Onions, garlic, leeks a dynamic trio in Gourmet Kitchens

Onions, leeks and garlic played an important role in Egyptian history and probably are the most cherished edible treasures in any given gourmet kitchen today.

It is believed that onions and leeks were considered sacred and artists re-created their images on the ancient Egyptian tombs and monuments. It also is reputed that garlic was supplied to all the builders of the great pyramids to keep them healthy. Ideally, late November is the best time to plant this dynamic trio (Zone 14)but if you get out there soon, you will still get an excellent crop.

The onion is one of the hardiest of vegetable-garden plants and prefers a sunny location with a fine loose soil.

Amend heavier ground with compost or manure in an area that is free of weeds. The key to growing big, beautiful onions is to encourage the onion tops to grow as rapidly as possible, which means lots of fertilizer early on. Since onions have a coarse, small root system, side-dress the plants with fertilizer as close to the plants as you can or foliar feed them.

Once bulbing begins, there is no point in fertilizing anymore because the onion's size already is determined by the size of the top.

Harvest onions when the tops have fallen over, leaving them to dry somewhere shady for a couple of weeks before braiding or storing.

Leeks are another garden favorite; they are similar to onions only far sweeter and not nearly as pungent. One of the advantages of growing your own leeks is that they are free of the irritating grit that often is trapped between the layers of commercially grown leeks.

Select a spot in the garden that has a light rich soil in which to plant your leeks. The easiest way to plant is to dig trenches and line leek seedlings up six inches apart along the bottom of each trench and then cover the roots with soil. You will gradually fill in the trenches with soil over the next several weeks as part of the growing process. When the leeks reach the thickness of pencils, carefully add more soil to the trench. Repeat in another two weeks by filling the trench flush with the level of the soil surface.

Pull more soil or aged compost up around the plant stems twice more during the growing season and wait for harvest. Take great care when adding or when hilling up the soil; avoid having dirt fall into the whorl of the leek's leaves. Garlic also needs a fertile loose soil with lots of organic matter. It is really important that the soil is loose to prevent compaction through the long growing season.

Plant individual cloves from a garlic bulb in 1-inch holes. Immediately after planting, apply a layer of mulch on top. In spring, the garlic will have no trouble pushing through an inch of organic material. This also is the time to side-dress the garlic with a little chicken manure, seedmeal or strong compost tea fertilizer.

Garlic likes high-nitrogen fertilizers so foliar feed the plants every 10 days to two weeks until bulbs begin to form. Once bulbing begins, fertilizing is useless and may even be harmful to getting the best quality bulbs. The time to harvest is when all the leaves have completely browned off. Gently lift the bulbs out of the soil with a spading fork and do not wash.

Drying is the essential part of curing the bulbs. Place your garlic in a shaded well-ventilated area to dry. The plants should cure in three weeks to two months, depending on the humidity and air circulation. Bon appetit!

Photo courtesy of The Label Man. All kinds of cool antique seed packets, fruit crate labels and more. Visit: www.thelabelman.com

Rustica Minestrone Soup- Buy, Cook and Eat Local

Nothing tastes better on a cold winter's night than a bowl of homemade minestrone soup. This variation is a fast track method where it doesn't need to cook all day and can easily be done in two hours. The key is season everything separately as you go.

Soup Base Ingredients:
1 32oz Chicken Broth
1 32oz Beef Broth
1 28 oz Diced Tomatoes
1 19 oz Black Beans
2 Bay Leaves

Place above ingredients in your stock pot and bring to a boil then tone it down to a simmer.

Next start on your vegi's.

Dice/rough cut:
2 zuchini
1 cup green beans
1 carrot
2 cloves of garlic

Season with salt, pepper, Herbs De Provence (preferably from Central Coast Lavender Farm)olive oil and Balsamic vinegar. Place in pan and oven roast. Grill one Jalapeno pepper by itself.

Dice/rough cut:

2 medium onions (set aside)

Dice/rough cut:

2 medium tomatoes

Season with Herbs De Provence, salt and a teaspoon on sugar. Set aside for the moment.

One item you may not have on hand is my secret nopales base which I keep on hand in 8oz. containers in my freezer. This is a combo of diced noplales, tomatoes and chipotle peppers in adobe sauce that has been cooked down. I believe you could achieve the same type of flavor by adding one or two chipotle peppers diced to give the soup that smokey flavor. Look for the 7oz can of Embasa Chipotle Peppers in Adobe Sauce.

Add to the simmering soup (an hour into the process):

1 cup of my nopales mixture or 2 diced Chipotle peppers

An hour and a half into it add grilled roasted vegi's and the lonely Jalapeno pepper (diced).

Saute onions until transparent and add to soup.

Add two cups cooked pasta. Traditional people use ditalini pasta but I like to use bow tie because it looks pretty and tastes just as good.

Next, sear your tomatoes in a very hot pan with a tbsp. of olive oil. Turn off heat and throw in 1 lb of spinach, cover until wilted.

Put tomato and spinach mixture into pot the last fifteen minutes of cooking.

Serve in a BIG bowl and top with Romano cheese if so desired.

Magical mistletoe's roots grow in the air, not in the Earth

Mistletoe is one of the most magical plants of folklore, and almost all of the written history concerns the European mistletoe, Viscum alba, which found its way into American culture.

Phoradendron, though similar, is a different genus and is commonly found in America. Both types of mistletoe grow on a wide range of deciduous trees mainly from south central Oklahoma to southwestern Texas and Mexico. They are not commonly found on oaks (except for the oak mistletoe of California P. villosum) but favor apple, sycamore, ash alder and fruit trees.

