Grow – Cook – Make

They are everywhere. Whenever there is an opportunity, there they spring, the chaparral purple nightshades. I saw the first blooms back around Thanksgiving. I expect them to keep blooming into early summer. By mid summer or early fall the plants will be completely defoliated, a good way to spend the driest part of the year. I don’t know what causes it, I suspect horn-worms. It happens at the same time that horn-worms appear on the tomato plants, another nightshade. I wonder whether the purple nightshade and the horn-worms have a mutually beneficial relationship. The caterpillar gets to eat and the plant avoids dehydration by loosing most of its leaves.

For now, the plants are all vibrant foliage and blooms. But do you see those bare stems in the lower center and upper left of the image? Those are left over from the summer defoliation. Apparently the plants just bring out new shoots and keep on going for one more season, tough little plants that they are. So beautiful scattered about the chaparral.

Bare root season means time to plant deciduous fruit trees. Time to dream about juicy summer fruit as you plant sticks in the ground on an overcast chilly day. Mission fig, fuju persimmon, persian mulberry, pink lady apple and panamint nectrine (in the photo above). Five new trees in the orchard, mulched and well water by timely rains.

I selected those varieties because they thrive in warm winters and they ripen their fruit at times where I had a gap in my fruit harvest calendar. I am trying to always have something ready to pick in the orchard throughout the year. The nectarine and mulberry will fill in some gaps in midsummer, the fig, apple and persimmon will provide fruit in the fall. Since I couldn’t get them locally, I ordered the mulberry and the apple from Bay Laurel Nursery. They came in a box with the roots covered in moist spagnum moss wrapped in plastic. So much fun to open a long cardboard box and find healthy roots inside!

Every tree got its very own 1/2″ chicken wire gopher deterrent basket. I don’t amend the soil. It is rich enough for trees already. In order to increase fertility I mulch with compost three times a year. This compost spread at the base of the trees acts like forest hummus, providing organic matter over time for the tree to use. Slowly but surely is how I like to feed my trees. The last step will be to install irrigation lines with micro sprayers. And then just wait for a few years. These thin saplings will become productive trees soon enough.

I made another batch or marmalade. One Seville orange, two Bearss limes and one Meyer lemon. Just a small amount to try out a new flavor combination. I used the same proportion of fruit, sugar and water as I did  for the Seville orange marmalade in the previous post, and I cooked it the same way. My limes had a very thin rind, so I didn’t take out the inside white layer. I would’ve had their rind been thick.

The result? Less bitterness than in the pure orange marmalade, a bit more acidity, a fruitier, lighter flavor. A good balance between sweet and acid with a touch of bitter. I liked it. The two marmalades are different enough that I can serve them together and it won’t feel redundant. I miss a bit the bitterness of the orange, I’d like it to be a tad more assertive. Next try at this flavor combination I’ll increase the proportion of orange. All in all, I am happy with these two attempts and inspired to keep experimenting with marmalade.

Years, I have been waiting for this day. Years! Five and a half years to be exact. Since that afternoon in July of 2004 when we planted a tiny Seville orange sapling.

I have been waiting to make proper orange marmalade from my own fruit. Proper orange marmalade requires Seville oranges, a fruit that even in citrus rich southern California it is very hard to find. Hence the need to make it from my own fruit. Seville oranges will give your marmalade the characteristic bitterness of a classic orange marmalade.

This is our first harvest, four oranges. There are many more in the tree, not yet fully ripe. After five and a half years of patience I couldn’t wait one more day. Four oranges will make enough marmalade to make a first batch. I’ll make more another day, for now, this will do. My very first batch of marmalade, I can’t wait!

A slice of bread, butter and orange marmalade: so good. Finally, I made Seville orange marmalade at home, in my kitchen, from my tree!

To make your own Seville orange marmalade:

• Prepare the fruit. Peel and finely cut the colorful outer layer of the orange, discard the white part of the peel and the seeds, and carefully cut the pulp so you loose as little juice as possible.
• Measure an amount of sugar equal in volume to the amount of fruit you have.
• Place the fruit in a sauce pan, cover with water, and simmer for half an hour. Use about to thirds the volume of fruit in water.
• Add the sugar to the simmering orange. When the sugar is dissolved taste for sugar/acid balance taking into account that it will feel sweeter when hot than when you’ll eat it at room temperature. If it lacks some acidity, add some Seville orange juice, or if you don’t have any extra orange, a bit of lemon juice. Taste and adjust until you like it.
• Simmer for about ten minutes. Maybe less, maybe a little longer, depends on how you like your marmalade’s consistency. You can quickly chill a tablespoon of marmalade in the freezer to check the consistency. Citrus have a lot of pectin even after discarding the white part of the peel, so if you simmer it for as long as you would another type of fruit, you’ll end up with a rock.
• Your marmalade is done.
• I made a small batch so I just poured it into a clean glass jar and refrigerated it. If you prefer to can it, please follow your canning equipment manufacturer’s directions.

I have been thinking of raspberries. In the middle of February, bare-root season basically over, I get this urge to grow raspberries. A quick look at Bay Laurel Nursery and I’ve got my choice: Indian Summer and Heritage Red, both everbearing red raspberries.

The soil in the orchard is rather uneven, deep and rich in some spots, shallow and rocky in others. Raspberries don’t need much depth, so shallow will do fine, but better add lots of compost, they need rich soil. Let’s build a raised bed with some leftover redwood boards, lots and lots of 1/2 inch chicken wire to keep gophers away, and the help of a dear friend. I have a few iron fence posts laying around that will make perfect supports for the growing canes.This photo shows the raised bed structure: 6 x 2 redwood boards, supported by stakes and held together with metal straps. The whole bed is lined with chicken wire. The posts need to go in at this time, later on I can string wire between them to support the canes.

We enriched the original soil with a good amount of compost, planted the bare-root raspberry canes and watered well. If it were not for the blue labels it would be hard to even notice the little sticks. I hope in a couple of years this bare bed will be dense and loaded with berries.