Coltivi

I Believe

2011-12-29T19:18:00.004-05:00

The Daily Record was nice enough to let me go on at some length about Long Valley Green Market, a marvelous, exhausting experiment that just wrapped up its first season. Time for a long winter's nap to regroup before starting up again in the spring!

Home Fires Burning

2011-12-14T11:22:00.006-05:00

I've been neglecting this space for too long. Now there's something of a lull in my work and the green market is winding down for the season. That leaves more time for wintry activities like baking garlic-rosemary potato bread and stoking the home fires, which desperately need some attention. Seed catalogs are already appearing in the mailbox; it seems like they come earlier every year. Mark is already taking furious notes for next year's garden.

Our goals for 2012 are to devote some energy to the aesthetics of our garden, especially as we put in more islands of perennials. Last year saw we firmly established asparagus, rhubarb, and blackberries in the big garden; this year we'll be installing blueberries and stone paths. The soil is already being acidified with pine needles so the blueberries will have an easy transition to their new home. We'll also be planting more vegetables with food preservation in mind, now that we're set up with a pressure canner and dehydrator. What a treat it is to eat jam and salsa and pickled peppers in December made from produce we grew or picked ourselves and were able to save for later.

Stinking Rose

2011-10-17T22:10:00.005-04:00

Hard to believe it's garlic time already. Wasn't it just summer, like, last week? But no, we have to accept that we're deep into October and it's time to start planning for next year. We have the good fortune to call Roman from Valley Fall Farm in Johnsonburg our bee mentor and source for obscure and interesting varieties of garlic and shallots. Allium hipsters! Did you even know we existed? Because, for the record, we grew French Gray shallots way before they were cool.

Roman gave an enlightening (and delicious) talk at a recent Transition Newton event on the health benefits of honey and garlic. But you know what? We mostly think they're tasty--really tasty--which is why we're cultivating both in as large quantities as possible. Every year it seems like we're planting a ton of garlic, but when harvest time rolls around in July it seems like such a pittance. Which is why we're tripling next year's crop. We've got German White, German Hardy, Georgian Fire, and Mark's inevitable favorite, Korean Mad Dog Red--about 175 cloves all told. Along with 75 shallots. Didn't somebody say it was time for a break after the insanity of late-summer harvesting and putting up? Apparently not yet.

What are we doing differently this time? The weeds got the better of us this year, so we're putting down black plastic for a weed barrier. We're also mounding the beds, putting in irrigation and composting the heck out of the soil (Roman grows his garlic in what he calls "black muck"). Instead of growing shallots from seed in the spring, we're planting whole shallots in the fall, the same as garlic, which means they can get an early start putting their energy into forming bulbs that will split into more bulbs next year, resulting in bigger shallots and more of them.

Stinking roses indeed. Give me a bunch of garlic over a bunch of roses any day.

Them Apples

2011-09-11T14:30:00.004-04:00

We have four huge, ancient apple trees on our property. When we bought this place it was advertised as an "orchard," which is a bit of a stretch, but they certainly add character to our little estate. Last year we were so overwhelmed with establishing our garden that we didn't have time to even think about harvesting apples. The trees are so big that the fruits are all out of reach, and the few we found on the ground were already rotten or eaten through by insects. We wrote the apple trees off as bucolic ambiance and left it at that.

While cleaning out the shed this spring, we found this tool amidst the junk the former owner left behind. It took us a while to figure out that it's used for picking fruit from high branches. In the past week those apples started looking so ripe and tempting, so Mark dragged out the ladder and the apple-picking tool so we could try some. Talk about a smart move. The apples are good sized, firm, crisp, and sweet--such a lovely surprise! Yes, there are some bug holes bored into some of them, but considering they're a completely organic, foraged treat, we're very impressed. So impressed that we picked 15 pounds today and are trying to figure out a way to reach the rest.

Now what to do with all of them?

Long Valley Green Market

2011-08-03T15:04:00.004-04:00

Did y'all hear about this little venture I'm launching tomorrow? It's called Long Valley Green Market. I'm really excited and proud to have put it together. Now I just really, really hope it's a success. Right now I have that feeling I get after I step into a roller coaster and the bar comes down to tuck me in. Here we go--wheee!

I have simply ordered a box of maniacs

2011-07-28T22:44:00.002-04:00

So we got some bees and I want to write about it so badly, but I've been up to my ears in this little farmers' market I'm launching as well as keeping up with all the good stuff coming out of the garden, so to tide you over here's a snippet from one of Sylvia Plath's bee poems, "The Wintering."

This is the easy time, there is nothing doing.
I have whirled the midwife's extractor,
I have my honey,
Six jars of it,
Six cat's eyes in the wine cellar

Grazie mille to S. for urging me to read these again. They're so funny and scary and painfully prescient.

Still Life Raspberries with Dumpster

2011-07-12T20:44:00.004-04:00

We've had a bit of a lull in the garden for the past couple of weeks--the spring things are done, but the summer crops aren't quite ready yet. That's allowed us to broaden our field of vision and see what's going on outside the garden.

KATE: I kept busy by making blueberry jam from the wonderful Blue Chair Jam Cookbook recipe, which adds a splash of balsamic vinegar and a cinnamon stick, and I'm happy to say that together they add a warm and complicated depth to the blueberries.

Here's a question. Did I use native berries foraged from a secret local blueberry patch, or trek down to the Pine Barrens to find an organic blueberry farmer and ransack his farm? I did not. Instead, I noticed with great delight when I opened the Shoprite circular last Friday that it was the one special week of the year when flats of commercial blueberries are on sale for an insanely cheap price. Reader, I bought them. Two, in fact. They may have been from New Jersey, but probably not. They were definitely produced using pesticides. And this is nothing to be ashamed of.

Sometimes I'm afraid I've gone so far down the garden path (har har) that I'm losing sight of why people started putting up food in the first place. Thrift is a virtue, as is eating ethically and re-learning skills like canning and gardening that are at risk of dying out when our grandparents are gone. Foraging at the supermarket is not the same as filling a basket with berries at the state park like I did as a child, but it's also not reprehensible. Sure, I'm voting for those commercial blueberries with a few of my food dollars, but I'm also saving money and storing my family's food for the winter. I keep telling myself that Shoprite is not the enemy. It's just not first on my list of food sources.

MARK: For most people, the grocery store is the first place to look for food, and a parking lot in an office park would probably be toward the bottom of the list. While the asphalt jungle may not be a primary source of food for us, I always have my eyes open--probably because it's impossible for me to get out of gardening mode--and sometimes I'm rewarded.

I like to briefly escape my corporate crypt once or twice a day just to remind myself the outside world still exists. Despite its location within spitting distance of Route 80 and the sisyphean efforts of the landscapers, some natural life persists. I like to keep tabs on the stupid little bird that built her "nest" (it's like 3 sticks) on one of the rocky medians smack in the middle of the parking lot. She yells at me as I approach, squawking to distract me from the tiny egg she guards. Occasionally, her mate will arrive and play wounded in an act of selfless subterfuge, so I'll give a half-hearted chase to boost his ego.

One of the best features of the unremarkable lot is the stand of trees at the edge. Unseen creatures can be heard busying themselves in the underbrush, even over the din of the highway. On one occasion, a bear was cavorting amongst the cars and the super-not-helpful police cruiser that showed up. Anyway, the understory of this little woodland morsel is peppered with wild raspberries, called wineberries by some. I've always assumed that the berries get devoured by animals or coworkers as soon as they ripen, since I've never noticed any good ones in years past. Today I was lucky enough to grab handfuls of ripe fruit as I passed during my constitutional, the canes prolific on either side of the ironically placed dumpster. This bounty in a bleak landscape left me incredulous, but such is the tenacity of nature and the awesomeness of summer.

Peas, Please!

2011-06-20T19:59:00.003-04:00

Arrived home from work and promptly picked 3.3 pounds of shelling peas, 2.5 pounds of sugar snap peas, and 4 heads of broccoli. Had to stop because my basket was full.

Time to get creative! And also, to start giving produce away. Any takers?

Micro-beet

2011-06-15T21:44:00.006-04:00

Behold the rare and wondrous micro-beet, prized by chefs and artisanal farmers around the world!

Just kidding. We didn't get around to weeding the beet patch, and this is the pathetic result. NOTE: Root vegetables, especially carrots and beets, are really freakin' hard to weed. It's almost impossible to distinguish beet greens from the dozens of really enthusiastic, invasive weeds in our garden. And we have a particularly crafty weed from the carrot family that's taken over our carrots. The leaves look identical! How the heck are we supposed to tell the difference?

Campanelle with Garlic Scape Pesto and Smoked Scallops

2011-06-14T19:46:00.011-04:00

One hour and fifteen minutes. That's the elapsed time between the eating and the blogging of this dish. It's really so good, and made even more so by its fortuitousness. This started out as a kitchen-sink dinner, although that term is a little disrespectful because I had so many gorgeous ingredients just hanging around the house today. First, we had the garlic scapes, which are the unopened flower and stem of an immature hardneck garlic plant. I've tried putting them in salads and sauteeing them with other veggies, and they're okay, but my favorite thing to do with them is make pesto. So I did just that.

There were some house-smoked scallops I got from Metro Seafood in Clinton on Sunday, as well as the glorious bounty of today's CSA share, not to mention the goodies we have in our own garden. My pasta dish came together in one of those beautiful hallelujah sequences in which the one inspirational shaft of sunlight shone through the kitchen window onto my hand as I chose each ingredient.

On the side I served some warm chickpeas with lemon juice, good green olive oil, summer savory, and crumbled pepper-crusted chevre from Cranberry Creek, a newly discovered farmstead creamery in the Poconos that has been knocking our socks off. (We're so lucky they make deliveries to Genesis!)

To be honest, it was probably a little uncomfortable to witness my smugness as we tucked into this meal. Local scapes and basil in the pesto, sugar snap peas and herbs from our own garden, really good cheese. Is the artisanal seafood over the top? I don't care. Even our beverage was soda water with my favorite homemade lime-mint syrup. This recipe is so of-the-moment that by the time you read this the scapes and sugar snap peas may be gone until next year, but please bookmark this. It is so, so good.

Campanelle with Garlic Scape Pesto and Smoked Scallops

2/3 pound short pasta, like campanelle
1/3 pound sugar snap peas, cut into 1-inch lengths
½ cup garlic scape pesto (recipe follows)
¼ pound smoked scallops, thinly sliced

Prepare pesto, then put the pasta water on to boil. Add a couple tablespoons of salt before putting the pasta in the pot. Cook according to package instructions, then drain, reserving about ½ cup of the cooking water. Return pasta to pot and add pesto, mixing until blended. Add pasta water a tablespoon at a time until the sauce is smooth but not watery. Toss in snap peas and spoon into bowls. Add salt and pepper to taste. Top each serving with slices of scallop—the equivalent of about 2 scallops per person.

Serves 4

Garlic Scape and Walnut Pesto
10 garlic scapes, finely chopped
10 basil leaves, or however much you'd like
1/3 to 1/2 cup finely grated parmesan (to taste and texture)
1/3 cup walnuts, toasted
About 1/2 cup olive oil
Salt

Put the scapes, basil, 1/3 cup of the cheese, walnuts, and half the olive oil in the bowl of a food processor (or use a blender or a mortar and pestle). Whir to chop and blend all the ingredients and then add the remainder of the oil and, if you want, more cheese. If you like the texture, stop; if you'd like it a little thinner, add some more oil. Season with salt.

If you’re not going to use the pesto immediately, press a piece of plastic against the surface to keep it from oxidizing.The pesto can be stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days or packed airtight and frozen for a couple of months.

Makes about 1 cup
Gotta give credit to Dorie Greenspan. This pesto is a variation on hers.

Staggering

2011-06-04T21:07:00.006-04:00

This work can be overwhelming. I know it is for Mark because for every task that gets accomplished he can tick off half a dozen things we've fallen behind on or are going wrong. But he's getting better all the time. Part of this grand-scale gardening project is to train ourselves to enjoy the process and wean ourselves off the fleeting high of accomplishing goals that's inevitably followed by the huge letdown of having no occasion to rise to.

So let's talk about something we did right this year: Staggering the broccoli harvest. Last season we had 12 beautiful broccoli heads all ready at the same time, and we couldn't eat them fast enough. This year we went with Fedco's Broccoli Blend seed mix that contains some early, mid, and late varieties. We ate the first wave this week, and the second wave will be ready next week, and some plants have yet to form heads. It's perfect.

Another thing we did right: Leaving the peonies to reign over the vegetable garden in their glory, even if they can be annoying obstacles. It helps that they're in full bloom right now. They were really bothering me when we were laying out the rows in March; I wanted to lay flagstone for the paths, and the space will never look tidy with those huge, blowsy bushes scattered all over. But they're beautiful, smell good, attract beneficial insects, and keeping them is much more true to the permaculture vibe we're trying to cultivate. I need to keep telling myself that there's no such thing as a perfect garden. It will always be a work in progress, never predictable, never finished. And that's a good thing.

Easy Being Green

2011-06-02T22:51:00.008-04:00

The tentative yellow-green of the first grass blades and baby leaves of spring have exploded into the lushness of early summer, hanging in the heavy tree canopies overhead and busting out of the garden as the first crops of lettuce and broccoli. But for every crunchy little butterhead there are a dozen thistles and dandelions and other weeds. Mint enjoys something of a double-agent status in our garden, since it can definitely be a pest because it grows so quickly and spreads everywhere, its tough carpet of roots almost impossible to eradicate. The only thing is that I love mint so much that I can't bear to fight it with any real conviction. So instead I harvest it like crazy, making mint-apple jelly, gallons of iced tea, and especially this simple syrup that originally caught my eye because it uses surplus basil, but mint works just as well. We mix it with seltzer when we're feeling virtuous and add some rum when we're feeling less so.

But the real star of today's show is this delightful vegetable side dish that I made for dinner tonight. It's not my own; I got it from Andrea Reusing's Cooking in the Moment via this month's Saveur magazine. With only four ingredients it manages to be sweet, crisp, buttery, creamy, and salty. Best of all, it uses a lot of lettuce, which is coming out our ears right now, and also uses green garlic, which is just immature garlic bulbs and stalks that have a great garlic flavor without being overpowering. Kind of like a scallion, but garlic flavored. It's also sadly underused, in my opinion.

I had a mental block against cooking lettuce, even though there are plenty of respectable recipes out there for grilled and wilted lettuce. Now I am a convert. We ate this for dinner with fried eggs and raisin toast, and it was magical.

Fresh Peas with Lettuce and Green Garlic

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 small stalks green garlic, or 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Kosher salt, to taste
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen green peas (I used frozen and they were terrific)
2 small heads butter lettuce (about 6 oz.), washed, cored, and torn into large pieces
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium heat; add garlic, season with salt, and cook, stirring often, until soft but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add peas and cook until bright green and tender, about 4 minutes. Stir in remaining butter, along with lettuce and 1 tablespoon water, season with salt and pepper, and remove from heat. Stir until lettuce is just wilted, about 1 minute.

Yum.

Like Buttah

2011-05-30T11:35:00.003-04:00

New fan favorite Bordeaux spinach and the long-awaited Tom Thumb butterhead lettuce. The spinach is great because even when eaten raw it doesn't squeak between one's teeth, which gives me chills up my spine just thinking about it. The butterhead lettuce is so crisp and curly and succulent I can't get enough of it. Time to fix up a big bowl of leaves dressed simply and stylishly in nice olive oil, lemon juice, and salt.

