Category: Kitchen Garden

Gardening, Farming, Cooking, Recipes, Local Food, Everything that goes into meal production.

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Environment Kitchen Garden

Heat is Here

July 18, 2019

I stood outside in early morning darkness where there was a refreshing yet decidedly warm breeze.

The overnight low was 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m not sure if that’s warm enough to hinder apple production but scientists believe at some point failure to cool adequately at night does impact taste and texture.

They don’t fully understand the impact of climate change on apple production. For the home fruit grower it’s one more thing for concern.

The breeze dissipated with arriving sun. The forecast is clear and hot with ambient temperatures rising to the mid-nineties. We’re getting used to the heat, especially after the 2012 drought.

After sunup I went to an apple tree, picked one and ate it. The sugars are beginning to form but it is still a “green” apple.

Tonight begins the two-day festival in the small city near which we live. The ambient temperature is expected to peak around 6 p.m. when things are just getting going. Tomorrow is the parade through town when it’s pushing 90 degrees. I’m not sure it is a good idea to attend this year so am skipping the famous hay bale toss tonight and will re-evaluate the parade in the morning. A friend from across the lakes in Big Grove Township is running for sheriff so I want to be there to support him.

It’s blazing hot! We have an air conditioner and refrigerator with an ice maker that both work. There are also three bushels of vegetables that need processing. There will be plenty of inside work to keep me busy now that the heat is here.

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Kitchen Garden

Using It Up

Dinner July 13, 2019

The challenge for a gardener is to use or preserve the abundance in a way that makes sense.

At the beginning of a gardener’s life-long journey, what that means is not clear. Clarity approaches as our interaction with a kitchen garden matures, planting to meet the anticipated demands of modern living — season by season, meal by meal.

Gardening is as much about cooking and eating as it is about genetics, crop inputs, pest control and horticulture.

Saturday morning I made more basil pesto to freeze and started the first batch of dill pickles. Friday I pickled beets and dried parsley for the cupboard.

The photo represents dinner last night. The veggie burger and ketchup are processed foods and the vegetables are locally sourced. I grew the squash and peas, a farmer friend grew the onion and carrots. It was a satisfying, seasonal meal. Cooking techniques developed through years of practice and study made it possible to reduce the amount of time needed to prepare these dishes. At the end of the day, this meal was nothing, a throw-off addressing our need to eat. This meal was also everything.

People frequently post photos of their meals and we enjoy viewing them on social media. It is a natural impulse that say what I’ve done has meaning beyond a single meal or dish. In a search for truth and meaning in life eating is important, or as my colleague at the orchard Matt Steigerwald said, “food is important.”

Like so many things in life it reduces down to the question what will I do with my life today? Living with a kitchen garden and enjoying its production is one important thing among others.

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Environment Kitchen Garden

Hot Weather Harvest

Neighbors Haying

On a fine summer day conditions were perfect to harvest hay and garlic.

My CSA friends recruited volunteers to bring in the garlic and across the county farmers were baling hay in large round and small rectangular bales.

On Independence Day farmers came to town to buy cultivators, salt blocks, pumps, feed, big pedestal fans, bedding (for horses), air compressor parts, nuts and bolts, and other stuff of life. At the home, farm and auto supply store we also sold a lot of propane, grills and kayaks, but that was not to farmers, as a farmer plans his/her kayaking and grilling ahead of time.

The rain has been good enough my garden doesn’t need much watering. Predatory insects are noticeably in abeyance, I suspect because of the polar vortex and extremely cold temperatures last winter. Tomatoes look as good as they have in years. It is already hard to use all the cucumbers. There will be green beans, okra, hot peppers, eggplant, squash, kale, carrots and more by the time August is finished.

We love summer.

Actually, we love life even in the extreme weather brought on by our own assault on nature. That we have perfect conditions for haying and garlic harvesting may well be an anomaly going forward. It was enjoyable this year and will be for however long it lasts.

I viewed the president’s speech on the environment on YouTube. It was not about climate change, human-made or other. In fact, the speeches by the president and about half a dozen others were devoid of any mention of the science of climate change, or solutions to solve the climate crisis.

