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Lemongrass Tea

Growing lemongrass this past summer was one of my most successful experiments for both its medicinal benefits and culinary uses. I always enjoy the growing part of starting a plant by seed and watching its gradual development throughout the season but in October when a frost is imminent, I find myself hustling to figure out how to preserve my harvest and put it to work in my daily life. Even though lemongrass seems so exotic, it was easy to grow from seed, it was pest free and its long arching blades gave a full tropical look to the garden so I recommend growing and using its leaves in tea and roots in Thai soup.

When the season shifts to colder temperatures, I often find myself not drinking enough water in that transition. The symptoms of dehydration can show up as fatigue, dizziness or lightheadedness, dry eyes and mouth, wrinkly skin and reduced urination. This Fall, lemongrass is coming to my rescue with its subtle refreshing lemony taste. I refer to it as the universal taste donor because it blends beautifully with other herbs and roots. I especially like adding ginger, fennel seeds and honey to my tea and drinking it in a bowl so my nose has full access to all the aromas. 

As a compulsive maker, I spent many hours making little wreaths from the leaves which felt very satisfying. While the health benefits of lemongrass are numerous from both a Western and Eastern perspective, the aesthetics of having a wreath of lemongrass, a sprig of fennel and a chunk of ginger floating in a handmade tea bowl makes this cleansing calming cold chasing brew a keeper.

To make tea simply boil water and put a wreath or 1 tsp of dried lemongrass herb in a tea ball and let it steep. Add other herbs and honey, if desired. You can use the wreath multiple times.

You can buy dried lemongrass here.

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Eat Greens, Now.

IMG_1051Boom! Daylight savings arrives and like clockwork I’m out in the garden with a shovel, turning over our fall cover crop.  Even though we’ve had plenty of overwintering crops in the garden, the disconsolateness of frequent rain and ugly muck became a barrier for entering our backyard plot of late.

Today, in our designated sugar snap plot, I found squatters from last fall: handsome kohlrabi plants with not much of a root but flush with a plentitude of green blood nourishing leaves, pretty yin tonifying golden beets, large yang tonifying sweet parsnips and flowering dinosaur kale.  Before,  content letting them rest undisturbed, now I am ready to devour them – all, in the next week.  Craving large amounts of greens is my signal that spring has arrived.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, spring is the season of the liver and gallbladder, which regulate a smooth flow of Qi.  However, after a winter of eating heavier meats and oil rich foods, these organs often get congested which can leave us feeling sluggish, irritable and depressed.  Eating slightly sour foods, high in chlorophyll like greens and sprouts, can cleanse the liver by releasing toxins and moving stagnant energy.  Increasing foods that are slightly bitter such as dark leafy greens, asparagus, radish leaves, dandelion and romaine lettuce can help with the heat and inflammation of springtime allergies.  Turnips and radishes can also help cleanse the blood by breaking up mucous.

I love how garden cycles synch with seasonal and energetic shifts:  I need to get peas in the ground and I need to detoxify my liver.  By removing and eating the plants in the pea plot, I am waking up my own body for spring by nourishing and cleansing my blood, releasing stored up life-force, which in turn gives me not only space to plant my peas, but the energy and vision to begin a whole new garden season.

There’s that earth-based biolgical motive, and then there’s the more superficial vain motive, which crops up every spring too. If I can lose a few pounds by  lightening up my diet and eating more greens then I can strut around in my skinny jeans, and that, naturally, feels real good too.

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Seed Swap

 

It’s the little things, the things that come in small packages, which often give me the most joy.

IMG_0998Today, Upper Rainier Beach residents, Iris and Dave, organized the first Seed Swap, an informal neighborhood event. Located in their dining room, it was perfectly little. As I browsed the table filled with thoughtfully categorized vegetable varieties, I was smitten; it wasn’t just the seed varieties that got my attention, it was how they were packaged.  Iris and Dave with typed labels on small plastic bags, gave clear growing instructions; Kim brought seeds in small paper origami packages, complete with a numerical key on a separate piece of paper; others, including myself, simply put the name of the variety on a label and called it done.  Kristen and Don brought their seeds in little plastic tubes. I took a sampling of their Purple Driveway, an otherwise unidentified purple lettuce that, you guessed it, grew alongside their driveway.

While some attendees perused the table making their selections, others exchanged gardening tips, lessons learned, and plans for their upcoming garden.  This kind of free exchange of information and resources, a little thing, an underground thing, has the potential, like in every seed, to nourish our whole community.

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Massaged Raw Kale Salad Recipe

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Yeah, it happened to me too at the end of the year-I couldn’t resist eating the homemade goodies that arrived in little cellophane gift bags tied with pretty ribbons.  Full disclosure: I could resist most cookies but not the homemade almond roca or the toffee.  So, as the New Year begins, I am sharing my antidote for replacing the sweet taste that might still be clinging to your palate, and derailing your healthy food choices too.

