An acquaintance of mine who grew up in San Diego once told me she had an avocado tree in her childhood backyard, but she didn’t like avocados at the time and never ate them. I almost cried at the thought. I adore avocados. If I could grow an avocado tree in my backyard I would eat them five times a day. They are by far and away my very favorite vegetable (well, technically they are fruit). I often eat them with a spoon, but lately I’ve been topping a platform of garlic rubbed toast with avocado for lunch. I first had avocado served this way at a little cafe (whose name escapes me) in Oakland. It is crazy good, and super fast and easy. Because this dish is so simple use your best olive oil and salt as their flavors will really shine through.

Avocado on Garlic Rubbed Toast

Serves 1

2 1-inch thick slices of good bread

1 clove garlic, peeled

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 large avocado

1/2 lemon

Maldon sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

Toast the bread until it is golden brown. Firmly rub the garlic over the top of each piece of toast (you should be left with just a nub of garlic by the time you’re done). Drizzle each piece of toast with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Gently peel away the skin. Place each half of the avocado cut side down on a cutting board and slice very thinly. Place 1/2 avocado on each piece of toast and fan the slices out slightly. Squeeze a generous amount of lemon juice over each toast, top with Maldon sea salt (or kosher salt if you don’t have Maldon) and plenty of freshly ground pepper.

To enter last week’s Free Range Chicken Garden book giveaway, I asked people to leave a comment with their favorite way to eat eggs. Scrambled or boiled with buttered toast was by far and away the most popular way to enjoy eggs. I quite enjoy eggs served that way too, but I was intrigued by Robin Wyll’s favorite recipe—an apple puff pancake–because it is so simple and uses so many eggs. At this time of year our girls each lay an egg a day, which adds up to nearly 3 dozen a week. Any recipe that calls for more than 3 eggs piques my interest and Robin’s calls for five!

I’ve made the recipe a few times now and have added my own little twist each time. First, I substituted the regular milk for almond milk because we do not usually have milk on hand at home. The next time I made it I added cardamom and vanilla. These additions made me think of chai tea, so I decided to try using strongly brewed chai tea for the liquid, rather than milk or almond milk. Delicious! The resulting pancake is probably a little less custard-y than one made with milk or cream, but it is sweet and spicy and entirely delicious. Thank you Robin! I hope you enjoy the book!

And thanks to everyone else who shared their egg eating ideas. I wish I could give away 130 copies of Jessi’s great book, but since I cannot I hope you will all still check it out. It really is a delightful and imminently useful read.

Spiced Apple Puff Pancake

Adapted from Farm Chicks in the Kitchen by Teri Edwards and Serena Thompson

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sweet cream butter (1/2 stick)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 tea spoon ground cardamon

1 apple

5 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup strongly brewed chai tea

1 teaspoon vanilla

dash of salt

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Place the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and cardamon in the center of a cast iron skillet or pie plate and then set in the oven until the butter melts and becomes bubbly (3 to 5 minutes). Meanwhile, core the apple and slice it paper thin using a mandoline or a very sharp knife. Combine the eggs, flour, tea, vanilla, and salt in a blender and blend until smooth, about 30 seconds. Take the skillet or pie plate from the oven and tilt it back and forth to coat the sides with butter. Layer the apple over the butter and sugar, bake for 2 minutes. Then, pour the batter over the apples and bake until the pancake pulls away from the edges of the skillet or pie plate and is puffed and lightly browned on top, 18 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately with warm maple syrup (and extra butter if you are feeling decadent).

Seattle is full of inspiring gardeners, including Annette Cottrell who blogs at Sustainable Eats and co-authored with Joshua McNichols the Urban Farm Handbook: City-Slicker Resources for Growing, Raising, Sourcing, Trading and Preparing What You Eat. This guide details a smart strategy for making the leap off the commercial food grid while still living in the city. The book is chock full of thrifty “why didn’t I think of that?” hints and really good recipes. But I found the section on coordinating a buying club for purchasing produce, grain, and other urban farm supplies in bulk particularly interesting.