I feel certain the bait shop owner from Florida has seen improvement in his local environment by the administration’s work on red algae. His speech was unprepared and somewhat random, but a slice of Americana available for public consumption and that, maybe, was the point. There was praise for the president from his staff, including the despised Andrew Wheeler, current head of the Environmental Protection Agency. If one adds up everything in the 56 -minute event, if we didn’t know the science of climate change, it would be believable. The climate crisis was absent from the environment Trump depicted and that is the problem with the Trump administration.

What bothered me the most, as it does any time I listen to the president, it’s the assertion that covers up a lie. Wheeler was bragging on how many super fund sites have been deleted from the list. Were they actually cleaned up or just declared clean and deleted?

I agree with Al Gore’s analysis:

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the origin of hot weather. Is it coming from Anthropogenic climate change, or from politicians in Washington, D.C.? Maybe a little of both.

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Kitchen Garden

Garlic Harvest 2019

Pulling Garlic

In a year of weird weather, garlic suddenly became ready to pull at Sundog Farm.

Some cloves began to burst and if the farmers couldn’t figure out exactly why, they decided to harvest it all before any more went past its prime.

It was a good call as the garlic heads brought to the barn were large and the crop was bigger than expected. It was an exceptional crop. The harvest took place on two days this week. I helped with the second.

Eight of us worked the field and racked the garlic for curing. It was hot work, and I couldn’t stand the sun and heat for long. After two and a half hours pulling garlic from the field, I changed to the racking operation in the barn to get out of the sun. There was plenty of work for everyone. Here are some photos of the operation.

Eight rows of garlic remained to pull on day two of the garlic harvest. The ground was wet so we pulled, shook off dirt on the roots, and let it dry in the sun for a bit.
Staying hydrated is important and we refilled our water bottles multiple times over the morning.
After an hour or so, the stalks were cleaned of remaining dirt and hauled to the barn in a pickup truck.
The stalks were inspected, sorted by quality and lined up along a two by four rack, three deep. Next a second two by four was placed on top and they were bolted together with three sets of nuts and bolts.
The individual racks were lined up on sawhorses where they will rest and dry until fully cured.
The farm crew got to take some fresh garlic home. Here are six heads I brought back. These are “seconds” that were a bit deformed or had been hit by the fork during harvest. They eat as well as any of them.

After clearing the field of garlic the crew met at the farm house where we ate lunch of grilled brats and hot dogs, fresh grilled vegetables, and pickled asparagus put up last year. The grilled onions had been picked just moments before hitting the grill. Days like this one feels something got accomplished.

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Kitchen Garden

Gardening In Between Times

Blue Wind Broccoli

June’s last day marks the beginning of my hiatus from farm work.

The orchard’s chief apple officer confirmed they need me in the sales barn this year. My manager emailed me back to set a starting date. Apple season is set and I can focus on other things in July.

For the first time this year I made a “project run” to the commercial center in Coralville. I picked up a replacement faucet handle, a new light/vent fan part for a bathroom, some topsoil and grass seed to fill in the depression over the septic tank, a new bird feeder and a shepherd’s hook, and eight more 6-foot stakes to protect tomatoes from deer. I hope there will be more trips like that.

Weeding the garden is a never-ending task. I focused on the plot with beans and a variety of crops. Even the parsley seeds sprouted and I removed competition so they will grow to maturity. I saw several Japanese beetles in the basil so I harvested the big leaves. I also harvested kale, broccoli, green onions, radishes, parsley, beets and sugar snap peas. The ice box is crammed with containers of fresh greens and other vegetables. With my spouse visiting her sister for a few days I will be eating a lot of greens for a while.

I planted Table Queen Acorn squash (Ferry – Morse, 75 days) and Honey Bear Acorn squash (Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 85 days) in newly claimed space. Acorn is our favorite winter squash so here’s hoping they succeed.

The lawn was a field of clover which I harvested with my John Deere mower and grass catcher. Rabbits will find something else to eat, hopefully not my garden. I piled the clippings in the transition space near three oak trees I planted from acorns and will decide which vegetables get protection next. When weather turns hot, the lawn doesn’t produce as much, so it will be a couple of mowings before the garden is fully mulched.

My clothing was drenched with sweat by the time I finished the lawn. I hung my t-shirt and jeans to dry, took a shower, and focused on kitchen work the rest of the day. Processing today’s harvest took the most time.

I like this in between time for a lot of reasons. It’s a chance to let the dust of the first half year settle and figure out what is most important to sustaining a life in a turbulent world. Just like weeding, the non-productive energy-suckers need to be removed to free up what’s most valuable.

