Wildcrafted local mustard

Garlic Mustard-Mustard               
makes about 1/2 c.

7 Tb ground garlic mustard seeds
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tb water
2 tsp honey or 3 tsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp turmeric

1. Grind the seeds using either a mortar and pestle or clean coffee grinder, then stir together with the salt and turmeric. Add the water, honey and vinegar and stir until smooth.


Let it sit, covered, in the fridge for a week, and then stir before use. It will darken up a bit. Keep it covered, and use within seven months.

The only ingredients which aren't possibly local are the salt and turmeric. Not bad!

Wildflower mead

This is a good time of year to make mead, and I'm going to try. Again. Last time didn't work out so well because I forgot about it in the closet and it went... stinky. I was a bit disappointed. Plus, it was such a large carboy that it was unmanageable.

However, this recipe seems like a good way to start- one gallon jar, local honey, and flowers from my own garden (and hopefully some of the ones which I've planted out there in the wild this past spring).

Wish me luck.

And this time I'm using a calendar.

Thrifty garden goodness- pea pod soup

Pea Pod Soup

Ingredients
a colander's worth of empty pea pods (use fresh pods from your garden)
water
1 large onion
1 large or 2 small potatoes
a handful of fresh mint leaves (from your own garden if possible)
1 clove garlic
1 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
garnish with chopped green onions and/or cream or yoghurt

How to plant a verge or front yard garden

Sometimes people want to plant a garden, but their backyard is unsuitable for some reason- too small, too shady, that's where the dogs and kids like to rampage, etc. More and more people have been breaking out of the mold and trying gardening in their front yards. Some have even taken it down to the edge of the road, on the verge.

Garlic mustard hummus and falafels

Garlic mustard is an incredibly invasive species. I'll call them 'weeds', but they're actually incredibly edible, so maybe we should call them 'free food'... It grows everywhere.

So, here are a couple recipes you can use them in. Blanch the plants in a bit of boiling water if you find them too bitter when used raw.


Garlic Mustard Hummus 
makes about 2 1/2 c.

2 cups washed, chopped garlic mustard leaves
1 cup washed, chopped ramps greens, or 1/2 cup onion
2 cups cooked chick peas
5 Tbsp olive oil
4 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp tahini
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp cumin

1. Put everything into your food processor and blend until a nice consistency. Add more olive oil if you like it smoother.


Green Falafels            
makes about 35 falafel patties

1 cup packed, chopped raw garlic mustard greens
10 green ramps leaves, or 1 small onion, chopped
1 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
2 cans chickpeas, or about 3 cups raw, soaked chickpeas
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp ground coriander
2 Tbsp flour of your choice- choose something with a bit of sticking power like tapioca or corn starch if wheat isn't your thing
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 c. breadcrumbs (gluten free if you like, or more tapioca starch)

1. Heat the oven to 375°.
2. Blend everything in a food processor until a slightly chunky paste forms. You may need to add more olive oil as you want the mixture to be scoopable.
3. Form the mixture into patties, about 2 Tablespoons for each patty. Coat the falafel in the breadcrumbs and place on a baking sheet. Spray the falafels with a light coat of olive oil cooking spray.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, flip over and bake 10 minutes longer. Serve with pitas and fillings.

Community garden plot

We're moving back to the city we think of as home in about six weeks. It's exciting, and a bit stressful. And, as we're going to have to rent for at least a year while we build up a down-payment for a house... I'm not going to have much in the way of a garden for that time. This irks me. But, at least it will be mine. All mine, muahahahahahahahahaha*cough* Ahem.

I did manage to luck into a 10x10 plot in a community garden. It's not terribly near our new house, but it is very close to a friend's place, so I'm hoping to mix gardening and tea. It has been difficult trying to contact the community gardens, as none of them have contacted me back, except the one where I got a garden plot. I'm assuming this is because they have long waiting lists and not much volunteer time.

A good friend is sending me some flax seeds. She headed me off at the pass when I bought the wrong kind... There are more than one kind of flax, apparently. One is annual, the other is perennial. The perennial is a hardy garden plant and a good native wildflower. There are two varieties of annual- one which is better for seed and one which is better for fibre. Thankfully, she's sending me the fibre variety, and I'm sharing the perennial with her for her garden. The rest of the perennial kind I'll be spreading on a field this weekend. When the proper fibre kind gets here I'll be spreading it over half my community garden plot. You have to harvest the flax for fibre just after it finishes flowering, but before it sets seed, so I'll leave a patch on one side to grow some seed for next year. Maybe a bit to eat, too, just for the novelty. The flax plants get a bit tough by then, but it might make a nice bit of cordage.

I got permission for this in advance from the garden co-ordinator so I didn't get into any trouble. It was a strange request, but there you go. I'm used to whimsical looks from people.

Then comes the retting (rotting) process. I hear it's kind of smelly...

Make a little bee-house in your soul

Wild bees

There are many thousands of varieties of bees besides those which make honey. In Canada we have at least 730, which is only 4% of the approximately 19,000 species world-wide, but only 39 of those reside in Ontario (as far as we know right now, as insects are notoriously difficult to find). (1)

Bees developed from digger wasps, but instead of killing prey for their young they switched to pollen. Bees are almost as old as flowers in the timeline of the earth. Most bee species do not live in colonies, but provide a store of pollen for their young in a safe place where the egg is deposited. The only species native to Canada that rear their young and live in colonies are Bumblebees, which live in abandoned rodent burrows. Of those who do not live in colonies most make their nests in the ground, but a good number of them like the pithy stems of plants, beetle-holes in wood, or other naturally occurring cavities (like snail shells). A few make a nest under rocks.(2)