Edible Leaf Crops

This is a subject I just won't shut up about already, I know :)

Like last year, one of our resolutions for this year ahead is to eat more greens...more and more we're realizing just how important they are in our daily eating and in our planning for the longterm in  how we intend to feed ourselves with the highest level of nutrition.

Well, we have NO crops going at the moment, except for some cuttings that are rooting in vials of water on my kitchen counter and a few things under wraps at the moment outdoors (we could be growing plenty of things right now outdoors, but are just going with our existing perennials, most of which got toasted in the freezes).

I found this link about leaf crops, and since we really enjoyed our experiments this past summer with the moringa leaves and chaya leaves, I thought it would be worth a look to see what other leaves are overlooked, highly nutritious edibles...take a peek at the link, since it covers different growing zones.

I can list some right offhand, most of which we have yet to try on a larger scale and some which we've sampled...think of them as unlikely foods that oftentimes are a second crop from plants that bear more familiar foods:

1.  Cowpea (black eyed peas and that family) young leaves
2.  Okra young leaves
3.  Sweet Potato leaves (cooked, not of the true yam family)
4.  Pumpkin and squash  young leaves
5.  Moringa
6.  Chaya/Pig Chaya leaves ( cooked only, never raw)
7.  Clover leaves
8.  Dollarweed leaves
9.  Amaranth leaves

Doing the odd internet search during down time has reaped some interesting finds as far as dual-purpose plants.  Let me know what leaves you find that we never knew were edible...there are areas of the world outside the US in which these optimal foods are eaten regularly and the memory of their use is still contemporary...

False Roselle/Cranberry Hibiscus Update

Back in early June Jack planted Cranberry Hibiscus/False Roselle seeds. Here was the initial post after they had first sprouted...they certainly weathered the heat and extremes well. From those very small seeds emerged what appeared to be red maple seedlings. It is now early August, about three months total, and many of the plants tower over me.

The leaves are very similar to a red maple, or Japanese maple, sometimes appearing purplish with green tints intermingled, and sometimes tipped in vibrant crimson (especially the newer shoots and leaves).

These will benefit from getting cut back, since they are a bit lanky and need to be pruned in order to get a good bushy habit. I think that should also promote more flowers, too, as these will likely be blooming later in the year (let's see...it's our first time around with them).

We got them started in the plastic bins, but it's clear they need to be planted out soon. We're figuring that since they naturalize pretty easily in Florida in general, that they'll stand a better chance with freezes if they're in the ground and their roots can be better established by then. If they die back, they'll likely regrow from the roots. Again, let's see.

At a distance, their color here appears a dark plum color. Up close, the leaves are works of art, in every shade of plum, purple, violet, mauve, and the red spectrum. The veins are burgundy red.

We have tried eating both the tender emerging leaves (the dark red ones you see here at the tips) as well as the medium-sized leaves in teas. I've never tasted sorrell, but some folks describe the flavor as similar. To me, they have a mildly tart lemony flavor. The small tender leaves are very delicious in salads...we really like them! The other larger leaves are my current favorite in hot tea, especially combined with other medicinal tea plants. Right now I make a mix of fresh leaves of the false roselle (cranberry hibiscus), comfrey, moringa, and yerba buena...I feel good drinking it and even though I've been sick on and off this summer with a very stubborn respiratory infection, I do believe the tea helps give me a boost to build my immune system, or at least that's my hunch :)

I was delighted to find this video by Green Deane...fun and informative...check it out if you have time :)

But here's where the False Roselle is in its glory...with the blazing sun backlighting its leaves...this is the view out my dining area window (the only window visible from my kitchen), and when the sun is trying its best to wither and melt down everything in its path, the plucky false roselle's leaves gleam like jewels.

We are definitely keeping these for the longterm...they are so easy to grow from seed, they aren't bothered by extremes of weather, except for freezes, they are perrenial to our area for the most part, and for areas that have cold, they are easily grown from seed after the frosts. Prune them? They flourish and the pruned bits can be stuck into the soil to propagate more plants. They're delicious in salads and in stir fries...and teas.