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Kitchen Garden

Kale Harvest and Summer Solstice

Taco filling made with kale, black beans and Guajillo chili sauce.

I caught a break between thunder storms.

Friday I donned my wax jacket and rubber boots and went to the garden to harvest kale in a light drizzle.

The leaves were ready to pick and I wanted to get a regular shipment to someone.

It was a big harvest and what I didn’t give away was washed and went into the ice box and freezer.

I made a batch of taco filling with fresh kale, black beans and Guajillo chili sauce. It is Mexican street food and one of my favorite dishes. This year I planted Guajillo chili peppers in the garden to see if I can replicate what I’ve been buying from Mexico. Here’s the recipe for the sauce.

With today’s planting I consider the garden in. There are a couple of empty spots to fill and plenty of weeding and mulching, but the seedlings that need to be planted have been and it’s time to clean out a space to put my car into the garage again. Actually I just took a break from the computer to do it. The car is inside again marking the end of Spring garden planting.

From here gardening gets easier. I started Imperial broccoli seedlings to replace Blue Wind when the time comes. I also have basil and cilantro seedlings that will go in when there’s space. There are extra seedlings of tomatoes, eggplant and hot peppers ready if one already planted fails. I’m about ready to compost those as most everything took the first time this year.

As I mentioned here I moved the composter and spread out what remained. Some type of burrowing animal has been living there and I disrupted its home. It looks like it has been burrowing under the locust tree, which may be causing the problem with leafing out this year. It/they also got into the kitchen waste composter, which is comparatively tightly sealed. They drug a lot of stuff out, including most of the egg shells, to build a mound under the outdoors sink that was turned upside down sitting next to it. It was a surprise and I moved the sink up on a pallet.

The good news about compost was for the birds. Multiple species spent most of the afternoon prowling the newly spread compost looking for worms and insects, of which there were plenty. They don’t seem bothered by my presence.

The wax jacket is for garden and yard work. I bought it while vacationing in Stratford, Ontario where we went for three consecutive years when our daughter was in high school. It’s never been re-treated but repels water quite well and still fits. It’s the gardener’s equivalent of a barn coat.

My time at the farms finishes this week, tomorrow at Sundog Farm and Tuesday at Wild Woods Farm. I met with Trish Nelson at Blog for Iowa yesterday and I’ll be covering for her beginning July 1 so she can take a five-week hiatus. The first weekend in August I plan to return to Wilson’s Orchard for my seventh year as seasonal help and after that, it’s a rush to finish the year.

I plan to take a deep breath and reflect on my life as a gardener and citizen for a few minutes tonight after dinner.

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Kitchen Garden

Garden Notes — June 20, 2019

Open air composter

An innovation I discovered at a political event was an open air composter made from shipping pallets.

At Jean and Jix Lloyd-Jones home they had a composter similar to what’s in the image outside their kitchen door leading to the yard.

During the last few years I secured some pallets and made one. It works great for all the greenery I harvest and weed from the yard and garden. It was time to use the compost in the bin so I re-built the device on a different spot, replacing the pallets that were being composted from exposure to the ground. While portable, it’s a permanent fixture in the garden.

This year some garden experiments are worth noting.

For the first time my arugula is producing well. What got me going is starting the tiny seeds in soil blocks then transplanting the seedlings to a garden row. In the past I broadcast them and picked the leaves from a mess of weeds that joined them. The taste of fresh arugula is something distinct and I’m thankful to have figured out how to grow it.

As readers may recall we missed the March 2 planting date for Belgian lettuce and punted. The idea is to make an early patch of lettuce from which leaves could be harvested. I got the seeds as remainders of last season at the home, farm and auto supply store. Because of delayed planting the starts from the greenhouse produced better results while the sown seeds got lumped together rendering the patch difficult to manage. The lettuce process requires further refinement and will begin with more careful selection of varieties from a seed catalogue. I will likely plant Belgian lettuce again since that’s a tradition passed down from Grandmother, but with more reliance on conventional process using the greenhouse.

I added Hakurei turnips to my standard purple top white globes. They produced early, in abundance. They make a great snack or sliced thin and mixed with arugula, a delicious salad. Multiple varieties of turnip proved to be a good thing.

