Craving Summer and BBT Pie. (Bacon, Basil, and Tomato Pie, That Is.)

September is a bittersweet month. While we're thickly back into school and after-school activity mode, I'm still desperately clinging to summer. I'm not ready for rushed dinners and early bedtimes. I want to lounge with the kids, reading books and playing ping-pong, not cracking my taskmaster whip to memorize multiplication tables or--worse--to solve for x. I watch leaves fall and litter the pool, but my heart's not ready to surrender and cover it. 

And I'm certainly not ready to give up tomatoes.

Sadly, though, the time is here. A few vines barely cling to life in the garden. Most of the tomato plants were pulled up long ago, victim to too much rain and too little sun. (It was a very odd South Carolina summer.) I spent a ridiculous amount of time pruning the few survivors, removing diseased leaves and knowing that I should just end their misery and allow them an honorable death for their service. (Can you tell I'm reading Game of Thrones?) 

Still, the few pitiful vines continue to produce a few pitiful tomatoes, and I'm taking full advantage of the fruit before it disappears completely. 

Hoping to embrace the last wisps of summer, I decided we needed a dinner that would makes us feel that we're still in the thick of summer, when produce is abundant and days are lazy.

In South Carolina, the quintessential summer dinner is Tomato Pie.

Maybe it's not only a South Carolina staple, but I'd never heard of tomato pie until we crossed the Mason-Dixon line. I know it never graced our dinner table in Munster, Indiana. (I wouldn't have eaten it, anyway. My family will attest that I was the world's pickiest eater.)

Over the years, my friends Dana and Janet shared their recipes for tomato pie with me. Let me assure you, when you mention on Facebook that you're about to make a tomato pie, your friends will begin salivating, asking when they should arrive for dinner. 

I know. I've been on the other side. 

Admittedly, I'm not a brave cook. I'm typically a recipe follower, too fearful to deviate from perfectly proportioned ingredients. But somehow, I became a chef renegade when I pulled out my friends' tomato pie recipes.

I added. I deleted. I substituted. I feared disaster.

But you know what?

It was yummy.

Before we get to the recipe, I feel you're owed full disclosure.

I used a pre-made pie crust. 

I know, I know...I've lost all credibility with you now. And I know my friend Janet will tell me that I shouldn't be intimidated by pie crusts. 

But it was a school night, and suddenly it was 6 p.m. and I hadn't even thought about starting dinner. So, rather than forgo that lovely taste of summer, I punted and used pre-made.

I'm sorry.

Janet uses this recipe for her pie crust. I'm going to use it when I make an apple pie this afternoon. Really. I am.

Regardless of whether you use a homemade or a pre-packaged pie crust, I urge you to snatch up the last summer tomatoes from your garden or the farmers' market and make this tomato pie tonight.

It will make you happy. I promise.

BBT Pie (Bacon, Basil, Tomato Pie)

Ingredients:

4 large tomatoes, or 8 medium, cut into 1/4-inch slices. (I used a variety of organic heirloom tomatoes to make the flavor more complex.)
8 slices bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces, cooked
2 shallots, diced
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. salt, plus extra for tomato prep
1 tbsp. fresh chives, chopped finely
2 tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus a bit extra to sprinkle on top
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pie crust in ungreased 9-inch pie pan, fold edges under, and pinch or crimp crust with fingers or fork. 

2. Bake crust for 10 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from oven.
 
3. While oven preheats and as crust pre-bakes, slice tomatoes and place on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt to draw water out of fruit, and let tomatoes rest approximately 20 minutes. (If you skip this step, your tomato pie can be quite soupy.) Pat dry.

4. In a large skillet, brown bacon until crispy. Remove bacon from pan.

5. Add shallots to bacon grease in pan and cook until slightly brown, approximately 3-4 minutes. Remove shallots and drain grease.

6. Sprinkle 1/2 cup grated Parmesan on bottom of pie crust.

7. Layer tomatoes on top of Parmesan until crust is filled to approximately 1/4-inch of top of pan.

8. Stir together mayonnaise, bacon, basil, shallots, chives, and remaining Parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese until well-blended.

9. Spread mixture evenly over the top of the tomatoes. Grate a bit of Parmesan and sprinkle on top.

10. Bake in 350-degree oven for 40-45 minutes, removing when cheese begins to brown.

11. Cool and serve with a frosty glass of Pinot Grigio.

Of course, you can make the tomato pie without bacon, but honestly, once you taste it, you'll understand why the bacon belongs nestled next to the tomatoes. It's salty and savory and defines the flavor of summer. Take a bite, chase it with the chilly wine...divine.

