Vegetable Gardening (75 page)

Collards

Collards (
Brassica oleracea
) are an ancient cabbage-family crop that's a stalwart in many Southern gardens. Unlike cabbages, they don't form heads and can withstand heat and still grow well. The whole plant can be eaten at any stage, and the large, smooth oval leaves, in particular, taste great steamed or mixed in soups. Healthwise, they're one of the best greens you can eat; they're high in vitamin A, iron, and calcium. Some good varieties for production and vigor include ‘Champion', ‘Georgia', and ‘Flash'.

Collards like cool weather and mature quickly within 60 to 80 days after seeding. Sow seeds directly in the garden 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost date for a spring harvest, and again in mid to late summer for a fall harvest. Thin the seedlings to 10 inches apart. Use the thinnings in soups and casseroles. Fertilize, water, and mulch collards as you would cabbage, which I discuss in detail in Chapter 9.

Endive

Endive (
Cichorium endivia
), a French cool-season green from the chicory family, has a reputation for being bitter, but if you grow it yourself, the flavor is mild, and the texture is crunchy. Endive is distinguished from its sister escarole (discussed in the following section) by its deeply cut and curled leaves. Both mature in 45 to 55 days. You'll find endive in many mesclun seed mixes (see Chapter 10 for more on mesclun) and blended with lettuce at restaurant salad bars. Some varieties to try are ‘Rhodos', ‘Galia', and ‘Neos'.

Growing endive is similar to growing lettuce, and endive matures in the same time frame (see Chapter 10). As an added benefit, if you let the heads become large, the centers naturally blanch, resulting in tender, mild-flavored, creamy-white leaves. If the weather is heating up, harvest the greens young (when they're about 6 inches in diameter) before the flavor becomes bitter and the texture becomes tough.

Escarole

Escarole (
Cichorium endivia
) is endive's sister, with the only true distinguishing feature being the larger heads with broad, thin, smooth leaves of the escarole. It's grown like endive and has the same uses, but it's sweeter and crunchier than endive. Some Italian cooks, like my mom, use escarole in soups, creating a flavorful, sweet, and slightly bitter broth. Escarole also can be blanched by covering the leaves 5 days before harvest to create an even milder flavor and texture. Escarole matures in 45 to 50 days. A good variety to look for is ‘Full Heart Batavian'. For growing instructions, see the previous section on endive.

Florence fennel

Florence fennel (
Foeniculum vulgare
) produces a bulging area at the stem near the soil line called a bulb (technically it isn't a bulb but an enlarged stem). There's also a leaf-type herb called sweet fennel that's grown for its ferny leaves and doesn't produce a bulb. If you like anise flavor, you'll love fennel.

This cool-season crop produces bulbs 80 days after sowing and can be grown as a spring or fall crop. The crunchy bulbs are great sliced in salads, marinated in oil and balsamic vinegar, grilled, or just eaten raw. (My fennel crop never makes it into the house because my daughter Elena likes to pick and eat it while wandering around the yard.)

Even though Florence fennel is grown mostly for its bulbs, you also can use its ferny leaves to add a licorice flavor to salads and casseroles. If you let the plant bolt, the flowers that form produce anise-flavored fennel seeds; you can then eat or cook with these great-tasting seeds. The flower heads also are beautiful in the garden and attract beneficial insects that can protect your plants from pests (more on that in Chapter 17). The best varieties are the newer ones, which are slower to bolt in the heat and more productive. ‘Orion', ‘Perfection', and ‘Zefa Fino' are good choices.

Fennel likes cool weather to mature the largest and sweetest-tasting bulbs. Prepare the soil, fertilize, and water as you would for lettuce (see Chapter 10). Start fennel indoors in early spring for transplanting outdoors a month later, just before your last frost date. For fall planting, start seeds indoors in late summer. Space transplants 6 to 8 inches apart; harvest a few months later — when the fennel bulbs are 3 to 4 inches in diameter — by pulling the plants out of the ground, cleaning off the soil, and removing the roots and tops.

Garlic

If any vegetable has experienced a renaissance lately, it has to be garlic (
Allium sativum
). In recent history, garlic was poo-pooed as a low-class herb that needed to be masked on your breath, or you'd risk social embarrassment. Now it's the chic ingredient in many gourmet restaurants and touted as a major medicinal herb to cure everything from earaches to high cholesterol. Garlic also is a key ingredient in some insect and animal repellents and is very effective at repelling vampires (just kidding, I think). These uses come as no surprise to anyone who knows the history of garlic. It has been used medically for centuries, but only recently did people rediscover its benefits.

For some unknown reason, many also believe that garlic is difficult to grow. That isn't true. I describe some popular garlic varieties and explain how to grow garlic in the following sections.

Varieties

Even though you could grow your own garlic from bulbs bought in grocery stores, most of those varieties are adapted to a California climate. Unless you live in central California where most garlic is commercially grown, it's best to select varieties from catalogs and local garden centers.

The beauty of growing your own garlic is being able to sample the selection of varieties now available. Choosing the variety adapted for your area is the first step, but then you also can try varieties from around the world. The flavors of these different varieties can vary from mild to spicy hot.

Garlic comes in two basic types:

Softneck:
This type of garlic produces 12 to 18 cloves per bulb in several layers around a main stem. Softneck varieties tend not to produce a flower stalk and are the best types for long-term storage and
braiding
(twisting the garlic tops in a braid so they're easy to hang in the kitchen). Some varieties include ‘New York White', ‘Inchelium Red', ‘Silverskin', and ‘Early Red Italian'. ‘Susanville' is a good variety for hot-summer areas.

Hardneck:
This type produces fewer cloves per stem than softneck garlic (6 to 12), but the cloves are larger. They grow in a single circle around a woody stem. The hardneck varieties also produce an attractive flower stalk called a
scape
that forms small bulblets at the end. The bulblets and scape are edible (see Figure 11-2). Hardneck varieties don't store as long as softneck varieties, but I've never had any trouble getting the bulbs to last through winter.

The hardneck group has more diversity in clove flavor and color. Varieties to try include ‘German Extra Hardy', ‘Russian Red', ‘Ajo Roja', and ‘Persian Star'. ‘German Extra Hardy' is particularly cold hardy and good for severe-winter areas. ‘Ajo Roja' is particularly well adapted to growing in California and the South.

You may come across a third type of garlic that's more closely related to leeks than garlic. Called ‘Elephant' garlic (
Allium ampeloprasum
), this type is grown like other garlics but isn't as winter hardy. ‘Elephant' garlic plants produce huge white bulbs weighing up to a half pound, with large, easy-to-peel cloves. The flavor is milder than regular garlic, and you can store the bulbs for up to 1 year.

Growing guidelines

The key to a good crop of garlic is planting at the right time for your area. Garlic likes cool weather conditions and requires a long time to mature its bulbs. For gardeners in cold areas or areas with hot summers, fall is the best time to plant garlic. For gardeners with mild summers and winters, garlic also can be planted in spring.