Thai Volunteer

Anyone who gardens will see volunteers cropping up in his plot from time to time. These are plants that were not planned, that were not deliberately seeded by the gardener, that germinated all on their own and from who knows where.

Volunteers can be vexing or a complete delight, depending on the gardener's mood and how finicky he is about his garden design. Tomatoes, for instance, produce seeds that are nearly impossible to kill. Often they find their way into the compost pile, which then gets spread around in the various garden beds. So you often will see tomato plants sprouting everywhere and in the most unlikely places.

Sometimes I let these plants grow just to see what they will do. Last year one of my most productive tomato plants was a volunteer that popped up in a far corner the garden--I have no idea where it came from or what variety it was. Volunteer tomatoes are so thick at times you end up plucking them out like weeds.

This year it was cucumbers making unscheduled appearances. Once again, I didn't have the heart to remove them. If they are going to go to all the trouble of sprouting and surviving on their own, I figure they deserve a break. But vining cucumbers can be a nuisance once they are loose in the flower bed or twining among the edamame. Then they very often hide their fruits in the darkest places where you can't see them, so in the end you don't take any advantage from their being in the garden at all.

And just when I was complaining that we had no black-eyed Susans this year, a patch of them suddenly sprouted at the end of the cucumber bed. Really, I don't know how they made their way there. But I let them grow and spread their happy faces, even though they were completely out of place.

Recently I noticed another plant growing taller and taller among the beets. It was the only plant of its kind, spreading almost into a small bush, and I naturally assumed it was a weed. I only saw it from a distance and planned at some point to walk over and pull it out of the ground. Finally I did make my way over there for an inspection and discovered it wasn't a weed at all, but a rampantly healthy Thai basil plant, maybe the happiest basil plant I'd ever seen.

Again, no idea where it came from. We had never planted Thai basil in that area. Perhaps a seed had drifted over from the patch of Thai basil we'd planted at the opposite end of the garden a year ago. Yet we had never seen any plants this vigorous or grown to this size.

There was nothing to do but eat it.

I'm no expert in Thai cooking but we do love it. Often the process of producing a Thai meal is rather involved, just finding all the ingredients, and there usually are a lot of different ingredients in a Thai meal--herbs and spices and peppers of various kinds. We do have some Thai and Asian groceries in the area, but they require a trip. So I was determined to make this meal from items we already had on hand, and use as much of our newly discovered Thai basil as possible.

I started by sauteeing several of the small onions from our garden, sliced lengthwise. Then I thinly sliced two chicken breast halves and sauteed these as well, setting them aside for later. Now in the saute pan combine a cup or more of coconut milk, two tablespoons green or red prepared Thai curry paste (you can make your own curry, but it is rather involved), one tablespoon fish sauce, two teaspoons palm sugar (or light brown sugar), a small knob of ginger, peeled and cut into very thin match sticks, three or four kafir lime leaves (we keep them in the freezer), a fistfull or two or Thai basil leaves and the sauteed onions.

Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring the curry paste into the coconut milk, then reduce heat and cook at a slow boil for about 1/2 hour, or until the liquid has thickened a little. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary. The basil leaves will almost disappear. Don't be afraid to add more, as you will still have lots left on your Thai basil plant.

While the sauce is simmering, add one can of straw mushrooms, drained, and the sauteed chicken. Continue cooking until everything is heated through. If there is not enough sauce, or it is too spicy for some reason, don't be afraid to add more coconut milk. To serve, ladle the curry with the chicken and mushrooms into shallow bowls over brown basmati rice. A Singha beer is the perfect accompaniment.

With any luck, your Thai basil plant will still be as vigorous as ever, meaning you must now find another recipe that calls for lots of Thai basil.

And Nature Fights Back...

It was a glorious morning here in the District of Columbia--one of those cool, delicious July mornings that we always wish for--so I grabbed my hat and went outside to turn the compost pile.

There I noticed these tomato plants sprouting amidst the decomposing grass clippings and shredded leaves and kitchen scraps.

Tomato seeds are remarkably resilient. Last year I had several "volunteers" in the garden that delivered an unexpected bounty.

Besides the young plants in the compost heap, my wife has a couple growing in her ornamental planters on the back deck. They probably arrived there via the compost she added to her potting soil, demonstrating, once again, that for all our efforts to grow tomatoes in an organized fashion indoors--under grow lights at the first sign of spring, pampering the seedlings with lots of water, warmth and artificial light, then carefully and ever so gingerly acclimating them to the outdoors so they might thrive in the garden--for all of that, our human intentions just seem laughable when you see tomatoes springing up everywhere all on their own.

In addition to the volunteer tomatoes, we have a cucumber growing out of a crack in the concrete outside the front door. Others have sprouted in unexpected places in the vegetable beds and are wending their way through the garden. Ditto for some of last year's Ox Eye daisies that are now blooming contentedly in the yard, having migrated from last year's flower bed.

I am delighted by Nature's pushback in light of so much bad news about the planet. It tells me that no matter how hard we work at destroying Planet Earth, or, in the alternative, turning it into a park-like setting for all our preferred plant and animal species--the ones we haven't already killed--Nature occasionally reminds us that we humans can't control everything.

I like that idea. I also like the idea that when humans are gone (and does anyone doubt that we are engineering our species' own demise, perhaps the first case of auto-genocide?), the rest of the plant and animal kingdoms won't miss us. We contribute so little to the circle of life. We are takers, not givers.

In a similar vein, Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist Edward O. Wilson was in our city this week to speak on the subject of the mysterious disappearance of honeybees. Wilson notes that the passing of humans would be very little noted in the insect world. But if too many insects disappeared, we would be--pardon the expression--in deep shit.

"It's unlikely a single insect species would go extinct except three forms of body and head lice," if humans disappeared, Wilson said. But remove pollinating insects and many plants would vanish as well, and with them many of the creatures who turn dead matter into life-giving soil. Civilization would descend into chaos, humans killing each other over food.

Wilson speaks of "an ecological dark age" where "the survivors would offer prayers for the return of weeds and bugs."

I'm hoping not to be around to see that. I'm hoping the bees and the sow bugs-- the bacteria and the nematodes, the tomatoes and the daisies, the salmon and the tuna--win in the end. I'm rooting for Nature.