More pepper portraits - the fish pepper. It is an old African-American heirloom variety from the Baltimore/Philadelphia area, dating back to sometime before the civil war (exact provenance not known). And now is included in Slow Food's Ark of Taste.
Portrait of the Fish Pepper, by The Grocer:
Here's what it looks like on the stem:
and here are some seed beans that I dried out on the vine -- mostly Papa di Rola, an Italian heirloom variety of pole bean:
Here's what's inside:
In March I planted the first seeds. In April I harvested the first greens. And every week since then, the garden gives up something new: first an early beet, then a pea, herbs like oregano, thyme, cilantro, lemon balm, lavendar, chamomile, basil and sage, a flurry of spinach, arugula, lettuce, collards and swiss chard and finally root vegetables like beets and carrots, miraculously untouched by garden pests. Tomatoes weigh down bushy vines, awaiting an August debut. There are peas, fava beans, and cayenne peppers. Shallots, still green, push up from the ground.
So far dining in the garden has been about garden garnishes -- herb butter, a salad flecked with fresh herbs and edible mums, a pasta made with peas, sauteed collards with caramelized onions and sweet smoked spanish paprika, salmon marinated in citrus, fresh green cayenne, oregano and cilantro.
Just this week the garden has turned a corner. We are finally creating salads entirely from the garden. Leafy greens, herb vinaigrette, chioggia beets, fresh carrots, nasturtiums, cornflowers and mums...with just a sprinkling of goat cheese. A tomato sauce made from last year's harvest, plus carrots and fresh peas. Summer rolls made from lemon mint, carrots and lettuce.
To do the math, you would be hard pressed to see the dollar value in growing your own backyard vegetables and herbs. How much did I spend this year on seeds, supplies, organic compost and soil? $1000? More? And how much would buying vegetables for the summer cost? At least half that, purchased fresh at farmer's market. But there is no dollar value I can place on the satisfaction I get from treating neighbors and friends to fresh-from-the-city-garden produce that I have grown and picked just hours, sometimes minutes before. There is no transportation cost, no questions about quality or taste. And there is something miraculous about coaxing a patch of city yard into yielding fresh, flavorful produce.
Things are coming along. Have harvested beets, arugula, rucola (Italian 'wild' arugula), spinach, swiss chard, snow peas (which I hate), radish, turnips (which I gave away), lettuces of all sorts, sage, rosemary, oregano, cilantro and a couple strawberries. Much more to come. Keeping things organic, picking bugs off by hand, weeding like crazy, and hoping I can find a spot for my leeks and melons soon, before the seedlings die.
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