I changed how I used buried containers this year. I planted successions of radishes and used one for daikon radishes which continue to mature. When the radishes were done in one container, I planted basil seedlings. I also planted onions starts in succession for green onions. The production has been better than the potatoes of past years (which were the reason for getting the containers). If I want potatoes I will acquire them from a farmer friend through one of my barter arrangements.

I broadcast okra seeds in a two by three-foot section and they successfully germinated. The first thinning is done and another will be needed once the best plants self-identify. I put them along a fence, but am a little concerned with that decision because deer love okra. We’ll see how it goes. The germination was remarkable.

A main learning is to allow more space between garden rows, but gardeners likely know that. There will be more lessons as the season progresses.

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Kitchen Garden

Spring Cooking Day

First Harvest of Blue Wind Broccoli

The rush to use ingredients is upon us and the garden isn’t even fully planted.

After watering I made the rounds of six garden plots and harvested radishes, turnips, spring onions, lettuce, broccoli and kale… lots of kale.

I had planned to take a big box of kale to a political event in Cedar Rapids yet forgot it on the folding table in the garage. Upon my return home I bagged it for delivery to library shift workers later today. For now, there is always a home for kale. It looks really good before the bugs and worms start to eat it.

Blue Wind broccoli is an early variety that requires close monitoring to pick it at its peak. Reserving some florets to be added to salads, I steamed it as a side dish for dinner. In fact a lot of kitchen work happened yesterday.

The first thing I did after waking was make pesto with fresh basil. It was the beginning of a day of cookery.

For breakfast I made a casserole using leftover brown rice and fresh spinach. While the casserole was baking I filled the Dutch oven with carrots, celery leaves, onions and turnip greens to make what has become a traditional spring vegetable broth. For dinner I heated a veggie burger and served it with the broccoli and kale.

My go-to kale recipe is simple. I de-stemmed and tore seven or eight kale leaves into 2 x 2 inch pieces in a stainless steel bowl. I heated a wok and added a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. I diced half a large onion and sauteed until translucent. I added five cloves of roughly chopped garlic and a quarter cup of pine nuts, cooking until the vegetables were tender and the aroma of garlic rose from the wok. Handful by handful I added the kale while stirring constantly. Once it was all in the wok I added vegetable broth to help cook the kale down. Once the liquid evaporated, I seasoned with salt and pepper to make two servings.

Perhaps the best meal of the day was lunch for which I toasted a slice of bread and spread pesto on it, serving with a cup of cottage cheese — simple pleasures in a time of abundance. We have to pace ourselves to see that as little as possible goes to waste.

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Kitchen Garden

Big Weekend in the Garden

Three rows of tomato plants.

I returned nine empty seedling trays to the farm Sunday morning before my soil blocking shift.

The empty trays reflected clear weather and dry enough soil for planting. I had been worried seedlings would get root bound. I think I made it into the ground in time. I hope so.

The last three days have been devoid of rain with mild temperatures. I worked outside a total of 15 hours, finishing initial planting in six of seven plots. Now I must find spots for garlic planting in late July, Ancho and Guajillo chilies, eggplant and winter squash. I retained several trays of extra seedlings in case there are failures. Starts of basil, parsley, cilantro and broccoli are ready for the second wave of those varieties.

Putting in tomatoes is a big production. I cleared a plot that had been inactive since fall. I dug two-foot wide trenches for the seedlings and prepared the ground with a hoe and rake, putting down fertilizer before raking. A big part of tomato planting is sorting seedlings grown in the greenhouse, seeing how they germinated and counting varieties. In the end I made 47 planting areas with one or two plants per cage in 21 varieties.

Row of Green Beans

This year I separated the cherry tomatoes into their own spot with more space between plants. The idea is to use that space to gather bowls of multi-colored fruit for the kitchen and for gifts. They are already blossoming.

Main crop slicers will be Brandywine and German Pink, both available from the Seed Savers Exchange. Plum tomatoes included Amish Paste, Roma, Speckled Roma and Granadero. I planted six varieties of cherry tomatoes with orange, red, yellow and white colored fruit. If the plots grow there will be plenty of tomatoes for fresh eating, gifts, freezing and canning.

