Revolving Annuals

I like the idea of a perennial garden - a productive garden that attracts birds, bees, butterflies, toads, and lizards; a garden where the soil is built from the surface of the mulch down, season after season, without being disturbed; a yard where vegetable-garden beds are surrounded by established, drought-hardy perennials that bloom throughout the year.  But the closest plants that I have to perennials, aside from the motley assortment of boring, hardy shrubs that came with the property, are the Cosmos flowers that reseed themselves year after year in the garden by the driveway.

If I like perennials so much, why don't I plant them?

First of all, I need a plan.  Perennials are long-term commitments and, while most plants can be transplanted, moving an established plant is always a risk, especially during heat or drought.  Every plant differs in shape and size, flowering season, water needs, growth pattern, and maintenance.  Aside from researching plants, I also need to figure out how I'm going to turn the rest of my front yard, and the adjoining strip of side yard, into a garden.  I need to measure where my property line is, figure out where I want to grow vegetables, and decide how to deal with the slope.  In the last few years, I simply haven't had the time to research plants and map out the yard and devise a plan for a full-yard garden.

Second, perennials are not just a commitment in terms of garden space and maintenance time, perennials are a long-term watering commitment.  In Austin, a watering commitment is a serious vow to take.  For the past few years, I have planted zinnias in the garden by the driveway.  This year the zinnias bloomed and grew, and bloomed and grew, all summer and fall, still pleasing the bees with flowers late into October.  Last year, when we had the hottest summer on record in the midst of a two-year drought, I realized in June that keeping the zinnias alive was simply going to take too much water, so I stopped watering, let them die, and pulled the plants.  I felt bad about letting the plants go, but, given the heat, it was a reasonable decision, and one that I know I can make each time I buy a cheap flat of annuals. 

The perennials that I would like to grow are drought-tolerant and, with some extra water, would be able to make it through brutal summers, but only once they are established.  In the spring, when a variety of perennial starter plants are available locally and by order, I always wonder: will this be a good year for planting, or will it be 105˚ in June?  Because, for the first summer, even the most drought-tolerant plants need favorable conditions and reliable water to establish themselves.

Third, I am indecisive.  Recently I decided that I wanted to buy two Bougainvillea plants to go on either side of the front walk.  At the store, I realized that, not only would the Bougainvillea plants grow to be much wider than the narrow spaces on either side of my front walk, the plants were also quite thorny, not a good trait for a plant growing into the front walk.  I abandoned the Bougainvillea idea and researched smaller, native flowering shrubs for the front walk.  I took a list of suitable red-, purple-, and blue-flowering plants to the nursery, where I walked up and down the perennials aisles reading tags and thinking.  I did this walking, and thinking, and staring-into-space routine for so long that a few different nursery employees tried to help me.

Eventually, I decided on sage plants and spent the next, well, eternity, debating color - true red or deep magenta?  I preferred the color of the red-flowered plants but the growth shape of the magenta-flowered plants.  I chose two red-flowered plants.  Then I looked at them and realized that their tiny flowers, though bright, and their tiny leaves, would get lost next to the dense shrubs at the front of the brick-colored house.  So I put the sage plants back and choose two plants of a yellow-flowered milkweed with a dense, upright growth habit.  Later I found out that my new milkweeds will freeze to the ground in a month or two, so I will, once again, have empty spaces on either side of the front walk until spring.

Finally, annuals are cheap, pretty, and easy.  I find it difficult to walk past a display of zinnias and impatiens in the spring, or pansies and snapdragons in the fall, without choosing colors.  Last week, I decided that, despite their heroic late-season blooming, the zinnias had to go to make way for the cool-season flowers, so that they could get established before it freezes.  I choose a variety of pansies and snapdragons to plant in the garden by the driveway and along the sidewalk edge of the front-yard garden.  As I planted this season's batch of revolving annuals, I told myself that next year, next spring, it's time for perennials.

The Less-Visited Lost Pines

One of the features that I enjoy about central Texas is that, ecologically speaking, we are located on an edge.  Austin is built across the Balcones Escarpment, the fault line responsible for all our springs and a geologic line across which soil type changes.  More broadly, we are also located where east meets west on this continent, or where the humid forests of the east give way to fertile savannas and prairies and then to the arid mix of dry savanna and shrubby deserts to our west.  Here in the middle we have a little of everything - fields of wildflowers, shrub- and cactus-filled pastures, oak savannas, cedar woodlands, and, where the water flows, deciduous forests.

