Turning Toward the Light

Saved by Soup

One of my favorite cookbooks is Saved by Soup, by Judith Barrett. It offers over 100 recipes for tasty, low-fat, easy-to-make soups, and is a great resource for people trying to lose or maintain their weight. It's also great for gardeners because it provides a lot of great ideas for what to do with the bounty of your vegetable garden.

One of my favorite soups is one of the simplest soups in the book, but it can really only be make for a few months of the year, because it only works with real vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh corn. (Trust me on this, I've tried making it from winter tomatoes and it really doesn't work.) I brought it to a party last night, and it earned raves, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Summer Salsa Soup with Tomatoes, Black Beans, and Corn

2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into chunks
1 medium-size yellow onion, quartered
1 serrano or jalapeno chile, seeded
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1 cup freshly cooked or canned (drained and rinsed) black beans
1 cup cooked corn kernels
salt to taste

Combine the tomatoes, onion, chile, and cilantro leaves in a food
processor or blender and process until very finely chopped, and not
quite smooth. Transfer the soup to a large mixing bowl and stir in the
black beans and corn. Refrigerate until cold, at least 1 hour. Season
with salt to taste.

Makes 6 servings. Per serving 126 calories, 1.2 grams of fat.

Tree woes

A tree company I contacted sent over a Mass. Certified Arborist on Thursday, so we did a short tour of my trees to figure out what to do about all of my various tree problems. I only have 1/7 of an acre, so it's hard to believe how many tree problems I have, but here's the litany....

Sugar Maple. This is a street tree that I love because of its fall color, but it has been declining for years and years. My last tree guy trimmed some deadwood and gave it some deep feeding, but advised me that sugar maples just don't do well near the street. This is a difficult environment for all trees because of the compressed soil and lack of aeration (exhaust fumes aren't so much a problem in this case because I live on a lightly traveled side street). But Sugar Maples find it hard to deal with. In any case, the tree really looks bad this year - the trunk is rotting out and there is evidence of carpenter ants, which is not good. The arborist suggested I call the town Tree Warden and see if I can get them to remove it. I called and left a message, but so far no response.

Spruce. This tree has a decided lean of maybe 15 -20 degrees. I didn't notice any one major event that caused it, it's just seems to be getting slightly worse every year. Verdict: There isn't much they can do. Maybe when it was younger, but now I need to just live with it. Luckily, it's pointed toward the street in an area where there are no wires, so if and when it does come down, it won't be too much of a disaster except to my picket fence.

White Birch. This had trouble with a few branches not leafing out last year, but this year, it's almost entirely dead. The arborist found the entry holes of bronze birch borer, and advised that there was no hope, not even for the one trunk that did have leaves this year. We put this one down for removal, and he recommended that I replace it with something other than a birch, in case the borers were still lurking.

Hawthorne. The neighbor had been complaining about this tree arching over her sidewalk, since it has pretty vicious thorns. There was also a low-growing branch rubbing against my shed roof. Verdict: Remove the offending branches, but leave the tree.

Carolina Silverbell. This broke off about 3 feet above ground a few years ago. I cut it flush to grade and let about 5 suckers develop. They were big enough to have flowers this spring. Over the winter, I plan to pick the one growing the best and cut back the other ones. The arborist thought this was a reasonable plan.

Linden. There is some deadwood, including the leader, which gives it an odd flattened shape, but the rest of the tree is healthy. Arborist agreed that the cause could be a girdling root, which was my theory, and said it would cost $600 to $800 to use some sort of hydro system to wash out soil from around the roots and try to find the culprit. Or, I could just have him prune out the deadwood, deep fertilize it in the fall, and keep my fingers crossed. I decided to go with the cheaper option.

Shadblow. The problem here is too darn many suckers coming up all through my shrubbery and vegetable garden. I cut them back and three weeks later they're back again. The problem here was planting the wrong species in the first place. There are shadblow species that are more treelike and less suckering, but I didn't know enough when I purchased this one so many years ago. No solution, except to keep cutting, or to remove the whole tree. I have to admit, I'm sorely tempted, but with the loss of the birch this year, I think I'll wait on this.

Flowering dogwood. Some light mildew, but it's in an open area and has no sign of anthracnose, so it should be okay.

Dwarf pear. This tree is downright ugly, but it's healthy and bearing fruit, so I'll live with it.

Lest you think I have nothing but ailing trees on my property, we also briefly noted the following that had no problems to speak of: crabapple, tupelo, yellow magnolia, paperbark maple, and Korean evodia. On parting, the arborist remarked that I had a lot of interesting plant material. Heh! In fact, the evodia was something he had not seen before - he at first thought it was a zelkova. It's always nice to give an arborist a little surprise.

So the work has been scheduled for about three weeks from now. And after that I'll get the fun of deciding what to get to replace the birch. I'll be eager to get something growing there, because it's a major privacy screen between my backyard and the side street (I live on a corner), and a source of shade to the plants growing around its base. I'm going to really miss it.

An agave grows in Boston

The Boston Globe had a story and pictures this morning (only accessible for two days, unfortunately) of a rare event - a blue agave sending up a blooming stalk from a greenhouse attached to a Beacon Hill townhouse.

Blue agaves are common in Mexico, where the heart of the plant is used to make tequila. The plants send up flowering stalks at the end of their long life, and the flowers are pollinated by bats. But it is rare for an agave to blossom in captivity.

In 2001, another species of agave sent a flowering stalk through the greenhouse ceiling at Cambridge University Botanic Garden in England.

A team from the Arnold Arboretum came to view the plant last month, and said it was in exceptional health.

Here's a closeup of the buds, which will flower in the next few weeks.