Another big project was planting cucumbers. Planning included seed selection (Northern Pickling, Little Leaf Pickling, Jade and Marketmore) and downsizing the space from last year. I use 2 x 4 inch welded wire fencing to support plant growth and put seedlings close together. Everything survived the transplant. If plants are successful, there should be plenty of fresh and pickling cucumbers.

The last big planting was hot peppers. I made a patch of 15 plants and everything survived transplant. I have extra seedlings if some should fail. I selected jalapeno and Serrano for fresh eating and Bangkok, Red Rocket, Cayenne and Red Flame for drying. I also have Ancho and Guajillo chilies ready to plant once I figure out where. This will be an experiment in Mexican cooking if successful.

Spending time in the garden enabled me to watch the beans grow. From early Friday morning until late that night plants pushed out of the ground until the row was filled in. The same was true for the red beans, although they were a day later. It is something to watch the garden grow.

By Sunday afternoon I needed a nap. Today I’m rested and ready to get back into the garden for as long as the sun shines. The stress of too much rain is changing to worry about drought. We’re not there yet.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Living in Society

Garden Crunch Time on a Political Weekend

Sunrise

The forecast looks perfect for a day in the garden. I intend to get started soon after sun up at 5:31 a.m. and work as long as I’m able or until needed work is done.

Tomatoes and cucumber seedlings are reaching the critical stage where either they get planted or composted and I favor the former. Otherwise, what was the point of all the planning and preparations in the greenhouse? If I establish the tomato patch and plant cucumbers and peppers that will be enough of an accomplishment.

My scale is larger than a typical household garden with 38 plum and slicer tomato plants planned, a scaled down cucumber patch, and a patch of 12 hot peppers alongside one row of guajillo and one row of ancho chilies. If I get that all in, anything else would be a bonus. The goal is to finish by 4 p.m. so I can go out to dinner in the county seat with some of my blogger friends.

Sunday, June 9, is the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame induction in Cedar Rapids. The Hall of Fame is one of the biggest party fundraisers of the year and this year’s inductees are Fred and Charlotte Hubbell who have long been active in Democratic politics. They are also among the most significant financial contributors to the party. Fred Hubbell was our gubernatorial candidate in 2018. Other individuals and groups are also recognized at the event. Here’s a link.

19 candidates for president will take five minutes each to address attendees. Most candidates have events scheduled in and around Cedar Rapids this weekend to expand the reach of their trip to Iowa’s second largest city. The events range from sign waving rallies outside the event location to family-friendly gatherings in a park to food and social time with candidates. The event I plan to attend is a climate conversation with Washington Governor Jay Inslee who made the climate crisis the focus of his campaign for president. Organized by State Senator Rob Hogg, a long-time member of the Climate Reality Project, I’m looking forward to hearing how the conversation goes Saturday, June 8 at 6 p.m. at Ellis Park in Cedar Rapids.

I had a brief chat at the county party central committee meeting with one of the Our Revolution of Johnson County organizers about the Bernie Sanders campaign. The campaign saved voter information from Sanders’ 2016 effort, which resulted in half of caucus-goers supporting Sanders. The salient question is whether 2016 Sanders support can be converted to 2020 support. Our local Sanders organizer is in training this week and they haven’t finished the canvass to know the answer. They have significant endorsers and thousands of volunteers to perform the canvass.

“This incredible group of endorsers are some of the most well-known progressive voices that Iowa has to offer,” Misty Rebik, Sanders’ state director, said in a June 6 statement to Iowa Starting Line. “Together with our 25,000-strong volunteer base in the state, these progressive Iowans will help us build on our grassroots movement and win on caucus night.”

I don’t see any of the other campaigns packing up and going home after this statement. However, if what Rebik told the blogger is true, I’m sure everyone will use their five minute speech at the Hall of Fame to add their Sanders endorsement to the list.

As I reported April 26, Newman Abuissa confirmed he is running for Congress in Iowa’s second district at last night’s county central committee meeting. I’ve known Abuissa for years and he’s a good guy. In addition to being an engineer for the Iowa Department of Transportation, he is a member of the Arab American Institute’s National Policy Council. Active in peace and justice issues within the Iowa Democratic Party his focus has been on foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East. It seems unlikely he will gain traction against announced candidate Rita Hart, but his announcement was clearly heartfelt. He’s right. We could do a lot of good with the money being wasted on our perpetual wars.

I can see the light of a new day dawning through the window on the other end of my writing space. Time to get to work in the garden.