Seeds from Italy News
Vol 8, #2, June 2008
THE NEWSLETTER IS BEST READ ON LINE. THE PHOTOGRAPHS MENTIONED BELOW ARE IN THE ONLINE VERSION. IF YOU WANT TO READ ON LINE, GO TO:
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We publish four times a year (usually) and include information on all aspects of Italian vegetables, herbs and flowers: selecting, growing, harvesting and storing and cooking. We would be happy to receive and if space permits, publish your experiences in these areas.
If you have a friend who is interested in all things Italian (at least for vegetables, herbs & flowers, please feel free to forward this to them.
1. Privacy Policy
2. What is new.
3. Trial Reports
4. Spring Lettuce.
5. Pleasant Surprise.
6. Growing Tip & a recipe. Baby Spinach.
7. Growing tip. Growing tomatoes on plastic mulch.
8. What is in the garden.
9. Reader Comments
10. Pre Thanksgiving Visitors
11.. How to unsubscribe from the newsletter.
1. Privacy Policy. A number of people on their order forms asked me not to sell or divulge their personal information: address, telephone numbers, email addresses, etc. I want everyone to understand that I take privacy very seriously. I never disclose any customer information to anyone under any circumstances. I have been bothered by too many telemarketers, received too much junk email to do that to anyone else. I don't even keep credit card numbers: a number of customers who reordered and told me to use their credit card number on file were surprised when I told them I do not keep them on my computer, nor do I have access to them from the credit card authorizing service.
2. What is new. I ran out of the French Fillet Bean, Fin de bagnols and can not get any more. I was talking to the folks at Franchi and they said that they have a new fillet type which is superior to the older varieties so I got some. It is available in 100 gram bags or in bulk. I have a bunch of it going and will report later. It is called Koala.
3. Trial Reports - Garlic. I have had mixed results with garlic over the past few years. This was especially so with the softneck garlic (viola francese & the bianco piacenza), although the hardnecks did not do all that well either. I am pretty sure it has been the weather. Here in New England we have had very odd fluctuations in temperatures; the year before last it was 60F. at Christmas and -5F two weeks later. Not good for garlic. In any case, what I decided to do was to plant my hardneck in the fall as usual and try spring planting the softnecks. I had been told that usually works here in the Northeast.
The hardnecks (red sulmonella from Italy and Music, a very hardy American garlic) went out the beginning of November. The beds were well fertilized and got a four inch layer of mulch (mix of grass clippings and very finely chopped leaves - I run my mower over leaves from a huge Norway Maple, making five or six passes and chopping them up pretty good). The bed for the softneck was prepared but left bare.
We got the first snowfall around Thanksgiving and we had snowcover all winter which provided a nice insulation blanket for the hardneck garlic. I planted the softneck (viola francese and bianco piacenza as early as I could get in there; it was early April before things thawed out.
So far, things are going very well. Here is the hardneck garlic in
April. 
Almost
all sprouted.
The softneck is here: 
At this point in time, it had been in the ground for three weeks or so.
Here is the garlic about 20 May. 
This is the music garlic. I do not think I have ever seen anything quite
as healthy at this at this time of year. My brother the farmer was over
and said he couldn't believe how big and healthy it was. He has about a
half acre of the Music and even though he never did mulch it before the winter,
it is looking almost as good as this. Here is a photo of the red
sulmonella. While not as big, it is doing very well. 
The softneck is growing like gangbusters and quickly catching up in size.
Looks like it may work. More to follow in the next newsletter. 
4. Spring Lettuce. A number of people have commented to me how much they like gentilina and the rossa di trento lettuces, so I decided to try them out this spring. I started them inside toward the end of march in a 72 cell tray. They went out to the garden sometime around the end of April covered with remay cloth; if you just put them outside unprotected, the wind will usually beat them pretty severely and often destroy them. These were some very happy lettuces. The photos were taken on May 31st, so they had been in the ground for five weeks or so. Weather was cooler than normal for May in Massachusetts. The picture to the left is of the rossa di trento (right) and the gentilina (left). Second photo is of my favorite butterhead, regina di maggio. You might notice the regina di maggio are not all quite symmetrical. The reason for this is the rabbits also think they are quite tasty. One of them wandered in one day when I forgot to close the gate and had a salad. Looks like most of them will recover, however. I tasted the rossa di trento (soft texture, very nice taste) and the gentilina. They are both quite good.