To encourage more people to connect with their food, Annette is hosting a year long Urban Farm challenge. April is the gardening challenge month and Annette invited me to participate! My challenge to you is simple: build a trellis and grow some food on it. Taking advantage of the vertical space in your garden allows you to grow more food in the same amount of space. Plus trellises are fun to build, especially with found and recycled material, and they help make a visual focus point the in the garden. Once you get started, it is hard not to add several trellises to the garden (I’ve currently got 5 up right now).

Some of my very favorite vegetables to grow up trellises include:

‘Golden India’ snowpea

‘Satsuki Midori’ cucumber

‘Lemon’ cucumber

‘Trombetta’ summer squash

‘Mexican Sour Gherkin’

‘Delicata’ squash

‘Garden of Eden’ pole bean intermixed with climbing nasturtiums

‘Black’ cherry tomato

If you need some DIY trellis inspiration, check out these past posts:

Pea Trellis Round Up

Simple Vegetable Trellises

Using Sticks to Support Peas

Reclaimed Wood Plant Supports

DIY Cucumber Trellis

You can read more about the challenge and the prizes (and how to win them) over at Sustainable Eats. And in the meantime, be sure to let me know what you plan on trellising this summer!

Spring has finally sprung here in the Northwest! I will be in Washington this weekend talking about vegetable gardening and I hope that you’ll be able to come out to one of my events. Here’s my schedule:

Friday April 13th

Vashon Bookshop on Vashon Island at 6pm

I am super excited to hop on the Vashon ferry tomorrow afternoon and glide across the water to the island! Vashon has an amazing community of gardeners, great nurseries, and the wonderful Vashon Bookshop, who is hosting me for a talk about my new book, Grow Cook Eat: A Food-Lovers Guide to Vegetable Gardening, Including 50 Recipes, Plus Harvesting & Storage Tips. The event begins at 6:00 pm and I’m going to chat about my favorite spring crops and how to grow warm season crops in our cool climate. Plus, I’m happy to answer any of your garden questions and sign a book for you!

Saturday, April 14th

The Plant Farm in Marysville, Washington at 11:00 am

If you’ve never been to the amazing Plant Farm nursery, here’s your excuse! I’m giving a lecture (a fun one, I promise!) on my very favorite subject: extra edibles. What are “extra edibles”, you say? They are the all the wonderful, delicious crops that gardeners get to harvest and eat, like pea shoots, fava greens, kale flower buds,and green coriander. There will be a Q&A  and book signing following the talk and also great shopping!

Sunday, April 15th

Molbak’s Nursery in Woodinville, WA at 11:00

It is Molbak’s Edible Gardening Weekend! I will be at the nursery on Sunday to talk about how to grow and harvest Salad All Summer Long. A Q&A and book signing will follow the talk. It should be a great weekend to get some plants in the ground and Molbak’s is stocked up with lots of veggies seedlings and seeds. Plus, they will be giving away prizes throughout the weekend!

When I was in the Bay Area last month I made a pilgrimage to Annie’s Annuals nursery. Swoon! They of course have an amazing selection of ornamental plants, but they also offer a super cool collection of edibles. Case in point: ‘Crane Red’ kale. How can you resist a kale with a hot pink core? I cannot. I must have it! Rumor has it that this is an “ornamental” kale. I think all kales are ornamental. ‘Nero di Toscana’ is one of the most beautiful foliage plants there is. And you can eat it. Apparently ‘Crane Red’ is very popular in the florist trade because it grows quite tall and eventually forms what looks like a hot pink rose. But of course, it is not a rose. It’s kale! If you’ve sampled ‘Crane Red’, do let me know if it is worth eating. In the mean time, I’ve resolved to grow it and try eating it too. Even if it ends up tasting bad, I know it will look good.

THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED! THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED!

There are tons of chicken books out there. Books with portraits of rare and unusual chickens. Books about how to raise and care for chickens. Books about building coops. But all these books leave out a very key piece of information: how to integrate chickens into that nice garden you’ve been working to create. Turns out chickens like to eat lettuce, pea shoots, and kale, and that they love nothing better than to scratch up soil, preferably if you’ve just planted seeds there. They also poop. A lot. Usually in the middle of a pathway or on your deck chair. I’ve had chickens for four years and I wish that I could have had Jessi Bloom’s new book, Free Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard, in the beginning.

Everyone who has chickens or wants them needs this book on their shelf. Jessi is an extraordinarily talented garden designer, plant nut, and chicken keeper and her book details how to create gardens that coexist with chickens. Written in a cheerful, straightforward style, Jessi covers in detail the key aspects of raising chickens and creating a beautiful, functional outdoor space. Sprinkled throughout the book are real life examples of successful “chicken gardens”, which look gorgeous, while keeping the chickens safe and happy.

In my own garden I often focus on how to protect plants from my chickens when they free-range, a subject Jessi covers, but she goes into much more detail about designing gardens in a way to minimizes chicken damage. She covers coop placement, different free-ranging strategies, and lists plants that provide shelter and food and forage for chickens, as well as an extensive guide to chicken-resistant plants. The book also offers great advice on choosing breeds and training chickens, and features some fantastic coops and runs.

To celebrate Jessi’s remarkable book, I am participating in a virtual blog party! Myself and several other chicken-loving bloggers are giving away a copy of Jessi’s book, as well as the recently released cookbook The Fresh Egg Cookbook! To enter, please leave a comment on this post with your favorite way to cook eggs. The giveaway will run through Thursday, April 12th at which point I will choose a winner and Jessi’s publisher Timber Press, will send out copies of the books to the lucky commenter. You can join the blog party by checking out the posts by all the other partygoers. Just beware, you will surely find several new blogs you want to add to your blog roll! This is a list of super inspiring gardeners:

Jessi at http://gardenfowl.com/

Gen at http://www.northcoastgardening.com

Erica at http://www.nwedible.com/

Theresa at http://www.LivingHomegrown.com

Angela at http://myrubberboots.com/

Annette at http://www.sustainableeats.com/

Kylee at http://www.ourlittleacre.com

p.s. Angela and Theresa’s gardens are pictured in the book!

 (Images: 1. Timber Press 2. Kate Baldwin 3. Timber Press)

Sunset magazine recently released the New Sunset Western Garden Guide. Western gardeners like to call it “the gardening bible”, and this 9th edition of the book is better than ever. The little line drawings of past editions have been replaced with thousands of color photos and, as always, the book is chock full of information on plants and how to grow them successfully in your zone. The Western Garden Guide is really a wonderful starting point to begin exploring all of the varied and interesting plants (especially ornamentals and natives) that grow in the West. I was especially pleased to see that they call out plants that are important for beneficials and pollinators with an icon. As part of the book’s launch, I was invited to Sunset’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California to tour the gardens with other garden bloggers and eat breakfast in the Sunset test kitchen. It was such a wonderful morning! The test kitchen looks out over an herb garden and outdoor kitchen and the vegetable test garden is like an amazing idea lab and dream backyard garden wrapped into one. I am happy to report that the garden is not too precious. It is clearly a real garden. They have a few weeds here and there and Johanna Silver, Sunset’s test garden coordinator, admitted they have problems with squirrels and birds eating seeds and seedlings—just like the rest of us!

The garden features an amazing coop tucked away into a back corner, and it is home to a few very happy and spoiled hens. The coop was made by a local California company, Wine Country Coops. The coop sits up off the ground and has a wire floor, which allows the chickens’ droppings to fall through onto a layer of bedding below. The coop is right by the compost pile, so I imagine it is pretty easy to keep things clean and tidy (something I cannot say about my own chicken’s lame coop). They also have a generous covered run.

