The Austin Garden: Studebaker: school harvest time & recipe | bio-char

Barton Springs nursery sales: purple leaf vitex:1 gal. $4. 'Spotty dotty' mangave (mix of agave, manfreda) 1 gal. 25% off. Cherokee sedge $5. Golden ticket privet (non-invasive) 40% off. Barton Springs ❦

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Natural Gardener news: On Sat^.at 10 a.m. join owner John Dromgoole for coffee and conversation. Current sale: 20% off all plants until Dec. 31. Natural Gardener ❦

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New owner for EZ Herbs: Ellen Zimmerman will pass the torch for her business in the new year to Jenny Perez, a talented local herbalist who currently works as education coordinator at the American Botanical Council. EZ Herbs ❦

What is bio-char: You can create this magical amendment to your soil and gardens by burning brush and other hard-to-compost organic material - and cutting off the oxygen before it fully burns. The result: bio-char. An instructive article by Barbara Pleasant. Mother Earth News ❦

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Bing Crosby and nature: in 1976 the legendary Hollywood crooner from Washington state sat down with Derek Jones to share his love of nature and the outdoor life. BBC ❦

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a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Thursday Morning Landscape

design and installation,

free consultation Call Dwight: 512 913 2189

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Central Texas Gardener: in the studio, Teresa Sabankaya from Bonny Doon Flower Company explores the intricate language of flowers. On tour in Lorena, Elizabeth DeMaria turned her clay-baked land into gorgeous gardens to romance wildlife. Saturday. 4 p.m. Sunday 9 a.m. KLRU ❦

photo: Renee Studebaker

Fall Harvest Time at School

by Renee Studebaker

It hasn’t been an easy year for Central Texas gardeners.

Spring came late. June was strangely cool and wet. And then when summer finally arrived, it seemed it would never end.

August and September set so many records for extreme heat that many of the fall garden seeds we planted at Smith Elementary refused to germinate. It’s hard to blame them — it was just too hot.

And then, to add a little extra drama, the first killing freeze arrived a month early for many areas in Travis County, including the Smith garden, where I teach after-school gardening and cooking classes.

The day before the freeze was due to hit, the garden students and I picked purple hull peas, basil, okra, peppers, and all the ripe and near-ripe tomatoes.

But there were still dozens of green tomatoes left on the vines, and I wasn’t ready to give up on them, so after class I covered the biggest bed with row covers (two layers!). And just in case that wasn’t enough protection, I picked a big bucketful of green tomatoes. (Which we later turned into some pretty tasty fried green tomato tacos; see our recipe below.)

photo: Renee Studebaker

Well, the good news is the doubled row covers kept the tomato and pepper plants alive. The kids were thrilled and so was I. In fact, as of this writing — Dec. 2 — the plants are thriving, and the fruits remaining on the vines have continued to ripen thanks to the mild weather we’ve had in the last few weeks. Some of the plants are even blooming and setting new fruit.

So all in all, I thought we had reason to celebrate, until I got this question from one of my students:

“Why didn’t you put covers on all the vegetables? Why did any of our plants have to freeze?”

Ouch. Good question. I had to admit that there wasn’t enough row cover on hand for every tomato, pepper and eggplant in the garden. It’s a big garden. And besides, that’s just the way gardening works.

Every plant has its season, and it was time to say goodbye to our warm weather plants until next spring. Meanwhile, we managed to stretch our fall tomato crop for a whole month, AND we got to eat some fried green tomatoes. And now we get to look forward to carrots, broccoli and sugar snap peas.

My students kindly accepted this explanation. Even so, I think I’ll go buy some more row cover. ❦

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Fried Green Tomato Tacos

with Cabbage and Radish Slaw

Slaw

1 cup shredded cabbage

1/2 cup thinly sliced radishes

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

1 small serrano pepper, finely chopped (optional)

Juice of 1 mandarin orange

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pinch of ground cumin

Pinch of garlic powder

Batter:

1/4 cup corn flour

1/4 cup corn meal

3 teaspoons corn starch

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Pinch of ground cumin

Pinch of garlic powder

1/2 cup cold water

1 teaspoon hot sauce (I used Yellow Bird serrano sauce)

About a dozen green tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick

Corn tortillas (I used El Milagro’s white corn tortillas)

Vegetable oil

In a mixing bowl, stir together slaw ingredients and set aside. In another bowl, mix dry batter ingredients; add water and hot sauce and stir until smooth.

Pour oil to a depth of 1/2 inch in a large cast-iron skillet; heat to about 360°. Dip tomatoes in batter and drop one at a time in single layer batches into hot oil, and cook 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden.

Drain on paper towels or a rack. Heat tortillas on a dry griddle. Fill each tortilla with 2 or 3 tomato slices and top with slaw. ❦