Of Nuts & Mice

  How could I resist? Road crews that had been trimming trees along power lines were finishing up work almost right in front of my house with a whole truckload of wood chips. Spreading chips had not been on my “to do” list; now it was, right after the crew graciously dumped contents of the truck in a space between my chestnut trees.

Chestnuts are trees of the forest. Mine, like many of those deliberately planted, have grass at their feet. The wood chips, I reasoned, would make the ground more home-like for the trees. Forest soils are typically overlaid with a layer of organic (that is, living or once living) materials: fallen leaves, twigs, limbs. These organic materials rot, in the process releasing nutrients as well as putting nutrients already in the soil in forms more readily accessible to plants. The organic feast encourages fungi, bacteria, and other soil life, all of which generally keep insect pests and diseases at bay.

In addition to nutritional and biological goodness, any organic material also brings physical goodness. Rainwater more easily percolates into the ground and, once within, the water is retained by the spongy, decomposed organic matter. At the same time, soil aeration is improved. It’s the best of of both worlds: more moisture plus more air at root level. No wonder I couldn’t resist.

People sometimes ask if I care what kind of chips I am getting. The answer is “no.” People sometimes ask if I’m worried about termites in the chips. Again, “no.” Termites require intact wood for their tunnels. What about “nitrogen tie-up,” which temporarily starves plants for nitrogen when high-carbon materials, such as wood chips, are added to the soil and microorganisms, which are better at garnering soil nitrogen than are plants, go to work. Again, I’m not concerned. Nitrogen tie-up only occurs if chips are mixed INTO the soil, promoting rapid decomposition.

Some people believe in using gourmet chips, also known as ramial chips, which means , according to chip aficionadas, wood chips made from branches no larger than 2-3/4 inches in diameter, and preferably from deciduous trees. So before I had my load of chips dumped I had the road crew climb into their truck to separate out the good from the bad chips -- just kidding! There’s not much, actually nothing at all, to support chip aficionadas’ claims. I’ll take and took any and all chips.

Come autumn, perhaps I’ll round out the soil diet with a load of leaves.

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I am a big fan of black walnuts. Last autumn’s harvest has been cracked, shelled and squirreled away to enjoy in the months ahead. The latest buzz on black walnuts, though, is about their sap, which reputedly boils down into a tasty syrup, similar to maple syrup.

Almost all parts of walnut trees contain a compound, juglone, that is toxic or growth-stunting to many types of plants. This makes me wary about ingesting the sap, especially after it has been concentrated into a syrup.

Still, curiosity got the upper hand so I put a tap into a black walnut tree a few weeks ago, gathered sap, and then boiled it down into a syrup of similar consistency to maple syrup.

My report: Very good flavor, slightly different from maple sugar, perhaps with a hint of black walnut flavoring. (The latter could be my imagination.) And I’m still alive.

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One of the last legacies of winter are the “bare ankles” at the bases of some trees and shrubs. Bare because they have no bark.

Those bare ankles are the handiwork of mice. Snuggled beneath the snow, warm and safe from aerial predators, mice could munch away to their heart’s content on bark. The problem is that the bark layer is where nutrients and water are conducted up from the roots and down from the leaves.

Stripped stems will likely die, which could mean death for the whole plant if it’s a tree, it’s young, and it was weak. Or if it’s a species that does not sprout readily when cut back. Otherwise, new sprouts will grow from below the stripped region. If the plant is a tree, the most vigorous of the new sprouts can be trained as a new trunk. If the plant is a shrub, new sprouts will fill in.

No need to sit back and bemoan the damage. Bridge grafting, whereby lengths of stem are grafted below and above the stripped area, will repair damage. And a good cat will avert it in the first place.

Books to Forage By, or Not

   I’m more of a cultivated-food type guy than a wild-food type guy. I like to be able to go right out my back door to grab a tomato from a row of tomato plants than have to hike into the woods for a few nibbles of American black currants.

With that said, plenty of overlooked foods -- wild plants -- grow right at our feet. Plenty of chickweed makes its way in among my early spring lettuces, and more purslane than I could possibly eat insinuates itself at the feet of my corn plants. Black raspberries grow in a semi-cultivated state along the edge of woods here. And when I do head for a walk in field or forest, how nice to come upon wineberries and other refreshing, wild treats. And not everyone has a garden (shudder the thought!).