So quick--grab those last tomatoes. I promise this tomato pie will make you feel like it's hammock and beach season--at least mentally.

What is the summer food that you miss most in the winter?

Enjoy!

XOXO ~

Julie

Making Beds. (Vegetable Garden Beds, That Is.)

It's raining, it's pouring...down-pouring, actually. Hooray for the rain! Not only do our poor, empty South Carolina lakes need a refill, but I'm seriously behind in writing.

Lately, any free moment of daylight is spent in the garden, working frantically to prepare for the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association's Upstate Farm Tour. While I'm excited and honored to be included on the tour—particularly since we are not a traditional farm—I'm also nervous! I mean, honestly—who wants to tour an empty backyard?

So, my friends, that's where I've been lately, building and digging and planting and prettifying.

The garden tasks haven't left much time for writing—or washing laundry. (And gardening is just so much tastier than cleaning toilets.)

Fortunately, I'm making progress. When I last updated about the six new raised beds for the large vegetable garden, we chatted about creating soil to fill the beds. Remember my perfect calculations to determine how much peat moss, vermiculite, and mushroom compost I would need to fill the beds?

Well. Multiply that originally calculated 120 cubic feet...by 2.

Guess who made a teeny, tiny boo-boo in her math?

Yes. Yes, I did.

Now, in my defense, my math was correct. My ability to measure is what threw off the calculations.

Remember how I mentioned that the original garden slopes?

In designing the raised beds, Peter compensated for the sloping ground by building the beds to accommodate the slope—allowing the beds to appear straight, which resulted in a tiered garden.

Can you see in the photo above how the board on the right side of each bed isn't as tall as the board on the left side of the bed? In fact, the board on the right side is six inches high—which is what I used to calculate the height of the bed. In reality, the bed is 12 inches deep. The left board is 12 inches high, and the right side is dug out to make the height also 12 inches.

Thus, my miscalculation.

My formula for each bed should have been:

Length (10 feet) x Width (4 feet) x Height (1 foot, NOT .5 feet) = 40 cubic feet per bed, NOT 20 cubic feet...which is what I calculated.

Yeesh.

I apologize.

If you are building raised beds...I wish you a perfectly flat plot for your construction project.

Anyway...

Let's talk about making soil.

After all of the trauma and drama of getting another load of peat moss, compost, and vermiculite, we were ready to fill the beds.

It's important to mix all of the components well. Remember our 1/3 ratios? You want 1/3 peat, 1/3 compost, and 1/3 vermiculite to comprise the soil in each bed.

First, because it's so light, we added the peat directly into the bed.

Next, we poured the vermiculite on top of the peat...

...and thoroughly mixed the two with a rake. 

Then, we added the mushroom compost. And mixed. And mixed some more.

To ensure even distribution, we made half the soil for the bed, then started the process again—adding more peat and vermiculite on top of the already mixed ingredients, then raking in the mushroom compost—and finally mixing and smoothing the entire bed.

Peat. Vermiculite. Compost. Mix. Repeat.

And repeat.

And repeat.

Finally, with very tired arms and backs, the beds were ready.

In three of the beds designated for tomatoes and peppers, though, I added lime to the mix.

Lime adds calcium to the soil. Have you ever noticed a nasty brown/black spot on the bottom of your tomatoes? Blossom end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency in the plant. Lime helps keep your tomatoes looking lovely.

The Plan.

One of my goals for our garden is to provide diverse, interesting, delicious produce for our family. In fact, I'm challenging myself to grow ALL of our produce this summer. But that's a story for another day.

To meet that goal, though, I needed to plan strategically what to grow, how to space it, and how to prevent pests and diseases from decimating the crops. Additionally, all of the produce in the garden is grown from non-GMO, heirloom seeds...no super-powered Franken-plants to thwart diseases in my garden. Careful planning and maintenance are my superpowers of choice to keep the garden healthy.

Typically, I plant in standard rows. Rows and rows of heirloom tomatoes and peppers, throwing in a few beans and squash.

Now, with our new raised beds, I decided to implement a combination of companion planting and square foot gardening to maximize the output for each bed.

Honestly, this project wasn't cheap, particularly when someone miscalculates the amount of soil needed.

We need some serious return on investment here in the form of deliciousness.

Square Foot Gardening is an intensive planting technique that divides a bed into a grid of 12” boxes. Each square foot is planted according to the harvest size of the produce. For instance, one tomato plant can occupy a 12” square, while four Swiss Chard or 16 radishes would fit in that same space.