Rhubarb-Rose Conserve with Cherries

2011-05-19T11:01:00.006-04:00

Used this morning's precious nap hour to make rhubarb-rose conserve with cherries. This is the first recipe I've tried from the award-winning Blue Chair Jam Cookbook--with its intriguing recipes and gorgeous, color-saturated photography--and it's a winner! Deep and sweet with just enough tartness to make your mouth water, with a floral edge from the cherries and rose. So easy to make, too. Today, lunch will be Greek yogurt and granola topped with a big scoop of this jam.

Dressed Up

2011-05-10T11:12:00.003-04:00

Quick, leave me your best salad dressing recipe in the comments! Salad season is officially upon us. Hooray!

Sprung!

2011-04-30T19:42:00.004-04:00

First rhubarb of the season, destined for rhubarb bread that we'll bring with us on our proper Sunday grandparent tour of north Jersey.

Hot in Herre [sic]

2011-04-26T11:35:00.002-04:00

Is it getting hot in here? Oh, that’s probably just us, because we’ve been ON FIRE in the garden for the past couple of weeks. Ironically, there were several days of painfully cold hands digging in wet, barely workable soil that was quite a bit colder than the outside temperature. And Mark spent a long afternoon digging a trench for the new asparagus (he was dissatisfied with the results of last year’s apocryphal crop after I planted the crowns upside down). P.S. He accidentally dug the 40' trench two times the necessary depth; overachiever or OCD? Both, I think.

It's immensely satisfying to be pretty much on schedule for once, even with the auxiliary projects taken into account. The carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and asparagus are all in the ground, with the rhubarb and peas coming up nicely. The tomatoes have been transplanted and are taking full advantage of the new real estate. Mark is also installing lovely wooden garden gates to replace the fashionable yet functional clothes-pinned deer fencing we’ve been using. The only black cloud on the horizon is the proliferation of groundhogs evidenced by an unsettling number of holes popping up around the yard (not yet in the garden, thankfully). We've also seen one scurrying under our front porch to the delight of Delilah, our unofficial farm hound. We're putting up some ominous warning signs to discourage the little devils from doing anything untoward.

Orange-Apricot Whole Wheat Muffins

2011-04-25T15:43:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago, Mark and Nico and I went to a potluck seed swap where we knew absolutely no one in hopes of meeting some locals in our age bracket who share some interests. We found the event on Meetup through a group called "Reskilling Northwest New Jersey," and I wanted to show that I had actual skills and was not some suburbanite dilettante, so I baked some garlic-rosemary potato bread from my favorite bread cookbook ever.

I got to comparing notes with the hostess, and she told me about her favorite bread cookbook ever, which I promptly got from the library the next day. I was tantalized by a recipe for orange-apricot muffins, but when I made them the first time they didn't turn out exactly as I'd hoped. Granted, I was forced to substitute the baking powder because I'd run out, so that didn't help their appearance, but I wanted more of a citrus punch, and they needed some spice. One half-teaspoon of cinnamon, the only spice, was listed as "optional" for the original recipe and eliminated altogether for the apricot variation (as if!). I tampered with the formula enough that I feel confident calling it my own, but props to Laurel for the inspiration and to Mary for the introduction.

Orange-Apricot Whole Wheat Muffins

1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
pinch baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon or apple pie spice
2 tablespoons powdered milk
¾ cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
5 tablespoons honey
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
zest of one orange
½ cup chopped dried apricots
½ cup sliced almonds, toasted

Preheat the oven to 375. Whisk the dry ingredients together, then the wet ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet, making sure not to overmix. Fold in the apricots and almonds; spoon into muffin cups.

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until the center springs back when pressed.

Makes 12 small or 10 larger muffins

Berry Patch

2011-04-25T15:37:00.005-04:00

We’ve started a berry patch.

Back story: The previous owner built a chicken coop (tenement) next to the shed at the end of the driveway. The first time we toured the house, we had the opportunity to meet the coop’s future residents when they were just little puffballs chilling out in the master bathroom’s cast-iron clawfoot tub. This made for an interesting first impression, to say the least.

The only problem with the coop is that it’s next to a big, old tree that a sly raccoon used at the first opportunity to break in and feast on some poor chickens. The owner, who had a lot of heart but not the stomach for animal husbandry, called the farm around the corner in tears, traumatized, and demanded that they take the rest of her chickens. They happily obliged. Who knows, we may have eaten their eggs for breakfast yesterday.

Long story long, we thought that fenced-in area would be perfect for a berry patch, out of reach of those long-necked, nimble deer that fearlessly roam our property, as well as the twitchy-nosed rabbits and the evil groundhog that lives under our front porch. That eight-foot fence had better do its job. We took down a partition and installed a raspberry trellis in its place, and we moved the gate for maximum square footage to grow as many goodies as possible. The blackcurrants will be happy there, and we dedicated some space for strawberries that will, alas, have to wait till next year.

Moorpark

2011-04-15T19:56:00.004-04:00

See the first brave blooms on one of our Moorpark apricot trees. Last week we bought some gooseberry and black currant plants from a Russian woman who lives nearby and seems to really know her stuff. Her little corner of this brown-lawned, soulless housing development is thick with berry bushes and mature fruit trees poised to come alive in the next few weeks. She warned us that apricots are tough to grow in north Jersey because the early blooms are often killed by a late frost before the fruits have time to form. The guy who taught Mark's fruit-tree pruning class confirmed this, but also said that in a good year he gets plenty of apricots. And me, I'm still seeing visions of apricot tarts dance in my head.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2011-04-02T22:28:00.003-04:00

We hit upon a dynamite system for seed starting this year. No fancy tricks or gadgets, just a slight tweak on the mini-soil block system. The biggest problem with the mini-blocks last year was keeping them moist long enough for the seeds to germinate. The solution? Take-out containers!
That’s right, we started saving heavy duty reheatable plastic food containers. You know, the kind marked as recyclable #6 that no facility seems willing to accept and will probably outlast the human race. Anyway, thanks to an inundation of take-out Thai food on Kate’s birthday, we ended up with six of these abominations. Turns out they’re ideal miniature greenhouses for the smallest sized soil blocks. In conjunction with a heat mat, these babies create a virtual sauna for seeds to germinate in. The evaporated moisture collects on the lid and can easily be dumped back on the blocks. The small size of the mini-blocks enables them to warm up to the optimal germination temperature for heat-loving plants. We sprouted tomatoes and peppers in as few as four days, basil in about two. Germination rates were also impressive (Genovese Basil sprouted 19 out of 20 seeds). Best of all, the containers are ultra-durable and free! (well, sorta free) It’s always super-gratifying to find an unexpected second use for trash. Now, if we can only put all of that used cat dirt to good use...

The Bee's Knees

2011-03-29T16:15:00.005-04:00

We may be inheriting a few honeybee hives from my uncle's cousin, along with his beekeeping equipment. Mark and I have the enthusiasm but lack the know-how to care for them, so last Friday my dad and I went to a well-timed meeting of the local beekeepers' association. The topic, presented by Jolie Dollar of the Xerces Society, happened to be about drawing native bees as pollinators for your garden, which was right up our alley; however, I wondered how the honeybee enthusiasts felt about inviting interlopers into their carefully crafted habitats.

Turns out my suspicions were well founded. After all, what subculture doesn't have its share of rivalry and controversy? My dad struck up a conversation about acquiring nucs for our hives with a young guy who seemed like one of the most knowledgeable people in the room. Considering this guy raises bees for a living, I was surprised to hear him derisively dismiss native bees as nothing more than a nuisance. He was actually complaining how hard they were to exterminate. Meanwhile, I had just exchanged a figurative fist-bump with the presenter over our shared love of permaculture.

Not surprisingly, we'll have to make sure we partner ourselves with an apiculture mentor who shares our holistic, low-intervention approach. Beekeeping is pretty difficult, with hives being felled right and left by everything from mites to nocema to the still-mysterious colony collapse disorder (CCD) to a hard winter like the one we've had this year. There's this awesome-looking class coming up at Genesis, but it's not until July, and we'll need to act quickly if we plan to establish some hives this year. In the meantime, I'm friendly with the wife of the professional beekeeper teaching that class, so a well-placed phone call might be in order.

This article on baby boomers taking up apiculture is timely as well, since I think I was one of three non-boomers at that meeting last week. Four, if you include the speaker.

Signs of Spring

2011-03-19T17:08:00.006-04:00

I think this will be enough to sustain me through the next few chilly weeks.

The first brave crocuses.

Planting the cherry trees.

Baby rhubarb.

Dirty Fingernails

2011-03-09T11:10:00.004-05:00

The alliums (leeks, shallots, onions, scallions) are getting all tall and gangly, and this weekend we plant the rest of the spring seeds--greens and broccoli. Next week is the grand St. Patrick's Day tradition of planting peas, which gives me genuine hope that spring is on its way.

Last weekend was our first chance to get dirty in the garden this year, clearing out the woody remains of last year's pepper plants and herbs. My scratched-up arms are telling me that we won't be planting those thorny Ma Waeng eggplants again!

Even though it was in the mid-50s, the piles of tomato vines we'd piled up in November were still frozen to the ground. My stash of leeks in the corner is alive and well, though--soon they should be cooperative enough for us to pull and eat.

After this long, cold winter of the screaming baby, dirt under my fingernails never felt so good.

Trendspotting

2011-02-24T08:55:00.002-05:00

Where all my homeys at? And by “homeys” I mean thirtysomething gardeners interested in permaculture and obscure vegetables, readers of Michael Pollan, preferably not living in Brooklyn. Is that too specific?

Not that I have anything against Brooklyn. But hip urbanites in H&M wardrobes boasting rooftop gardens and apiaries who ply their wares at the Park Slope Co-op, all to an indie-rock soundtrack, give me pause in a way that my neighbor’s farm in rural northwest New Jersey does not.

Do I sound elitist? I don’t mean it that way. Here’s an analogy: In another life, Mark and I were involved in the Baltimore underground music scene. When a local band got signed to a major label, the community perceived the mainstream recognition as both the best and the worst thing that could possibly happen. While we all want our favorite band to make it big, we fear losing the intimate community of early fans. The band blows up and when they visit your hometown on their nationwide tour you have to shell out $50 for a ticket in a stadium just to watch them as a speck on the distant stage. Suddenly everyone you meet is a fan of the band and you no longer feel special. Many of the new fans have an obviously superficial interest, riding the crest of the band’s popularity and then promptly chasing the next wave. But you knew them way back when!

Let’s face it; gardening is trendy right now—which, don’t get me wrong, is wonderful!—but I get a little rankled that the Food Network is jocking my style. When a friend starts asking me questions about starting a garden, they have a hard time getting me to shut up. I fall all over myself to start seeds for them, give them guided tours of my favorite herb farm, research colorful varieties of vegetables that will grow best in their climate, regale them with the pros and cons of raised beds. But when I see Andrew Zimmern yapping about his enthusiasm for local food, I change the channel.

Almost a decade ago, Mark and I planted some tomatoes, corn, and some thyme and basil in the yard of our first little brick house in the unfashionable outskirts of Washington, DC. Before that we grew tomatoes in pots on the tiny balcony of our apartment. The herbs thrived, the tomatoes were decent, and the corn never saw the light of day. The deer ate every single pansy I planted along the front walk, so I replanted and sprayed them with a non-toxic solution that smelled so bad our new neighbors probably thought we were stashing dead bodies in the garage. We struggled through an 18-month siege against the wall of unsettling, phallic bamboo that had initially made our backyard so peaceful and ambient but turned our entire yard into a battlefield.

Every year we have been a little more successful, and our efforts have become more ambitious. By now we’ve read thousands of pages about gardening, hoovered up knowledge from the folks who run our biodynamic CSA, taken courses in food politics, researched recipes to use bizarre scorzonera and bushels of kale, and learned food preservation techniques. In 2009 we moved out to the country and broke ground on a 4,000-square-foot garden. Our passion is authentic and deep, and our enthusiasm can be contagious (and occasionally, I’ll bet, annoying and tedious to our loved ones). We’re slowly but steadily working on acquiring chickens and bees, and on sacrificing most of our considerable lawn to fruit trees. I’m greatly enjoying the proliferation of public discourse about gardening and our nation’s food system, and in fact I believe this discussion is vital to meaningful change. But I don’t feel trendy, and it’s getting harder to discern individuals and organizations that are genuinely like-minded. My beef, for example, is with the local chef (unnamed, to protect the guilty) who tells her customers she’s sourcing her ingredients sustainably from neighboring farms, then goes and buys everything at Wal-Mart.

What a poseur.

Leek House

2011-02-13T12:03:00.003-05:00

The pungent, mineral smell of dirt in our house once again makes me happy. Outside, I still have to wend my way through a labyrinth of narrow paths between the huge snowdrifts that refuse to melt; inside, we're planting leeks. The shelves, with fluorescent lights swinging from chains, have taken up residence in our living room for the next four months (FOUR MONTHS!). Only two weeks till we plant the rest of the alliums--scallions, onions, shallots. One of these days there's got to be a sign of spring.

Potential

2011-01-31T15:25:00.002-05:00

Don't Call It a Comeback

2011-01-16T11:38:00.009-05:00

We've been here for years, digging with our peers and puttin' weeds in fear...

Um, sorry about that. ANYWAY, technically this is only our second year at the farmstead, but we've been at this for a good five years now. I'll even venture to say that we're hitting our stride, but I doubt I could get Mark to admit to any such nonsense.

A new year, a new leaf. Lots of ‘em, hopefully. Mark's resolution for this year is to post less more often. A lot of his posts have been somewhat dense in the past; this is supposed to be a garden blog, not Ulysses. That being said, we're going to immediately break that resolution. It’s time for SEED LIST 2011!!!

We usually drop about $100 on seeds every year but we managed to cut it down to around $75 this time. This is because we saved a decent amount of (hopefully viable) seed from last year. And now (drum roll, please), we present the list!

Basil, Genovese - One word: PESTO!
Beans, Masai (Bush, String) - Long-producing delicate haricot verts. Yum.
Beans, Tiger's Eye (Bush, Shell) - We’re eating our first harvest right now, and it’s amazing. And the plants don’t need support--score!
Beets, 3 Root Grex - Comes in three exciting colors!
Broccoli, Fedco Mix - A mystery bag of brassification. Designed to mature at different times.
Calendula, Resina - A big producer of odoriferous resin. Sounds gross, but not if you’re a bee.
Carrots, Scarlet Nantes - We skipped carrots last year so we’re sticking with a powerhouse.
Chives - One can never have too many.
Cilantro, Carib - Promises not to immediately bolt upon seeing sunlight. We’re skeptical.
Corn, Luscious - The name says it all.
Cumin - Trying this as a pot herb.
Fenugreek - See Cumin.
Greens, Siamese Dragon - Adorable baby Asian greens. Been meaning to grow these for years.
Lavender, French - Probably won’t be frost-hardy, but we are going to try anyway.
Leek, Bleu de Solaise - Big success last year. A few poor souls may successfully overwinter.
Leek, Lincoln - Earlier harvest, longer shaft (heh heh, you said “shaft”).
Lemongrass - Pot herb 3.0.
Lemon Balm - Crown jewel of the much-anticipated herb spiral (more to come about that).
Lettuce, Cimarron - Red loose leaf for the “connoisseur” (scare quotes by Kate) who disdains the buttery head.
Lettuce, Tom Thumb (Butterhead) - Kate is always stalking the elusive butterhead.
Marigold, Harlequinn - Now performing in full sun for the first time ever!
Melon, Cream Of Saskatchewan - After being disappointed that last year’s melons weren’t that sweet, here we attempt to rectify.
Melon, Sakata's Sweet - Some of us like our melons Asian.
Nasturtium, Empress Of India - Chasing the flavor of that first big, spicy nasturtium Kate tasted as a child.
Okra, Burmese - Another sun-loving failure from our shadier past.
Onion, Stuttgarter - Long-day storage heirloom. So great we can’t remember why we ordered it.
Onion, Walla Walla - Scallions on steroids: a sweet bulbing allium that won’t keep. (We may have jumped the gun on the harvest with these last year).
Oregano - Needs no introduction.
Oregano, Zaatar - Just because this reminds us of the spice blend we love so much.
Parsley, Giant Of Italy - A necessity. Also a big hit with marauding wildlife.
Rosemary - Nothing quippy here; we just keep killing them every year.
Scallion, Evergreen - Can’t get enough of ‘em. We were harvesting these babies well into fall.
Shallot, Prisma - Feeling a little un-Ambitious this year (boooooo...)
Spinach, Bordeaux - Going for a bit of French terroir in Morris County.
Sunflower, Mammoth Grey Stripe - We’re finally able to grow these ten-foot beauties, which supposedly offer tasty seeds as well.
Thyme, German - Always seem to be running out of it.
Tomato, Green Grape - Although the Isis Candy variety has served us well for year, the spicy description of this cherry tomato was too enticing to pass up.
Tomato, Rose de Berne - Sweet, pink, round...wait, we’re talking tomatoes here, right?
Winter squash, Uncle Dave's Dakota Dessert - Even sweeter than Buttercup; need I say more?

