Pulling plastic at Wild Woods Farm, Feb. 23, 2020.
Sunday a group of us gathered at Wild Woods Farm to pull plastic over the new greenhouse.
Pulling plastic takes a couple of experienced team leaders and a crew that can follow directions. The idea is to make the plastic covering as taught as possible then secure it with wiggle wire for years of use. The work proceeded as planned on a warm, clear and calm day.
It’s pruning time for grape vines, fruit trees, and any kind of tree. This weekend people were pruning in t-shirts because it was so warm. The concern is sap begins to flow before the cuts heal, creating an entry point for disease. Fingers crossed I got mine pruned in time. Folks are preparing to tap maple tree sap for syrup so we are at the in between time for finishing pruning.
My onions and shallots have sprouted and I moved them to the landing to get more light. They seem feeble at this stage. I’m not sure what else I can do but make sure they have moisture and light. This is the second year I tried starting them myself. The first didn’t produce usable onion sets. This year’s experiment is for the crew at Sundog Farm to start some of my shallot seeds as well to compare results. Eventually I’ll get this right, hopefully this year.
While garden and yard work beckons it is still winter. Piles of snow remain on the ground. Snow is forecast this week. There is hope for spring, but it is a false hope. It’s best to use the time to catch up on indoors work so when true spring arrives we are ready.
Panel of regional farm mentors. L. to R. Dayna Burtness, Nettle Valley Farm; Zachary Couture, Luthern Services in Iowa Global Greens; Alfred Matiyabo, Moving 4Ward Farm; and Derek Roller, Echollective Farm on Feb. 20, 2020 in North Liberty, Iowa
“The Johnson County Historic Poor Farm provides a public space for connecting to the land and local history through inclusive community-led opportunities,” said Vanessa Fixmer-Oraiz, farm project manager. She spoke at last night’s Johnson County Food Policy Council public forum where the poor farm was a featured topic.
This was my first forum as a member of the council. I brought a five gallon beverage jug, lemonade, coffee condiments, and a 20-pound bag of ice. One attraction of the event was a catered meal from a local food-centered restaurant. Attendance we good at about 80 people. We ran out of lemonade.
Solid ideas were discussed, centering around how to help beginning farmers get access to land, capital and markets. A number of “eaters,” a.k.a. consumers, were present, leading to discussions about pricing, quality, and health issues related to food. There was no lack of discussion and much of it was captured on audio-video or written down.
The county poor farm is not a priority for me. Some of the same people who attended a similar local food forum eight years ago were present last night. It seemed little progress has been made in establishing a vibrant local food system. The challenges are many, the approaches individualistic. There are activities, such as farmers markets and public events held at farms. This forum was an example of a public, food-related event. Discussion is positive, yet what is lacking is something to tie them all together in a coherent system. I don’t believe the poor farm will be that string of twine.
In 2017, the Johnson County Supervisors decided to revitalize the poor farm as a “New Century Farm.” The 3-2 decision was depicted as contentious by the local newspaper. Then supervisors Rod Sullivan, Mike Carberry and Kurt Friese voted to adopt this plan. Lisa Green-Douglass and Janelle Rettig did not. Friese died in office and Carberry lost his re-election bid, yet county support for the site persists. The forum was an opportunity to discuss how the poor farm might fit into a fledgling, disjointed local food system.
What made the 2017 supervisor meeting “contentious” was the discussion of affordable housing at the poor farm. Affordable housing is a key county issue, although I’m not sure of the benefit of sticking a development off Melrose Avenue, which is distant from the city-center and amenities like grocery stores. The poor farm is currently on the Iowa City bus route, but that route is being considered for elimination. There are logistical challenges to be addressed if the poor farm will be used for housing for people besides those who work or farm there.
One of the forum panelists, Alfred Matiyabo, gained access to land via the poor farm and this seems an excellent use of the resource. Land access is a key need of beginning farmers. More of that, as well as development of the planned trails and facilities, could create another valued farm incubator, conservation, and recreation site within the county.
My sense is two and a half years after adoption of the plan for the poor farm the community conversation is just beginning. As long as the supervisors have the will to fund activities, the project should be encouraged and supported. However, we can’t let it distract us from the bigger issue of engendering a local food system that matters in terms of satisfied consumers, economically viable farmers, and ecologically improved farming practices. The Historic Poor Farm fits in to the system, but is just one aspect among many.
The best part of last night was networking with friends and people I hadn’t met. If this is what being a member of the food policy council leads to, I’m ready for more.
The ten year old ran to the greenhouse to tell us, “There’s a lamb! I’m not kidding. She went to get the towel!”
The shepherdess left behind her power drill and rushed to the barn.
So began my eighth spring helping at Local Harvest CSA. More lambs dropped that evening and the goats are due soon. I’ve been around animals enough to recognize their pregnancy.