When they flower, the blooms are a more delicate-looking version of a hibiscus, pink with purple veins, and though the flower has no taste, it is beautiful in salads. I can't wait to try them the way the ECHO global test farm recommends (check out the search bar for more about ECHO...we love them and use their seeds)...to pick them when the buds are closed near dusk and then to blend them with lime and sugar and serve as an iced drink...fresh limeade with a gorgeous pinkish glow...mmm!

When a plant is this versatile, I'm all about trying to think of how to use it in other ways. I wonder if the more tender medium-sized leaves could be used in recipes that would usually incorporate grape leaves, and if they might even be preserved for the longer term in brine the way grape leaves can. I haven't ventured much into the realm of making dolmas, but I've had some Greek food before, and eaten bits wrapped in grape leaves and thought them delicious. I wonder if the taste and texture of the false roselle leaves are close enough to grape leaves to serve as a delicious alternative with lemony undertones? Or if it would taste good flavoring a vinegar? Or included in jars of pickles (my grandma put grape leaves in hers along with the garlic and dill, etc) when canning. Or boiled with sugar and made into a simple syrup?

At any rate, if you have a hunch to try this plant, do! It's a great pollinator attractor and can be grown in clumps in the landscape, edible garden, or flowerbed.

We'll keep you posted as we transplant it and see how the bloom time goes, and how well it weathers our winter and some benign neglect from time to time. And I'll see if we can play with it a bit in the kitchen, too! If you have any ideas along those lines, let me know...I love to experiment :)

Eating Cowpea Greens

They're not just good for animal fodder, a plate of purple hull peas with cornbread, or fixing nitrogen as a cover crop in the garden. The leaves are a really nutritious edible green! For more on our experiment on how to use cowpea leaves as edible greens, it's my post today over at NotDabblingInNormal.

Hope to see you there :)

Tepary Insanity

Oh no. We bought more seeds.

I read about the Tepary Bean, went to the ECHO seed site, and that was all she wrote. If "all she wrote" means I also "needed" an assortment of other equally-enticing seeds.

It's not as if we actually NEED more things to plant. There are no vacancies in Bucketville. But seeds, we buy.

(Thank goodness I'm not the only one out here so afflicted. This condition could be more contagious than the swine flu...)

As for the above picture, I have to get a good look at these before the heat kicks 'em hard. This is about the only time of year these vines look good, or at least that was the case last year.

None of them set fruit last year, so I'm thinking of trying my hand at my very first batch of pickles before too long just to road test the grape leaves...I remember my Grandma's dills having a clove of garlic and a grape leaf in each jar...mmm :) There is a little market nearby and they have a lot of cucumbers, but we aren't enough in the groove with timing and growing yet to have our own.

I think these guys will get harvested this weekend, and salads will abound! After they're feasted on, we'll plant something geared more toward the hot weather. The days now are quite hot, though there are some mild nights still...but there is still NO RAIN.

This is about the actual size of one of the friendly little lizards that are all over the place here.

When I first moved down here, they kind of freaked me out, but since they're not poisonous and don't bite, and DO eat prodigious quantities of crawly bugs, I've warmed to them. I love seeing them peeping out from leaves. They take giant leaps if they think we're too close, and the males show off for the gals by extending their throat flap, waving down their women and bobbing their heads.

Yeah, little guy, you're cool :)

I'm really excited that we may have solved our Floridians-Do-Not-Plant-For-Summer-Harvests dilemma. The weather here has extremes that do in a lot of hot weather crops that flourish elsewhere...maybe the non-winters, the extra parasites, the extremes of drought and monsoon?? Whatever the case, we've had to explore additional resources to find some that we hope will be up to the challenge. The ECHO global farm was a great place to nose around for those sorts of answers...here's an order we placed that I can't wait to try our hand at planting.

Some of these are dual-purpose plants, and all are supposed to be hardy and worthy of some kitchen and garden experimentation. Woo, happy!