The founder of Square Foot Gardening would argue that I'm not truly following his methodology. Rather than installing a rigid, permanent grid on top of the beds, I used a trellis I had on hand as a guide for planting. By laying it across the top of the bed, I formed the needed grid pattern that indicated 12” x 12” squares—and then I planted accordingly.

Four corn seeds (plants) per square foot: 

Along with the modified square foot gardening method, I decided to research which plants work well together. Companion planting is simply an interplanting technique—discovering which plants assist each other in growing well, which plants repel pests or attract beneficial insects, and even which plants repel one another.

Armed with my handy resource, Carrots Love Tomatoes, I made a list of the vegetables I planned to plant. Then, I researched the plants that would coexist well together and repel various pests, as well as the plants to avoid as bedfellows.

We've all heard about the Three Sisters Garden: corn, beans, and squash all are perfect companions. Beans provide nitrogen in the soil for the corn, corn supports the beans as a trellis, and squash serves as a mulch to keep the soil cool and weed free.

However, I learned so much more when I delved into various companions. Last year, like so many of my friends, my squash bit the dust due to squash vine borers. As I researched companions for the garden, I found that icicle radishes, planted in a squash hill and allowed to flower, help prevent squash vine borer.

 Squash and Icicle Radish Companions.

Who knew?

So, rather than quickly plant my garden haphazardly, as I have done so often in the past, I made a plan.

A real plan. For each bed.

The first part of the plan involved foresight. Because of the problems we've had in the past with soil borne disease, I created the garden plan looking forward to next summer—and planning crop rotation.

My natural inclination is to plant every bed full of heirloom tomatoes. After all, I grew 160 varieties this year. How can you not want to plant one of each?

Instead, though, I reined in my tomato lust and contained the tomatoes to three beds—with the plan to rotate each year.

Must. Prevent. Diseases.

It's my new mantra.

As I thought about what we like to eat and what I like to grow, I sketched out THE PLAN.

THE PLAN:

And then, I couldn't read my writing.

So, I tried to decipher my writing, breaking out the big picture into a sketch for each bed. And as I planted each bed, I attempted to record any changes I made along the way (like squeezing in an extra Cherokee Purple tomato here and there. You can never have too many Cherokee Purples.)

Now, for your viewing pleasure, I give you:

THE RAISED BEDS.

(In front of the beds is an existing perennial herb garden, plus more annual herbs that I just planted yesterday. I'll show you the herbs next time, because right now, they're naked and in need of mulch. It's not a pretty site. And I think this blog post is turning into a novel instead of a blog. Thanks for hanging in there!)

Left Back:
The Plan: Beans, Three Sisters Garden: corn, beans, squash; zucchini, Edisto melon

The Planting

 

Left Front:

The Plan: Cucumbers, three varieties; Moon & Stars watermelon, heirloom lettuce, five varieties. (Note: normally, you wouldn't plant lettuce this time of year in the south. However, our garden also gets a bit of shade, so I can usually squeeze in a late crop without it bolting.)

The Planting

Middle Back:

The Plan: beans, 2 varieties; potatoes, five varieties; Swiss Chard; arugula; spinach, 2 varieties; carrots, 2 varieties; leeks.

The Planting

Middle Front:

The Plan: Tomatoes, sweet peppers, Genovese basil

The Planting

Right Back:

The Plan: Tomatoes, Swiss Chard, nasturtium

 
The Planting

Right Front:

The Plan: Tomatoes, hot peppers, globe basil, Genovese basil

The Planting

So, there you have it, my friends. Six beds filled with potential garden delicacies.

I can taste the bruschetta already.

For now, I'll give you a break to rest from this epic adventure. Later this week, I'll show you a couple smart strategies to incorporate as you plant your garden. (Think sturdy tomatoes, heavenly herbs, delicious potatoes, and pest-free produce!) Stay tuned...

The sky is clear...and I'm afraid it's back to the garden I go. There's still mulch to spread and flowers to add.

(And a search for any extra spaces to add another tomato.)

Happy gardening to you!

XO ~

Julie

Ready, Set...Grow!

I've been remiss. Lately, I've blathered on about winter blooms, eating more veggies, and assorted garden/life meanderings. It's time to get serious.

The countdown is on.

It's a mere 20 days until spring.

Yippee!

(And--eek!)

Hopefully, you've rested up over the winter, snuggled with your seed catalogs, and designed your dream garden.

Now, it's time to get to work.

For the next few weeks, we're going to be each other's support systems, OK? I'm up to my eyeballs in seedlings and plan to live in the greenhouse until all of the babies are potted up. (Wish we had installed a fridge and a potty in there, darn it...and I hope the kids remember who I am when I finally rejoin family life.)