My job is to make soil blocks. I made enough for 3,120 seedlings. Once the seeds germinate and are established they will be transplanted in the high tunnel for a spring share of greens and lettuce. One of the farm partners was present planting flower seeds as well.
Yesterday had a couple of challenges. The hydrant outside the greenhouse was frozen so I carried water from another in buckets. The soil mix was frozen and required breaking up with a garden rake as I mixed it with water. Compared to previous February activities everything proceeded easily.
The seeding crew moved in and out of the greenhouse. There were a total of eight of us happy to be there and looking forward to spring.
I’m experimenting with shallots this year. My friend Simone grew them so I know they can be grown in Iowa. I’m also planting them both at the farm and at home using different techniques.
For a recipe I got out my copy of the Holy Family School PTA cookbook. I like this book for the familiar names of the recipe authors, some of whom I knew. Monsignor T.V. Lawlor served as the church’s second pastor from 1943 until 1961 and his photograph is printed inside the front cover of the book. This dates the cookbook in the 1950s most likely, after the school moved to the location I attended a couple of blocks south of the church on Fillmore Street.
I chose a banana bread recipe contributed by Mrs. H.A. Tholen. It called for shortening, although I substituted butter and kept everything else the same. Here are the ingredients as written:
1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup shortening, 2 eggs, 3 bananas mashed, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon soda, 1-3/4 cup flour, and a pinch of salt.
Instructions are, “Mix in the order given and bake in a slow oven.”
Well that won’t do. Looking at other sweet breads in the book I decided on a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes. It turned out great as you can see in the image.
Making banana bread from overly ripe bananas is a cultural inheritance not only from my mother and maternal grandmother, but from a broader society where fruit like the Cavendish banana is readily and cheaply available. However, like most mass marketed fruit and vegetables it is subject to change from climate and from other pressures, forcing old habits and patterns to change.
There was something positive in yesterday’s bakery. It was a warning too, that life is fragile and ever changing. We seek comfort in what we know, delaying the embrace of what is coming. I don’t just mean what’s coming for Cavendish bananas.
My 2013 decision to develop a barter arrangement with my friend Susan Jutz helped resolve a couple of issues.
I needed the cash income plus a share of the vegetables she grew. More importantly than income, I wanted to become a better gardener and needed a mentor.
By almost any measure our relationship was successful and endured even as Susan sold her farm and moved out of state.
On Feb. 1, 2013 I sent this email proposing an arrangement at her Local Harvest CSA:
Susan:
Hope you are staying warm. I have an interest in developing a deeper relationship with producing local foods. While our kitchen garden is doing well, I want to explore the possibility of doing more with local foods to provide a source of income. This is a long range project, and if you offer it, I would like to exchange my labor for a share of your CSA this season.
I think you would find this a cheap and reliable source of farm labor, and what I would get out of it would be a deeper knowledge of how you do your work.
What do you think?
Regards, Paul
We worked through details that lasted not only that season but established a continuing relationship now entering its eighth year. I expect the conversation about local food to continue this month with Carmen, Susan’s successor. Greenhouse work usually begins in February.
The Community Supported Agriculture model is the workhorse of the local food system. Instead of producing a few fungible commodities, CSA farms produce many types of vegetables in many varieties, providing a weekly share for members who buy in at the beginning of the season. They also leverage other producers to provide eggs, meat, bread, jellies, jams, and other items they don’t produce for their customers. On Carmen’s farm she produces grass-fed lambs and goats. The presence of livestock on a farm is an important part of reducing reliance on chemical fertilizers. Some CSA farms are more diverse than others but the salient feature is that the main consumer model is changed to include a share the farmer provides.
Operating a small farm is challenging. It requires hard work and specific knowledge about a wide variety of issues. It seems like more work than people with a big job at a large-sized employer are used to. There is also more risk during a growing season. Most local food farmers I know do something off the farm to supplement farm income. Every one of them has a positive disposition despite the challenges.
There is an ongoing discussion about alternatives to the CSA model.
Chris Newman of Sylvanaqua Farm in Virginia posted an article on Medium in which he wrote, “The romance of neoliberal peasant farming blinds us to our collective power.” Newman’s assertion is small family farms are not competition for, or a sustainable answer to burgeoning consolidation of agriculture. He touched on a number of obvious points, beginning with farmers markets.
Farmers markets are nice for consumers, but expensive to participate in. If some local food farmers produce for the seasonal markets they compromise their flexibility and scalability, he said. I don’t know about the operational advantages of a local food cooperative because many farmers already coordinate activities with each other. A farmer of meat, vegetables, flowers or the like can do better to avoid such markets. At a minimum one requires additional outlets to extend sales beyond the farmers market season.