SAVED

Basil, Thai Queenette - Super fragrant and productive last year, originally from Johnny’s.
Borage - The bees went bonkers for the bombastically beautiful blue borage bouqet.
Dill - Grown for the flowers, since we’re not big fans of the flavor (except pickles, natch).
Ground cherry, Aunt Molly's - Last year’s surprise hit. Impressed everybody that tried them. Except the liars.
Holy basil - We usually grow this tropical herb in a pot, but the one we grew in the garden last year thrived. This year we’ll dispense with the pots altogether.
Pepper, Golden Treasure - Sweet, big, and thin walled. And slugs love ‘em!
Pepper, Hot Lemon - Obligatory and unique.
Pepper, Aji Dulce - Kate’s favorite pepper in the world. The sweet, buttery flavor of a habanero without the heat.
Pepper, Thai Bird - Managed to save a few seeds from the fruits of a 2 year old potted plant.
Pepper, Thai Burapa - The seed from these scorchers originated from Import.com peppers.
Peas, Green Arrow (shelling) - Can’t wait to see how these do with actual trellising.
Peas, Sugar Snap - We got a great harvest even though we neglected these poor springtime all-stars (thanks a lot, stupid baby)
Tomato, San Marzano - Perfect for canning and don’t spoil nearly as quickly as some other tomatoes we won’t mention...
Tomato, Gold Medal - New favorite, edging out dear old Nyagous. The fruit flies agree!
Zinnia, Persian Carpet - Nico’s big contribution last year, these were beautiful bursts of color popular with both humans and their apian buddies.

If you have experience with any of these varieties, please share. We’re also looking for folks interested in local seed swapping. Anyone know of organized groups in north Jersey? Anyone interested in starting one?

Stay tuned for potatoes and asparagus. Bet you can’t wait!

Getting Squashed

2010-11-10T14:15:00.006-05:00

Though we're raging against it, this baby is kicking our asses. So much for the planned blog posts about sweet, sweet aji dulce peppers and well-deserved shout-outs to friends like E & J who have been helping us tidy up the garden before the winter cold settles in. Our time is at a premium right now, and Coltivi has suffered.

Before Li'l G was born, at least one person told me straight out that the craziness of two kids would make me give up cooking and we'd be surviving on pasta and chicken fingers. I seem to have taken that as a personal challenge. Today the baby was amenable enough to nap for a whole hour, so I started a batch of this tangy-sweet bread, made two kinds of baby food, and prepped two experimental dishes I'm making for dinner. This is not the most sensible use of my precious free time, I know, but it helps keep me (legally!) sane. Laundry? What laundry?

To get to the point, last night I summoned up a new dish that will have the honor of going into regular rotation round these parts. Last month I visited a local food consignment shop (such a cool idea), where I bought these adorable sweet dumpling squash that happened to be seriously delicious as well. They roast up so quickly in the oven, and the shop owner mentioned that if you go and fill the squash with good stuff, you could have a one-dish meal on your hands. So here's what I did, and it was a big hit. Sweet, salty, crunchy, creamy, tangy--this dish is greater than the sum. They went so fast I didn't even get to take photos.

Stuffed Sweet Dumpling Squash

3 sweet dumpling squash or small winter squash
3 slices whole-wheat sandwich bread
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium red pepper, finely chopped
1 cup cheese, grated (I used a young goat gouda, but you could use parmesan or crumbled chevre)
¼ cup chopped parsley
salt, pepper, herbs de provence

Preheat oven to 400º. Cut squashes in half and scoop out the seeds, then rub with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Place cut side down on a baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes or until the skin can be easily pierced with a fork. Remove from oven and cool.

Meanwhile, roughly cube the bread and whizz in the food processor to make breadcrumbs. Heat 2T olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, then toss the crumbs with the oil and cook until crispy, about 5 minutes. Remove the breadcrumbs from the pan and add the remaining 1T oil. Saute the onions until translucent, just a few minutes, then add the pepper and herbs and cook for another couple of minutes.

Turn on the broiler. Combine breadcrumbs with sautéed vegetables, cheese, and parsley, then spoon the filling into each squash half. Don’t be shy; mound it up as much as you like. Place the pan under the broiler, either on low or about 6 inches away from the flame, for about 3 minutes or until the cheese melts and the topping turns golden. Enjoy with some wild rice and wilted fall greens.

Serves about 4, fewer if you're really hungry.

Supa Dupa Dry

2010-09-03T14:16:00.013-04:00

This jar holds what used to be ten pounds of San Marzano tomatoes. I included the fresh one for scale. You may be asking, How does one transform ten pounds of tomatoes to fit into a quart-size jar? Answer: Two days of cooking. Although, to be fair, it's mostly hands-off time spent drying the tomatoes in a very low oven. I took the extra step of blanching and peeling the tomatoes, which isn't strictly necessary.

All I can say is that this toil had better be worth it. I've never been a huge fan of sun-dried (or oven-dried, if you will) tomatoes, though I like them well enough. But if I have these at my disposal through the cold months I may be more likely to use them in salads and soups, either in their current state, soaked in oil, in dressings, or reconstituted.

P.S. Sorry if the Missy Elliott reference was lost on anyone. I'd like to see a Venn diagram of the intersection between gardeners, gourmands, and fans of old-school rap.

Little Miss Green

2010-09-03T13:59:00.005-04:00

Voilà! Verdurette de l’été. I made mine with sweet summer onions, red bell pepper, carrots, parsley, and basil, but you can use whatever veggies and herbs you like best or have on hand in your kitchen. I plan to use it like I would sofrito or bouillon, mixing a spoonful into soups, dips, eggs, rice, or beans.

Side note: Nico has come to the conclusion that a dish is only homemade if we made it using ingredients we grew ourselves. Talk about a sophisticated palate! I'm afraid we're setting this kid up for some unrealistic expectations. I won't even mention his love of smoked monkfish and sour mustard greens.

Doing the Can-Can

2010-09-02T12:59:00.005-04:00

Last weekend I took a terrific food preservation class that gave me the confidence I need to forge ahead with my canning ideas. In the past I've canned a little salsa and jam, but I've always been anxious that the end result won't be safe or just plain won't taste good. I always felt like I was doing it in the dark, fudging things without the right techniques and equipment. Even though I own a few books on canning, I didn't know enough about the science behind food preservation to riff on some of the more traditional recipes and make them my own. I want this food to end up being something I'll actually want to eat in February. I can only eat so many dilly beans. Am I risking botulism if I don't refrigerate this tomato confit? (Perhaps.) Am I screwing up the pH of these marinated peppers by adding extra garlic? (No.)

This year we have enough extra produce that it would be a big waste not to put some of it up. It's also fun to play with all the fruits and veggies coming in. My day with Leda Meredith at Genesis Farm was eye-opening on all counts. Meredith is committed to seasonal, sustainable food, but she also wants it to taste good, and she talks about less well known techniques for preserving food like salting, drying, and lactic fermentation, which I am very curious about.

So far I've process a gallon of tomatoes, dried 10 pounds of the same, put hot peppers in vinegar, and made pickles using lactic fermentation. In the hopper I've got some jam made from peaches acquired through bartering with our farmer neighbors (am I a pioneer superhero or what?) and a batch of verdurette, which is basically vegetable bouillon and, according to Meredith, keeps basically forever.

The adventure continues!

Cherry Cherry

2010-08-18T17:48:00.006-04:00

I laughed long and hard at Mark's love for ground cherries, but now I will confess in front of blog and everyone that I have been won over by their wiles. Sweet, sharp, and crisp--I don't understand why more people don't cultivate and eat these. They look like a tomatillo, with a smooth golden fruit inside a lantern-shaped husk, and they're native to North America. It's fun and addictive to unwrap and eat them, one by one. And they were sure easy for us to grow this year. Why don't they sell these at the supermarket, or even at the farmers' market?

UPDATE: I'm gonna go ahead and label this mild interest in our ground cherries an official hubbub. Here's what they look like inside the husk.

Officially Ridiculous

2010-08-13T22:54:00.002-04:00

And this is just the beginning.

Squashed

2010-07-29T23:01:00.002-04:00

Suffice it to say we've got a glut of yellow summer squash over here. Actually, no, that won't suffice. We've done the sweet, buttery-yellow fruits sauteed, shredded, grilled, in pasta, in soup, in chocolate cake, with even more squash growing up along the garden fence and taunting us from on high. I'm snacking on a squash-basil muffin as I type this. Even the local food pantry turned down our offer to donate some squash--seriously. After Mark's band played last Saturday I was peddling them in the streets of Hoboken and leaving them on top of friends' cars.

And I haven't even mentioned the basil: quadruple batches of pesto, quarts of basil-lime syrup for tasty drinks both alcoholic and non, marinara sauce, salads, and stir fries. From just two plants of Genovese basil. That doesn't even include the Thai and holy basil plants. Geez.

We just started digging potatoes today--20 pounds' worth from just four of our many, many plants. The bounty continues...which is incredibly awesome, but it's starting to seem strangely ominous as well.

Frittering Away

2010-07-06T20:31:00.003-04:00

Crispy, melty, savory success. I filled these squash blossoms with a blend of ricotta, mozzarella, and pecorino romano cheeses and some anchovies, garlic, and oregano, then dipped them in seasoned flour and a beaten egg and deep-fried. Deliciousness.

In Blossom

2010-07-05T12:09:00.005-04:00

The photo above is a hot mess, sure, but it illustrates tonight's promising dinner. For a long time I've wanted to cook with squash blossoms, but they're virtually impossible to find at the store, and every year we've grown squash I've been too anxious about our yield to interfere with reproduction and sacrifice any potential squash fruits. Suffice it to say that shouldn't be a problem this year, with dozens of blooms and fruits everywhere and leaves as big as the baby trying to snuff out the poor melons.

In Rome we enjoyed delicious fried blossoms stuffed with cheese at a side-street trattoria, and I'll be riffing on that tonight by filling our sweet-smelling flowers with ricotta, romano, anchovies, and basil before battering and pan-frying them.

Most of that basil became pesto within an hour of being snipped, and the rest will be used for my favorite basil beverage. There will also be juicy local peaches with elderflower and verbena syrup for dessert. The abundance of produce is still a novelty this early in the season, and I'm all a-twitter with recipes. Wonder what my level of enthusiasm will be at the end of August with peppers and tomatoes covering every flat surface in our house. I think I'll still be pretty stoked.

Such a tease, these baby Nyagous are--the tomato equivalent of jailbait.

Shallot-tastic

2010-07-02T13:52:00.007-04:00

Nico and I harvested about 200 big, beautiful shallots today. Hot damn! I must calculate what the cost would be if we bought that amount at the grocery store. Not sure how to factor in the hours of backbreaking labor and the value of Mark's sanity.

Now I just need to learn how to braid them after they've cured.

The Revolution Will Be Delicious

2010-06-19T14:11:00.003-04:00

It doesn't get any better than this: Food grown and prepared within walking distance of our house by passionate, committed growers and an incredibly talented chef. Today, the local master of high-low cuisine, Michael Christiansen of HotBox Food Truck, brought his operation to Mini Mac Farm, our source for the freshest and yummiest eggs and chicken around. He prepared a lunch of classed-up street food using ingredients grown on the farm: pork tacos with homemade fixings, lobster and asparagus salad on scallion flatbread, and rigatoni carbonara. We had one of everything with some fresh brewed lemon-mint iced tea and ate it on the grass in the shade within earshot of a gaggle of Rhode Island Reds while Mark coveted the black-and-white goats nearby.

We lucked out, because the food was sold out by 1pm. And it looks like some well-deserved attention is headed their way, since a photographer from NJ Monthly was present, jumping on the national food-truck trend. We can only hope they team up again soon.

When we moved out to the country, this was exactly the kind of community we envisioned, but we didn't imagine it would be this delicious, or this close. Next time I'll bring my camera.

Green with Envy

2010-06-14T20:44:00.005-04:00

You know how some annoying treehuggers go on and on about how home-grown and organic food tastes so much better than what the rest of us chumps can buy at the supermarket? Well, I'm here to break the news that yes, it does.

In other words, the payoff has begun! Last night was the first time this season that Mark explained to me the odd sensation of not feeling panicked about the garden. The steep incline of toil is beginning to level out, and the garden is already starting to pay out in pounds of snap peas and picture-perfect heads of broccoli.

Smugness aside, there's some science behind the fact that there's no substitute for a freshly picked pea. It simply has no shelf life because the sugars start to convert to starch immediately after picking. And those incredibly sweet, juicy strawberries we've been picking at Genesis Farm wouldn't even make it to the grocery store. Half of mine are a bloody pulp by the time I drive home and put them in a bowl.

The volume of peas we have is unbelievable, even though we didn't get a chance to trellis them, which Mark was afraid would be disastrous. We haven't had any animals noshing on our goods besides flea beetles, and even they seem to be under control thanks to some mysterious beneficial insect. The deer have eaten a few pea shoots that latched onto the fence, but we aren't plagued by rabbits or groundhogs even though we still haven't had the opportunity to bury the extra bit of chicken wire around the perimeter. Which means we're picking a huge bowlful of peas every couple of days, and still we can't keep up. An awesome problem to have, for sure.

Smells Like Victory

2010-06-02T20:55:00.003-04:00

Today's accomplishments: 75 tomatoes planted, weeded, and mulched, followed by Marcella Hazan's escarole torta and braised carrots--the last of the winter CSA share, spring leaves and garlic greens from this week's Genesis share, and a stake (har har) in the food we hope to enjoy this summer and fall.

Even better, we're still cooking and gardening four weeks into this trippy two-child odyssey. Smells like victory to me.

Satisfaction

2010-05-29T21:36:00.007-04:00

Family muck-around time in the garden. Nico gets some tips on mulching from the master.

Look how far we've come! Hard to believe this was a thistle-ridden wasteland just a few short weeks ago.

In the end we couldn't bear to uproot the dozens of peonies strewn around the garden. They got a reprieve until next year. Same goes for the mountain of mint.

Neverending broccoli.

Another Kind of Sprout

2010-05-23T21:48:00.003-04:00

Yes, it’s been a while, but that’s because we’ve been busy growing this sprout:

She arrived on 5/7. But don't fret; Mark hasn’t been neglecting the garden by any means.

The broccoli went out the second week of April, but could have gone outside earlier. It’s happy and thriving, but it would be bigger now if we had been a little more ambitious.

