by Nan Chase
Once the paste has become thick enough to stand a spoon in and is a deep orange color, remove the pan from the heat.
Tip mixture into a shallow baking tray or ovenproof dish lined with greased baking paper. Keep in a warm place (near radiator or in very slow oven) for 12 hours.
Your paste is now ready! Store in foil in an airtight container for up to a year.
Recipe courtesy of A Wee Bit of Cooking: A Scottish Food Blog, http://teach77.wordpress.com/.
Photo © iStockPhoto/Lucylui.
Landscape highlights
Spring blossoms
Winter interest with snow
Edible highlights
Cooked as paste
Dehydrated as “leather”
Canned as sauce or jelly
Baked into apple recipes
Candied or crystallized
Where it grows best
In any climate where apples grow, depending on variety (cold winters, warm summers)
In any but very wet soil
In full or half-day sun
With trunk free from weeds or vines
How to grow it
As a large shrub from four to twenty feet tall
As a disease- and pest-free fruiting plant
Massed as a hedge, or singly as specimens
Along a property line as a productive natural fence
In front of ornamental grasses for textural contrast
With light pruning to eliminate crossing branches
Nuts & Berries
Grand, majestic, and noble. Nut trees add so much to an edible landscape—if you have the space and the proper climate—and so much to a nutritious diet.
“Steeped in holy lore,” as the folk wine expert M. A. Jagendorf once wrote, many nut trees had symbolic—and often conflicting—roles in history; in ancient Athens and Rome walnut trees stood for “fertility, abundance, and regeneration” and were showered on newlyweds. In other places nut trees were equated with poison and devilish deeds. Walnut shells appeared in some tales as magical boats, and in others, walnuts could ward off epilepsy, lightning, and witches.
Now, across large portions of North America, nut trees are treasured for their fine wood, their restful shade and fine profiles, their flavorful fruit, and in some cases, their flowers. Foods cooked with nuts are among our favorites: roasted nuts for snacking and salads, nut accompaniments for game and poultry, nut desserts with chocolate and cream, nut spreads and butters, nut breads and waffles and muffins. There are even recipes for wines made from the leaves of nut trees to capture their subtlest characteristics.
Many nut trees are related to each other and to other fruiting trees. The pecan and the hickory are kin, as are almonds and peaches. And, like favorite orchard fruits, the various nut species have specific requirements for heat, humidity, soil, and pollination. Nut trees are fairly long lived and in general require a long growing period to produce edible nuts, and thus need mild winters without danger of late frosts that can destroy tender blossoms and budding fruit.
The large size of some nut trees is part of their value in the edible landscape. They provide stunning year-round focus, but it is their shade in summer that matters most.
In very hot parts of the country—the Deep South and California’s Central Valley—the shade takes on a lifesaving quality from the elements, and it indicates the presence of human habitation on the flat and sometimes bleak horizon. But that means the largest nut trees don’t belong in a city garden or even necessarily in the suburbs, but rather on a wide-open country homestead. The root systems can extend far beyond the spread of the branches, and so trees mustn’t be crowded.
Flowers on nut trees assume marvelous and varied forms: the simple and delicate pink-white blooms of the almond, the complex and odoriferous flowers of chestnuts high overhead, the graceful catkins of walnut and hazelnut.
Alas, nut trees also have inconvenient parts (chestnuts drop their prickly burrs, almonds their hulls, walnuts their tough husks) that must be picked up to keep the yard neat and bare feet uninjured.
The reward of edible nuts is incalculable, however. Nuts are elemental and densely packed with the requirements of health; in fact, their nutritional value is often figured as equivalent to that of meat. Some nut “meats,” as the inner nut fruits are called, have compounds that fight heart disease and diabetes, and they are rich in vitamins, minerals, and beneficial fats.
Begin today with nut trees, as long as you have the space, and grow old with them in health beneath their boughs.
Not all berry bushes are attractive in the landscape, no matter how delicious their fruit. Blackberries and raspberries—not so nice. Currants fade into the background except when their berries shine through, and they are illegal to grow in some states because of disease risks to commercially valuable plants; gooseberries have the same problem. Strawberries: wonderful fruit but little landscape value.
But the highbush blueberry is another matter. It offers four seasons of beauty: winter, spring, summer, and fall. And its berries are among the most healthful and delicious of all homegrown foods.
Walnut trees enhance the edible landscape in fall, when their drooping boughs turn to gold. The nuts are borne in tough husks that must be broken away. Photo by Lisa Wheeler Milton.
Almond
With fragrant, ruby-throated pink or white blossoms that signal the earliest arrival of spring, the almond has lived alongside people since the dawn of civilization.