The test garden is about the size of a small city backyard, so there were quite a few containers scattered around and lots of trellises. My favorite was this bright orange, powder coated steel trellis. Johanna had just planted some peas at the base (and covered them up with a strip of row cover to protect them from critters).

The greenhouse is surrounded by garden beds, which helps integrate the structure into the rest of the space. During my visit the beds were filled with overwintered cool season crops.

Mature artichoke plants filled in the corners of the garden. Seeing them made me determined to grow artichokes in my own garden this summer! I love their silvery grey foliage and the architectural presence of the plants. The garden featured many other perennial edibles, including mounds of herbs and a potted lemon tree.

Sunset also loves to grow kale. I spotted ‘Red Russian’ and a curly green variety as well. Even though it gets quite hot in Menlo Park in the summer, I’m told kale can grow year round there if it is given a bit of shade during the hottest part of the year.

This pathway is composed of wooden odds and ends. I really love the pathway’s geometric design and that it made use of material that would normally be tossed aside. The Sunset garden is open to the public during their annual Celebration Weekend, which takes place this year on June 2nd and 3rd. I encourage you to go if you have the chance. You will surely walk away inspired! I know I did.

One of the best reasons to grow kale is that it produces a delightful extra edible: broccoli-like flower buds. Kale belongs to the Brassica (cabbage) family and it is a biennial, which means that it spends its first growing season developing a strong root system and leaves. In most climates it survives the winter (it needs a bit of protection in colder zones) and then it flowers and goes to seed in the second year. Right now all the kale in my garden is topped with a loose topknot of buds. I recently pinched some of the top buds back to encourage more to form at the leaf axils—the point where the leaves join the main stem. I’m also continuing to harvest the kale’s leaves, which we saute, roast, and puree in smoothies.

Sometimes the flower buds of brassicas are referred to as rabe or raab, which is derived from rapa and means turnip in Italian. Kale, mustard greens, Brussels sprouts, turnips, bok choy, chinese cabbage, and broccoli rabe (pictured below) all produce delicious flower buds that absolutely deserve to be eaten instead of tossed into the compost pile. I harvest them when the buds are tightly packed, just ready to burst open, and flowering—they are delightful at every stage. The yellow blossoms taste like their parent plant, only sweeter with a floral undertone. We like to lightly steam rabe or saute it with garlic and olive oil and then finish it off with a squirt of lemon juice and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and sea salt. Yum!

Yesterday I finally had a chance to  get outside for some much needed garden time. My garden is a bit of a disaster at the moment, but luckily I had my four bird brained companions, Inky, Clyde, Bumble and Boo, to “help” me clean up. I started by harvesting the remains of our Swiss chard, arugula, broccoli rabe, purple sprouting broccoli and kale flower buds. I tossed the stalks and assorted leaves into the chicken run for them to snack on. I don’t have a wheelbarrow at the moment, so I emptied out the compost bin one tub trug at a time and spread the compost over three of my beds. It was really satisfying to see last year’s yard waste return to the garden. Then I gathered up weeds and spent vegetables, raked up the decomposing straw in the pathways, and tossed it all into the compost pile. I ended the day by planting a few lettuce seedlings and some radishes in my trough containers.

I’ve still got quite bit to do to get my garden in ship shape for spring, including:

* Move the portable chicken coop over the weedy area behind our garage (my plan is to let the girls do my weeding for me).

* Re-seed doggie-destroyed areas of the lawn

* Trim wisteria (which is threatening world domination) and flowering jasmine (which is eating the garage)

* Pre-sprout peas and plant them

* Direct sow carrots, radishes, spinach, mustard greens, arugula and turnips

* Plant kale seedlings

* Plant artichokes

* Buy and plant bare root strawberries

* Construct hoop houses over beds (to protect the crops from cabbage maggot fly—eww!–and carrot rust fly)

* Plant greens in my wooden crates

* Plan my new herbal tea garden (several kinds of mint, bee balm, and lemon verbena are on the list)

So what’s on your chore list right now? I’d love to hear!