The potatoes are positively exuberant. We planted La Ratte fingerlings and yellow-fleshed Carola; both shot out of the ground in a few days and haven’t looked back. They’ve been mulched with hay to keep them moist on these hot days we’ve been having.

Mark was intent on putting a trellis up for the two kinds of peas—Sugar Snap and Green Arrow shelling peas—but now we’re thinking it may not be strictly necessary, and goodness knows there are a dozen other things demanding his time right now. They seem to be doing just fine cozied up to the deer fence.

Beans: Planted them 5/16 and they’re going crazy; seems like our timing was dead on. We’ve got Jacob’s Cattle and Tiger’s Eye shell beans for soup or for drying, as well as Garden of Eden pole beans.

Even the melons and squash sprang up in just a few days. The black plastic we lay down will warm the soil and prevent weeds, and we may even put up some row covers for maximum TLC. They love the heat, and the weather has been more than cooperative lately with these warm days interspersed with cool, rainy ones.

Still, we’re waiting until next weekend to put out the tomatoes, and even another week after that to put the peppers and eggplant in the ground. However, we’re going to give them a break from the grow lights and let them sunbathe during the daytime this week. Since someone left our pepper seedlings balanced precariously and they fell over (even though most of them recovered just fine), someone decided to order a truckload of exotic peppers from Cross Country Nurseries, an awesome farm he discovered in central Jersey, and we just picked them up yesterday. We definitely need to go back and pick those folks’ brains about their forward-thinking pest control techniques and fascinating array of pepper and basil varieties.

Weeding has become the surprising new joy of Mark’s life. He’ll disappear for an hour after dinner to hack at the earth with the cobra head tool and annihilate stealthy thistle taproots. The thistles will be the bane of our existence for at least the next couple of years, if not longer. Fortunately, this is my husband’s idea of a good time. So sad, and yet so serendipitously practical.

Feeling Blue

2010-04-21T22:13:00.003-04:00

Bordering our vegetable garden are different kinds of perennials--along the long western side are blueberries, rhubarb, and asparagus. Thanks to my inability to properly read instructions, I planted the asparagus crowns sideways instead of upright, so they took their sweet time sending up shoots. Over a month later a few are finally appearing, so maybe I didn't ruin everything.

Let's contrast my slapdash approach with how Mark handled the blueberries. We have 8 plants total: 6 Bluecrop and 2 Jersey, interspersed with lovely rhubarb that our parents were generous enough to donate. To get these babies in the ground, Mark dug each blueberry bush a hole 20" deep and 24" across, then filled each with a precise mixture: 3 gallons of peat, 1 gallon of forest humus dug from the woods, 1 gallon compost, 2 cups aluminum sulfate, and 1 cup bone meal. To this he added back all the dirt from the hole (minus the large, plentiful, dang-blasted rocks) and planted the twigs that will hopefully become the source of tasty pies and jams for many years to come. So far they've been quite accommodating, growing quickly and happily with only some straw mulch and the protection of a tomato cage wrapped in a row cover to keep the deer out until the fencing goes up this weekend.

This early success is some comfort, because the eggplants and peppers we've started have decided to be sickly and finicky for no apparent reason. Is it the new growing cube system we've implemented this year? Something they don't like about the new house--a hex from the previous owner, perhaps? But then again, where would we be without something to hover over obsessively?

Group Effort

2010-03-30T20:42:00.003-04:00

Tonight the three of us planted tomato seeds--Nyagous, Isis Candy, San Marzano, Gold Medal, and Pink Ponderosa. It was a true group effort, with Nico carefully placing one seed in each tiny soil block. We've come a long way since last year when his "help" was more of a liability than anything else.

We're also hoping the soil block method will be more efficient than past trials. The seedlings that sprout will be transferred to larger blocks, then eventually to the garden or to small pots if they're for giving. Anybody wanna call dibs?

Hurdling

2010-03-22T09:44:00.010-04:00

This is how the plot looked on Thursday morning when Mark started spreading all that composted horse poop. My dad even found a horseshoe--a good omen! For a perspective on our insanity, that's the previous owner's garden in the center. Click through for panoramic view.

This is how it looks this morning after about 30 man-hours of working the soil. It may not be an impressive feat of agricultural engineering quite yet, but to us it's a gorgeous, blank, workable canvas. You can see the blueberries at the bottom, and the asparagus and garlic are off-camera to the right.

The alliums and broccoli are still partying it up under their disco lights.

Spring offers us this gorgeous little gem of a pomegranate flower to show us it's serious about its intentions. Still haven't found any of those snowdrops or crocus that everyone else seems to be chirping about.

Making Strides

2010-03-21T20:57:00.007-04:00

I'm so exhausted I can barely type this, and I'm not even the one who did the lion's share of the work. Mark spent the last four days spreading 20 cubic yards of mushroom soil on our 50x75' garden plot, then tilling the whole thing using a beast of a tiller and digging holes for 6 blueberry bushes and a trench for 20 asparagus crowns. Mad props to my dad for putting in some serious man-hours yesterday. We were hoping to get the peas planted as well, but as it was we were out there until dusk tonight. I can't believe how the area has been transformed.

Every day it seems like a new box shows up on the doorstep--golden raspberries, fruit trees, blueberries, asparagus. All of a sudden our ambitious gardening plan is becoming real. It seems too good to be true, and in fact it is for Mark, who is his own worst critic.

The weather couldn't have been more cooperative, in the 70s every day and the 40s or 50s at night, practically unheard of for March in New Jersey. At the moment I can even hear a few confused, early-rising peepers in the pond across the road. The forecast is calling for a couple cooler days of rain ahead, which is just dandy for those baby blueberries and will create prime planting conditions for the peas. Garlic is up, albeit just tiny sprouts, but we're relieved since we were worried that we had planted too late for any decent result.

Before and after photos to come after we rise from the dead tomorrow.

Cagematch: Salad vs. Big Mac

2010-03-08T20:15:00.002-05:00

The tragedy that is the Farm Bill--read it and weep.

This is why vegetables cost more than fast food.

Signs of Life

2010-02-14T22:59:00.001-05:00

Sprouting leeks

Leek Mania

2010-02-08T17:27:00.000-05:00

The first batch of seed starter is mixed up, the leeks are planted, and now one week later we've got about 10 seedlings going. The first alpha-sprouts appeared last Friday just five days after planting (beating last year's 7 day best). We've got the soil blocks directly on the heat mat which probably accounts for the accelerated germination. Now the trick will be to remove the heat mat without destroying the integrity of the soil blocks. The soil mix recipe is derived from Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower (also advocated by Johnny's):

Standard Blocking Mix

3 Buckets Brown Peat (30 Parts)
1/2 C Lime (1/8)

Mix

2 Buckets Course Sand (20)
1 C Blood Meal (1/4)
1 C Rock Phosphate (1/4)
1 C Greensand (1/4)

Mix

1 Bucket Soil (10)
2 Buckets Compost (20)

Wet 1 part water to 3 parts mix

THE LIST 2010

2010-01-27T15:33:00.002-05:00

Here is the exhaustive, painstakingly vetted garden list for 2010. In addition to these, we'll also be planting as many herbs and wildflowers as humanly possible. And don't forget our blueberry bushes, golden raspberry canes, asparagus crowns, and hazelnut, cherry, and apricot trees. Seriously, am I going to have to plant all of this crap myself? [Kate: Most likely, since I will be massively pregnant.]

BASIL, Thai Queenette - This one seemed to do well last year.
BASIL, Holy - Trying out seeds from Baker Creek this year. I also brought some seeds back from a bunch of basil we used in my Thai cooking class, we'll give em a whirl.
BASIL, Genovese - The old standby. We get a few seedlings from Well-Sweep Herb Farm every year.
BEANS (BUSH), Tiger's Eye - We never got to plant these last year because of our move. Here we go again...
BEANS (BUSH), Jacob's Cattle - We ordered a whole lotta beans from Fedco, looking forward to trying them out.
BEANS (POLE), Garden Of Eden - More unplanted holdovers from last year.
BROCCOLI, Blue Wind - We had good results last year with this variety so we're going to give it another go.
CARROTS, Muscade - We planted some last year but never got to harvest them.
EGGPLANT, Turkish Orange - This will be a new variety for us. These are small eggplants that are best harvested prior to turning orange.
EGGPLANT, Ma Waeng - I'm excited about this one. These eggplants are pea-sized and impossible to find even at the Asian market. They're good in lots of SE Asian dishes and freeze well.
GROUND CHERRY, Aunt Molly's - This is another one I've been meaning to try for the last couple of years. I finally overcame Kate's inexplicable lack of enthusiasm.
GREENS, Siamese Dragon - This is a Baker Creek mix of Asian greens that we've had since last year.
LEEK, Bleu de Solaise - This leek showed great promise last year, although we didn't get to try it.
LETTUCE, Val D'Orges - We actually got to harvest this one last season, a nice butterhead for my little butterhead.
LETTUCE, Arugula - Can't get enough of this stuff!
MELON, Charentais - One of our biggest goals this year is to finally grow some decent melons. We've never had enough sun before to do it. Charantais is a nice classic European musk melon.
MELON, Sun Jewel - This is a Johnny's hybrid type that also looks like a winner. It's a banana-shaped Asian style. Might as well try two different varieties and compare the results.
ONION, Walla Walla - The best sweet onions around. We couldn't find seed last year and went with transplants instead. We've tracked the seeds down this time, so look out.
ONION, New York Early - This looks like a good keeper onion, which we never seem to have enough of.
PARSLEY, Flat Leaf - Another yearly Well-Sweep purchase.
PEAS (POLE), Sugar Snap - Always a favorite. Nothing beats fresh-picked snap peas, and this is the best variety we've found.
PEAS (POLE), Green Arrow -We're also looking forward to having some fresh shell peas this year--another delicacy that can't be found at the grocery store.
PEPPERS, Aji Dulce - Arguably Kate's favorite peppers, these taste like habaneros but have virtually no heat. For big babies.
PEPPERS, Bird's Eye - These are the tiny red peppers ubiquitous in Thai cuisine. Hot but not brutal, fruity and versatile.
PEPPERS, Cascabel - We grew these a couple of years ago, and they were quite unique. Very prolific and easily stored. I couldn't find the seeds in any of the six (yes, six) catalogs we ordered from so i'm going to try to use seeds from a package of dried peppers from Penzey's.
PEPPERS, Golden Treasure - A thin-walled, orange sweet frying pepper.
PEPPERS, King Of The North - Thick-walled and sweet, this is one of the shortest season bell peppers available.
PEPPERS, Lemon - An intensely fruity, moderately spicy South American variety, this is an old favorite originally obtained from Burpee four years ago. The seeds we're using are the longest-running strain of any seeds we've saved.
PEPPERS, Thai Burapa - Standard pepper used in red Thai curry paste (in dried form). Easy to dry but quite useful fresh, either green or red, in all sorts of Asian dishes.
POTATO, La Ratte - Fingerling variety, demanded by Kate. [Kate: You could have described them as creamy-fleshed, buttery, versatile, and used by generations of French chefs.]
POTATO, Carola - Toted as an all-around outstanding potato. We ordered all of our potatoes from Fedco this year.
SCALLION, Evergreen Hardy White - Another indispensable allium. 'Nuff said.
SHALLOT, Ambition - We blow through shallots like water, often substituting them for onions. Like scallions, we really can't get enough of them. You could say, we're feeling more AMBITIOUS than ever! HAHAHA [Kate: Fortunately, I would never say that.]
SQUASH (SUMMER), Lemon - This Baker Creek yellow summer squash looks intriguing and has some rave reviews, not to mention a supposed compact habit. A nice alternative to zucchini.
SQUASH (WINTER), Golden Delicious - Another Baker Creek selection, this squash is alleged to rival the buttercup in pure awesomeness.
SUNFLOWER, Irish Eyes - This will be our first year growing sunflowers, as we were brutally thwarted last year by anemic sunlight and the oft-mentioned move.
TOMATO, Nyagous - We had some really good results with both Nyagous and Isis a couple of years ago. Two years ago, we were devastated to lose most of our crop to blossom end rot. Last year was a bust, not to mention the ravages of the late blight pestilence. This year is going to be our year for tomatoes. It just HAS to be! Oh yeah, Nyagous is a purplish red medium sized tomato good enough to eat all by itself.
TOMATO, Isis Candy - Another favorite, this cherry variety is incredibly sweet, almost and indulgence.
TOMATO, San Marzano - This is the renowned paste tomato of yore, popular in Italy. We've gotten some underwhelming results in the past but are looking forward to a better experience this year. We're going to be using the seeds we saved from Genesis Farm two summers ago.
TOMATO, Gold Medal - This is the only new tomato we'll be growing this year. As with the Nyagous and Isis candy, Gold Medal comes from Seeds Savers Exchange. We figured we could use some color in the tomato section so we went with this early-yielding golden variety.

Operation Deerterrent (Part 1 of Many)

2010-01-13T11:11:00.002-05:00

According to my therapist, I'm finally ready to post this first installment in our latest mini-saga: Operation Deerterrent. Yes, those cute, pesky indigenous antelope roam in billions around our new locale. I've decided to take preemptive action before we start growing a damn thing. Immediately after installing leading-edge steel deercatchers on the fronts of both our cars, I broke ground on our first major gardening project at the new house--none other than the construction of a 6' high, 280' long deer fence.

As with my other past (and most likely future) projects, Operation Deerterrent began with a freakish amount of research, planning, and anxiety. After some online research and plenty of local scouting, I drew up some plans and then immediately abandoned them in favor of some other, more complicated and expensive plans. After discarding those, I settled on a hybrid design and gathered the materials:

280LF 4' wide hog-wire fencing
280LF 3' wide chicken-wire fencing
(28) 8' 4X4 pressure treated wood posts
(28) 60# bags concrete
(2) 6' wide chain link swing gates

The plan was pretty straightforward. The fence consists of 28 evenly spaced posts around a rectangular area with 83' X 50' dimensions. Each post was to be set in concrete at a depth of 30" below grade. Next, a 12" deep by 6" wide trench was to be dug and filled with a chicken wire barrier to stop burrowing varmints like rabbits, moles, and groundhogs. After securing the chicken-wire to the wooden posts, the hog-wire would be stretched and affixed to the posts as well. The chicken-wire would come up 18" from the ground and lap the hog-wire fence to create an "impenetrable" pest barrier. The gates would be installed last, one gate each in the middle of the 50' sides. Sounds pretty simple, eh? And how many of my past so-called simple projects have lived up to that expectation? Here are some of the myriad ways I underestimated the tasks before me.

For one thing, we live on top of a mountain. Granted, our little mountain is no K2 or anything (think foothills of the Appalachians), but the two share the distinction of both being made out of almost solid rock. As I soon discovered, rocks and digging implements don't get along too well.

Another potential problem arose from the sheer scope of the project. Digging a 12"X6" trench is no big task if it's 10 ft long; digging a nearly 300' long trench is another story. Obviously, this necessitated the use of power equipment which I didn't own and couldn't borrow. I added rental costs to the ever expanding expense list.

There were other challenges as well. Rented power equipment is not as easy or well-suited to the task at hand as it may seem. For instance, a mini-trencher sounds like the perfect tool to assist in the miserable labor of trench-digging. The model I rented was basically a colossal, unwieldy dirt chainsaw without any kind of safety mechanism at all. And that was even before the buried boulders began ambushing and mocking me. You'll have to wait to hear the rest. Time for a Xanax.

Out with the Old

2010-01-01T10:06:00.004-05:00

Seed catalogs have started appearing in the mailbox early and often, and the post-holiday doldrums are perfect for planning the coming year's garden. This morning we went through our store of seeds, keeping the packets from last year we never got the chance to plant because of the move and tossing ones from 2007 and leftovers we weren't too keen on. There are also some special varieties we saved ourselves like San Marzano tomatoes and aji dulce peppers.