5. Pleasant Surprise. I have never been able to figure out item 53-1, Cippolina (spring onions). Initially (eight years ago) I thought they were chives which are a perennial. The package, however, says annual. The folks in Italy told me they were a spring onion. So, I changed their description. Turns out I was correct with my original opinion. They are chives, but they are pretty special chives.
Last year I direct seeded a couple of small rows of them in the spring.
They were very slow to get going, but by July I had a very nice crop of thin
spring onions (in the middle of the summer, however). I ate some of them,
and while they were nice, I was not especially impressed. Then I forgot
about them. This is a photograph of them in November 2007. 
This spring, in early April when the ground had just thawed, I noticed
something in the spot where they had been. Maybe they are coming back,
said I. Come back they did with a vengeance. Pretty soon I had some
very nice clusters of very thick onion/chive looking plants growing away.
Here is a photo of them in mid April. 
Impressive, thought I. Tasted some and they were great. I started
picking them for salad and they were very nice. Very good onion flavor,
large and even when they began to make flowers, the flower stems were tender and
edible. I am impressed. Here is the chive/onion patch toward the end
of May after I have been picking it pretty hard for close to a month.
Definitely a keeper. 
6. Growing Tip & a Recipe. Baby Spinach. My wife loves baby spinach as a salad green and we pay through the nose all winter for it. Being a bit tight with the wallet, it is one of the first things I get going in the spring. It is really simple to grow your own.
Preparation. I use four foot wide beds throughout my garden, so I just
dig & smooth a section of a bed (usually two feet or so.). Fertilize
well. Spinach, especially when sown thickly, is a heavy feeder.
Using the back of a rake, pull back some of the soil toward each edge of the
bed, leaving a 1/2 inch or so depression. Scatter spinach seed thickly,
trying to get a seed every inch (or a bit less or a bit more). Using your
hands or the rake, put the soil back over the bed and pat it down. Wet
well and let it grow. Spinach will be up in a few days. Since you
seeded heavily, you will choke out most of the weeds. This is what you
ought to have in 30-35 days or so depending on the weather.
The way I harvest it is just take a knife and cut as much of it as I need,
cutting an inch or so above the soil line. A little section four or so
inches square will give you enough spinach for a salad. Here
is what the little bed looks like after I have been cutting it for a
while. 
The really light spots are where I cut it down and the brown spots are where I
must have forgotten my knife and just pulled a bunch of it out. I have
been working on this patch for 10 days or so & it is starting to get a bit
tall. Time to cut is all out and start harvesting a new section I had
planted a few weeks later. What to do about all the spinach. Simple,
for the past week or so I have been doing my favorite spinach recipe. I
call it creamed spinach (without using cream). It is so creamy in texture
when done that you would swear some was added.
Recipe. Mince some onion (maybe half a medium onion) and a clove or so of garlic. Get your extra spinach (stems & all since they are baby and very tender) and wash it well several times. Put in a colander to drain some. Put a few tablespoons of olive oil in a very heavy pan for which you have a lid and set heat on medium. Cook the onion until it starts to turn color. Add the garlic & lower heat. Cook a bit (minute or two) and add the spinach. Add salt and pepper. (black pepper if your spouse does not like heat, a pinch of red pepper flakes if said spouse likes things a bit hot). Mix well, put cover on and cook a few minutes. Check water level. If there is a lot of water (from washing the spinach) cook a while until most (but not all) of the water has evaporated. Set heat to low. Put top back on. Cook another twenty minutes or so. Stir frequently and make sure it still has a little liquid (add some water if need be). It should be really creamy, everything melded together with just a bit of liquid left kind of like a very nice sauce.
