompaniment to soup.

I could see getting into a routine of making empanadas regularly, keeping a ball of dough in the fridge. I could experiment with a variety of different fillings.

I’d bet that empanadas would be a hit with young kids as well, a good way to show a little love for the little ones.