Not far to the east, we even have a pine forest.  Which is where Lee and I spent the day on Sunday - hiking in the piney woods of Buescher State Park.  I am now a fan of quiet and lesser-known Buescher, but I have to admit that we ended up there somewhat by accident.  We intended to hike at McKinney Roughs Nature Park, but twice now we have arrived at McKinney Roughs to find that the gate was closed.  The first time was on New Year's Day - we thought it would be a good day to hike - and the second time was last weekend, when we found out that the park does not open until noon on Sunday.  Noon?  For hiking in Texas?  Seriously?

Frustrated and annoyed, we consulted the guidebook and considered other hiking options along Highway 71.  Bastrop State Park was twelve miles down the road, but I had already hiked that trail and, though it was lovely, I was specifically craving a new place to hike.  Another ten miles down the road was Buescher State Park with its own hiking trail through piney woods, described in the guidebook as "an underhiked trail in an underutilized state park."  Now that sounded like my kind of place, and they opened before noon, so we headed farther east on Highway 71.

Buescher State Park, like its more-famous cousin to the west, Bastrop State Park, is located in the ecological region called the Post Oak Savanna, which is characterized by grasslands interspersed with clumps of hardy trees, mostly Post Oaks, that are adapted to drought and sandy soils.  In the Post Oak Savanna, forested areas are usually restricted to the bottomlands along rivers and streams, where flooding and clay soils support a diversity of deciduous trees and shrubs.

Yet Buescher State Park and Bastrop State Park are forested, supporting not just forest, but the westernmost stand of Loblolly Pine trees in the United States.  Separated from the Piney Woods of east Texas by 100 miles of savanna, the Bastrop County pine forests are called the Lost Pines.  The Lost Pines may be a remnant of a larger pine forest that once covered more of Texas in a wetter time, or may have been planted by Native Americans.  Either way, the Lost Pines have existed in the Bastrop area for over 18,000 years and require less water than their Piney Woods relatives, from whom they have become genetically distinct.

Loblolly Pines (Pinus taeda) prefer deep, sandy soils and, if provided with sufficient water, are fast-growing trees that can grow over 100 feet tall.  Loblolly Pines are extensively cultivated in the south for pulp and lumber.  Loblolly forests attract butterflies and provide nesting sites, cover, and seeds for birds and small mammals.

Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda)

The Buescher Hiking Trail, which is a "balloon" hike, or an out-and-back with a loop at one end, is seven miles round-trip from the main trail head.  We shortened the hike to four miles by parking across from the entrance of the University of Texas Science Park, which is 1.7 miles up Park Road 1C, and picking up the trail where it crosses the road to the science park.  Complete instructions for getting there, where to park, and the hike itself can be found in the guidebook. 

The trail was sandy and covered in pine needles, which were also draped over the understory vegetation, giving the forest a decorated look.  As promised, the trail was quiet, and we saw only one other hiker as we walked through the woods.  The trail meandered through the pine forest, down into dry ravines and back up again, crossing park roads three times during the loop.  The forest varied along the trail, with dense understories in the ravines giving way to open woodlands on hilltops, but was composed, throughout, of a mix of Loblolly Pine, Blackjack Oak, and Post Oak.

Buescher Hiking Trail

Blackjack Oak (Quercus marilandica) is a red oak with distinct, triangular-shaped leaves with narrow bottoms and three-lobed tops.  Blackjack Oak is grows to be a small- to medium-sized tree and is able to grow in thin, sandy, dry, or rocky soils where few other woody plants can survive.  Blackjack Oak provides cover and nesting sites for birds, and its acorns are food for small mammals and deer.

Blackjack Oak (Quercus marilandica) leaves

Post Oak (Quercus stellata) is the most common oak tree in Texas and is so common in east Texas that it has an ecological region, the Post Oak Savanna, named after it.  Post Oak prefers acidic soils, but otherwise can tolerate a wide range of poor soil conditions, including dry, sandy, rocky, and gravelly.  Post Oaks are white oaks whose leaves have round lobes, but the exact dimensions of the lobes vary greatly.  The first or second set of lobes is often larger than the others, giving the leaf a cross-like appearance.  Post Oaks provides cover and nesting sites for birds, and its acorns are food to small mammals and deer.