To arrive soon, seed packets (as if we ever have enough):

Cranberry Hibiscus ---flowers, edible! leaves, edible!

Lima Bean- 'Pima Orange' -- can't wait to see if this one does well...gorgeous colored heirloom bean

Lima Bean-'7 Year' -- hullo, this is the Madagascar bean we've been looking for!

Malabar Spinach, Red -- they had this growing as a ground cover around other plants at ECHO, sort of a prostrate viney non-invasive plant, gorgeous red stems and green leaves

Okra-'Burgundy' -- who can resist more red?? :)

Papaya-'Red Lady' -- and even more red. A more dwarf type, though it is a hybrid

Pigeon Pea-'Vegetable' --we'll see if we can grow 'em, and if so, how we best can use 'em

Pumpkin, Tropical-'Brian' -- Again, I'm enamored with growing drought-tolerant plants. let's see if it'll make it

Tepary Bean -- Here's one I have high hopes for. They might weather the fluctuations better than our snaps and purple hulls, we'll see. They sounded vigorous and delicious in the preliminary reading I've done, and can be used as a green manure cover crop. I'll have to check but I think the leaves are edible. Don't take my word on that, I'm sleep deprived. Sleep deprived and with visions of seeds STILL dancing in my head.

Yardlong Bean 'Mix'-- we'll have to get some verticality going for these and the madagascars and a couple of the others listed above. So far we've done bush-type beans and we're dealing with poor soil, straight up wood shavings and horse poo, and a whole lot of weeds. Soil improvement is a labor of love and isn't an overnight phenomenon. Anyway, these look productive and they're beautiful. And take fewer square feet of terra firma

Hopefully some of these will grow enough to eat them and figure out what works well. It'll be fun trying :)

But for now, I've been up nearly 24 hours, so it's lights out for me.

The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be. (But she's not out to pasture yet, either, ha!)

I hope your weekend is wonderful!

Shabbat shalom

ECHO Global Farm Goat House

It's taken me a while to post more of our pics from the ECHO test farm tour. Their test farm is amazing and approximates several different types of climates in order to develop multi-purpose crops using low-tech sustainable methods to be used in developing countries. Many of the planting techniques and actual under-utilized plants Jack and I've been interested knowing more about are featured there...it was exciting seeing so many all in one place!

This was their goat house. There was so much to fit into the tour, and we didn't get unlimited time to poke around and measure and fiddle to our hearts' content, but here's what we were able to gather at the time...

The structure was made as a solution to many third world farmers' dilemma...how to raise goats on small land parcels without sustaining damage to crops. Goats are an important animal in many cultures, useful for milk, meat, skins, bartering, and sometimes fiber.

ECHO's goat house was their working solution: an elevated structure made of found materials or available wood. It is large enough to comfortably accomodate several small to medium-sized goats, and the wooden slats are substantial enough to be strong, and are spaced to allow for air circulation on all sides...but to keep predators out. There was a feeding trough along one side, and the slats were spaced to allow goats to extend their heads to the trough for eating forage, but not enough to allow the goats to escape.

Beneath the troughs, trimmed limbs and forage leaves/plants were piled. As the goats finished what was in the troughs, the trimmings could be easily rotated upward to refill the troughs.

It's hard to tell in these pictures, but the building was positioned raised above a dirt slope. Animal droppings fall through the floor slats to the ground below, and are raked down the underneath slope into the open to be collected and used for fertilizer. Any uneaten twigs and branches from the fodder are put into the compost pile.

We've never had goats, but know enough about them from others to know they're talented escape artists. We weren't able to study the structure to see how they're prevented from getting out, but it's obvious this structure works well and has been used successfully for some time. The goats did not seem crowded, seemed to enjoy being higher up off the ground and in the shade rather than direct sunlight. And there was no way they'd ever be standing on wet ground.