If, for one reason or another, you’re hankering for some wildness on your plate and you’re at a loss of what purslane, chickweed, or wineberry is, or what to do with them, help is on the way in the form of two books: Foraging & Feasting, by local herbalist Dina Falconi, and Foraged Flavor, by wild-food-to-NYC-restaurants-purveyor Tama Matsuoka Wong. The best thing about both these books is that they really use foraged food as . . .  well, food. Not a nibble here, a nibble there. Dina’s “Creamed Wild Greens” packs in 1/2 pound of chopped greens such as nettle, amaranth, and lamb’s quarter. Toma’s “Chilled Mango Soup with Sweet Spruce Tips” is flavored with 1/4 cup of spruce tips. Both books are a great leap forward from the Euell Gibbon’s 1970s classic Stalking the Wild Asparagus, in which it seemed that every wild plant was made palatable with a large dollop of bacon fat. (Then again, Toma’s soup is sweetened with 1/4 cup of sugar and Dina’s wild greens with 1/4 cup of your choice of butter, lard, chicken fat, olive oil, coconut oil, or tallow.)

Both books start out introducing the plants. Toma does it with a clear photograph of each. Dina’s does it with the beautiful, botanical colored-pencil drawings of Wendy Hollender, each page with details and notes on particular features of a plant as well as something about their habitat, life cycle, means of reproduction, size, and various culinary uses. Also, any cautionary notes, such as the note that comfrey can cause liver damage or cancer. (Dina, on the basis of comfrey’s long use and her moderate consumption of it, pooh-poohs the danger, although I personally would not take anecdotal evidence as my guide.) Getting into the recipes, Toma’s book is arranged seasonally, Dina’s according to use, such as soup, condiment, dessert, etc.

So which is the book to buy for a good book about foraging? Both! The recipes are quite different. The approaches are quite different. Even the wild plants are somewhat different. Toma makes no mention of American black currant; Dina makes no mention of wineberry. But then, wild fruits are my favorite wild edibles, once I venture beyond my garden gates.

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Let’s flip the coin and rather than going mostly afield, bring some wildness into the garden. Into Michael Judd’s garden, in Frederick, MD, as described in his book Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist. This is a fun book, in its writing, in its photographs (one case in point is the cover photo of a berry-smeared, happy little boy holding a bowlful of berries), and in its illustrations. It’s also got good, solid information. My only beef with this book is the lack of an index.

I find many permaculture books ponderous. Not Michael’s, as evidenced by the “twist” in the title. I have been accused of practicing permaculture but contend that my farmden is, at best, permaculturesque. (For more on my permaculture perspective, see http://leereich.blogspot.com/2010/09/looking-around-at-my-fruit-trees-and.html.) Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist is a good introduction to a lot of arenas: rainwater harvesting, gardening, building an earthen oven, growing mushrooms, making wine. In the permaculture tradition of integrating various components of a homestead, here’s part of Michael’s instructions for building an earth oven: “ . . . buy a case of really good microbrew in bottles and empty them, preferably down your gullet. These empty bottles are going to be part of your base-floor insulation.” He goes on, “I’ve found Flying Dog varieties to work really well,” hoping, he states, for “some sponsorship.”

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Not all plants in the field, forest, farm, farmden, or garden are friendly. Enter Poisonous and Psychoactive Plants, a short, illustrated guide by Jim Meuninck.

Plants can’t always be neatly placed in either the edible, the poisonous, or the psychoactive box. Pokeweed, for example, is listed in the “Poisonous Wild Plants” chapter but, as the author points out, it is edible if picked at the right time and prepared properly. (Neither Dina nor Toma include pokeweed in their books.) Interestingly, Aloe vera, used for so many skin ailments, is said to cause contact dermatitus in sensitive people. Similarly, some people are allergic to hops. Jimson weed is listed as both a poisonous plant and as a (dangerous) psychoactive plant. The book, with telling photos for all of the plants, is, of course, replete with the usual suspects: poison hemlock, foxglove, angel’s trumpet, oleander, and others.