You can serve it as a side vegetable. You can do it as an appetizer (grill some really good bread, rub with olive oil & maybe a garlic clove & top with the spinach. You can serve it with pasta. Enjoy.
7. Growing tip. Growing tomatoes on plastic mulch. Have you ever had your tomatoes start to get little yellow spots on the lower leaves, usually six weeks or so after you put them out. The spots get bigger, the yellow turns brown, the leaf dies, the yellow spots move on up the plant. Usually the tomatoes die in a frost before the entire plant melts, but some years it is a race between the two of them to see which will kill the plant first.
Leaf spot diseases are usually caused by organisms that live in the soil and attack the plant when they are splashed up on the plant by water, usually during thunderstorms or sometimes during overhead watering. Cool damp weather makes things worse as does crowding the plants. If you can prevent the organisms from splashing up on the plant, you can avoid or at least delay onset of the problem. Last year I grew some tomatoes in my hoophouse and they did not get the disease while those outside suffered considerably. If you do not happen to have a hoophouse or it is not practical to use some sort of overhead cover, consider using plastic mulch to prevent the problem. It is fairly inexpensive and if you use drip irrigation or soaker hoses under it, you will also save a fair amount on your water bill.
This year I am doing my tomatoes on plastic. Here is a picture of a
couple of rows of them at the end of May. [I had some red plastic hanging
around; it is supposed to produce heavier crops for tomatoes than black
plastic, but it is kind of hard to find. You can find black plastic mulch
anywhere. Will report later on in the year how this
worked. 
8. What is in the garden. Even though it has been an extremely cold spring, the garden is looking good. I have several auxiliary plots so this year I am able to trial some things I never had room for. Later on there will be reports on squash trials (napoleatano, butternut rugosa, padana, and the marmallata jam pumpkin. I am also trialing the new koala bean, have a bunch of celeriac and will do a side by side with gobbo da nizza & the bianco avorio cardoons. If the baby bunny who has taken liking to my romanesco cauliflower ever grows up and can no longer sneak through the fence, there will be a report on that. Also will have some zucchini trials and a new pepper or two.
9. Reader Comments
Katherine Hughes from Los Angeles had this to say about
fennel: For fennel, in addition to spacing (which is really key, as you said), I
find that it helps to mound the soil up around the bottom part of the bulb when the plant reaches 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Basically, cover up
the bottom inch or two of the bulb with dirt. Seems to result in a bigger,
rounder bulb. If you are going to do any fennel tests, you could always try it with some of the bulbs and see what result you get.
Also, as you are encouraging people to cook fennel, you can tell them that they can substitute fennel for celery in any recipe they have. I have
been doing it for decades. Basically, I hate celery. Odd, because I like celeriac. Maybe it was growing up in the Midwest and attending too many
parties where the crudite tray consisted entirely of celery with either peanut butter or cream cheese in the center of the stalk. Anyway, fennel
adds a nice mild flavor, in a similar vein to celery, and cooks up pretty much the same. Soups, stuffings, pasta, stir fry, anything.
If you really love the anise flavor, you can make a pasta sauce by chopping up 3 fennel bulbs and some garlic and sauteeing in olive oil with
a bit of butter until soft, and then add 1/4 cup of Ouzo and the zest and juice from one lemon. Salt and pepper to taste, and toss with al dente
pasta and 1 cup grated parmesan. The Ouzo really brings out the fennel flavor. Optionally, if your peas are coming in, you can add some peas too.