Mistletoe seeds are produced on female plants inside small white berries, which have sticky flesh and are spread by birds. The seeds germinate and then penetrate the young, thin bark on trees and form a haustorium (freely branched structure), which penetrates the cambium and eventually the wood.

The mystic plant whose roots grew in the air and not in the earth was considered sacred from earliest times by cultures from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.

Mistletoe was considered masculine and associated with the sun, the element of air and the gods Apollo, Freya, Frigga, Venus and Odin. The French claim it once was a tree, but when it was used to make Christ's cross it was cursed and denied a place on Earth, so it became a parasite.

The tradition of hanging mistletoe above doorways for lovers to kiss beneath on the winter solstice, Dec. 23rd, or on Christmas Day originated from the pagan Baldur myth or Catholic St. Baldur myth.

Baldur, the god of peace, was slain with an arrow made of mistletoe. He was sent to the Otherworld to await the day when he would return to Earth to usher in a new era. Freyja, the goddess of love and mother of Baldur, dedicated the plant to the love felt for her son. She decreed that anyone passing beneath it must receive a kiss to show tribute to the "symbol of love."

The mistletoe of the sacred oak was especially divine to the ancient Celtic druids; the plant was the focus of solstice rites. On midsummer's eve or when the moon was six days old, mistletoe was harvested from a scared oak while the community gathered around. Using a golden, crescent-shaped sickle in token of the moon goddess, the priest cut the mistletoe, which was caught in a white cloth before it touched the ground.

The conjunction with the sickle created a union between druid and mistletoe, moon and sun, earth and sky, causing a spark to be drawn down into the body.

This represents the Day of Liberation, a celebration of that extra day of the year.

Druids and many European cultures used mistletoe medicinally for convulsions, delirium, hysteria, neuralgia and heart conditions.

Anthroposophical medicine introduced Iscador, a remedy used in Germany to this day for patients suffering from cancer. It was first believed to be tumor-inhibiting, but now it is widely used to improve the patients' quality of life and to reduce tumor-induced symptoms and side-effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

In the US, mistletoe "holds interest as a potential anticancer agent because extracts derived from it have shown to kill cancer cells in vitro" but the FDA has not approved of any forms of the extract.

As this important research continues in Germany (with recent successful experiments), it certainly keeps with the belief of its magical qualities. Perhaps someday we will have peace from the horrible diseases of life.

With it's Royal Heritage, Sweet Pea is the Princess of the Garden

Blue Ripple

If the rose is the queen of flowers, the sweet pea is truly the princess of the garden. If you have visions of garden walls and patios covered by clouds of flowering sweet peas this spring, now is the last chance to get those seeds planted.

I live in Sunset Zone 14 and I'm planting sweet peas now so I'll have a burst of bloom come spring that will prompt stares from passers-by. Sweet peas can also be planted all the way into February. The later you plant the later they bloom, making for a wonderful Summertime display.

Father Cupani, a Franciscan monk, reportedly sent sweet pea (Lathyrous odoratus) seeds to Dr. Uvedale, a schoolmaster at Enfield School, Middlesex, England, in 1699. By 1860, there were nine known varieties.

In 1878, Henry Eckford, a Scotsman who made his home in Wem England, and who has been called a genius of sweet pea breeding, began crossing varieties. He was honored the Victoria Medal of Honour from The Royal Horticultural Society for his efforts in developing one of the most wonderful garden plants.

Since he was the gardener to the Earl of Spencer, the varieties he bred are known as the Spencer types. At the time of his death in 1905, he had developed more than 300 varieties, many of which survive today.

Locally just a few kinds of sweet peas are available on racks, but seed catalogs have more choices. Seeds often are sold as mixtures that produce as many as eight different flower colors.

One mail-order company that specializes in Spencer type varieties is Enchanting Sweet Peas, which acquires its seed stock directly from a 100-year+ old English seed company (a fourth-generation family grower). Many of the varieties are available in an assortment of colors; for example, the Cottage Garden Collection includes five varieties of 10 seeds each, perfect for the small garden.

The varieties are: Gwendoline (rose lilac with white), Jacqueline Ann (lavender with white Flush), Noel Sutton (blue sapphire), Sylvia Mary (sunset pink), and White Supreme (white).

Individual varieties also can be acquired, or you can choose to create your own collection. One type that caught my eye is Oban Bay, which is a light silvery blue and generally produces for to five blossoms per stem. The topmost blooms are a lighter shade (almost white) calling to mind the foam of the waves of Scotland's Oban Bay.

You can accelerate germination by pre-sprouting seeds: scatter the seeds evenly over a paper towel and cover them with another towel, then roll them up like a diploma, moisten and put the roll in a plastic bag in a warm area. As soon as the tiny sprouts emerge, plant the seeds in a good loamy soil with composted manure in a sunny location.

Sweet pea seeds are poisonous, so keep them out of the reach of children.

Many of the Spencer varieties are known as climbing types (six to nine feet tall) and need vertical support.

It is easiest to set your trellis in place before planting, after you prepare the soil. Plant the seeds into the soil one inch deep, spaced about two inches apart in a four-inch-wide band along the trellis line. Keep soil moist until the seedlings emerge from the soil. When plants are four inches tall, thin them to six inches apart.

The best way to keep your plants healthy and pest-free is to regularly foliar-feed the plants with a weak manure tea or fish emulsion. This will make the foliage distasteful to aphids and stimulate plant growth; keeping them nice and green.

Remember the old rule of thumb: The more bouquets you pick (and give away), the more blooms you get (and smiles too).