First aid is listed for all plants in the book, although part of that listed for marijuana is suspect: “Physical and emotional support will carry the day. Keep in mind that the individual may not be able to rise for a restroom excursion.”

All four books can carry you further afield to expand your palette, and keep you from going too far afield.

Winter's Legacy and Spring Forward

This winter’s cold is most evident on bamboo. Clumps of tawny, dead leaves, still attached to the canes, stare out from among the trunks and stems of dormant trees and shrubs. I hadn’t realized that bamboo was so widely planted. The depth of cold isn’t what killed the canes and leaves; it was the duration of cold. Seventy miles south of here, leaves of yellow groove bamboo, Phyllostachys aureosulcata, among the most cold hardy of the thick-caned bamboos, typically stay green and fresh all winter, but even they’ve been killed.

My bamboo, before pruning

No, the plants aren’t dead; just their canes and leaves. Warm weather will coax new shoots from the roots, shoots that will push skyward rapidly. I’ve measured as much as 6 inches of elongation per day. The record for bamboo growth, not around here, of course, is almost 3 feet in one day!  (That little tidbit comes from Bamboo, by Susanne Lucas, a beautiful, new book -- in its binding, photographs, and clear writing -- that provides an introduction to the culture, horticulture, and myriad uses of bamboo. Read it and you also will want to grow bamboo. For even more in-depth information on bamboo botany, culture, and uses, I turn to the no-frills book, The Book of Bamboo, by David Farrelly. )

Once bamboo shoots stop their skyward ascent, the walls of the canes begin to thicken. Canes that survive winter with green leaves intact don’t grow any taller in subsequent years. Cane diameters remain constant as they thicken within, in so doing becoming more useful for stakes, fencing, gates, and structures in the garden and beyond. Eventually, whether winter temperatures are frigid or mild, a cane dies.

Bamboo, after pruning almost all of it down to the ground

Dead canes, weather from age or from winter cold, eventually need to be removed to keep a grove looking spry. For my planting, I decided on the dramatic approach, cutting virtually the whole planting to the ground.  I used a lopper, attacking canes one at a time, then a machete to remove side shoots with leaves from canes worth saving -- not an easy job but one that yielded an abundance of useful canes. Now, what to do with my stockpile?

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As winter freezes have segued into capricious spring frosts, seedlings need to be readied for the great outdoors. In a greenhouse, on a windowsill, or beneath fluorescent lights, these plants lead a coddled life. Outside, life is tougher: temperatures swing 50 degrees in a 24 hour period, winds whip tender leaves, and intense sunlight beats down.

What these plants need is a couple of weeks of acclimatization -- “hardening off.” Not too quickly and not too severely, though, or leaves could burn or flowers could appear prematurely; a plant could even die from shock. The thing to do is to find some cozy spot outdoors for the transplants, a spot that is sheltered from wind and receives sun for only part of the day, or else dappled sun all day. After about a week, the plants are ready to me moved to a more exposed location, one that just takes the edge off gusty winds and broiling sun. A week at this second location and plants are ready to be planted out in their permanent homes.

Seedlings getting ready of the great outdoors

The kinds of changes that hardening off induces in coddled seedlings depends on the nature of the seedlings themselves. Seedlings of cabbage, lettuce, snapdragons, pansies, and other plants that can eventually laugh off cold even below freezing develop a tolerance for cold by building up sugars in their cells. Gradual exposure to more intense light also thickens cell walls, fibers, and cuticles on both existing and new leaves. With increasing light exposure, chloroplasts, the green, light-trapping energy factories in leaves, move around and align themselves in such a way that the leaves turn darker green. And the leaves’ stomatal pores, through which water is lost and carbon dioxide and oxygen are exchanged, become more quickly able to open and close in response to changing conditions.

Cold-tender plants such as tomatoes, marigolds, and zinnias suffer at temperatures even above freezing. With these plants, chilling injury causes changes in plant membranes that interfere with photosynthesis and damaging toxins build up in leaves. Hardening off makes these plants better able to repair and prevent such damage. But temperatures that still drop below freezing mean that it’s still too early to begin hardening off cold-tender plants. Anyway, they’re still too small. Wait a month.

During the two weeks of hardening off any plant, growth slows and the plant becomes stockier. This is good; it indicates that a transplant is ready to face the world.