Thousands of years ago the almond tree, a member of the rose family and close relative to the peach, came under cultivation and then spread from the arid highlands of Asia to the Mediterranean basin, marking what eventually would be called the Silk Road. The tree took hold through the Middle East and the Greek world and into the warmer sections of Europe and North Africa.
Franciscan brothers from Spain took almonds to their mission compounds in California in the 1700s, and it was there, after pioneering East Coast efforts to grow them failed, that the trees eventually took hold farther inland from the Pacific Coast. Today, virtually all almond production for United States consumption and most of the worldwide market takes place in California.
It’s not that the almond tree won’t grow anywhere else, but its blossoming period a month before even the peach means that to bear fruit reliably it must live where late frosts don’t occur.
Handsome and upright in form, almond trees grow to a manageable twenty-five feet and make fine specimen plants in the edible landscape; the life span is generally twenty to twenty-five years. They are often pruned to accentuate their naturally interesting gnarled limbs and to give the garden a touch of antiquity.
Almond trees need cross-pollination with other varieties that bloom at the same time; California growers typically plant three kinds of trees close together. If you keep bees, almonds should do particularly well.
My family moved to a small house in Fresno, California, when I was three years old. Among all the other marvelous fruit trees in the backyard was an almond tree of bearing age; who knows where its partner—its pollinator—lived, but it must have been nearby. How lucky we were to be able to pick almonds off the tree, off the ground, and eat them as playtime snacks. The flavor was mysterious, the texture almost milky.
The almond that we love to eat sits inside a light brown, pitted shell, which, in turn, ripens within a protective husk. The almond husk and the developing young peach fruit look almost identical during the early stages.
Almond trees bloom in February and March and then set fruits that ripen into heavy clusters through May and June. In July and August the hulls split open, but the nuts remain on the tree until they are knocked off mechanically during the harvest, which lasts as late as October. Almonds then must be air-dried, usually on sheets laid on the ground, for eight or ten days before they are ready for processing, use, and storage. Properly handled, almonds can retain their nutritional value and flavor for a year.
A rare treat, green almonds are eaten when the ke
rnels are still jelly-like. Some cooks blanch these inner seeds, fry them in olive oil, and then salt them lightly. Photo courtesy of Amy Glaze, Paris, France.
Almond Biscotti
3 large eggs
Grated peel of 2 oranges
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup toasted whole natural almonds
Heat oven to 300 degrees F. Coat a large baking sheet with vegetable cooking spray or cover with baking parchment. In bowl, whisk eggs, orange peel, vanilla, and almond extract. In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add egg mixture; mix just until blended. Mix in almonds. Divide dough in half.
Form each half into a log measuring about 12 inches long, 1-1/2 inches wide, and 1/2 inch thick. Bake in the center of the oven, about 50 minutes, until golden. Remove to a cooling rack for 5 minutes. Reduce oven heat to 275 degrees F. Place logs on a cutting board and, with a serrated knife, slice on the diagonal 1/2 inch thick. Lay slices flat on baking sheets, spacing slightly apart. Return to oven until dry and lightly toasted, 20 to 25 minutes, turning once. Place on racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
Makes about 3-1/2 dozen.
Recipe courtesy of 2008 Almond Board of California.
Photo © iStockPhoto/Levente Varga (levifoto).
Landscape highlights
Spring blossoms
Edible highlights
Air-dried for snacks or baking
Ground for almond paste or butter
Nut kernels blanched in an unripe state, then pan-fried as a snack
Where it grows best
In moderate winter cold without any late frost, similar to climate for peaches but blooming one month earlier
In full or half-day sun
Away from wet soil, preferring sandy or well-worked conditions
How to grow it
With other almond varieties for cross-pollination (Prima, Bounty, Nikita’s Pride, and Seaside all bloom late)
With light fertilizing
With early pruning to form open limb structure
With dropped nuts picked up to prevent disease in trees
Near a fence or other garden architectural feature for long-range interest
With seating nearby for summer shade
In a corner of a small garden for a focal point
To harvest almonds
The outer pulpy hull splits open in fall as nuts ripen. Spread sheets on the ground, shake or knock nuts off, then let dry in shade. Kernels keep well inside their dry brown shell.
Closely related to peaches, almond trees produce fruits of similar structure and appearance, at least as the fuzzy husks first develop. Photo by Henry Firus of Flagstaffotos, Australia.
Blueberry
Biggest “wow” factor? That would be the highbush blueberry, which has great value in the landscape throughout the year, plus abundant fruit of outstanding flavor and top nutritional content.
The list of the blueberry bush’s admirable qualities goes on and on: it is insect-resistant and extremely cold hardy, has a compact habit that makes it perfect in the small garden, doesn’t require much weeding or pruning, grows best with simple organic methods, and produces the natural food highest in health-promoting antioxidants.