Here's the collection of old seeds, which, once the snow melts, we'll sprinkle in a corner of the property and see if anything sprouts. Maybe we'll be surprised.

And now, in with the new: Garlic is planted, fruit trees ordered, deer fence (mostly) finished. Let the 2010 garden planning begin!

Jellifluous

2009-12-05T15:13:00.004-05:00

We're down to the last of a delectable and gorgeous mint jelly I made back in October. It doesn't get any simpler than this: apples, sugar, water, mint. It was extra satisfying to use handfuls of the big thicket of mint that took over the southern corner of our garden. A few days later a hard frost blackened the last of it.

The consistency of the jelly turned out perfect due to the pectin from the apple skins--no gelatin or artificial pectin here. To be honest, I'm a little sad I gave so much of it away, since I'm down to the last few tablespoons.

While my mom eats it with lamb, I just like it spread thickly on a toasted English muffin. Dee-lightful.

Quintessentially Autumn

2009-11-01T20:07:00.005-05:00

With the new house and Kate's new job and Mark's deer fence odyssey, meals have gone a little downhill recently. There's even a nasty rumor that investigators found evidence of frozen fishsticks on the premises, although all suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

Tonight was our rendition of a religious revival: two kinds of sweet Genesis squash brushed with butter and thyme, then roasted with rich cherry-wine venison sausages from the farm around the corner. We just threw it in the oven, and an hour later this deliciousness emerged. Nightcaps will be buttery molasses bran muffins now cooling in the pan.

Goodbye, vegetarianism!

Cloves of Raven Dark

2009-10-14T20:15:00.006-04:00

By the light of an infernal moon, we plunged cloves into the black earth, one by one, with needles of sleet piercing our weary backs... oh wait, that's another blog. What I meant to say is that we finally scraped the grass off a few meager square feet of earth tonight in order to plant some garlic. There was a sense of haste brought on by the prospect of sleet and snow tomorrow night. (Seriously, WTF, October?) Since everything seems to take longer at the new homestead, we didn't even get out to the garden until after sunset. But considering the agonizingly slow progress of the deer fence and the lack of funds to buy the fruit trees we're coveting, this garlic is an accomplishment. We actually planted something on our new plot of land!

Mark has been spending all of his meager spare time digging trenches and post holes for the deer fence. Naturally, it's taking much longer than expected. The next step is to pour the concrete and get those posts in before the ground freezes. Considering the brutal frost on our cars this morning, that might be sooner than expected. Cue roar of the frosty undead...

Second Life

2009-09-07T20:39:00.006-04:00

We know our adoring fans have been itching to know what we've been up to at the new homestead. Well, mostly we've been painting, unpacking, and adjusting to our colossal lawn, which needs to be mowed every 10 days or so. This lesson was learned the hard way, since we waited almost a month to mow it the first time. It was so long that only half the grass was cut by the mower blade, the end effect being one of a haircut by a blind or sadistic person.

Our ambitious plans for the fall have been scaled back for for reasons of cost and sanity, but we won't be sitting on our hands, that's for sure. We were going for a fall crop of root vegetables and greens, but we took the prudent option to spend more time planning. But seed garlic will be shipped shortly, and the big project looming is to mark out the new garden and put in a hardcore deer fence before the ground freezes. This will be a lot of work, of course, but just as difficult has been determining the dimensions of the main garden. It needs to be big enough so that we'll never feel hemmed in, but small enough to be manageable. The existing vegetable garden is 50 x 25', and we're looking to enlarge that to 75 x 50'. Now that's a lot of space, but it includes 10 annual beds, 2 of which will have cover crops each year to let them rest, interspersed with 4 perennial beds containing strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus, and a wild card--chives, hardy kiwi, something like that. There will also be a considerable 4-foot buffer of wildflowers on two sides of the beds, which will deter pests and attract birds and bees for now as well as give us room for expansion later.

There's also been plenty of salivating over fruit and nut trees over at Trees of Antiquity and Gurney's, finally settling on some cherries, almonds, apricot, hazelnut, persimmon, blueberries, and our favorite golden raspberries. (Actually, after looking at that list, we may have to pare down a bit more.) Mark's grandparents also have an orphan fig tree we'll be adopting. Fruit trees will help cut down on some of our huge freakin' lawn as well as yielding the obvious deliciousness after a few agonizing years of waiting.

We're still struggling with how much of the property will be lawn come next year. It's a challenge to find portions to allow to go to meadow while keeping some nicely trimmed spaces for socializing and running around, all the while keeping the holistic approach to our place in mind. Our mantra: This is a process, not a goal. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat.

In the Weeds

2009-08-04T21:00:00.010-04:00

This evening I ignored the piles of boxes still scattered all over our new house and took a bath in our new cast-iron tub that overlooks the meadow. For real, people. Although we're totally excited about the new home, it still doesn't quite seem real, although the work to keep it in shape is all too much so. We're just starting to tackle big-picture plan for an annual garden interspersed with perennials, as well as plenty of fruit around the property. Since the big plan is daunting, the short-term objective for this week is to clear some space in the existing "vegetable garden" for some fall plantings of greens and root vegetables that can be coaxed with a cold frame or overwintered. Take a gander at the photo below and you'll see why I put that term in quotation marks. It's basically a thistle farm with a few sad tomatoes fighting for light. You can't even walk in there without gloves and boots on.

Since we don't have any harvests of our own right now (*sniff*), I'm making do by picking as much extra produce as possible at our CSA. The cucumbers are out of control, so last week I picked some little gherkins along with the big, beefy picklers and made cornichons (with mixed results). But what I did glean from the experience is a terrific way to make new pickles, which are my favorite kind. New pickles are the ones that are still bright green and haven't been cooked. My cornichon recipe told me to soak the cukes in salted water overnight, and when I tasted one the next day it was salty all the way through. I won't get all salacious about said delicious, salty cucumber, but I will tell you that I sliced some, sprinkled them with wine vinegar, and ended up with my ideal fresh, crunchy pickle. Today I picked several more pounds of cucumbers and attempted to fine-tune the recipe. In a day or two I'll know if I was successful or not. But either way, don't they look pretty?

In Which I Am Given a Soapbox

2009-07-06T08:05:00.001-04:00

Behold!

Heinz Owns You: Epilogue

2009-07-02T20:13:00.004-04:00

Marion Nestle from Food Politics illustrates why we should be wary of big business calling the shots with our organic food. Goodbye ethics, hello profits!

Heinz Owns You

2009-06-26T13:11:00.006-04:00

I wasn't being paranoid after all! (Not on this topic, anyway.) Turns out most of the organic products we buy at the supermarket are actually made by huge international conglomerates. Read it and weep.

Courtesy of Phil Howard at Michigan State University

This doesn't mean that the products are necessarily any less healthy than we thought, although we don't know anything about how or where these foods are processed. But it does mean that buying Odwalla drinks feeds the same corporate machine that has plagued our schools with Coke machines, and I'm not fond of that idea.

What should we do about this? The first answer that comes to mind is to buy as much local food as possible, and to buy as many whole foods (like produce) as possible, so the big guys get as little of our money as possible. But that doesn't mean we're going to stop buying Muir Glen canned tomatoes or Morningstar hot dogs altogether. We are human (and Americans), after all.

Generation Next

2009-06-11T15:05:00.005-04:00

It's so gratifying to see the enthusiasm of our son, almost three years old, in growing, harvesting, and eating his own vegetables. He still talks about the calendula seeds he planted in tiny little pots back in April, marveling at the fact that they're now flowering. Every visitor to our house gets a fresh-picked lettuce leaf thrust into their faces before they even reach the front door. He's so proud.

Today we filled a salad bowl with snap peas in the humid June drizzle. When we went inside for lunch, I cooked a grilled cheese sandwich while he transferred every last pea to his own little plate. Now that is a rousing endorsement.

Fraternal

2009-05-31T14:13:00.005-04:00

Would you believe that both of these lettuce plants are the same variety? For some reason, one is forming a nice head, as advertised, and the other is all stalky and tall. Does anyone know why? Mark's theory is that since this lettuce was grown from heirloom seeds, the outcome can be unexpected. While this is certainly true, could there be another explanation?

Garlic, For Julie

2009-05-28T21:24:00.004-04:00

The other day, our friend Julie wondered aloud how a clove of garlic transforms into a whole head of garlic underground. It was one of those questions that seems obvious, but I realized I didn't actually know myself. While cutting up some of my favorite green garlic today, I noticed the interrupted process was right before my eyes. I'm not sure if you can see the baby garlic cloves forming in this photo (you can click to enlarge), but damn, they're tasty.

SOLE Food

2009-05-19T20:34:00.005-04:00

Today was our first pickup of food from our summer share at Genesis Farm. It was all I had hoped for, and more: arugula, chard, bok choy, spinach (no surprises there); but also baby turnips, radishes, carrots, sweet potatoes, beets, leeks, loads of herbs, and my favorite, green garlic, which is like a cross between a scape and a scallion. When I saw the mountain of fresh baguettes and country French bread from a local baker, I was in heaven.

So forgive me if I can't resist talking about the perfect meal we ate for dinner tonight. I made a simple frittata by sauteeing four stalks of sliced green garlic in olive oil in a large frying pan for 5 minutes before adding a heaping cup of chopped chard and a tablespoon of fresh thyme. While the garlic was cooking, I whisked six eggs with 1/4 cup of cream, some salt and pepper, and about a cup of grated Jarlsberg leftover from Mother's Day brunch. Poured the eggs over the veggies and cooked until firm over medium-low heat; when I got impatient I slid it under the broiler for 2 minutes at the end. We sliced it into wedges and ate it with copious amounts of chewy, crunchy whole wheat baguette. Delightful doesn't even begin to describe the meal, plus I get to feel smug because the whole thing is sustainable, organic, local, and ethical (SOLE). Score!

Green with Frenzy

2009-05-18T13:08:00.003-04:00

We're eating garden-fresh greens pretty much every day now. Still can't decide what to do with the rhubarb, much like the difficulty we're having deciding where to live. Mark is still busy in the garden even though we're leaving in just a few weeks. Looks like the new folks will appreciate the fruits of our labors. Also adopting out plants and concocting elaborate schemes to bring as much as possible with us. Stay tuned.

Papers Out, Pencils Ready

2009-05-08T12:37:00.004-04:00

A couple of weeks ago we attended a seed-starting workshop at Genesis, where they showed us how they do things and then let us help with a few tasks. Kate's favorite tool was the pegboard that pops out all the seedlings in a tray at one time; we've got to make one of those for ourselves. No more mangled seed trays!

Gardening is a perpetual learning process for us, an intentional foil to our stubborn goal-oriented personalities. We're trying to train ourselves away from instant gratification and enjoying the journey. Here are a few things we've learned so far this year.

Things we learned on the farm

Broadcast tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds in a shallow pan of starting mix rather than planting in individual cells. Then see what sprouts and use a nitpicker to transplant them early to 4.25x4.25" pots.
Sow all onions & leeks in soil blocks, 4-6 seeds per block. For onions, allow any plants that sprout to grow and transplant in a clump. For leeks, thin to one plant per block or transfer extras to blocks with no sprouts. For leeks, you want one plant per block.
Maybe build a watering station next year--just a free-standing tub with water supply.
Save & dry hot peppers and beans by pulling up plants at the end of the season and suspending, then clip and use when completely dry or as needed.
Store seeds in a dedicated cool, dark cabinet.

Things we learned on our own

Seed-starting shelf system greatly improved results and accelerated growth rate for plants. Onions, shallots, leeks, scallions, lettuce, greens, basil, broccoli, marigold, calendula, eggplants, & peppers were all planted at the right time. New Zealand spinach & tomatoes were planted 3 weeks early.
Broccoli grows very rapidly and needs space. Should be started in broadcast fashion like tomatoes, then potted in 3" pots.
Soil flats worked great for onions, shallots, scallions, lettuce, & greens. Not so much for broccoli.
Definitely expand irrigation.
Need cold frames.
Hoop houses accelerated season by several weeks & protected against hail. Plants outside hoop house fared much poorer; lettuce is smaller and some was lost, broccoli is still so small it probably won't form heads.
Scallions & leeks from last year successfully overwintered. Scallion is going to seed, leek may do the same. No mulch was used; mulch would likely improve results. Same technique should be used for saving carrots, chard seeds.
Johnny's seed-starting mix worked outstandingly, with some modifications. The following recipe makes 3 (cat litter) buckets' worth:

2 Buckets ProMix
1 Bucket compost
1 C Greensand
1 C Rock Phosphate or Bone Meal
1 C Blood Meal
1/4 C Lime

Try adding 1/2 Bucket bagged topsoil next year as per instructions.
Also, buy/build compost tumbler for easy mixing.

Thorny

2009-05-04T12:46:00.004-04:00

Here are some recent eggplant photos. We started them a little early this year since last year's showing was a disappointment. The plants seem to really love the new seed starting shelf setup. Check out the thorns!

Nomadic

2009-04-26T21:34:00.010-04:00

Please bear with us while we search for a new home. In the meantime, take a gander at these pretty garden photos.

Broccoli and greens peacefully coexisting under row covers.
We took them off this weekend to beat the heat.

Broccoli with droplet.

The tomatoes are huge! It'll be a challenge
to keep them inside for another two weeks.

The coy and attractively draped pistou basil.

Rhubarb-ginger jam is just a few short weeks away!

The peas' first curious tendrils.

Black violets, Kate's favorite.

Let's Get Potted

2009-04-17T21:53:00.003-04:00

4. Where and How To Plant
Alright, tired of facts and figures? Ready to shake off the winter doldrums and get started? Put down that laptop and get dressed! OK, let's consider your situation. Maybe you're working with a few square feet of balcony space in your apartment. Or perhaps you've got a little patch of dirt in your yard that could use some livening up. Let's first take a look at the container garden.

As long as your deck or balcony gets at least 6 hours of full sun daily, you'll be able to grow some fine vegetables in pots. If not, don't despair; you can still grow some of the shade tolerant plants we mentioned earlier. The first thing you'll need is some nice, big plastic pots. Plastic pots are our my (mark's) containers of choice for several reasons; they are light, they don't crack or break, and they don't absorb water. Terra-cotta pots my be more attractive but they can be cumbersome to move around. They also leech water from the soil, water which is then lost to the air through evaporation. If you're growing tomatoes, you'll need to use a 16" diameter pot or larger. This may seem excessive but it's essential for good fruit yield. We've grown cherokee purple tomatoes in 12" pots on our deck with disappointing results. Bell peppers and eggplants will also appreciate the extra space in a 16" pot. 12" pots are fine for plants like hot peppers, basil, lettuce, and flowers.

Along with the pots, you'll also need a high quality potting mix. There is a dizzying array of bagged 'soil' available commercially, how do you make a decision? In our experience, the best potting medium is light when lifted and does not clump together when dry. This is essential for good drainage, a must for all potted plants. Our personal favorite bagged product is ProMix, although you may have to visit a professional garden or nursery supply to find this. We've also had good results with Miracle-Gro Organic Choice which is more widely available. Any product that feels light in the bag and does not contain artificial fertilizer should work well; some of these are even labeled as 'container mixes'.