Post Oak (Quercus stellata) leaves

Post Oak and Blackjack Oak are the primary trees of the Cross Timbers region of Texas and Oklahoma, the region north of us where the rainfall-determined "tree line" of the southern plains occurs.  In the Cross Timbers, where oak savannas give way to prairie, Post Oak and Blackjack Oak are the only trees that can tolerate the dry, poor soils away from the waterways.  As a result, both oaks have gotten the reputation of being ugly, slow-growing, small trees.  Though slow-growing, Post Oak and Blackjack Oak are also long-lived, providing shelter and food for wildlife, and timber and firewood for people, in a region where trees are scarce.  When Post Oak or Blackjack Oak trees have the opportunity to grow in deeper, more fertile soils, they can grow to be large, attractive trees, much like their more-loved oak relatives.

The dominant shrub in the understory along the trail was Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria).  In sunnier spots, the shrubs were covered in red berries.  According to one source, the red berries of the Yaupon shrubs are poisonous, but another source said that they are food for mammals and birds, who only eat the berries after several freezes.  The evergreen leaves and twigs of the plant are high in caffeine, and can be steeped to produce a maté-like tea.  The dense shrubs provide good cover for birds and small animals and their spring flowers attract butterflies.

Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria)

Sunday was a hot, sunny day, probably the hottest day for the rest of the year, and the forest seemed weary from the weeks of heat and dry of October.  I saw American Beautyberry shrubs in the understory, looking wilted and heat-stressed, with fewer, smaller berries than those I have seen on the plants along the Greenbelt.  Along the sandy section of the trail that paralleled the park road, I saw Small Palafox plants at the end of their bloom, as well as various, small sunflower-family herbs that were done or near to being done blooming for the year.  Dead pine trees were a common site along the way, standing bare among other trees or lying across the trail.  We had to make several detours over, under, or around dead pine trunks.  

I wondered, as I noticed the bare trunks along the way, what had caused so much tree death.  My first guess was that the drought of 2008-2009 was the culprit, given all of the other tree death that I have seen around Austin since those years.  But Loblolly Pines are also susceptible to southern pine beetle infestations and various fungal diseases.

I saw many juvenile pine trees along the way, a sign that the forest is regenerating.  Hopefully our pine forest, whether a relic from a different time or a gift from a different region, will continue to thrive in Bastrop county for another 20,000 years.

Two Weeks After Planting

I planted in the front yard because the front yard gets the day-long sunlight that the backyard does not.  Still, I am surprised how fast the seedlings in my front-yard garden are growing.  Just two weeks after planting, thick rows of greens cross the garden.  Compared to the backyard seedlings, these seedlings are sturdier, shorter, and more deeply colored, with wider leaves.  While their older siblings in the backyard are just hanging on, waiting for the leaves to fall from the trees that shade them, the front-yard seedlings are thriving in the light, becoming baby plants.

Front-yard garden two weeks after planting

All but the latest-sprouting seedlings now have their second sets of leaves.  Their second sets of leaves are actually their first true sets of leaves, which, unlike the original seed leaves, or cotyledons, are miniature versions of the adult leaves of the plant.  So, while the rows the cabbage-family seedlings were indistinguishable from one another at one week after planting, now that they have their second sets of leaves, their identities are becoming obvious.  The diversity of the second set of leaves is most visible in the row of Asian greens, a "Pan-Pacific Stir-Fry Mix" from Renee's Garden.  Wavy, purple-stemmed kale leaves stand out among the rough, mustard leaves and the round leaves of Pac Choi.

Asian greens (Brassica spp.) after two weeks

The Lacinato kale (Brassica oleraceae) seedlings are the deepest green in the garden, so green that they almost have a bluish tint.  Their second sets of leaves are wavy and textured, beginning to resemble the long, crinkly, blue-green leaves of the adult plants.