Still, I'll try to share a few pre-spring gardening tips to help you get ready for the BIG DAY. If you'd do me a favor and stop by, say hi and check to see that I haven't been buried alive by the 160 varieties of tomato plants, I'd be really grateful. Right now, my sole greenhouse companions are old episodes of “30 Rock” on Netflix...on my phone.

I love Tina Fey.

Anyway, before we get busy, we need to determine exactly when your BIG DAY is.

And by BIG DAY, you might think I mean the First Day of Spring, which is, emotionally, such a relief after winter.

Actually, the BIG DAY that impacts everything you do in the garden is....

The LAST EXPECTED FROST DATE.

That just doesn't sound as sexy as “First Day of Spring,” does it?

So, let's acronym it: LEFD.

Hmmm. That's even less sexy, I think.

Still, LEFD is the most important date on your growing calendar. By determining when your area's last frost is projected, you can plan when to start seeds indoors, how soon you can sow seeds directly into your garden, as well determine when to set out hardy versus tender transplants. After all, we want to get a jump on spring without murdering our green babies with a bout of sub-freezing temperatures, right?

Recently, there's been much publicity about the USDA's new hardiness zone map. The map serves as a guide to help determine which plants are most likely to thrive in your location. 

 

The updated map redefined zones based on climate changes and temperature increases. My zone, 7b, remains the same—but just 30 minutes away, a friend's zone changed from 7b to 8a. You can enter your zip code here to find your zone. (Personally, I found the slight variations in colors a little challenging when looking for my zone.)

The map is a terrific resource when deciding which perennials are best for your area, but it doesn't provide the all important LEFD, which you need to know when planting a vegetable garden. Instead, the classic Old Farmer's Almanac goes high tech with this fantastic interactive chart. Simply enter your zip code and up pops a schedule outlining when you should plant specific vegetables according to your area's last expected frost.

For instance, the results for my zip code search indicate that there's a 50% chance of frost after April 4. Personally, I like to hedge my bets, so I never plant our warm weather crops until April 15. (Also, to be honest—I don't have time to plant our garden until the end of April, because I'm too busy getting plants ready for customers. Yet another example of the “Shoemaker's Children”...sigh.)

Once you determine your LEFD, you can pull out the plans for your amazing kitchen garden.Take a look at the list of plants you want to include, get your seeds packets (or hurry up and order!), and then start counting backwards from your LEFD. Some seeds are best started indoors. Some hardy plants can be directly sown into the garden prior to the last frost. And some need to be planted after the soil warms a few weeks following the LEFD. 

For your planting pleasure, here's a cheat sheet:

Seeds to Start Indoors Prior to LEFD (transplant after last frost)

Chives, Globe Artichoke, Leeks, Onions--12 weeks prior to last frost date

Celery, Lemongrass--10 weeks

Eggplant, Peppers, Tomatillo, Tomatoes--8 weeks

Asparagus, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Basil, Fennel--6 weeks

Cucumbers, Melons, Okra, Pumpkins, Squash--3 weeks

Direct Seed in Garden BEFORE Last Frost (hardy plants)

Onion Sets, Seed Potatoes--6 weeks prior to last frost date

Kale, Kohlrabi, Spinach, Turnips, Mustard--5 weeks

Beets, Carrots, Chinese Cabbage, Endive, English Peas, Radish--4 weeks

Lettuce, Swiss Chard--2 weeks

Direct Seed in Garden AFTER Last Frost (tender plants)

Beans, Celeriac, Cowpeas--1-2 weeks after last frost date

Corn, Muskmelon, Watermelon, Okra--2 weeks

Pumpkins, Squash--2 weeks

Cucumbers, Peanuts, Amaranth--2 weeks

You probably noticed a few items, like cucumbers and okra, are listed twice--to start indoors or to direct sow after danger of frost has passed. By starting seeds indoors, you're getting a jump on the growing of some fruits and veggies that require a long growing season until harvest. (We'll chat about harvest schedules next time...)

So, are you ready? Do you have your seed starting mix and some trays? Have you divided your seed varieties into similar starting times? Do you have a good light source?

Are you ready to unleash the stars of your ideal kitchen garden?

Then—let's GO! It's time to start some seeds!

Have fun! Plant what you love! And—I highly recommend “30 Rock” reruns to keep you company. Laughter helps plants flourish...I'm sure I read that...somewhere.

Happy Almost-Spring Gardening!

XO ~

Julie