Now that you've got some potting soil and containers, the next consideration is what to feed the plants. Here is one important rule we have to insist on: avoid chemical fertilizers, i.e. Miracle-Gro, like the plague! You're probably familiar with these unnatural-looking, shockingly blue crystals that are supposed to be dissolved in water and dumped on unsuspecting plants. These products are a lot like fad diets; they induce rapid, unhealthy green growth in the beginning but ultimately provide no real nutrients required for flowering and fruit production. The limited amount of available growing medium to a potted plant can quickly become over-saturated with these fertilizers, which can become toxic in large doses. The best (and usually only required) food for all plants is compost. Compost is the organic product of natural decomposition of plant matter. We make our own compost from shredded leaves and kitchen scraps but often need to supplement with more from our local source, Ag-Choice. If you can't find local compost from a garden center, check to see if your county offers compost made from fall leaf collection as ours does. If all else fails, there are a number of commercially available organic fish- or seaweed-based product that will do the trick. Just stay away from the blue crystals! Your vegetables aren't ravers, after all.

How To Get Started, Part Deux

2009-04-09T23:08:00.000-04:00

3. Water
Watering plants seems like a compulsion for humans, often with total disregard as to whether or not the plants actually need water. To paraphrase Mike McGrath, many more plants have been killed by overwatering than by drought. Once a seedling has sprouted, it is usually beneficial to allow the plant's soil to dry out between watering. This stimulates root growth as the plant reaches out for every last drop of available water. Another good reason to allow roots to dry out is to avoid root rot. Most vegetable plant roots will eventually rot if constantly immersed in water, especially in poorly drained pots or soil. It helps that seedlings you buy from a professional nursery live in a well-drained plastic pot of adequate size with the right sort of potting soil for that variety--chalk one up for starting with seedlings your first year of gardening.

So the question remains: When to water? In our experience, the best way to judge a potted plant's soil moisture is by weight. Obviously, wet soil is a lot heavier than dry soil. A good way to observe this is to fill up two small pots with soil and give one of them a good drenching. When your plant weighs about the same as the pot of dry soil, it's time to water. Another good indication of water deficiency in plants is wilting. While it may seem like a drastic decline in health, wilting is simply a natural process that plants employ to pull water out of the leaves and stems and store it down in the roots during drought periods. While I usually try to get my seedlings watered before wilting occurs, I've found that it's not a big deal at all for well-established seedlings to wilt a bit.

Contrary to popular belief, the watering can is not the best watering method. The best way to get water to the plant roots is to use a bottom-up technique. We put seedling pots in a tray filled with a couple inches of water, then the water is pulled through the holes in the pots (your pots do have holes, right?). Don't worry if the surface of the soil never gets all that damp; the soil will be thoroughly and evenly wet where the plants need it most. Bottom-watering is a good habit because it's essential when starting plants from seed. It's also a good way to keep your plants' leaves dry; wet leaves are an open invitation to all kinds of airborne fungus and mold spores. While it's fine for the leaves to get wet, standing moisture at the soil is an invitation for fungus colonies, especially for crowded plants.

For outdoor plants, the watering can is actually more effective than a hose, since you can direct the water to the base of the plant's stem. While a garden hose may take less time, it really doesn't do a very good job of getting the water where it needs to go.

Don't go throwing all those plants in the ground just yet. Up next are Timing and Supplies, and then you can fly free. In the meantime, ask your questions, people! We know you're itching to.

Jersey Girl (& Boy)

2009-04-07T12:51:00.004-04:00

We spent almost a decade away from New Jersey, where both of us were born and raised. There was a lot we came to love about the Baltimore-DC area, and we really do miss it, but as our 20s waned, we really found ourselves missing our home state. Where else can you can ski, swim in the ocean, and visit farm country, all just an hour away from New York City? There's the literary legacy of Paterson, the pomp and circumstance of Princeton, the colorful populism of underdog Newark, and the Appalachian enclaves of Sussex County's cow country, not to mention the nation's largest poetry festival. Of course, a trip down the Turnpike illustrates where Jersey gets its negative stereotype, but what many don't realize is that Manhattan's finest restaurants would be lost without the excellent products from our favorite local creameries and farms.

When we returned to NJ in 2005, it took us a year or two to hit our stride, seeking out the wine makers, mushroom lovers, biodynamic farms, renowned herbalists, and the best mozzarella in the world (better than Blue Ridge, even!). But now we're firmly entrenched, happy to live in a place where we've found such a diverse wealth of wise, friendly people happy to impart their gardening and artisanal knowledge.

We're sure that other folks are as passionate about their regions as we are about NJ. What are you grateful for in your area? Or for that matter, what do you like best about Jersey?

Contagious: How To Get Started

2009-04-06T10:45:00.006-04:00

Spring is upon us. March is a now a veal cutlet and April has afforded us a soggy embrace. What the hell does this mean? It's time to get planting: I'm talking to you! A few of our friends have asked us how to get started with a garden, and we want to encourage them. Even though we've chosen to overthink every part of the process doesn't mean you have to.

Many people claim to be no good at growing plants, but anyone outfitted with some basic tools and information can be a successful gardener. Unfortunately, there is a ton of advice available to the newbie plant-wrangler, much of which is contradictory or questionable. My aim here is to embolden the botanically curious--it doesn't have to be expensive or intimidating. There's no excuse not to have a little garden; if you've got a sunny windowsill or a balcony you can grow your favorite herbs, some lettuce, or a pot of tomatoes. Growing your own food, no matter how little, is intensely satisfying.

If you want to go to the experts, here are two that we have learned a great deal from. All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew is a terrific book that helps you get the most harvest out of a small space, but it's easy to read and is great for the beginning gardener. Another invaluable source is Mike McGrath's weekly radio show You Bet Your Garden. Mike was previously the editor-in-chief of Organic Gardening magazine and has and extensive backlog of his radio show available for free online. However, as great as these sources may be, the freshman gardener is still faced with the dilemma: Where do I start? Although we still consider ourselves to be novices, we're going to give you a quick primer on what we've learned in the five or so years we've been at it

1. Plant Choices
In the beginning, keep it simple. We started about six years ago with some tomatoes, herbs and a couple of hot peppers. As with any new endeavor, success is the primary goal. Your first season will be your last if you choose obscure and challenging plants exclusively. Fortunately, there are many well-organized, informative seed and plant catalogs; on Johnny's website you can search for varieties that are easy to grow like Diplomat broccoli and Juliet tomatoes. Other seed companies like Southern Exposure specialize in seeds that thrive in a specific area.

One thing the novice should initially shy away from is indoor seed starting. While outdoor direct seed plantings of crops like peas, beans, corn, melons, and squash are usually rewarding to grow if you've got the right conditions (more on this later), some of the heirloom and hybrid vegetables that lasciviously beckon from the glossy pages of certain 'veggie porn' (I'm looking at you, Seed Savers!) are just not worth the trouble when you're just starting out. But many heirloom seed providers, including Seed Savers, offer a selection of live plants that will arrive at the right time for planting in your growing zone. Local nurseries also provide a range of plants to choose from. Keep an eye out for specialty local growers; unique local suppliers are especially useful in selecting varieties that will grow well in your region. Two notable North Jersey examples are Catalpa Ridge and Well-Sweep Herb Farm.

2. Light
We learn in grade school that plants need lots of sun and water. It's pretty basic, but when it comes to plant sustenance, one size does not fit all. For example, our favorite varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers often require full sun. One of our recurring mistakes is attempting to grow full-sun plants like melon and squash in partial shade. We love those foods, so we plant them every year, and every year they fail, which means we've wasted that garden space that could have been devoted to something more appropriate. So consider your gardening space when deciding what to grow.

If you have a lot of sun, you're in luck. It's easier to create shade for cool-weather plants like spinach and lettuce than it is to manufacture sunlight where it doesn't exist. If sunlight is at a premium in your garden, you may have to scale your expectations back a little. This doesn't mean you have to content yourself with collards and hostas exclusively; you will probably still be able to raise beautiful tomatoes and peppers. You just may have lower yields. One of the lessons we've learned is that if we can't bring the sun to our plants, we can bring the plants to the sun by putting some in large pots or planters and strategically positioning them around the yard.

Full sun: Winter and summer squash, melons, eggplant, fruit
Good sun: Tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, carrots, onions, potatoes, herbs, raspberries
Part shade: Lettuce, chard, kale, spinach, cilantro

More action-packed info to follow soon. Look for updates about watering and basic gardening equipment. Tell a friend!

MacGyver Rides Again

2009-04-01T13:52:00.004-04:00

We were busy little bees this weekend, seeding and transplanting and improvising hoop houses with clothespins and old fencing. Mark likes to channel MacGyver, and he's got the hockey hair to prove it.

The weather was delightfully cooperative on Saturday, lulling us into a sense of security. Even Sunday afternoon was cool and overcast, perfect for transplanting greens, so we put out the chard, lettuce, broccoli, spinach, and arugula. However, Sunday evening brought hail and thunderstorms. Most of the broccoli and lettuce we'd planted outside was under row covers, but there were a few extras we planted in boxes along the driveway. They got pummeled pretty hard, but it looks like the broccoli and arugula are recovering. The jury's still out on the lettuce. We're fully anticipating an infestation of squirrels next, closely followed by a plague of locusts.

Radishes, spinach, sweet peas, and fennel seeds are all in the ground, and from the safety of our home we started marigolds, calendula, and okra. Mark raised the roof (literally) on the hoop houses, using PVC pipe to get another 18 inches out of our row covers. Last year, the plants outgrew the row covers long before the last frost date of May 15, so this solution should buy us some time.

We are very excited about the tomatoes, which are fast becoming behemoths at 4-6 inches tall, nice and bushy and not leggy at all. They're starting to fill the room with that earthy tomato-plant scent, which has been one of Kate's all-time favorite aromas ever since her very first job in a greenhouse at age 15.

And now Kate will leave you with one final image: Mark, crouched on the floor of the bathroom, with the door locked to keep the mewling cats out while he cuts the bottoms out of a dozen cat-food cans. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds. And a lot more hilarious, although I shouldn't have laughed at the bloodshed. All this to keep the cutworms off the broccoli this year, which is critical--I understand that--but this seems more painful and complicated than necessary.

Starring Monsanto as the Big Bad Wolf!

2009-03-28T15:51:00.003-04:00

This recent Slate article by James McWilliams posits that GMO and organic forces need not be at odds with each other, and that genetically modified crops could be good for the environment. I agree with his premise, but note the rampant use of the word "could" in his piece. The way things stand now, it's unlikely that these two entitites will be working together anytime soon. And here's why: The aims of the GMO behemoths like Monsanto and organic farmers are at odds with each other.

Monsanto's only goal is to make lots of money by any means possible. Of course, organic farmers want to make money, too, but their ethics underlie their efforts. Monsanto's genetic modifications solve short-term problems by making their seeds resistant to drought and to pesticides like Roundup—which is sold by Monsanto, of course. McWilliams doesn't mention the problematic notion of corporations patenting seeds, a concept that directly contradicts the tenets of organic farming, which encourages plant diversity, preserving unique and heirloom varieties, and most important, saving seed.

Monsanto sells its patented GMO seed to farmers with the caveat that they are not allowed to save any seeds to plant again the next year, forcing customers to buy new seed every year from the only provider available. Even farmers who don't buy genetically modified seeds can't protect their crops from cross-pollination with GMO crops, which are becoming widespread, so their harvest ends up containing Monsanto's patented genetic material. Monsanto legally owns any seed that contain those genes, so they can—and do—sue farmers essentially for replanting their own seed. In many states, corporate operatives are legally allowed to wander onto farms without permission and take samples to spy on farmers, although some remarkable individuals are fighting back like this North Dakota collective.

Science is a wonderful thing. I'm right in line with Obama's cheerleading; we absolutely should "restore science to its rightful place." Bioengineering has the potential to contribute the amazing benefits McWilliams describes, and then some. But as it stands right now, I would be suspicious of any claims made by GMO folks that include dicey terms like "organic" or "humanitarian." Take the controversial golden rice, for example, which is a genetically modified grain containing additional beta-carotene, designed for farmers in poor nations to help allay Vitamin A deficiency, a particular problem for certain populations in Africa and Southeast Asia. It sure makes for good PR, but golden rice has met with plenty of opposition.

No one is disputing that world hunger is a profound problem; what some take issue with is its oversimplification. The truth is that there's more than enough food in the world to feed all 6.7 billion of us. The problems are availability, distribution, poverty, corrupt governments, and loss of biodiversity. Some scientists make the point that golden rice treats just one symptom rather than the source of malnutrition and argue that it could even increase Vitamin A deficiency in the long run. And even though this "wonder grain" is touted as a humanitarian tool, it's no surprise that the Syngenta corporation, which holds intellectual property rights, is looking to make a fortune out of this situation.

This situation sounds very familiar to me. I used to work for a global non-profit organization that brought technology education to developing countries. They did great work and expanded quickly. When Microsoft became a major funder, they started suggesting nations where they wanted us to direct ourr efforts. We discovered that the areas they targeted were ones where open-source was gaining a foothold, and it became clear that they were scrambling to make these populations reliant on their proprietary software so they could make money off them later. Unsurprisingly, much of their support came in the form of Microsoft products. As with agribusiness, we were looking at corporate PR and strong-arm tactics in the guise of humanitarianism.

GMOs run rampant here in the US. In fact, you can bet that whatever you ate today has some genetically modified ingredients unless they're explicitly labeled otherwise. Note that the FDA actively discourages labels to alert consumers to GMOs in our food. I'm not against GMOs in principle, but I do object to the way they are developed and used here. Monsanto has spent countless dollars and months trying to ban labels that identify milk as hormone-free; other biotech companies won't let independent scientists research the environmental impact of their products. So far the bigwigs are using these powerful genetic tools as little more than a get-rich-quick scheme. On the other hand, true organic farming has been working for centuries to feed people and animals with delicious, nutritious food in a sustainable manner. Score one for organic.

Signs of Life

2009-03-24T14:56:00.001-04:00

As soon as we saw buds on our neighbor's pussy willow tree, we started itching to put sweet peas in the ground.

The broccoli and greens are already hardening off in the garage, and soon they'll go out in the makeshift hoop houses to brave the elements for real.

I know we'll probably see a bit more wintry weather this year, but hope is now visible and tangible. Signs of life are all over the yard--rhubarb, iris, daffodils, garlic, and lots of strawberries. Maybe we'll actually get some fruit this year. Does anyone know if we should be nipping off the runners to encourage berry production? I'm reluctant to prune if it's not necessary.

A Little Patience

2009-03-23T21:34:00.003-04:00

Had some broccoli trouble due to overcrowding. Those suckers got big fast. A few of the smaller plants shriveled and died, and the leaves on a couple others started turning yellow. I transplanted the larger seedlings into more spacious containers and all of the plants have rebounded. My conclusion is that the soil blocks are great for starting broccoli but are quickly outgrown after about four weeks.

The alliums continue to do well; not much to report there. The brassicas are also thriving. We planted lettuce, arugula, spinach, chard, and New Zealand spinach, and all had multiple seedlings by the end of the first week. We will be transplanting these and the broccoli into improvised hoop houses at the end of this month.

It's been about three weeks since we planted the eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers, and a few stragglers continue to sprout. All in all, we managed to get 6 Nyagous, 6 Isis Candy, and 7 San Marzano tomato plants, which is right on target for our needs. The hot peppers sprouted quickly, though the sweet varieties have been a little slower to germinate. Top performers include the Ancho Gigante (poblano) and Golden Treasure peppers. Kevin's Early Orange and King of the North have been very slow, yielding only 4 and 3 plants respectively to date. The small quantities of eggplants we planted have yielded two or three of each variety which is more than adequate. The lesson learned in here is the importance of patience, patience, PATIENCE. The old adage is certainly true: A watched plant never grows, but a watched spouse certainly grows angry. Quickly.