Several forages are used for them...one is moringa, a multi-use tree good for animals and humans. Here is a stand of moringa, harvested 7 times a year (if memory serves) by what seems to be a coppicing method (or is it a pollarding one?) since the tree trunks are cut at regular intervals after harvesting their quick-growing branches. These can be fed to animals such as the goats, for fodder, harvested for human consumption (leaves), or for low-tech water purification (leaves again). Here is a stand of coppiced moringa trees. The trunks are 2 to 3 feet high and the branch growth was about waist high or so.

Here is a mature moringa, a different variety than the above. This one stores water in its trunk and can endure punishing drought.

That's all for now...we enjoyed seeing their solution to the goat dilemma. Goats can easily decimate a garden, yet this goat house situated in close proximity to surrounding gardens kept the cycle beneficial to not only humans, but supplied the goats with fodder that otherwise would have been a plant waste. In eating them, the goats gained nutrition, produced fertilizer and milk, and the garden benefitted again, continuing the circle.

More ECHO fun to come, as I have time to post!

More About Moringa

...today at Women Not Dabbling in Normal

Stretch-the-Veg Greens Update

Jack had surgery yesterday on his forehead, to remove a cancerous place.

Yes, the C Word...the panic-inducer, life-flashing-in-front-of-your-eyes word association. The day we found that out, I was pulling up every possible internet dietary recommendation I could get my hands on under the title Cancer Prevention. At the top of every list was the category Greens. Dark, leafy greens of every sort are a vital component of a body's cancer-and-other-diseases defense team. Those same leafy greens are something we really need to include more of in our meals around here, and that means finding ways to enjoy eating them as well as developing some garden savvy in growing them.

Thankfully, they seem to be an easy food to grow, and here in Florida, we should be able to stretch a couple of seasons and still keep them going. In colder areas, I'd imagine they could be included among other greens grown under a protective polytunnel or other crop-prolonging method.

We didn't have an active seasonal in-ground garden of any sort this year, for reasons discussed in prior posts. What we did do is begin slower-growing plants, and some herbs, trees, experimental and exotics in 5 gallon (what else?? ha) pots. We're gearing up to make decisions about what to start putting into the ground and whether we'll be seeing any daylight with our goals for relocation. So many decisions, quite a bit of waiting, and so many things that just can't wait...it's a head-scratcher sometimes trying to find ways to strike a balance.

Recently, I posted about dual-use veggies...ones commonly used for a better-known food (think beets, turnips, sweet potatoes, okra, papaya), but with the real potential of dual usage for humans for a second table food. In these cases, the second food is Greens.

We're continuing to experiment a bit with our Blood Sugar Regulator plant, Gynura procumbens/ Sambung Nyawa. Its flavor is not unpleasant, but since it is a new taste to me, I'm not used to it...and so we experiment for a better taste "fit." So far, we've had it raw in salad, steeped fresh in hot water as a tea, blanched, and a cut up and stir friend ingredient in chicken enchiladas (mmm!)

We still have 3 1/2 gallon ziplock bags full in the fridge, and I'm trying not to waste it. Tonight's inclusion was with some shredded cabbage, stir-fried in a tablespoon of olive oil with a pinch of salt and then continued briefly with the addition of a couple tablespoons water, to sort of steam/stir fry it just till the greens brighten and begin softening. I don't cook past that point...I like them tender, cooked till no longer crunchy, but no more...I can't stand pale, gray, limp overcooked cabbage.

The picture above is at the just-done point. I served this for each person tonight for dinner in a bowl, in this order: hot cooked rice, some cabbage and greens served on top of that, and a ladle of steaming Winter Squash-and- Turkey Soup over all. Yum!


Over at a recent entry on Duane Marcus' blog The Funny Farm, he's written about finding another wonderful Asian green called Komatsuna. It is said to be delicious eaten for its greens as well as its stalks, which can be substituted fresh for celery. I've never tried it, but he says his customers enjoy it, and gives it great reviews for its hardiness and ability to withstand some cold weather as well as heat without bolting. It's a warmer zone plant, so we'll be looking into it for sure. Thanks for the heads-up, Duane!