Lacinato Kale (Brassica oleraceae) seedlings at two weeks

Pak Choi and Tatsoi, two varieties of Brassica rapa, both have round leaves with complete (not wavy or serrated) edges.  The leaves of the Tatsoi seedlings are deep green, a color that I associate with the vitamin-rich nature of greens, and so round that they are almost circular, while the Pak Choi leaves are larger, more oval-shaped, with almost parallel veins, and more yellow-green.

Tatsoi (Brassica rapa) seedlings at two weeks

Green Fortune Pak Choi (Brassica rapa) seedlings at two weeks

True to their bean-family nature, the fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) seedlings are starting to resemble mini pea plants as they grow their second sets of leaves.  One leaf of each second set is a simple oval on a long petiole, while the other leaf is compound and trifoliate, with three leaflets, like a clover leaf.  The trifoliate leaf is on a shorter petiole (leaf stem) than the simple leaf, intensifying the asymmetric appearance of the seedlings.

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) seedlings at two weeks

The spinach (Spinacia oleracea) row is the most unruly, with long cotyledons and newer, triangular leaves poking in all directions. This year I am growing the Bordeaux variety of spinach, which has red-tinted stems.  It looks like the major veins of the leaves will be pink-tinted as well.

Bordeaux spinach (Spinacia oleracea) seedlings at two weeks

At two weeks, the beets and Swiss chard, two varieties of Beta vulgaris, are beginning to take on different appearances.  The Swiss chard leaves are green and crinkly, with yellow or pink or red stems, while the beet stems are uniformly magenta.  Many of the leaves of the beets, the red-colored Bull's Blood variety, are tinged with magenta as well.

Bright Lights Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris) seedlings at two weeks

Bull's Blood beet (Beta vulgaris) seedlings at two weeks

The lettuces, a mesclun mix of varieties of Lactuca sativa, have grown into a crowded row of baby greens in two weeks.  The leaves of the lettuces are oblong and wavy, ranging in color from yellow-green to burgundy.  The lettuce plants have grown so intertwined that it is difficult to distinguish between individual plants.  Thinning the lettuces is going require patience.

Mesclun lettuce (Lactuca sativa) mix at two weeks

The sorrel (Rumex acetosa) seedlings have not grown as much as the other greens.  Their second sets of leaves are only slightly larger than their cotyledons, though they are longer and some of them are starting to take on the the more-pointed appearance of mature sorrel leaves.

Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) seedlings at two weeks

As predicted by their slow germination times, the carrot-family plants are lagging behind the rest of the garden in growth.  The fennel (Foenicucum vulgare) seedlings have been germinating over the past week, with only a few of them now revealing their feathery sets of second leaves.

Florence fennel (Foenicucum vulgare) seedlings at two weeks

More of the carrot (Daucus carota) seedlings have their feathery second leaves, or their first true carrot leaves.  The seedlings are still tiny however, leaving me to hope that they are busy below ground, growing the thick tap roots that will become the carrots.

Scarlet Nantes carrot (Daucus carota) seedlings at two weeks

Cilantro, or coriander (Coriandrum sativum), seedlings, faster growing than their relatives, have grown into a healthy row of bright green.  The second leaves of the cilantro seedlings, which are distinctly different from their narrow cotyledons, are simple versions of the compound leaves of the older plants, giving the plants their identity.

Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) seedlings at two weeks

And, last but not least, the parsley finally decided to join the fall-garden party.  Two weeks after planting, the parsley row now looks like the other rows looked a week ago.  But I have to admit that once the parsley seeds decided to germinate, they made a good show of it, and I now have a respectable row of parsley seedlings.  Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) cotyledons look like the back side of a two-tailed round brad, the kind that is used to hold together a thick stack of papers.

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) seedlings at two weeks

At two weeks, dense rows of seedlings call for thinning and promise to produce delicious thinnings salads.  But I am so enjoying the sight of such thick, healthy rows of greens in the front yard that I am having trouble motivating myself to do any thinning.

Change of Seasons

By my way of looking at things, we have two seasons in Austin: the hot season and the cool season. 

The hot season is the constant season.  Constant heat, constant humidity, constant sun, and constant south winds bringing warm, moist air from the Gulf.  Which is not to say that we don't experience anything but sunny days in the hot season, or that temperatures do not change, but that, even on the rainiest, coolest hot-season day, the sun is always close, the day is always long, and the lowest temperature of the day always falls somewhere in the mild range.  As someone who dislikes being cold, I am comforted by the hot season, even as I complain of the heat, because I know that I never have to worry about being too cold.  Through storm and drought, that is the guarantee of the hot season - that I will never find myself wishing that I had brought a jacket.