Appease

2009-03-20T12:09:00.002-04:00

Planted the peas last night. This is the earliest point in the season we've managed to get our peas in the ground. The weather was perfect; the soil was moist but not soggy from a steady drizzle all day. The ground was cold but workable, since the daytime soil temperature in the raised beds is significantly higher. Of course, this can be a detriment as well, since the temperature range can change much faster in the reduced soil volume of the raised beds. But once the peas have sprouted, this becomes less of an issue. We did miss the boat as far as the lunar planting schedule goes, but we'd rather take our chances now than wait another 2 or 3 weeks to get the peas started. Planting delays in years past have resulted in decreased yields, and we really want to take advantage of the pea plant's affinity for cold weather.

To speed germination, we pre-sprouted the peas 48 hours in advance by sandwiching the seeds between 2 layers of damp paper towels with some plastic wrap on top. After two days, about 50% of the peas had sprouted and all were noticeably swollen with water. In addition to pre-sprouting, we decided to use pea inoculant for the first time this year. Inoculant is an organic, naturally occuring bacteria that allows legumes to more easily fix nitrogen. The nitrogen is pulled out of the soil and 'fixed' to the plant roots in the form of storage nodules. In addition, the nodules help keep nitrogen in the soil even after the plant has died. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant health but is ephemeral in soil when not bound up in some kind of molecule. Nitrogen fixing is the primary objective when planting legumes such as clover and alfalfa as cover crops. We will also be employing bean inoculant at planting time in May.

The inoculant is packaged as a dry powder but is best applied directly to the peas by creating slurry with water. After thoroughly coating the peas, they should be planted as soon as possible. This isn't easy when your assistant is a two-year-old, but it can be done, especially since said two-year-old is easily distracted by shovels and dirt. Of course, immediately after planting, we received a light dusting of snow overnight. This shouldn't be a problem for the peas (famous last words) but we'll be keeping our fingers crossed anyway. The next step is to throw some row covers over the beds to keep the damn squirrels and possibly toddlers out. Although neither critter seems interested in devouring the peas, they are both attracted to recently disturbed soil and should be regarded as pests. Then again, the common house cat seems partial to napping on top of row covers as well, so you really can't win. Nature sucks.

Clip-n-Save

2009-03-12T09:24:00.006-04:00

The Environmental Working Group has published a terrific cheat sheet on the cleanest and dirtiest produce at the grocery store in terms of pesticide residue. It's the perfect size for you to cut out and keep in your wallet.

The Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen are handy lists to help you decide which fruits and veggies you should seriously consider buying organic and when you can get away with cheaper, non-organic produce. If you're interested in the science behind the list, you can read more about that here. (link via the venerable Marion Nestle at Food Politics)

Lady of Shallot

2009-03-11T10:44:00.006-04:00

The broccoli now has three sets of leaves (this is thrilling news to all of you, I'm sure), and the leeks are thriving. The little tomato, pepper, and eggplant seedlings are sprouting. So far they seem to have beat out the mold that started growing in their warm, damp cells. A light application of peat moss on the surface seems to have done the trick. We're especially stoked to see the shallots sprouting--we're actually growing them from seeds instead of sets. A lot of our choices for what to grow this year are determined by what's expensive at the store, and by what we don't get from our Genesis share. I'm trying to figure out why shallots are so expensive--does anyone out there know? Even the sets were pricey, especially the organic ones.

As we try to find our way in year four of our garden, it's interesting to note the lessons learned by these folks after a decade of gardening. It's encouraging to see that they've learned a lot of the same lessons we have, and that in the end they decided to keep things simple. They attempted a nonlinear planting pattern before settling on traditional raised rows, which makes us a little nervous because we plan on breaking out of the rigid geometry of rectangles this year. It looks like their approach was mostly aesthetic, though, while we're trying a combination of companion planting and permaculture principles. We also don't have the full sun they do, so it makes sense for us to plant little plots all over our property where we can find the best light.

Last weekend we started lettuce seeds indoors, and this weekend we may even plant peas outside. It may seem a bit too cold and too early, but Mike McGrath doesn't usually steer us wrong. He recommends St. Patrick's day as the best time to plant peas in our area, weather permitting. With that said, no seeds will do well in frozen or waterlogged soil, so we will play it by ear.

Chilly Progress

2009-03-05T09:36:00.005-05:00

We're making progress indoors, even if the weather outside is not cooperating, what with this week's March nor'easter and all. The broccoli sprouts have second leaves on them already. The germination rate of our leeks could have been better, but there are still new slowpokes coming up every day, and the first sprouts are already getting all gangly. The other alliums--Spanish and red torpedo onions, shallots, and scallions--are already sprouting, and we just planted pepper and tomato seeds last weekend. Since we're always on a mission to speed and improve germination, for the fussier tomatoes and pepper seeds we filled trays with potting mix only halfway, planted the seeds, and then put them on heating mats so there would be less distance for the heat to travel and less dirt to be warmed up. Those mats aren't very strong; in fact, a friend of ours uses more powerful reptile heating mats instead for his copious pepper plants. Right now our seeds are getting all steamy under a layer of plastic wrap; we should see some heads poking up any day now.

Due Credit

2009-02-25T10:25:00.003-05:00

I made a previous post about our multi-tier seed starting system. At the time I wrote it, I was pretty sure that I got the idea from somebody last year but couldn't remember who suggested it. After I read this post on www.thecompostbin.com, I knew exactly where the idea originated. I even unknowingly bought the exact same shelf! Thanks, Anthony, for the great idea.

Broccoli, Leek Update 1

2009-02-25T10:22:00.000-05:00

Just a quick status update on broccoli and leeks. We've gotten superb broccoli germination rates, probably around 90%. Germination took approximately 3-4 days. Seedlings look healthy so far. On the other hand, both varieties of leek have been slow going (which I seem to recall from last year as well). After 10 days, there are about 15 seedlings so far. For some reason, both varieties sprouted one really aggressive plant a few days ago and then exhibited limited activity until now.

Best Skillet Cornbread

2009-02-20T13:31:00.009-05:00

Sorry to keep you all on the edge of your seats for so long. I finally ended up making cornbread with that lovely cornographic (thx Andrea!) treat from two weeks ago. Why is it so difficult to find an exceptional recipe for moist, slightly sweet cornbread? Everything I dug up in my favorite websites and cookbooks was strictly savory, or crumbly, or both. The Moosewood recipe I usually use is okay if eaten straight out of the oven, but the leftovers are beyond dry. Driven to the brink, I doctored my ho-hum standard recipe within an inch of its life and was pleasantly surprised with the result. It went perfectly with our dinner of magnificent black bass sauteed simply and garnished with scallions, cilantro, and lime juice. The rough texture of the hand-ground cornmeal added a lovely color and texture to the bread, but you won't miss it with regular cornmeal.

The best endorsement: After dinner last night and breakfast this morning, there was only one little piece left for me to photograph!

Best Skillet Cornbread

1 tablespoon butter for the skillet
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour (you can substitute 1/4 cup whole wheat)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt
2 eggs
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 350˚. Put cast iron skillet on low heat and melt 1T butter. When melted, turn off heat but leave on warm burner.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another. Stir the wet mixture into the dry just enough to combine. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the center is firm to the touch.

Note: You can also make this in an 8x8" baking dish. Just spray with cooking spray or grease with butter before putting the batter in.

Anticipation

2009-02-19T21:53:00.003-05:00

Sure, I was trudging through slushy snow today, but these broccoli sprouts prove that spring is on the way.

'Tis The Season

2009-02-11T14:22:00.003-05:00

Kate and I vowed to get serious about seed starting a couple of seasons ago. Before that, all of our experience was with transplants from Burpee or (gulp) Home Depot. Enticed by the staggering array of heirlooms available, we took the plunge into uncharted seed-starting territory. As with most new endeavors, our first foray into plant rearing yielded mixed results. Ultimately, we ended up with lots of leggy seedlings and too few light fixtures. We moved the transplanting date up as much as possible simply due to a lack of resources. Our garden did flourish, but not before many hours of scrambling and nail-biting.

Last year, we made the same seed-starting resolution. This time, we bought fluorescent shop lights and hung them from the basement ceiling. Tray after tray of hopeful seedlings were crammed onto a utility table beneath the lights. After an auspicious start, we soon discovered that we had still overrun our lighting capacity. As it so happened, we had greatly expanded the scope of our planting from the year before, and four shop lights with two 4-foot bulbs apiece were simply insufficient. It got to the point where I built a precarious tower out of coolers and boxes in order to raise some wild-looking onion flats up close to a spare ceiling fixture. The space constraints caused us to once again rush the season and transplant too soon. We didn't lose any plants, but I think some were stressed by the sudden temperature change.

Needless to say, we're making our annual pledge to ourselves (and our future seedlings) to get serious about seed starting. We have invested in a state-of-the-art utility shelf that is way too big for the room we put it in. The shelf can hold eight light fixtures and at least eight seedling trays, possibly more.

Although the shelf is indeed a monstrosity, Kate asked me to point out that, thanks to my ingenuity, it is no less attractive than this "grow-light system" from Gardener's Supply, and our homemade version cost us a fraction of the other's $550 price tag. This sounds like slavish praise to me, but I'll take it. An added bonus: the spectral glow from our 'grow lights' creates a lovely, potentially felonious vista at night. Build yours today!

Home-Grown Hullabaloo

2009-02-09T22:53:00.003-05:00

As Americans struggle with our economy’s downward turn, it’s interesting to see people’s different reactions to the changing times. Over the past few years, more people found an interest in gardening as local and heirloom food became trendy. Now even more people are starting to grow their own food as food safety and cost effectiveness become motivating factors.

But who knew wielding a trowel could be so controversial? At every turn we’re reading reports and news stories about firestorms surrounding food, land, and gardening issues. On one hand you’ve got Alice Waters’ call for local produce and an organic, edible garden at the White House. Meanwhile, others protest that home-grown White House tomatoes are elitist and frivolous when there are so many kids living within a few miles of the Obamas who subsist on high-fructose corn syrup and fried foods because there are no grocery stores in their neighborhoods. Personally, I think a White House victory garden is a great idea, even if it’s aspirational for kids in Anacostia. I know of a few vacant lots in Northeast DC that would be prime locations for community gardens.

At least both sides of the Obama garden argument are attempting to think about the greater good. The dark side to the second American Gilded Age was an overwhelming sense of entitlement that persists even as our fortunes dwindle. The Slow Cook talks about being invited to consult about a local community garden and being met with outrage when he suggested that gardeners relinquish their tiny individual plots and change their model to be more like that of a CSA. Forget that the space would be used much more efficiently and each person would end up taking home more food, that it would be healthier for the soil because crops could be rotated, and that spaces could be dedicated to valuable perennials and fruit; the members clung desperately to their little boxes.

At the far end of this self-centered approach are the neighborhood associations and spiteful neighbors who resist the idea that a suburban yard is for anything but (meticulously trimmed) grass. The nice ladies at Garden Rant expressed their consternation with one guy who commented on a NY Times blog entry with the following gem:

“I think we are seeing devolution as people lose their jobs and more of my neighbors are growing their own food.”

I never thought of growing my food as anything but charming and perhaps a little indulgent. Now it’s supposedly trashy, on par with a rusty old car up on blocks in the front yard?

I’ve been thinking about how we Americans have been trained, over the past few decades, to believe that we are entitled to everything and don’t have to think about what goes on beyond our own doorstep. Although gardening can be a solitary activity, I know our interest has prompted us to seek out like-minded individuals to learn from, swap experiences, and share seeds. Can this awful economic situation help us rekindle our community ties and de-compartmentalize our lives by forcing us to share limited resources and find creative uses for our living spaces? While a recession is certainly no fun, I’m eager to find out what happens next.

Corny

2009-02-07T13:31:00.003-05:00

This is my pornography: Cornmeal made from corn grown biodynamically on a farm 10 miles from my home, hand-ground by people whose names I know, then given to me as part of my CSA share in the middle of a dreary, frozen February.

Now the question looms: What should I make with it? Cornbread seems too mediocre for such a precious flour, but a more complex preparation might overpower the cornmeal's flavor, which I want to fully savor. Maybe polenta or tamales; I'm waiting for inspiration to strike. Any ideas?

Sweet Potato Muffins with Candied Ginger

2009-02-05T14:12:00.006-05:00

I can't stop making these muffins, so it's a good thing people keep eating them. Every time I make a batch, they're gone within 48 hours. When someone tells me that a healthy food tastes like candy, it usually smacks of a parent trying to get a child to eat their vegetables, but I'm going ahead and taking that risk: The sweet potatoes we've been bringing home from Genesis Farm have a rich, mapley flavor, and they're the sweetest sweet potatoes I've ever eaten. I've been meaning to ask them what variety they grow. So they certainly help the recipe, but these little morsels are moist and sweet and a little bit spicy no matter what orange vegetable you use.

Sweet Potato Muffins with Candied Ginger

1/2 cup chopped candied ginger
1/4 cup butter, melted, or vegetable oil (I use oil)
1/3 cup unsulfured molasses
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup mashed sweet potato
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 3/4 cups flour (I use up to 3/4 cup whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375˚. Oil or spray muffin tins. Mix the ginger and wet ingredients in a bowl until smooth; mix the dry ingredients in a second bowl. Combine the two, mixing gently until well blended. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins and bake on the middle rack until lightly browned, about 25 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

Tip: If you don't feel like buying an entire quart of buttermilk, you can mix 1/4 cup plain or vanilla yogurt with 1/4 cup milk. In a pinch, you could even substitute clabbered milk, which is 1/2 cup milk mixed with 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice and allowed to sit for 10 minutes.

From Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, with a few tweaks by yours truly

Eggshells?

2009-02-04T08:42:00.003-05:00

“What is this a photo of?” you may ask. Why, it’s a quart-sized container full of ground eggshells. But why do we have such a thing? Where did it come from? These are all valid questions, and we have the answers, but they may be less than satisfying.

Last year we planted each tomato seedling with 1/2 C. bone meal, hoping to stave off the dreaded blight known as blossom end-rot. We had no previous experience with this heartbreaking scourge, which renders tomato fruit black and rotten on the vine, but we didn't want to take any chances. And whaddaya know--by July we had quite the healthy crop of black, withered tomatoes as far as the eye could see. End-rot is not a disease but rather a side-effect of uneven water supply. Calcium is supposed to help the tomato plant regulate its water intake during periods of drought and deluge. According to Wikipedia, "blossom end rot can happen even though sufficient calcium is present if watering is irregular." Great. So you're damned if you do, etc.

So what the hell does all of this have to do with a quart of ground eggshells? First, Mark is totally anal about the compost and doesn’t like to put eggshells in there because they take so long to break down. This may have something to do with the fact that he is the one who ends up screening the compost and picking out perfectly preserved eggshell fragments. Second, since they are essentially comprised of calcium, Mark now saves our eggshells (along with those of anyone else he can convince) as a readily available calcium source. He painstakingly peels off the inner membrane, air dries them, and then pulverizes them with our industrial-sized mortar and pestle. Sure, we don’t have enough hours in the day to read great books or do laundry in a timely fashion, but somehow we always make time to crush eggshells the old-fashioned way (although I’m not sure there is any other way to crush eggshells, actually). Incidentally, seashells are another great source of calcium. We're investigating beachfront property as we blog.

So if you’ve come to our house and cocked an eyebrow at a row of empty eggshells on our kitchen windowsill, now at least you know why. All I can say is that our tomato plants damn well better appreciate it. We're not even sure that the added calcium will make a difference. Oh yeah, did we mention that the quart-sized container has enough calcium for a whopping 8 plants? Yay. It's three omelets a day from now until May, baby. And the end-rot problem? We're already laying out the plans for our elaborate, state-of-the-art, permaculture-unfriendly drip irrigation system. But that's another impossibly exciting story...

