The Last Squash Report! Son Kabak Raporu!

I promise, from now until planting season I will write nothing more about winte squash! Well, maybe not.

Here are some of the squash from the garden. The Rouge Vif d'Etampes produced nicely but with the exception of one, they didn't display the flat shape that is supposedly characteristic for the variety. They also were not nearly as tasteless as I've read, and one made a pretty decent soup.

Yemin ediyorum, ekin zamanı gelinceye kadar balkabaklar hakkında bir daha yazmayacağım! Belkı... Buyrun bu yılın balkabaklarından birkaç tanesi. Rouge Vif d'Etampes, çok güzel üretti fakat bir tanesi hariç o cinse özgü basık yayvan özelliğini göstermedi. Okuduğum kadar tatsız da çıkmadı, bir tanesinden çok lezzetli bir çorba yaptım.

The Futsus impressed me; despite the fact that I got them into the ground way too late they produced a lot of squash. I've already eaten several, but I decided to wait for a while before eating any more to see if they sweeten up. I cooked them stuffed with apples, with a little nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, butter and a little orange juice. They do have a slightly different flavor but I would have never thought "hazelnut."

Küçük gri Futsu'lar beni çok sevindirdi, çok fazla geç ekmeme rağmen yine çok ürettiler. Bir kaç tanesi yedim de zamanla tatlanacak mı diye bekleyeceğim. Fırında elma, biraz tarçın, muscat cevizi, tereyağla doldurup, biraz da portakal suyu ekleyrek pişirdim. Harika! Biraz farklı bir tadı var fakat her yerde okuduğum "fındık" tadını ben duyamadım. Reklam abartısı her halde.

The biggest disappointment was the Marina di Chioggia - I only got two! The reason is no mystery - a pack of dogs that came into the garden and decided to dig right where they were growing, snapping off two of the best runners. The quality is really nice though and I'll plant it again next year.

En büyük hayal kırıklığını, Marina di Chioggia ile yaşadım - sadece iki tane verdi! Sebebi ise mechul değil, bir köpek sürüsü bahçeme girip tam yetiştiği yerde kazarak en büyük iki sürgününü koparttı. Kaletesi son derece güzel ama, gelecek yıl da kesinlikle ekeceğim.

My housemate was down in his home town of Aydın, and brought a pack of seed that is supposedlyl of the preferred variety there. Turns out the company is in Istanbul but generally the squash sold here come from Adapazarı, and are dark gray, resembling the Australian Jarrahdale pumpkin but less glossy and more irregular in shape. It makes a great pie. But there are other varieties as well grown in the south, especially a large, smooth pale gray-green one with very shallow grooves and pale orange blotches; I'd love to score some seed of that one.

Aydın'lı ev arkadaşım da bir paket balkabağı tohumu getirdi. Satanlara göre o yörede en çok yetiştirilen cinsmiş. Tohum şirketi İstanbul'da ama... İstanbul'da benzer birşey gördüm de, burada en çok satılan cins "Adapazarı" veya "Kestane" denilen, büyük derin boğumlu gri cinstir. Aydın'da yetişen başka bir cins de var, büyük, oval şekli sığ çizgili, uçuk turuncu benekli açık yeşilimsi gri renkli bir tane. Ondan birkaç tohum elde etmek isterdim!

And the last pumpkin-related bit: I was in Greece for several weeks and when I came back through Komotini in northestern Greece, I found some very attractive winter squash in the markets that looked like a more bottle-shaped butternut. (CD added for scale.) I was too curious about the variety so I bought one and it looked pretty nice when I opened it, but I was underwhelmed; it cooked up very fibrous and pulpy, with not much flavor. I won't be growing it next year!

Veeee kabaklarla ilgili son paragraf olarak... Yunanistan'da birkaç hafta geçirdim, dönüşte Batı Trakya, Gümülcine kentinde görünüşü çok güzel olan bir balkabağı buldum. Bizim çok popüler olan "butternut" cinsinin daha kabarığı, şişe şeklinde birşey. (CD, boyunu göstermek için eklendi.) Cinsi çok merak ettiğim için bir tanesini aladım, açtığımda güzel göründü fakat tadı beni hiç etkilemedi; eti tatsız, lifli ve çok sulu çıktı. Gelecek yıl yetiştireceğim bir cins değil!

Summer Daze, Chiggers and Figs

It's August in Istanbul....after a few delicious days of cooling rain, it's back to the heat. The annual glut of red and yellow plums, mulberries and sour cherries is finished, to be remembered in the form of preserves and syrup for those who were ambitions. For those small enough to fit under the four-o'clocks, the problem is solved. For the rest of us, it's lots of showers and cold drinks. (See the end of this post for a good one!) Chiggers are having their heyday, though most of the city's residents in their apartments are unaware of it. The ticks have received extra publicity this year, because not only are they running amok, they are carrying the extra added bonus of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever. It has been serious enough to prompt the closure of certain popular summer picnic areas. The latest death was an unfortunate village man who was bitten "down there;" his eastern morals left him so mortified that he could not bring himself to be seen by a doctor.