The cool season is the season of change.  In fact, the cool season is so characterized by change that I sometimes say, We have two seasons in Austin: the hot season and the variable season.  The cool season guarantees nothing but shorter days.  Winds shift in a matter of hours, changing the temperature and the humidity just as quickly.  Highs in the 80's may turn into lows in the 20's in the same day.  A day in December is just as likely to be warm, sunny, and mild as it is to be cold, dry, and bitter.  And the cold of the cool season is real, despite the Austin tendency to say that it is always warm here.  Anyone who has lived here without heat knows that, when it is cold, it is the dry, piercing cold of the Midwest, carried southward on an arctic front.  But the cold never lasts for long, because change is the only constant of the cool season.

When I first moved here from the Northwest, I was impressed with how quickly the seasons changed here in Austin, from warm and humid to cool and dry within only the hours that it took a cold front to pass through town.  As I lived here, though, I've realized that the seasons change more in the way that fresh water changes to salt water as a river flows into the sea.  Fresh water slowly becomes more salty until, eventually, the river water is indistinguishable from the sea water.  In the same way, the hot season holds on through the weeks of September and October, slowly becoming more diluted by northern fronts and shorter days until, finally, we realize that we have reached the cool season.

The hot season held on longer than usual this year, providing a second, more-reasonable summer with cool mornings and sunny afternoons.  At the beginning of this week, realizing that the heat wouldn't last much longer and that, even if it did, water levels in Barton Creek were dwindling by the week, Lee and I went to the Greenbelt for the final "swim" of the season.  Upstream of the Mopac entrance, the water was flowing but shallow, and the Golden-Eye sunflowers were wilted in the afternoon sun, speaking of the hot season that still hadn't given up, but yellowed tree leaves were also scattered along the trail, reminders that the cool season was gaining strength.  We jumped in the water at Sculpture Falls, claiming our last bit of summer, but the sun was already below the trees to the west, casting cool shadows across the water, so only a few minutes later we climbed back onto a sunny rock.

Now, at the end of the same week, the cool season has claimed the upper hand.  Waking in the morning, I linger under the blankets, calculating the distance to my robe.  I use more hot, than cold, water in the shower.  I'm wearing jeans instead of shorts and drinking hot tea instead of cold water.  Benji's morning nap has moved from the cool, northeastern-facing living room to the sunny windows along the south wall.  Today, as I write this, she is curled up in my lap, with her tail wrapped around her nose, forcing me to sit sideways as I type.  To me, this is the truest, and most precious, signal that the cool season has arrived - when Benji, our sixteen-year-old, too-independent-for-lap cat, insists on curling up in my lap for a little warmth.

Urban Garden Pests

I expected the cats.  My neighborhood, which is adjacent to the overgrown, northern section of the Boggy Creek Greenbelt, supports a large wild cat population.  So it was no surprise when, just as I started digging up the lawn, creating many square feet of soft, recently-turned soil, the neighborhood cats began using the yard as their litter box.  Stepping carefully around piles of cat shit, I actually found the situation entertaining because I could envision the particular kind of joy that is experienced by a cat who has just discovered a wonderfully soft place to dig.  I began referring to the yard as "The Best Cat Box Ever."

Once I planted seeds and began watering the garden every day, sometimes twice a day, to keep the soil uniformly moist, the cats stopped using it.  Cats don't like to get their feet wet and, probably with some disappointment, went back to digging up the mulch around the side of the house.

Then came the dogs.  Or the dog?  The dogs like the cedar mulch that I spread on the paths between the garden beds.  Or, to be more clear, the dogs like to shit in the cedar mulch that is supposed to be providing me with dry, flat pathways through my garden.  Instead, the mulched pathways grow lumps overnight, and stepping over a lump seems to guarantee stepping into a fresh pile of dog shit, because dogs, unlike cats, don't bury their shit.  Dogs dig for pleasure then take a dump somewhere in the vicinity.  Twice already I have stepped in fresh piles, and one of those times I was carrying a shovelful of another pile.  Realizing what I had done, I sidestepped quickly, taking weight off the poorly-placed foot while still balancing the shovel and trying to avoid stepping on newly-sprouted lettuces, only to place the other foot, the one upon which I was now resting about 90% of my weight, squarely onto another fresh turd that I had kicked out of its original place in the process.