Toys

2009-02-02T10:30:00.007-05:00

We may be taking a non-interventionist approach to gardening this year, but that doesn't mean we have to deny ourselves some new toys. We're not made of stone, you know! Mark couldn't help ordering these soil block makers from Johnny's, which supposedly make seed starting and transplanting easier and more efficient.

You fill the blocks with your favorite growing medium and stamp them down into a seed tray. It's much cheaper and more effective than using peat cubes or filling hundreds of tiny little cups with soil. Peat is great for starting seeds, but those new seedlings need to be transplanted quickly after sprouting since peat doesn't contain many nutrients. We're hoping to cut out that time-consuming transplanting step for our alliums, brassicas, and some flowers. Our first trial will be leeks in organic, store-bought potting soil.

Since the blocks are separate from each other, the roots of fast-growing seedlings are less likely to get tangled up. Even if each block is rootbound, it should be easy enough to separate it from its neighbors and lift it out for transplant--a lot easier than those seed trays, which inevitably get mangled during the transplanting process. So there's the added bonus of not destroying a dozen plastic seed trays every year, sending them to the landfill, and then paying to replace them.

We'll let you know if these toys are worth the investment. They are industry standard for many commercial growers, so we have high hopes. Check back soon for the exciting results!

The A List

2009-01-27T12:44:00.002-05:00

Here's what we're ordering this year, where we're getting it from, and why we like it. Feel free to post your own favorites in the comments. We're always looking for new ideas.

Seed Savers Exchange

Tiger's Eye Bean- A tender, stripey soup bean that can be eaten fresh or stored.
Red Of Florence Onion- Mild and torpedo-shaped, these long-day onions can be stored or eaten fresh.
Green Arrow Pea- There's no substitute for fresh shell peas, since the sugars start converting to starch within hours of being picked. Can't wait for these!
Golden Treasure Sweet Pepper- Sweet, thick-walled, Italian-style.
German Butterball Potato- Tasty, versatile, good for storing. We can never have too many potatoes.
Rat's Tail Radish- Helps repel bugs and act as a trap for flea beetles. You eat the seed pod, not the root.
New Zealand Spinach- Not a true spinach, though it's supposed to taste the same. Good in hot weather.
Irish Eyes Sunflower- A dwarf variety to attract bees and beneficial insects.

Baker Creek

Amarillo Carrot- Lemon yellow and very sweet and juicy.
Muscade Carrot- We're planting this one because it's unusual and intriguing, from North Africa.
Bouquet Dill- Tiny umbelliferous flower heads are ideal at attracting & sheltering parasitic wasps and nematodes (say what?)
Di Firenze Fennel- Small, sweet bulbs. Can't wait to roast these for a veggie pot pie.
Siamese Dragon Asian Greens- A unique mix of greens for stir-frying.
Bleu Of Solaise Leek- Hopefully this cold-hardy leek will get bigger than the American Flags did last year. Also it's French, so Kate couldn't resist.
Val D'Orges Lettuce- French butterhead. 'Nuff said.
King Of The North Pepper- Red bell pepper for short-seasoners like us.
Chinese Red Meat Radish- Look like adorable mini watermelons.
Bee Balm- Good herb for tea, but we're using mostly for bees.
Borage- Attracts beneficial bugs, also good for salads.
Chives- We're putting little patches of chives all over the yard. You can never have to many of these. They're also perennial.

Johnny’s

Garden Of Eden Pole Bean- Tender, broad green beans we'll be training over a trellis spanning the walkways between our raised beds.
Blue Wind Broccoli- Even after last year's broccoli disaster, we are not deterred! This is an early version, a full 26-50 days earlier than last year's Romanesco. We also have some tricks up our collective sleeve for defeating cutworms: tuna cans.
Walla Walla Onion- Even though we feel like it's a copout to grow these from seedlings instead of seeds, these sweet onions are so worth it (we couldn't find the seeds for sale).
Evergreen Hardy White Scallion- Lots of these, since we use scallions almost every day in one form or another.
Ambition Shallot- A successful crop of these would be a huge victory, since shallots are expensive and sometimes the pickings are slim.
Calendula- Pink, orange, and yellow blooms to bring color and bees to the yard.
Nasturtium- The petals on these red flowers add spicy zest to salads.
Zinnia- A Persian carpet of flowers in autumn tones.

Well-Sweep

Genovese Basil- A must-have, the best variety for pesto and summer dishes.
Vietnamese Coriander (Rau Ram)- A spicy substitute for cilantro. Heat resistant and also makes a good houseplant.
Tansy- Great indigenous perennial and beneficial insect attractant. Leaves can be used for tea.
Rosemary- Well known culinary herb of much esteem. We'd like to find a hardy version that can overwinter here if possible.
Yarrow- Small, low-growing flower. Member of the aster family (asteraceae).
Angelica- Perrenial flowering herb that can reach 6 ft in height. Tolerates some shade, which we have plenty of.
Lovage- A tall, leafy green plant that can be used as a celery substitute.
Lavender- Fragrant, flowering evergreen. Zone 6-hardy perennials exist.
Oregano- No description needed here.
Thyme- Staggeringly diverse family of perennials with tiny, delicate flowers. Perfect dual-purpose, ground-covering herb.

Packrats

2009-01-26T20:59:00.008-05:00

We managed to save a few seeds from our plants last year. Saving seed is a priority for us because locally grown plants can pass down positive evolutionary traits to future plant generations. In other words, plants can inherit genetic improvements adopted by their predecessors, like cold tolerance, disease resistance, improved production in a new climate, etc. Besides, seeds aren't cheap, especially when you are as maniacal as we are. We try to cut costs where we can. It's also rewarding to be the tiniest bit more self-reliant this year than last. Baby steps, right? Here is a list of seeds we have kept from last year, some bought and some saved. Not too shabby!

Holy Basil (Leftover)
Queenette Basil (Leftover)
Lao Green Stripe Eggplant (Leftover)
Arugula (Leftover)
Early Hanover Melon (Leftover)
Burmese Okra (Saved)
Ancho Pepper (Leftover)
Lemon Pepper (Saved)
Black Beauty Zucchini (Leftover)
Nyagous Tomato (Leftover)
Isis Candy Tomato (Leftover)
San Marzano Tomato (Saved)
Monnopa Spinach (Leftover)
Harlequin Marigold (Leftover)
Perilla (Saved)
Lemongrass (Saved)
Cilantro (Leftover)

Technology

2009-01-22T08:46:00.002-05:00

January always seems like an interminable month. I’ve been thinking about gardening a lot lately since the frigid weather has forced all of us indoors. At the peril of becoming crazed with premature enthusiasm, I’ve begun laying out initial garden plans for the upcoming season.

Kate and I want to learn as much as possible from last year’s experiences. Our biggest tasks this year will be to improve our organizational skills and to not overcomplicate things. I’ve been using a fantastic online gardening tool called Plangarden to layout our vegetable plots (see screenshot below). In addition to arrangement capabilities, Plangarden allows the user to maintain a database of seed starting, transplanting, and harvesting information. So far, it has made our planning simpler and will hopefully help us accurately track our harvest later on. Now I need to place these seed orders before I lose my mind.

Food Matters

2009-01-21T12:45:00.004-05:00

Food guru Mark Bittman talks sensibly and accessibly about why our food choices are important. His argument boils down to this: Eat less meat, more vegetables, and make as many of your own meals as possible. I'd go one step farther and say that growing your own food--whether it's a few pots of tomatoes and herbs on your balcony or even belonging to a CSA--will make your diet even healthier, for yourself and for the planet.

If you're intrigued, Bittman's new book Food Matters will tell you more. I also can't gush enough about his recipes, which never steer me wrong. How To Cook Everything Vegetarian is exactly what the title claims, and it's like a bible for me. So many of his dishes have become a regular part of our rotation, like roasted quinoa with potatoes and cheese and banana bread. In fact, I've got some of that bread kicking around in my bread drawer right now, and I could use a snack.

Gettin' Down with the Hoes

2009-01-16T13:46:00.004-05:00

Hot diggity dog! Turns out there's more than one kind of hoe that can help a guy out with his sexual needs. We couldn't let this one slip by without mention.

We've got to sign off now to attend to some business. Planning the garden, of course! Get your mind out of the gutter.

Cheese, Please

2009-01-14T13:37:00.006-05:00

Love affairs may wax and wane, but none of you who know me will ever doubt my passion for cheese. I have been known to embark on expeditions to find the most delicious and obscure cheeses on several continents. I can completely empathize with my favorite local cheesemaker, who painstakingly carved a cave out of Appalachian rock to recreate the conditions in which cheese is aged in the Pyrenees.

But let’s not forget fresh, warm, comforting cheese that can be whipped up in your own kitchen anytime you have 20 minutes to spare. Although I have had mishaps making mozzarella, my favorite cheese recipe is easy and foolproof and so delicious. It’s forgiving, adaptable, and doesn’t require any fancy equipment.

Many Indian restaurants call paneer “cottage cheese,” a term that gives me the willies, probably because I'm not a fan of cottage cheese. The paneer we make at home has the mild, slightly tangy flavor of mozzarella and a moist, crumbly texture, kind of like feta, but it bears no resemblance to that stuff you can buy in a tub at the supermarket.

Basic Paneer
Ingredients

½ gallon milk (whole or lowfat, but not skim)
2 tablespoons salt
2 cups plain nonfat yogurt, whisked until smooth
a fine sieve or cheesecloth

Preparation
Boil the milk and salt over high heat, constantly stirring. As soon as the milk starts to boil, add the yogurt and stir until combined. Be careful that the milk doesn’t boil over, which can happen very quickly if you’re not paying attention.

Continue to stir over high heat until the mixture starts to separate into curds and whey, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and drain the curds using the sieve or cheesecloth folded over into 4 layers. Some people save the whey, which is rich in protein, and use it to make soups and bread, but that’s beyond my current level of resourcefulness.

Let the cheese drain for about 5 minutes. If using cheesecloth, bring the corners together to form a bag and gently twist to get out as much moisture as possible. I use a sieve, putting a small plate and a can of beans on top of the cheese to weigh it down and extract the extra whey. Let the cheese drain further for 10 to 12 minutes—less time if you like a softer cheese, and more time if you like a firmer texture.

When the paneer is cool enough to handle, cut into desired shapes and either use immediately or refrigerate. I like it gently crumbled, myself. It can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 4 to 5 days.

Makes 8 ounces.

Variation: To curdle the milk, you could replace the yogurt with ¼ cup lemon or lime juice, 3-4 tablespoon white vinegar, or 1 quart buttermilk. Keep in mind that the vinegar and lemon/lime juices will lower your yield to about 6 ounces. Plus the yogurt version tastes better, in my opinion.

You don’t have to restrict paneer to eating with Indian food. It’s a good substitute for queso fresco on Mexican dishes, and it tastes great with any kind of beans. Tonight I’m boiling up some French lentils and basmati rice and topping with paneer and caramelized onions.

Feel free to add your favorite combination of spices. For starters:

½ tsp dried oregano and 1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp minced garlic and 1tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp toasted sesame oil, 1T soy sauce, 1 tsp minced fresh ginger, 1 ½ tsp sesame seeds, ¼ cup rice wine vinegar

On the Boil

2009-01-11T22:10:00.006-05:00

This week our local produce market had these gorgeous and completely out-of-season borlotti beans in the pod for a very reasonable price. Of course I bought them and we ate them with fried sliced garlic and olive oil, and they were delicious.

We frequent this market because they consistently have delicious, fresh, cheap produce, but most of it isn't organic, and we choose to ignore the fact that much of it comes from distant lands. Thus, an aspiring locavore's dilemma: Support the small business owner even though they don't share our ethics, or spend a fortune at big-box Whole Foods? This is something of a false choice, though, since the third, most reasonable (and most unamerican) option would be not to buy fancy beans at all, subsisting on the root vegetables we get from the farm and splurging on a few organic greens. Dammit, this is so difficult during the winter! How will we survive until spring?

Subversive Elements

2009-01-08T20:30:00.003-05:00

Mowing the lawn is an inescapable part of the American dream, right? We thought so when we diligently cut our half-acre of grass every other week at our first house in Maryland. But Michael Pollan, one of our favorite garden and food writers, takes a different tack. In his book Second Nature, he talks about carrying on his father’s legacy of refusing to care for the lawn in the traditional way.

Pollan posits the lawn as part of the social contract. Pollan is a guy who was nominated only half in jest to be the next Secretary of Agriculture by his peers, so he knows something about something. Every god-fearing, red-blooded American McMansioneer strives endlessly to attain that elusive, glittering grail: the perfect manicured lawn. Or as Pollan puts it, “The front lawn symbolizes the collective face of suburbia.” We strove to participate and failed miserably.

We never felt the need to battle it out with the dandelions and wildflowers, or as Mark puts it, to eradicate all invasive plant species from our property in favor of a single nitrogen-hoarding alien monoculture. We’ll get to that mouthful of 25-cent words another time, but we also started realizing that lawns aren’t very good for the environment, not least because people devote so much water and so many toxic chemicals, as well as the gasoline and exhaust from the lawnmower, to maintain the traditional, neon-green buzzcut.

People who don’t mow their lawns—or heaven forbid, replace them with something else—are breaking the contract. Some people realize this and use it to their advantage; hence the trend of guerrilla gardening. Others try to turn their front yards into gardens and are stymied by local laws that actually mandate a lawn or harassed by horrified neighbors who want everyone to mow in lockstep.

If you learned anything from being forced to read Jack London’s agonizing story “To Build a Fire” in junior high, it’s that humans are ultimately on the losing side when we attempt to enslave nature. A war against unwanted plant intruders is a lot like a certain War on Terror we’ve been hearing a lot about lately. Nature has time on her side, not to mention limitless resources. I dare you to lay down the Roundup and mothball your John Deere tractor for a year, and then see if you can even recognize your own property.

In a sense, we came around to permaculture when we started thinking, If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. We’re not revolutionaries by any stretch, but every year we turn a little more grass into usable garden space, which gives us more veggies, fruits, herbs, and pretty flowers, and every year we get a little more of our food locally and organically. This year the big change was Genesis Farm, which now provides most of our vegetables, eggs, milk, and a wealth of knowledge.

We’re still novices, but with the enthusiasm of new converts, we think we can actually produce some vegetables by recruiting nature as an ally instead of trying to tame it. (Get it? PRODUCE!)

Permaculture Vulture

2009-01-06T12:28:00.001-05:00

Kate took a food politics course at Genesis Farm last fall and really loved it. We consider ourselves pretty savvy consumers and gardeners, but we learned about some new concepts like deep vs. shallow organic farming and permaculture, among other things.

Have you ever been suspicious of a corporate behemoth like Land o Lakes labeling their products “organic?” You may have good reason to be, since some companies use “shallow organic” methods that follow the letter of the law when it comes to organics, but not the spirit. “Deep organic” farmers try to mimic the patterns of nature to control pests, fight disease, and maximize harvests.

Permaculture takes the concept one step further. The word is a mash-up of “permanent agriculture” and “culture,” and the idea is that in order for humans to achieve a fully sustainable existence on this planet, we have to understand our place in nature. At first, this sounds hokey and woefully unscientific, both of which are an anathema to Mark’s finely tuned rational mind. But if you think about it, permaculture is really just the science of ecology applied specifically to humans and what we do.

Okay, now we’re veering dangerously into didactic territory. But there are folks out there doing some creative and controversial things with permaculture, and later this week we're going to let you in on how these practices can be subversive and downright revolutionary.

In case you're interested, we'll point you in the direction we're headed. Right now we’re really into Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway, which is an excellent primer on permaculture, as well as Sally Jean Cunningham’s Great Garden Companions, which uses similar organic gardening solutions that dovetail beautifully with the permaculture philosophy. Be warned that this is the Coltivi’s Playhouse Not-So-Secret Word of the Year.