At Parsley Farm, lacinato kale, or commonly referred to as dinosaur kale, is our primary winter food crop.  All the cruciferous vegetables grow well in the Pacific Northwest climate, but kale, in particular, seems to thrive. And if it thrives, we thrive.  Unlike cabbage, broccoli or Brussels sprouts, which mature for a one-time harvest, kale, a plant that keeps on giving throughout the seasons, will continue to generate growth when some of its leaves are picked as it develops. If you start your plants in the spring, by fall they will mature into big leafy plants, mighty manufacturers of nutrient dense nutrition for picking throughout the winter.

Kale is a medicinal money tree as far as I’m concerned.  With many large plants growing in my garden, I feel rich. In Chinese medicine, we view kale as slightly bitter which benefits the liver and heart.  All dark green vegetables nourish the blood, but kale also has a detoxifying effect, which can be helpful for anyone with cancer thus my strong attraction to this plant. It is also helpful for lowering cholesterol.  Besides being rich in vitamins such as Vit A, C and K, it is also a good source of iron, magnesium and calcium.

Massaging raw kale is my favorite way to prepare it because by manually breaking down the cell walls, we render it into a tender, digestible and delicious dish.  The shiny deep dark green leaves seem to transform into something more akin to seaweed with all the nutrient richness of chlorophyll coming to the surface, but with none of the fishy taste. Below is my basic recipe because I like the simple, clean taste of the kale itself with a little red onion, but it can be fancied up with red pepper, olives or sprouts, or whatever else you might imagine.

Parsley Farm

Massaged Raw Kale Salad

Ingredients

1 bunch kale

1 – 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (or, any other acid: ½ lemon or lime; rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar)

1/8 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 pinches of sea salt (adjust to taste)

¼ cup red onion sliced thinly

First, cut the stems out of the kale.

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Roll up a few de-stemmed leaves at a time and then slice them into narrow bite size pieces.

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Put all of the sliced kale into a bowl, add 2 pinches of salt and drizzle olive oil over the greens.  After washing your hands, massage the kale with your hands for 2 -3 minutes until they soften and wilt, and become visibly darker.  Add your vinegar and stir.  Add sliced red onion, and any other additions such as red pepper, olives or sprouts.  Toss, serve, and eat ALLOT.

 

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Winter Garden Food Tour

 

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This morning seven of us women started at Parsley Farm, had a good look around at the winter crops, and then mosied over to Mary’s who is also utilizing every square inch of her yard to grow food.   Mary shared her folksy water storage idea using plastic bladders from wine boxes.

We moved on down the road to check out Anna’s expansive first year garden, and learn her trick of digging her food waste right into her garden beds.  We crossed over to Val’s and learned about her goal of making a wildlife habitat and then ended at Annya’s place where she taught us how to pack in lots of fruit and veggies in a small space.

These kinds of informal, small scale, neighbor to neighbor sharings really make my day.

Even though it’s our time to rest, just like our garden beds, here are some resources if you get to thinking about next season’s garden.

Excellent organic seeds at a good price:

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/

King County’s Free soil testing program:

http://www.kingcd.org/pro_far_soi.htm

King County’s manure share program:

http://www.kingcd.org/programs-farm-manure.htm

Year round Garden Hotline:

www.gardenhotline.org  206-633-0224

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Welcome Aronia

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Don, a neighbor and fellow urban gardener, dropped by the other day bearing gifts from his own garden, a pint of the most delicious honey from his beehive and an Aronia  (chokeberry) plant. Aronia seems like a fine addition to my outdoor pharmacy because it is disease and pest resistant.  And that’s exactly the quality I want in every thing I ingest because I want to be disease and pest resistant too.    I’m sad to say my white currant bush does not have this quality so Aronia will probably replace it.

Aronia is also productive. One plant can potentially produce up to forty pounds of berries.  Not just any berries, either.  Aronia Melanocarpa fruit contains more antioxidants than most other berries, more antioxidants than blueberries, cranberries, elderberries and even pomegranates. I’m not surprised that this superfruit has shown promising results in research studies on cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and cancer because all you have to do is look at its color to know it’s good for you. In Chinese medicine, we view all the dark purple-pigmented fruit, which are high in phenolic substances, as the most potent blood builders.  Don says it’s very easy to pick the berries off the stems too so the combination of being highly productive, medicinally potent and easy to pick makes this plant very attractive to me.

I might have to convince myself that I like the taste however.  It sounds like it has a dry, sour, astringent taste so I probably won’t be gorging on them raw like I do cherries, grapes, blackberries and red raspberries.   Probably they’ll be better cooked but I’m imagining they will mix well with other fruits for juicing or desserts.  We usually freeze over twenty gallons of blackberries which we use in smoothies throughout the winter. Hopefully by this same time next year, we’ll be throwing in a handful of Aronia berries into our Vita-Mix blender too.

Aronia, I like you already.

 

Parsley Farm Berry Smoothie

(creamy and satisfying)

¾ cup frozen berries (any kind)

½ -1 frozen banana (chopped)

1 cup milk (rice, coconut or almond milk)

1/4 cup cashews

1 -3 dates

Adjust the amounts of banana and dates depending on the sweetness you prefer