My son has left us to spend Christmas with his family in Mexico. My parents and my brother’s family had a Christmas dinner last week. That leaves my wife, my two daughters, and I to have a Christmas here. This has been a strange season. My wife and I have both been working, and we have had several family birthdays, which has left us with little time to decorate. My wife enjoys have the tree up early, while I see the tree as a gift for Christmas eve. We compromise by obtaining our tree on the third advent most years, but this year we did not. Yesterday, I took the girls to find a tree. My wife was thinking of something really small, but I was going to leave it up to the girls. I was surprised by their choice.
    We enter the garden center, heading towards the trees. Katya stops in front of a few smaller plants. She looks, and she becomes determined that there is one certain “tree” that she wanted. This was no tree; it is a golden oriental arborvitae, which stands about two feet tall. This shrub only reaches about two and half feet high, so this tree most certainly fits my wife’s desire for small. Although, I do not think that is what she meant. I look at the choices, to suggest a larger specimen, or something different. No was her reply; this is the one. I attempt to appeal to my younger daughter, Sakura. Is this what you want?  I am not sure if she understood, but she heartily agrees. I glance over at the trees saying but, but, but no. My Katya has made her decision.
    We bring the tree home. I set it down on a cabinet, wrapping the base in a sheet of plastic to catch the water. I then surround the base with the skirt for our Christmas trees. They want to begin decorating; however, I knew that my wife prefers to be the one decorating with the children. I let Katya place an angel on the tree though. This leads the girls to break out in songs of Christmas joy. Mostly of their own creations, so I am hailed with a Hanna Montana Christmas (we do not watch the show, so where did that come from?), the Shake It, Shake It Christmas, and others. Lines of other Christmas songs enter these endeavors, and I notice that they replace the word “snowy” with “foggy” (life in Houston, I guess, or maybe this substitution comes from Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer).  I proceed to prepare dinner after the performance (they did have me sing a few songs in German for them).
    During my preparation, I realized that I had a perfect vegetable dish for the holiday: swiss chard. I had harvested some chard, and I thought how perfect the bright red of the stems and deep green of the leaves were in the pan. Here is a good way to prepare chard: sautee onions in a little oil, until they brown. I then added caraway seeds, a little salt, and a little pepper. Caraway is not always popular with everyone, but I love this flavor. Cumin seeds may be a good substitute. I added a small pat of butter. Once the butter melted, I added the chopped chard and parsley to the pan. The leaves wilted when they had cooked through. I sprinkled the yellow flowers from the broccoli raab over this dish. 

   My wife prefers rice, but I think that I will make a potato dish with the chard for tonight. Roasted potatoes in a vinegarette. I have really thick lamb chops, but I am thinking of the chard as the star of the meal. I will brown the chops, and let them finish in the oven. I make a pesto with rosemary, parsley, garlic, and almonds (blended in olive oil), where a little pesto goes onto the chops as they finish cooking on the oven. Except for the almonds, I only have to go to the garden for the pesto ingredients. Maybe I should begin to grow a pecan tree, justified for the pesto. The pecan tree is the official tree of the state of Texas. I will try to convince the wife on that one.
   After the new year, I will plant this arborvitae near the girl’s teahouse. This shrub does not seem a great choice for Texas. It desires moist ground, which we do not have with this new drought. The shrub also wants only about four hours of sun each day (the tea house is in a shady spot). I think this will be a special plant for Katya. I wonder what will be the choice for next year’s Christmas.  Whatever the choice, the memories of joy as the tree, or shrub, go up will be what I cherish.

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.

We had our first freeze and snow in Houston, which means going out to protect our plants with row covers may be in order.

I was so busy working on home inspections and writing reports that I did not pay attention to my garden, as I should have. I guess that I did not believe the reports that we would have snow, and I failed to pay heed to the freeze warnings.However, I have not been to keen on creating more work for myself in the garden, so I have not been rushing out to place row covers on the plants anyway.

    Established plants that are suited to our climate do not need to be covered. Yes they will experience some frost damage, but this can be pruned away. I like the look of allowing my garden to go through its seasons, so the skeleton of a branch is not so bad. I also strongly favor eating vegetables that are in season. If some annual vegetables suffer, that is fine. I let them go to seed, so many spring up again next year. I am surprised that many of my pepper plants seem hardy enough to continue through our cold snaps. Even a few tomato plants hold on through the winter. Trying to maintain these vegetables requires work that frequently does not produce much of a return. I do take cuttings for indoors to help with a crop for next year. Cuttings are easy. Take off the tip of a plant. Wet the cut end, and stick it in some rooting hormone. Place the piece in some potting soil.

    Of course, my winter vegetables, like Swiss chard, kale, collards, and beets have done well. The lettuce came through too. I am waiting to see how the nasturtiums fare. The lemon grass is strong, and I am about ready to harvest the sun chokes. Oh yeah, I have plenty of onions. I want to explore more plants in the allium family this year. I never really focused on them, and they do need this cold spell.

    I did have the good sense to harvest some basil (the plants have done well despite the drop in temperature). I chopped some leaves to be added to cooked rice. That was a hit with the family. For the remainder, I made a pesto. You could use a blender, but I prefer mincing with my knife. Ingredients(roughly): two cups of basil leaves, three cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of sumac, a little black pepper, a tablespoon of lemon juice, a cup of canola oil, and three tablespoons of sunflower seeds pounded in my mortar. It came out great. I used it to flavor some frikadelle (a German style hamburger).Ingredients: ground beef, bread broken into pieces and moistened, chopped onion, egg, and spices. I used salt and pepper, and then added the pesto. Form patties, and fry them up. I added mushrooms and onions to the pan.

    If you do cover your plants, do not use blankets. Row covers are a light weight material that breathes and still lets the sun shine down on my plants. Blankets may protect from the freeze, but they harm the plants over time. Their weight can crush down on the plant, while preventing light and air from reaching them.

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.