Newman lays out the challenges small family farms face regarding workforce in a labor intensive business. Putting together a workforce that accomplishes weeding, cultivation, planting, harvesting, pest control, and everything else isn’t easy when the operating assumption is some percentage of workforce will volunteer or work for very low wages. Newman’s idea of forming a cooperative addresses the wage issue but also seems overly idealistic.
In his book The New Farm: Our Ten Years on the Front of the Good Food Revolution, Ontario farmer Brent Preston tells the story about how he and his spouse found sustainability in the local food movement by transitioning away from farmers markets to wholesale production and sales. This book is a must read for people interested in the local food movement.
Michelle Kenyon, executive director of Field to Family, is establishing a food hub in Johnson County. She’s been featured in the local newspaper. The idea is simple from a farmer’s perspective. Got too much basil? Bundle it to specs and sell to the food hub.
Having an outlet for a farm’s produce is important. Few local farmers follow the traditional CSA model of sharing the farm produce exclusively with members. That would mean all of the extra basil in my example would go to members who would presumably become rich in pesto and pasta sauce. Separating food production from CSA membership provides options for additional revenue streams such as selling to a food hub, to restaurants and to retailers.
A smart farm operator won’t put all their eggs and produce in single basket. They manage a portfolio of revenue streams based on farm production, but include variation in how customers are approached. So often, just having an item when others don’t makes a big difference in exploiting some types of “pop-up” marketing opportunities.
I would like to establish independence from the farms on which I’ve worked since 2013. Controlling everything would free me from outside responsibilities and enable re-designing my garden to expand and produce extra crops that could be sold to others. That has always been a small part of my garden operation but as I progress through my transition to “retirement,” any income generated could help supplement our structure of pension, Social Security and savings. For the time being, I look forward to returning to the farm for another spring of soil blocking. Looking back at this email to Susan, it’s clear I was not wrong to pursue the opportunity.
Preparing to cook red beans and rice has been a year-long process because most of the ingredients were produced in my garden or on farms where I work.
The garden produced red beans, okra, tomatoes and celery. Local farms produced onions, garlic and bell peppers. I also grew red pepper flakes and blended the powdered dry spices. Pantry staples of extra virgin olive oil, all purpose flour, and long grain brown rice were USDA organic but not produced in Iowa.
I invested several hours preparing a luncheon meal and time was worth it because of the flavor.
In the morning we discussed my 5-1/2 quart Dutch oven, the enamel of which is wearing off the inside. I’m don’t favor replacing it. Not because of the $350 price tag for a new one from Le Creuset. With a bit of cooking oil on the bottom to prevent rusting it will serve many more years. It is my go-to pan for making red beans and rice. It has been a reliable part of our kitchen.
Cooking is a ritual that evokes memory and skill in bringing a dish together. I soaked a cup of dried red beans in the Dutch oven overnight, then cooked them with half a diced red onion until tender but not mushy. I drained the beans and reserved the cooking liquid, letting them sit on the counter until ready to make the dish.
Around 10 a.m. I started work.
I fried a couple of home made vegetarian burger patties from the freezer and set them aside to drain. (Andouille sausage would be more traditional).
Heating the dutch oven, I added two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and cooked a generous tablespoon of red pepper flakes. I diced half a large onion, red bell peppers, and celery stalks and sautéed them in the oil-pepper mixture with a little salt. Once they began to soften I added two cloves of minced garlic and added home made seasoning — think powdered garlic, curry powder, paprika, and powdered hot, red peppers. I added a few dashes of prepared hot sauce from the refrigerator and stirred until everything was incorporated.
Next came additions. I deglazed the pan with a pint of diced tomatoes. Next, a cup each of sliced okra and long grain, brown rice. I stirred in two tablespoons of all purpose flour, then the cooked beans, until everything was incorporated. I tried not to bust up the beans.
What liquid to use was an open question. This time my answer was two cups of the bean cooking liquid (that’s all there was) plus two cups of water. Other options I considered were canned tomato juice and home made vegetable broth. The flavor of the bean cooking liquid made it a good decision.
Stirring everything together, I brought it to a boil then turned the heat down to a simmer, cooking until the rice was done and most of the liquid had been absorbed. Toward the end of cooking I crumbled the burger patties and folded them into the mixture.
It was ready to eat at noon, making four to five portions.
We seek opportunity to follow our creative impulses and cooking is primal. It provides an opportunity to shed anxiety from quotidian affairs, if only for a few hours. A recipe makes the experience replicable but not really. Cooking is a story of how we sustain ourselves in a turbulent world.
Brown leaves droop over tall stalks in the frosted garden. In the center tiny new leaves appeared.
Kale plants are growing again.
Each year the best ideas from the garden follow me into the future. From the 1983 summer in Iowa City when we planted our first tomato seedlings until today, we’ve either had a garden or have been able to forage the lot where we lived. Gardening has been a continual presence, improving each year.