Where my garden shoes now live

And, though the process of gardening is, in theory, calming, there is no way to calm a woman who is carrying dog shit in the treads of both of her shoes while holding another shovelful of dog shit.  Dog shit from somebody else's dog.  Somebody else whose dog is running free around the neighborhood at night, or, worse, somebody who allowed her/his dog to shit in my yard as s/he watched.  I wanted to march up the street and empty my shovel, and clean my treads, onto the porch of the neighbors whose dog is often out and has chased sixteen-year-old Benji up a tree.  But Lee suggested that, perhaps, starting a neighborhood feud wasn't the best idea.  And I have to admit that, lately, it's been another neighbor's dog that's been keeping everyone on the street awake as it runs up and down the street chasing cats and barking that incessant, yapping bark.  So, much as I want to be mad at somebody, I don't even know who that somebody is.

Dogs on the loose.  A clowder of wild cats.  Those are only the "domestic" mammalian pests of the front-yard garden.  Something else - I'm guessing a raccoon or skunk - has also been digging in the garden beds, probably looking for fat Japanese beetle grubs.  So far only one row, the Tatsoi, has been damaged by the digging, which usually occurs around the edges of the beds, but it is a daily annoyance to find my once-neat beds spilling onto the pavement.  Each morning, in addition to searching for and removing dog shit from the paths, I rake or sweep loose soil from the sidewalk or driveway back into the garden before watering, hoping that, soon, the grubs will burrow too deep in the soil to be of interest to the raccoons or skunks.

The blank slate of the gardener is a freshly-turned rectangle of soil.  To me, freshly-turned soil is the perfect place for planting rows of seeds.  But freshly-turned soil is also a blank slate for cats and dogs, who see an opportunity for digging and finding smells and marking their territory.  And it is a feeding opportunity for birds, and raccoons, and skunks, who are able to find seeds and insects from deep in the soil that have been moved to the top layer.  By turning the soil, I didn't just make a garden space for myself.  I also, inadvertently, invited all the mammals in the neighborhood into my yard, and I created the perfect opportunity for all the seeds that were once buried beneath my lawn to germinate.  Here I was thinking that in my yard I wouldn't have any competition.

A Week After Planting

One of the reasons that I love fall gardening is that, with the soil still warm from the summer, seeds germinate quickly.  Within a few days of planting, cracks appear where seedlings are about to push their way through the soil.  A week after planting, several rows of green cross the garden.  Even from a distance, and even though they are surrounded by soil on all sides, each green row has its own, distinct character.

Front-yard garden one week after planting

The first seeds to germinate are the Brassicas, the cabbage-family plants in the genus Brassica.  Brassicas include Brassica oleracea (kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi), Brassica rapa (Chinese cabbages and bok choy varieties), Brassica juncea (brown mustards), and Brassica napus (rutabaga and canola).  The fact that kale, bok choy, and mustard are all closely-related plants explains why their seedlings are indistinguishable from each other.  Each of the two cotyledons on a Brassica seedlings look like half of a four-leaf clover, giving each seedling a split-four-leaf-clover appearance.

Kale (Brassica oleraceae) seedlings at one week

Brassicas are not only fast at germinating, they are also very reliable at germinating.  I've had low germination with spinach and lettuces (soil too warm), with beets and chard (insufficient soil-to-seed contact), with carrots and parsley (didn't keep soil moist for long enough), and with just about any other kind of seed that was from a year-old or two-year-old seed packet.  But I've never had trouble with the Brassicas.  In fact, the cabbage-family plants germinate so readily compared to lettuces that I now shy away from buying "salad mix" seed packets that contain a mix of the two, because the mustard, mizuna, and arugula always take over, leaving little room for the lettuces.  This year I am growing Asian greens in rows separate from the lettuces.

