Urban Gardener: Presto, it’s Pesto!

Name: Go Local Prov
Price range: $

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Leonard Moorehead, GoLocalProv Gardening Expert

All urban gardeners worship summer. Heat waves crest over our tight garden plots and leave wakes of bright green vegetables, flowers and herbs. Space conscious folks and gourmets alike favor plants that offer the most punch for the effort and wallet. No market can rival the quality of home grown vegetables or the subtle joys of blooms available, like the sweetpea, only on home ground. Our cuisine is better for the home garden and you can have the best too. Let’s lean on our spades for a moment, put the trowel aside and refresh ourselves with iced sprigs of mint in cold water. Discover the quiet joys of growing your own.

Long sunny summer days encourage rampant growth. Tomatoes are now reaching for the sky above their stakes and trellises. If you haven’t tried heirloom tomatoes, hesitate no longer. The qualities that pushed them aside from commercial agriculture are irrelevant to the urban gardener. The ability to delay ripening, to endure long transport from distant or foreign places or a snappy conventional appearance is not our consideration. Rather, we have the home plate advantage. We prefer taste and nutrition over cosmetic definitions of color or recognition. Our diverse heritages clamor for dishes best prepared at little cost and modest effort. No money can buy the inner satisfaction of growing your own. With foresight and simple techniques we can grow the delicious to preserve into the cold winter months.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

Tomatoes are a mainstay in many gardens. This sun lover is a perennial vine in its ancestral American homelands. Happily, the scions of tomatoes are vigorous plants. Plant the seedlings deeply, right up to the first set of leaves, in the richest composted soil possible. Roots will readily emerge from stems, the more complex the better to absorb soil nutrients and prevail through dry spells. Tomatoes are poster children for mulches, the thicker the better. Inhale. Embrace the wonderful scent of the tomato plant as you tie the plants to stakes and trellis. Although not necessary for successful cultivation, stakes have a long tradition in tomato culture for good reason: this is a space saving style so often required in the urban garden. Pinch the sprouts that emerge from leave and stem junctures.

Tomatoes are delectable right off the plant, warm from the summer sun. It’s a bit early yet to enjoy this pleasure, however, it’s far from too early to cultivate plants to accompany tomatoes in the kitchen. The natural compliments to tomatoes are parsley and basil. These fragrant and nutritious herbs readily grow in the home garden, often the best place is closest to the kitchen door. Intensely green and instantly recognizable scent identifies basil and parsley to everyone. Introduce children to these herbs for a lifetime of enjoyment. Teach your friends and children how to grow a bountiful supply in very small spaces.

Neither parsley nor basil requires more than sunshine, friable soil of moderate fertility, and a care to keep the blooms in check. Parsley is a biennial plant with a long deep tap root. More vigorous than other tap root plants, such as the carrot, parsley will grow in compacted soil. Most gardeners divide parsley into two broad categories, flat leaved and curled. Opinions differ upon taste, the verdict is usually the flat leaved is more flavorful than the curly leaved. However, I grow both for different reasons. Each has the same cultural requirements. Their deep green color is enough to justify their planting. No plant has the same ability to border the under-utilized edges and borders of garden plots.

Plant parsley in the margins of gardens for distinctive borders. Gardeners favor plants with few pests: parsley fits the bill. Time constraints? Parsley is better planted annually although it will transform in its second year as a flower stalk rises from the plant’s crown. It’s edible in every part. Few borders are more arresting than those of curly leaved parsley. The curly leaf, in my opinion, tasty and zestful, is an intense dark green. Both types of parsley are short. Mulch as you do every plant and harvest the sturdy stemmed plants from the outside in. Considerate harvests encourage growth. I like to chew on parsley after plucking a sprig on my lean in to the deeper regions of raised beds. Vitamin packed, this herb is not so commonplace as one would assume.

Basil thrives in full sunshine. A modest 12 to 18 inch plant, basil has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Long the preserve of Italian cuisine, basil has discovered new borders. Gardener’s vie with one another upon the merits of Thai, African, or Indian basil. Each is a variation upon a common theme: robust flavor to compliment home cooking. Italian broad leaf is a classic familiar to many gardeners. The Thai basil is diminuative, short with small leaves. Foliage color ranges from deep green towards shades of purple. All are virtually immune to insects or disease. Gardeners are the basil’s best friend. We prune the outer leaves with tender care, some with scissors. Keep an eye out for flower stalks. Clip the flower stalks. This encourages the plant’s desire to set seed through more leafy growth. Left to bloom, the plant has succeeded in its mission to form seeds and will decline. Frustrate this endeavor and harvest the flowers. Basil is persistent in full sunshine and there will come the day when the flower stalks escape control and bloom. By that time you’ll have plenty for the winter.

Pesto is divine. Inspired cooks in Italy compounded parsley, basil, and olive oil to preserve the green herbs. Olive oil not only absorbs the flavor and nutrients of these herbs but also gives them a long shelf life. Be creative, many families have traditional variations on this theme, some add rosemary to the olive oil mixture, others aged cheeses, or sometimes, garlic. All are welcome ingredients in a host of tasty dishes. Pesto is a low calorie. A small amount packs lots of taste. Cooks employ their best judgment to secure signature taste in every dish. Experiment and you too will be mixing batches of pesto. Happiness is to discover pesto brings the summer garden to others wrapped as the perfect thoughtful gift.

Hot summers in the city drive urban gardeners to beaches and mountains. Our stay at home gardens miss us yet remain vibrant growth driven places. Tomatoes climb. Basil glistens in full sunshine. Parsley punctuates the bright green borders. Each staple has a permanent place in our kitchen gardens. Easy to grow from seed, don’t give up, their seeds have long germination periods. Or for a little money, buy selective varieties from local growers and zone in on the less familiar. After all, variety is the spice of life. No pleasure surpasses the joys of the home kitchen, full of heady aroma, a welcome table, family and friends. It is a joy to be an urban gardener. Presto, it’s pesto. Grow parsley and basil and make your own. Give it away to share. Cook with them and feed the body, the spirit, and one another. “Another helping please”.

Leonard Moorehead is a life-long gardener. He practices organic-bio/dynamic gardening techniques in a side lot surrounded by city neighborhoods in Providence RI. His adventures in composting, wood chips, manure, seaweed, hay and enormous amounts of leaves are minor distractions to the joy of cultivating the soil with flowers, herbs, vegetables, berries, and dwarf fruit trees.

25 Must Do's in RI this Summer

WaterFire

WaterPlace Park in downtown Providence.

Wood-burning fires blaze in 80 braziers above the center of three rivers that intersect in the downtown as eerie instrumental music pervades the air. Also, fire dancers, Arts Festival Plaza on Washington Street, The Phantom Boatman, and living gargoyles and the oracles at the World War I Monument in Memorial Park. Fires always are started exactly at sunset and burn until midnight.

Urban Gardener: Presto, it’s Pesto!