Ode to Chard

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.  While I preen over the tempestous tomatoes who taunt me with their large green fruit refusing to turn red and fret over the flea beetle ravaged broccoli, wooing it's tiny head to grow larger, you stand their chivalrously waiting for me to kill everything else in the garden before I notice you.  You ask of nothing from me.  When the basil bolts because I forget to water or the squash plants turn white and wither from too much rain, and the tomatoes taste like shit because their sugar turns to starch once the temperature drops below 55 at night and I did not know that,  you continue to grow tall and handsome allowing me to not feel like a total failure as a gardener.

I was going to write about the first day of school, but since I am a day late and so many others have paid hysterical homage to that magical day, I decided to skip it.  Here is a synopsis:  The kids went.  I didn't have my act together enough to get them on the bus, but I did get them to school on time.  Scrappy Doo slept 14 hours last night. Now let's talk gardening.

When we had our two year stint in the burbs I had a garden.  It was not a huge garden, but what I planted grew like crazy.  Tons of tasty heirloom tomatoes, greens and lots of herbs flourished in my little patch.  I just dug up the plot, put some seeds in the ground and they grew.  Why wouldn't that be the case at our farm?

The first matter of business after purchasing the farm was to till a huge garden.  The husband has some wacky theory about a class war that I won't get into here, but suffice to say, he thinks we need to be completely self sufficient, which means I have to grow lots of fruits and vegetables and can enough to last us through the winter.  No problem.  I grew enough for half the year in my tiny plot in the burbs.  I will be able to start my own CSA with the size of the garden I now have.  

I read about 15 books on organic gardening including one by this crazy Welsh guy name John Seymour.  He started a self sufficient farm back in the 70's.  I think he knows his shit, but I am not really sure because I can't understand half of what he writes.  He says stuff like, "But once the quickthorn hedge is established it is there, if you look after it, for centuries.  You look after it by laying it.  That is, every 5 years or so, cutting most of the bushes; trunks half way through and breaking them over.  The trunks are all laid the same way...In due course the peaching and the dead stakes rot and disappear, but the hedge puts out new growth and can be very stock-proof"

This is now the husband's bible and he has mapped out exactly where we are going to plant what and how we will rotate the garden each year and the type of compost we will use.  When I plant a seed, I am expected to write it down on the garden map he has designed on the computer and each subsequent year I will make a new map to indicate the proper rotation.  Got it.

I start planting seeds about February.  All I really want are tomatoes, but since I need to rotate my tomatoes with something besides tomatoes, I start some other seeds as well.  I have a whole system of recording what I planted in each row of my little seed starter kits.  The husband is proud of my attempt at organization.  

I spend all of Mothers' Day painstakingly separating my tiny seedlings into slightly larger pots.  Shit!   I forget to write what each plant is on the new pots.  So much for organization.   I assure the husband that I know the difference between a tomato plant and a broccoli plant so it is all good.  Funny thing is, all of those tiny plants look alike so come July I realize that what I thought was basil that I planted in the herb garden is actually tomatoes and I have no idea what the hell is growing where I thought I planted kale. 

We have 80 tomato plants in the garden.  I am going to be cooking with tomato sauce all winter long. Suck on that BPA-laced canned tomato puree. 

The first thing to come up are snap peas and arugula.  I am ecstatic. I make the husband eat arugula and pea salad every day.  The kids won't touch it or even venture into the garden.  I try to entice them by offering them each their own garden plot where they can grow whatever they want.  Prince wants to grown cocoa and sugar cane.   James Dean wants sugar cane.  Scrappy Doo just wants to grow candy plants.

The tomato plants are growing nicely.  The husband studies them daily to see which leaves should be pruned to maximize fruit output. By about the beginning of August we start to get a little worried.  We have lots of green tomatoes but nothing is turning red.  We reassure ourselves that we still have a month left and everything will ripen by then. A couple weeks go by and none are turning red, but many are turning brown.  We quickly check the vegetable gardening bible.  Oy.  Doesn't look good.  We  cross reference with google images and discover we have tomato blight.  All of the plants need to be pulled out and we need to double bag them and throw them in the garbage so we don't contaminate the soil any further.

I slink off to BJ's with my head low to buy a case of canned tomato puree.

It has been a few years since the tomato disappointment and every year I am still disappointed.  No blight mind you but it is impossible to grow a delicious heirloom tomato in your garden up here.  The growing season just isn't long enough.  I have other equally disastrous gardening results.  The garlic is tiny.  The broccoli grows heads so small it wouldn't even feed a mouse for dinner. My promising brussel sprouts get hit by an early snow and die. The beets are the size of a quarter.  The only things that doesn't make me want to stab myself in the eye with my pitchfork are squash and chard.  I don't even think I knew what chard was before I planted it, but it is really pretty and tasty.

I may not have the gardening juju that I thought I did, but I am a pretty good cook, so here is a recipe I came up with for chard and sqaush tamale pie.  It is just as tasty and much easier to use a box of corn muffin mix  such as "Jiffy" or "Hodgson Mills" on top.

      Chard and Squash Tamale Pie with Beans

                                                     For the filling:

                                                     1 medium onion chopped

                                                     2 cloves of garlic chopped

                                                     Large bunch clean swiss chard chopped

                                                     1 small zucchini chopped

                                                     1 small pattypan chopped

                                                     1 can cannellini beans drained and rinsed
                                                     1/2C grated parmesan cheese
                                                     Salt and pepper to taste

Take whole chard leaves and submerge them in bowl of cold water.  Gently pick leaves up and out of water and pour dirty water out of bowl.  Add clean water and repeat process until no dirt is left in bowl. Pat chard leaves dry and chop into bite sized pieces.  Sauté onions over medium low heat in 2T olive oil until soft.  Add garlic and cook for another five minutes.  Add squash  and cook until soft.  Add chard.  Lower heat and cover until chard has wilted (about 5 minutes). Add beans until combined.  Spread mixture evenly in a deep dish pie plate and sprinkle cheese over top.

                                                   
                                                    For the topping: (From America's Test Kitchen)
                                               
                                                    3/4 C flour
                                                    3/4 C cornmeal
                                                    3T sugar
                                                    1t baking powder
                                                    1/4t baking soda
                                                    1/2 t salt
                                                    3/4C buttermilk
                                                    1T melted butter, cooled

Whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl. In small bowl whisk together buttermilk and egg.  Stir buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients.  Stir in melted butter until combined. Dollop cornmeal mixture over vegetable mixture and spread evenly over surface.  Cook at 450 until cornbread topping is golden brown (about 15-20 minutes)  Let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.