Asian greens (Brassica rapa) seedlings at one week

This fall I also planted fenugreek seeds.  Fenugreek is commonly used in Indian cooking, both as an herb, using the leaves of the young plant, and as a spice, using the dried seeds of the plant.  I love the smell and flavor of fenugreek, but I have never grown it before, so I am not sure what to expect from the plants.  I was surprised to discover that fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) is in the bean family.  I soaked the seeds overnight before planting, as instructed on the seed packet, and they germinated quickly as a fat row of mini-bean seedlings.

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) seedlings at one week

I have a fondness for spinach (Spinacia oleracea) seedlings.  They have long, strappy cotyledons that grow quickly after emerging.  To me, spinach seedlings appear earnest, honored to have a place in the garden and ready to get to work quickly.  The past couple of times that I have planted spinach, I planted in September, when the soil was still at summer temperatures, and, as a result, germination was low.  So this week I have been happy to watch a healthy row of spinach seedlings emerge.

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) seedlings at one week

Shortly after the spinach germinates, the beets and Swiss chard, botanical relatives from the same family as the spinach, germinate.  Because beets and Swiss chard are varieties of the same plant, Beta vulgaris, their seedlings are very similar.  The cotyledons of beets and Swiss chard seedlings are capsule-shaped, longer than they are wide, but not nearly as long as spinach cotyledons.

Beet (Beta vulgaris) seedlings at one week

Next to germinate are the lettuces, many varieties of Lactuca sativa.  Lettuces are in the sunflower family, as are dandelions, daisies, ragweed, tansy, and so many lawn and garden weeds.  As a result, lettuce seedlings look a lot like common weed seedlings until they grow their first set of real leaves.  Lettuce seedlings are tiny and each of their two cotyledons are round ovals that are almost circular.

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) seedlings at one week

The next plant to germinate is another that I have never grown before, sorrel (Rumex acetosa), a buckwheat-family green that is a relative of rhubarb.  Sorrel seedlings are tiny, the same bright, yellow green of lettuce seedlings, and have oval-shaped cotyledons.

Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) seedlings at one week

The last plants to germinate are those in the carrot-family.  Many times I have lost patience with carrot or parsley seeds and given up on them, only to find a few seedlings germinating a week later.  Carrot (Daucus carota) seedlings, in contrast to the feathery, twice compound leaves of the adult plants, are long and thin, resembling blades of grass peaking from the soil, except that carrot cotyledons, unlike those of grass, emerge in twos.

Carrot (Daucus carota) seedlings at one week

Cilantro, a.k.a coriander (Coriandrum sativum), also a carrot-family plant, has cotyledons that look almost rectangular at first glance.  Cilantro is much more reliable at germinating, and grows more quickly, than carrots or parsley.

Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) at one week

One week after fall planting, I am still waiting for two other representatives of the carrot family -  fennel (Foenicucum vulgare) and parsley (Petroselinum crispum).  Fennel is just starting to emerge, with tiny, wispy cotyledons that remind me of carrot seedlings.  But, parsley, oh, reliably late parsley - I even double planted that row, with this year's seeds and with some leftover from last year, expecting a long wait.  But I will continue to water, and to wait, and hopefully, in another week, I will have a mix of flat-leaved and moss-curled parsley seedlings to photograph.

Mac & Cheese with Leeks

Growing up, macaroni and cheese was a staple, and as far as my dad, my sister, and I were concerned, my mom owned the patent on the only real recipe for mac and cheese.  Her mac and cheese was simple but delicious, consisting of elbow macaroni, sharp cheddar cheese, milk, margarine, salt, and pepper only - no fancy sauces, no crunchy toppings, and certainly no onions.  Just as securely in place at the family dinner table, just in case anyone ever considered improvising with mac and cheese, was the cautionary tale of the mac and cheese that Nana, my mom's mom, made for my dad and I while my mom was in the hospital having my sister.  Nana had added onions.

Now, granted, Nana, who supported her family before it was fashionable for women and was ahead of her time in intellectual ways, was squarely a woman of the fifties in the kitchen.  She believed that vegetables and fruits were better when they came from a can.  So when she made the famous mac and cheese with onions, she didn't sauté a fresh onion and slip it into the mix, where it might not have been noticed.  Instead, Nana cracked open a can of fried onions, the ones that fill huge displays during the holidays, alongside the green beans, and she stirred those shriveled, salty sticks into the mac and cheese.  She probably poured a generous layer over the top as well, thinking that she was being hip by following some holiday-casserole recipe highlighting the importance of the crunchy topping.  Needless to say, the crunchy onions were not a hit with my dad or with fussy, two-year-old me, and we've been telling the story ever since.