I am jetting down to San Francisco later this month for a 10 day tour of the Bay Area. I can hardly wait to shop for seeds in Chinatown, soak up some sunshine, and meet lots of other vegetable gardeners. I’ve been working hard to put together a series of great events, not just in San Francisco, but in the greater Bay Area as well. I will be speaking at the The Seed Bank in Petaluma, which is a Baker Creek Heirloom Seed store housed in an old bank! The following day, the wonderful Ruth Bancroft Garden is hosting me for a very fun event. I’ll be talking about all the delicious extra edibles like pea shoots and we will be sampling recipes from the book. Then I head to the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, which is actually held in San Mateo, for a talk on Saturday. While I am there I can’t wait to shop at the Annie’s Annuals booth and look at the display gardens at the Show. The following week I will be in San Francisco for two wonderful events, first at Book Passage in the fabulous food paradise that is the Ferry Terminal Market. I am also very excited that I was invited to speak at Omnivore Books, which is a store filled with cookbooks (swoon!!).

If you live in Northern California, I hope you will come out to one of the events (and bring your friends!). I will be signing books at each event!

Succession Planning 101 at The Seed Bank

What: Even small vegetable gardens can produce a remarkable amount and variety of food. All it takes is a little planning! Planting food in intervals throughout the season – a practice known as succession planting – allows you to keep your garden full and productive from spring through fall (and even into winter). This talk covers basic succession planting strategies, walks you through a three-season succession planting plan, and gives you ideas for simplifying and streamlining the process.

When: Thursday, March 22nd at 7pm

Where: The Seed Bank, 199 Petaluma Boulevard North, Petaluma, CA 94952

Grow Cook Eat: Gourmet Gardening Tips!

What: In this presentation I’m excited to introduce some overlooked, but delicious, edible crops, including pea shoots, green coriander seed, and garlic scapes! We will also enjoy some samples of the recipes in the book!

When: Friday, March 23rd from 6pm to 8pm

Where: The Gardens at Heather Farm, 1540 Marchbanks Drive, Walnut Creek CA (hosted by the Ruth Bancroft Garden)

Gourmet Gardening Hosted at the SF Flower & Garden Show

What: At the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show I will be discussing how to grow gourmet quality vegetables at home. You’ll learn about how to grow and harvest delicious extra edibles and I will share some of my very favorite varieties, including ‘Purple Peacock’ broccoli and ‘Golden India’ snow pea.

When: Saturday, March 24th at 3:15 in the Meeting Pavillion

Where: The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show at the San Mateo Event Center (conveniently located where Highway 101 meets 92)

From the Herb Garden to the Kitchen: Cooking Demo at Book Passage

What: Learn how to grow herbs and infuse their flavor into your everyday recipes! In this hands-on workshop I’m going to share tips for growing the best spring herbs (think parsley, chives, and dill) and demonstrate how to make a delicious compound butter flavored with garden fresh herbs. Plus, I will be answering your most pressing vegetable gardening questions.

When: Monday, March 26th at 6:00 pm

Where: Book Passage at the Ferry Building, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, California, 94111

Grow Cook Eat: A Reading and Talk at Omnivore Books

What: In this fun evening at Omnivore Books, I will be talking about my favorite subject: exploring all the wonderful food available to gardeners. I will share how to grow and harvest ephemeral treats like radish greens, garlic scapes, and green coriander seeds, talk about cooking with fresh food from the garden. There will also be a Q&A!

When: Wednesday, March 28th from 6:00 to 7:00 pm

Where: Omnivore Books, 3885a Cesar Chavez Street(at Church Street), San Francisco, CA 94131