In the 2020 garden there will be patches of tomatoes: one for cherries and another for slicers and plums. 2019 was a banner year for tomato quantity and quality. We canned and froze a lot so the plot will be smaller. Best new tomatoes were Black Krim, Granadero, Speckled Roma, and Martha Washington. Seeds that didn’t produce well won’t be planted, including commercial varieties Beefsteak, Roma, Early Girl, Big Boy and Better Boy. I want to get better cages, but do not want to spend the money. The main innovation regarding tomatoes was installing a four-foot chicken wire fence elevated a foot off the ground. This barrier kept deer out of the tomato patch during the past two seasons, improving yield.
I’ve been able to produce cucumbers to meet household needs. My varieties were two types of pickling cucumbers, Marketmore and Tasty Jade. In 2018 I over-produced with two patches. In 2019 I hit it about right with one. Allowing them to grow on a welded wire fence kept ground-bound critters from taking a bite out of them. A backlog of jars of pickled cucumbers is in the pantry, so next year’s planting will be about the same.
Hot peppers grow well here. After experimenting with a number of varieties, I find the most used ones for fresh are Serrano and Jalapeno. After a couple of seasons of long, red hot peppers, I need only two plants of each variety to have enough for a year of kitchen use. I make a few Louisiana-style dishes and sprinkle dried red pepper flakes on pizza. The supply of powdered chili peppers won’t run out in my lifetime. My experiment with Guajillo peppers goes into year two. I dried some red and green ones and have yet to make chili sauce with them. More production is needed to make it a viable experiment. Dried New Mexico chilies are inexpensive at the grocery store, so I’m not sure it’s worth the work to grow and process my own. Before making a decision I need to grow a bunch of them. I plan to grow only Guajillo chilies this year.
I found okra easy to grow and a few plants produce enough for a year. This was my first year growing it and I’ll skip next year. There’s plenty in the freezer.
Next year I’m reducing kale varieties to two: Redbor and Winterbor from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. It is an endeavor to try something new and reduce the number of suppliers.
Success with onions has been marginal. I had no trouble producing spring onions, but the full-sized bulbs never materialized the way I wanted. I’ll try it again next year. I also plan to grow shallots from seed as an experiment. I bought an organic seed called Matador from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Onions are almost daily fare in our kitchen so next year I hope to resolve some of the challenges I faced producing them. The shallots remind me of a local grower from France who produced them in abundance: I know they will grow in Iowa.
Beets produced better when I started them in soil blocks. I never have enough of them in the kitchen so I plan to grow lots. It’s time to go much bigger with beets by planting several long rows. The same applies to radishes.
There’s a lot to think about when planning next year’s garden. With the first seed order in the house, I can turn to other areas of planning.It’s taken years, but I’m finally feeling like a gardener.
Three cups of mixed beans had been resting in a jar on the counter for a long time. To use them up I made bean soup.
I soaked the beans overnight, then rinsed them in a colander with cold water from the faucet. They went back into the Dutch oven where I covered them with home made vegetable broth and turned the heat on high. Once the mixture came to a boil, I turned the heat down to a simmer and let them cook until tender.
Next I strained the mixture through a perforated funnel and prepared two cups each of diced celery, diced onion and sliced carrots. Using some of the bean cooking liquid, I sauteed the vegetables in the Dutch oven, salting to taste.
When the vegetables began to soften I added three bay leaves. Dumping the beans on top I added the rest of the cooking liquid and covered with tap water. It became soup after an hour of simmering. Using the immersion blender I whizzed the soup until about a third of it had been pulverized.
Dinner was bean soup, a slice of buttered bread, some cheese curds, a cup of local apple cider, and dried fruit.
What seemed significant was I resisted an impulse to add some of everything in the ice box and pantry to the pot. Classic mirepoix makes this kind of soup, and it doesn’t need much else.
The inbox — digital and physical — overflows with unattended mail, outdoors work remains if snow melts and we get a few days of dry warmth. There’s laundry to do, winter reading to arrange, apples to preserve, a house to clean, and cars to winterize — a whole life compressed between first snowfall and January. Any remaining goals for the year need prompt action. November and early December can be a frantic rush to the finish line.
As leaves fell from deciduous trees a squirrel nest revealed itself high in our maple tree. I’ve hoped for this many years. What was a vacant, treeless place when we arrived in Big Grove has become a habitat. Wildlife sighting is frequent. In addition to newly resident squirrels, birds, foxes, raccoons, opossums, field mice and voles, deer, and every other type of animal native to the area shows up here and return. When I spend time in the garden or look through our windows to the yard I feel the community even if I’m the only human around.
I have a bottle of Jameson purchased years ago. It sits in a crate unopened because I have been too busy for kicking back and sipping. Maybe I need to take a lesson from the orchard operator and relax for a while. At least before accepting that winter will arrive and all that means.
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