Years later, more out of lack of time than preference, I became an Annie's eater.  When Lee moved in with me, he discovered that, not only was I making my Annie's with soy milk, I was also stirring in black olives, or tomatoes, or sautéed onions and mushrooms, or steamed broccoli.  I'm more of a mac-and-cheese purist, he told me, explaining that real milk and extra cheese were the only add-ins that he used.  And, seriously, we should be making mac and cheese from scratch, he continued, going on about the injustice of paying so much for packaged cheese powder.  At which point I gave him the look that said, when I rescued you, you were living on frozen food and hot fries.  So we compromised.  I adjusted to eating Annie's with real milk and grated cheddar, and Lee got used to finding sautéed mushrooms or steamed broccoli in his shells and cheddar.

But then I had some time and some extra milk, and I decided that I wanted to make mac and cheese from scratch.  I wanted to make a fairly pure mac and cheese, based on milk, cheese, butter, and pasta, and lacking the cups of assorted vegetables that get added to modern, "healthy" mac and cheese recipes.  I read through many recipes and eventually found a Baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe that I liked as a starting place.  I modified that recipe and made a batch, which was delicious but, well, I wanted to add something to it.  So I tried a different pasta and other cheeses and baked another batch for some friends with a newborn.  That batch was even more delicious, but, again, I wanted to add something.  That's when I saw huge, beautiful leeks at the co-op grocery and realized that I wanted to add leeks and garlic to my mac and cheese.

I made the casserole on Sunday and we've been living on it ever since, inhaling every bowlful.  So my mac and cheese isn't simple, and it includes non-family-approved ingredients, and it isn't even macaroni, but it is delicious and satisfying.


Fusilli and Cheese with Leeks

1 pound fusilli pasta (or other small pasta, such as shells, elbows, or penne)

2 T butter
3 large leeks
8 cloves of garlic, minced
sea salt
fresh cracked black pepper

3 T butter
3 T flour
1 T mustard powder
3 cups whole milk
2 bay leaves
1/4 t chili powder
8 oz sharp cheddar cheese, grated
4 oz Parmesan cheese, grated
2 oz Gruyere or Swiss cheese, grated
1 t sea salt
fresh cracked black pepper

2 T butter
1 cup breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Bring at least 4 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot.  Cook the pasta according to the package instructions, but remove the pasta from the boiling water slightly before it is fully cooked.  (Test it to be sure - the pasta should be almost done but not quite cooked through, because it will be baked later.)  Pour the pasta into a colander and run cool water over it to bring it to room temperature.  Set aside.

While waiting for the pasta water to boil, wash the leeks.  Remove and discard the root end and the outermost layer of the leek.  Slice the leek into thick coins, starting from the white end.  At the green end of the leek, remove and discard the course, green parts.  Continue slicing the lighter green parts.

In a large skillet, melt 2 T butter.  Add the sliced leeks.  Sauté on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the leeks are soft, about 10 minutes.  Add the garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes, stirring frequently.  Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

In a medium sauce pan, melt 3 T butter.  Whisk in the flour and mustard powder, making a paste that is free of lumps.  Continue to whisk for a few minutes or until the flour is heated through.  Add the milk, bay leaves, and chili powder.  Heat, stirring almost continuously to prevent scalding, for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture begins to thicken slightly.  Turn the heat down to low and stir in the cheeses, reserving about 1/3 of the cheddar for later.  Stir in the salt and season with fresh cracked black pepper to taste.

Combine the pasta, leeks, and cheese sauce in a large pot.  Stir to distribute the sauce and pasta evenly.  Pour the mixture into a 2- or 3-quart casserole dish.  Sprinkle the remaining cheddar cheese over the pasta.

To prepare the topping, melt 2 T butter in a small skillet.  Add the breadcrumbs and stir to coat them with butter.  Spread the breadcrumbs over the top of the pasta.

Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes or until bubbling hot throughout.  Remove from the oven and allow the pasta to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Makes 6-8 servings, and is great as leftovers.