Edible French Garden. Rosalind Creasy
well and cover the bed with compost and manure to a depth of three or four inches. Sprinkle the bed with a pound or so of blood meal or hoof and horn meal and work all the amendments into the soil. Rake the bed smooth to remove clods and rocks, and you are ready to plant.
My garden beds are often filled with French specialties. Here a bed of mesclun planted but a few weeks before is starting to fill in, and the baby greens will be ready for harvest in a month.
In the summer my garden bed grows 'Roc d'Or' bush beans, 'Ronde de Nice' zucchini, and baby fennel as well as rosemary and lavender.
Gudi Riter steps away from her recipe testing to plant a small bed of baby salad greens, often called mesclun, in my front garden. First the soil is prepared by applying four inches of compost, and a few cups of blood and bone meal, and working them into the soil with a spading fork.
Once the soil is light and fluffy and the nutrients are incorporated, the seeds from a prepackaged mesclun mix are sprinkled lightly over the soil so that the seeds average from ½ to 1 inch apart. A half inch or so of light soil or compost is then sprinkled over the bed and the seeds and the compost are patted down to assure that the seeds are in contact with the soil.
A label that includes the name of the seed mix and the date is pushed into the soil. The seeds are than gently watered in with a watering can until the soil is thoroughly moist.
A piece of floating row cover is then applied to prevent critters from destroying the bed. To make sure the row cover won't blow away, and critters can't get in under it, the row cover is secured tightly by putting bricks or such at the corners, and along the edges if bird problems are severe.
Mix the seeds in a small bowl if you are making your own mesclun combination. Sprinkle the seeds over the bed as you would grass seeds—try to space them about a half an inch to an inch apart. Sprinkle fluffy soil or compost over the bed, pat it down, and water the bed in well, being careful not to wash away the seeds. If you have problems with birds or many cats in the neighborhood, cover the bed with floating row covers or black plastic bird netting. Anchor the corners of the row covers with bricks or stones. If you are using bird netting, place stakes at the corners of the bed and anchor the netting to them. Secure the sides of the netting with scrap lumber or bricks.
Keep the soil moist until the seeds emerge in seven to ten days. Pull any weeds, but no thinning is necessary. Keep the bed fairly moist, and depending on the weather, you will have harvestable mesclun greens in six to eight weeks. To harvest, either pick individual leaves by hand or take kitchen shears and cut across the bed about an inch above the crowns of the plants. (The crown is the cluster where the leaves join the base of the plant. Cut only the amount you want at each harvest. If the weather is favorable, in the 40-70°F range, keep the bed moist—the greens will regrow, and you can harvest mesclun again in a few weeks.
Garden Blanching Vegetables
Another aspect of French gardening that deserves special mention is the garden blanching of vegetables, sometimes referred to as forcing. While not exclusively French (for example, the Italians commonly blanch radicchio, cardoon, and endive), this technique seems most appreciated in France and is necessary for a few of the popular French vegetables. Because blanching requires detailed attention, it warrants special discussion here.
Blanching vegetables involves a technique whereby light is excluded from all or part of the growing vegetable to reduce the vegetable's strong taste. Vegetables that have been blanched are lighter in color than nonblanched ones and in most cases more tender. Vegetables most commonly blanched are asparagus, cardoon, cauliflower, celery, dandelions, romaine lettuces, and the chicories, including Belgian endive (Witloof chicory), radicchio, escarole, and curly endive (frisée).
We can trace the concept of blanching back several centuries, to the time when vegetables were more closely related to their primitive ancestors—which meant they were often tough, stringy, and bitter. Blanching made them both less strong-tasting and more tender. Nowadays, most modern vegetable varieties are more refined and seldom need blanching, and because forced vegetables are less nutritious and take more hand labor than nonforced produce, they are generally less favored. So why blanch vegetables? Basically because some vegetables have yet to be completely civilized. Cardoon, some radicchios, dandelions, and some heirloom varieties of celery and cauliflower are all preferable blanched, and Belgian endive can be eaten no other way. And sometimes gardener-cooks blanch vegetables simply to alter the taste for a treat. Thus, one might blanch asparagus in order to savor a plump white version of this vegetable, which makes an unusual and historic dish. Or for elegant salads, one might blanch endive to make its curly leaves light green in the center, or dandelion leaves to make them creamy colored, tender, and sweet.
The blanching process consists of blocking light from the part of the vegetable you plan to eat, be it leaf, stem, or shoot. The blockage keeps chlorophyll from forming, and the vegetable part will therefore be white, very pale, or, in the case of red vegetables, pink. A few general principles cover most blanching techniques. First, you must be careful to prevent the vegetable from rotting, since the process can create fungus problems. Select only unbruised, healthy plants to blanch, and make sure not to keep the plants too moist. Such vegetables as cardoon and celery need air circulation around the stalks. Make sure you blanch only a few plants at a time and stagger your harvest, since most vegetables are fragile and keep poorly once they have been blanched. Thus, you would not blanch your whole crop of celery or endive at one time. After you harvest your blanched vegetables, keep them in a dark place, or they will turn green and lose the very properties you worked to achieve.
Let's go through the blanching process in detail with the most popular vegetables treated this way, Belgian endive, curly endive, and asparagus. Belgian endive must be blanched to be edible. To produce those expensive little forced shoots called chicons, grow the plants as you would regular chicory. (For complete information on growing chicories, see the "French Garden Encyclopedia," page 25.)
To blanch Belgian endives and radicchios, cut the leaves off at the crown. In cold climates, dig up the roots, put in a pail of damp sand, and bring them into a cool cellar.
In mild climates, a temporary box with six inches of damp sand is formed around the bed. Spread and secure bird netting to prevent cats from digging.
In the fall cut off the tops of the plants to within an inch of the crown, discard the leaves, and dig up the roots. Once the plants are out of the ground, cut the roots back to eight to ten inches. Bury the roots in a deep crate or bucket in about a foot of damp sand, packing them fairly close together. Store the roots in a dark cellar where it stays between 40 and 50°F. Check them occasionally to make sure the sand stays moist, and water sparingly when it gets dry. Within a month or so the crowns will start to resprout and produce chicons, which are harvested when they reach four or five inches in height. (The newest varieties maintain a tight head without being held in place by the sand. Old varieties must have four or five inches of damp sand packed around the emerging shoots to hold them in a tight chicon.) The plants usually resprout at least once, and sometimes you can harvest them a third or fourth time, after which you should discard the roots.
The most prized curly endives (frisées), also chicory species, are the ones with creamy golden centers and finely cut leaves, and many curly