The only real downside to using blueberries in the edible landscape is that the fruit is irresistible to birds, and so nets must be erected every year to protect the harvest.
Blueberries are members of the heath family, which includes azaleas and rhododendrons, mountain laurels, cranberries, and huckleberries. If you understand the conditions in which all those plants grow, you know how blueberries should best be used.
The heath family, including blueberries, must have the light, rich leaf litter and compost of the forest floor, or at least the high organic content that accompanies natural decomposition. And the soil must be acid, or corrected to a pH around 5.0.
The various kinds of blueberries have shallow roots that spread near the top layer of soil; blueberries do best without weeding but with the occasional addition of humus and organic fertilizers. And as they would in their natural setting at the edge of a forest, blueberries require a good amount of moisture and excellent drainage.
For all those reasons, highbush blueberries look exceptionally handsome in rock gardens or mixed into steep, rocky, or terraced terrain.
I love the waxy blossoms in spring, which are at once modest—small and creamy white—and spectacular: clustered, downward facing, and as graceful as alabaster vases.
In summer the blueberry bushes fill out and the ripening berries take center stage. Nets must go up just after fruit sets, before the fruit gets too big and is easily knocked off. It only took me one minute—on the morning that I discovered birds had eaten an entire year’s imminent harvest at dawn, while I slept—to decide that nets and cages were worth the effort.
Once harvest is finished in late summer, the nets come down so we can enjoy the fall color. Blueberry leaves turn a deep coppery red and stay late on the bushes. Moistened with autumn rain, they are melancholy and brilliant.
Even in winter there’s beauty, whenever ice coats the graceful branches.
There’s a second main type of blueberry, the lowbush blueberry. This plant grows almost exclusively in cold, wet northern Michigan and northern New England, and also through the Southern Appalachians. The lowbush blueberry produces loads of intensely flavorful fruit, but because it must grow in extensive thickets—ideally on burned-over wasteland—it is cultivated mostly as a commercial crop.
Hybrids of highbush and lowbush blueberries are constantly under development, so keep an eye on new offerings. Blueberries require cross-pollination from two or more varieties; plant in volume.
Perfect in a rock garden or terraced yard, blueberry bushes turn blazing scarlet in fall and create drama alongside evergreens. Photo by Lonnie Webster.
Nan’s Blueberry Jam
The standard proportion for blueberry jam is four parts cleaned fruit (with a little water) to three parts sugar; usually that means 3 cups of sugar to 4 cups of fruit.
4 to 8 cups blueberries, cleaned (include some under-ripe berries for pectin)
3 cups sugar for each 4 cups fruit
1 apple per batch, cored and cut into small pieces with skin on, for pectin
Wash and scald canning jars, new lids, bands, and utensils (including wide-mouth funnel and canning tongs).
Working them in batches, rinse the berries and pick out stems, leaves, and imperfect fruit, and place along with apple in a heavy enameled pot with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook until fruit is soft and liquid runs freely; then mash the fruit.
Dissolve the sugar in the boiling juice and continue to boil until the mixture reaches the jelling point. Test for this by pouring a small quantity of the mixture off the side of a wide cooking spoon; when it slows and forms a sheet rather than individual drops, usually 15 to 20 minutes, jam is ready. Skim any froth that develops.
Pour carefully into jars using the wide-mouth funnel, leaving 1/4 to 1/2 inch headroom; cover gently with lids and bands and seal in a boiling hot water bath.
Landscape highlights
Spring blossoms
Summer harvest
Fall leaf color
Winter interest
Edible highlights
Fresh fruit from the bush
Canned as jam or syrup
Frozen for year-round use
Dehydrated as “raisins”
Where it grows best
In acidic soil, pH 5 to 5.6
In full sun or dappled shade
In cold climates (hardy to -45 degrees F, depending on variety)
Spaced four to six feet apart for fruit production
How to grow it
With cross-pollination for fruit production (see Resources section
for Agricultural Extension information on local recommendations)
With light applications of compost or an acidic mulch
With minimal weeding that would disturb shallow roots
With light pruning every few years to remove older branches
With bird netting or wire cages to protect fruit (see Bird Netting)
As a pest-free shrub
In rock gardens
In steep, terraced gardens
Next to evergreen trees or bushes for fall contrast
Chestnut
Once upon a time a vast forest covered the eastern part of what became the United States. From Maine to Michigan to Georgia, a quarter or more of these ancient trees were American chestnuts, Castanea dentata.
The American chestnut tree, “Redwood of the East,” grew to immense proportions: more than one hundred feet tall and ten feet across, straight and solid, with deeply furrowed bark. The chestnut tree provided prodigious quantities of rot-resistant wood and delicious nuts, plus midsummer shade and impressive blooms.