The city is enveloped in a misty haze that produces a climate not unlike that in a sumo wrestler's armpit. Though hot summers are nothing unusual, there are usually life-saving breezes blowing in from the seas. In August, those breezes all but disappear and all you can really do is wait it out.

The consolation prizes: The Bosphorus is at its most exquisite turquoise blue, and the figs are starting to ripen! In Seattle, you could count on getting figs only about one in three years, and then if you planted an early variety. Here there's no such problem. We have three trees in our garden. One, a truly enormous tree that perhaps fed the Ottoman hanımefendi who lived in this house, bears large honey figs with a slight brown blush when ripe and brilliant red flesh. The white part between the skin and the soft flesh inside doesn't soften like I'd like it to, and the tree is so huge that it's almost impossible to reach most of the fruit. There is another similar one near it, but with less brilliant innards; and the third produces a clearer green fruit with dark honey-colored pulp that is incredibly smooth and sweet. This year's fig jam will come from that one. With that many figs in the garden, it might seem absurd to even think about planting more, but I would love to have a good dark purple fig. There are so many fig trees in the city that all you really have to do is walk around and sample them in season, remember the one you like, then nab a branch in November after the leaves fall. Stick it in the ground, and it will be well rooted by the time spring rolls around. It will also be practically inextricable, so think before you plant!

And of course some flowers are at their peak. My next door neighbor Sevil is an archaeologist whose summers are spent working on a dig in Cappadocia. She leaves in early July, just in time to catch the fiercest heat on the Anatolian pleateau, and miss the peak of her gardening efforts. So Sevil Hoca, if you are reading, here's what's going on!

My own garden, being in its first year, is a bit more modest, and with the exception of Verbena bonariensis, which you can't kill with a stick, most things are just biding their time. Still, a few old favorites are doing their thing. One of the five plants of mullein pink (Lychnis coronaria) has been blooming on and off, and providing me with plenty of seed for future guerilla gardening efforts. Mina lobata (right) was a bit reluctant to get started this year; she really likes the heat and humidity. But better late than never seems to be the motto, and her improbably color-shifting blooms now hover above the shy-to-bloom pomegranate that is her support. Better soil would have helped too; there will be a lot of manure going in in the fall!

Down in the vegetable patch, the branching sunflowers have done nicely as well; they were planted a little late to give the maximum show, but one of them beat the odds and is nearly 9 feet tall now. Still, I know what they can do when they are well cared for, so I won't toot my horn too much this time around. The red blooms at the lower right of the photo are Amaranth "Hopi Red Dye," which has been a favorite for about 3 years now. If it gets a good early start, it can grow to five feet or so; mine are a little shorter than that but making lots of seed for next year.

One plant I'm very pleased with is the variegated, red-kerneled popcorn I got at the Northwest Perennial Alliance plant sale. It doesn't have as much pink as I'd hoped, though two plants show a bit more. But it's a fun thing to grow and there are lots of ears. I'm not sure it's ornamental enough to actually use as an...ornamental, but I might plant a few in the actual flower garden next year just for kicks. It's too small to be a support for beans, but could look nice next to a patch of red shiso.

There is also one American-style pumpkin on the way. I've never grown pumpkins before, and am wondering if it should be so orange at this point....is this the end of the growth or will it put on more size yet? It is probably destined to be a jack-o-lantern because the local gray Adapazari squash has a better flavor than any pumpkin I've had. One correspondent near Seattle has grown them and has decided that they are the pie squash. I love growing any winter squash; the problem is what to do with all of it, especially if you like the big ones. Cutting into an Adapazarı is a bit like slaugtering a sheep...you better either have lots of people to feed, or a spacious freezer. The other alternative (one sure to make you popular) is to distribute the extra to the neighbors.


Lemon-Ginger Syrup

As far as I'm concerned, there is hardly a better drink for a hot summer day. I usually eyeball this but the last time I made it, for the sake of sharing, I decided to measure.

Ingredients

2 largish sections of fresh ginger root
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 c water
1 1/2 c lemon juice (about 8 medium lemons if they're juicy)
grated peel of 1 lemon
4 c sugar

Garnish: cucumber slices, fresh mint

Grate the ginger finely, mix with the 1/2 c sugar and allow to macerate for half an hour. Then add 1/2 c water and bring to a boil. Reduce to low and allow to simmer 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, grate the zest of one lemon into a bowl, juice the lemons, strain and add. Add the lemon juice to the ginger syrup, then add the sugar. Bring to a boil, reduce, simmer a few minutes, let cool. Strain and bottle.

To serve - pour an inch or so into the bottom of a glass (depending on taste and the size of your glass), add cold water and ice. Add 10 or 12 very thin slices of cucumber and a sprig or two of fresh mint.

An alternative is to juice the cucumbers. Make sure you have small cucumbers with a non-bitter peel! Easier said than done in some areas of the world, but give it a try if you can. Cut into cubes, process to a pulp, then squeeze the pulp through a cloth. This is most convenient when making a large pitcher of the beverage. This gives more cucumber taste, and lends a beautiful shade of green to the drink, but it should be served immediatly because the color will fade in a few hours.