I have converted my husband to the joys of cooked fennel. His family is Italian, and they always thought I was weird to cook it. They only eat it
raw and plain. But I found several Greek recipes where they bake it with tomatoes and kalamata olives.And this is a different, but good fennel salad:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/107626
JB Reynolds, also from California notes the imminent arrival of zucchini season
and sends in a recipe for zucchini fritters. A surprisingly easy side dish is the Zucchini Fritter, best served to the "cholesterol challenged" among us but still worthwhile. Whip up a small batch of pancake batter, cutting the sugar addition by half; if you use instant pancake batter, your final product may be a bit sweet but that's what you get for using instant pancake batter. (The solution to this is: don't ever use instant pancake batter, make it fresh from scratch like a real human.) Wash and trim the ends from a few zukes and then coarse-grate them straight into the batter; stir to blend uniformly. Add a hefty dose of lard to a hot skillet, and then drop the batter in by large tablespoonfuls, turning when done on one side. Set onto paper towels to drain, but serve while still warm.
Paul Kobulnicky from Ohio passes along this tip. Bill ... just read your newsletter and, as usual, it was great.
I just wanted to tell you that last year (late Sept.) my wife and I spent a week in Bologna, using it as a hub to visit Ravenna, Siena, etc. We were on a LOT of trains and so I got to see a LOT of backyard Italian gardens. I noticed that almost all Italian gardeners trench their fennel and I now realize that it is for three reasons. The first is that it captures water better. Then, when you pull the dirt back in over the nearly mature bulbs you enhance the blanching of the bulb. Finally, it enables you to mulch a bit over the row after you have pulled the dirt back over the bulbs thus enhancing storage (assuming you do it after the mice have settled into your house for the winter and are not still roaming the garden).
[Paul is a guy after my own heart. In Italy, I drive my wife crazy.
I always want to stop and check out someone's garden]
I will try it this fall.
John Firestone from Louisiana is a long time customer and never ceases to give
me a hard time regarding my mixed ancestry. He sends in a nice sounding
recipe for fennel bread.
to Bill McKay (my Irish Italian friend):
I enjoyed your newsletter, especially all the talk about fennel. I don't think we can grow it in southern Louisiana and it's not always available in our "fresh markets." But my wife (bonafide part Italian) and I both like fennel. She has on occasion cooked up a fennel sauce to jazz up pasta.
My kids gave me a bread machine when I retired so my contribution will be a recipe for fennel bread.
1 1/2 cups fennel purée
3/8 cup water or whey or buttermilk
3 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP butter (or even better, olive oil)
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 cups bread flour
2 tsp active dry yeast
1 TBSP (or more) fennel seeds
+ fennel fronds/basil/parsley for color & interest & flavor (coarsely chopped)
Coarsely chop or slice the fennel bulb and sauté in olive oil till tender, then purée. If you get more than you need for this recipe, be creative and use the excess in a pasta dish. And save some of the fronds for use later in the bread recipe. Add the liquid and dry ingredients to your bread machine in the order outlined by the manufacturer. The active dry yeast calls for a standard time setting on my bread machine and a medium crust setting. But bread machine owners will know how to modify for more rapid yeast and varied crust settings. When the machine signals with a beep or whatever, that it's time to add delayed ingredients, add the fennel seeds and the chopped fennel fronds, basil, parsley---whatever you have.
Enjoy!
10. Pre Thanksgiving Visitors. While this does not have much to
do with growing and eating Italian vegetables & herbs, it was so priceless I
had to put it in. Wild Turkeys have come back in Massachusetts in a big
way and you find them all over the state, even in suburban towns like
mine. In fact, a few years I was going out to Western Massachusetts and
had to stop and wait while a flock of at least two hundred Turkeys crossed the
road. Flocks around here are much smaller, but they are all over the
place. The other day, I was walking past the French doors out to my deck
the other day and noticed some very large brownish things in the back
yard. I took a closer look and there was a male Turkey and two hens.
The hens were enjoying eating away on what passes for a 'lawn' in my back yard
while the male spent most of his time puffing himself up. They were there
for two hours or so. May they stay away from the garden. 
11. If you received this newsletter and you do not want to be on the subscription list, just click on the unsubscribe link below.
http://www.growitalian.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=GrowItalian
Good growing. As always, may your garden be woodchuck and deer free. Also, for those of you who have squirrels get in your attic, may you have a couple of red tailed hawks patrol your yard.
Bill McKay