Tag: Kitchen Garden

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Kitchen Garden

Last of the Apples

Last six apples from 2025 season in the refrigerator.

Sunday I finished reading A Basket of Apples: Recipes and Paintings from a Country Orchard by Val Archer. I wrote a brief review: “The paintings are gorgeous. The recipes very British, heavy on dairy and animal flesh. If you cook like that, give it a go!”

Planting apple trees on our lot in 1996 was a defining moment in my life. I remember the family gathering at our house after my mother-in-law’s funeral, then leaving for Ames with my father-in-law while I stayed behind to plant the orchard before joining them. Over the years, some trees were lost to windstorms and a derecho, but three of the original six still produce. Today, the pantry is full of apple cider vinegar, dried apples, applesauce and apple butter… plus these six fresh apples.

At a political event on Saturday, a long-time friend arrived with a car emblazoned with promotions of veganism. It got me thinking about why I settled on being ovo-lacto vegetarian. Sunday night our household had a conversation about that and I reached some conclusions:

  • I won’t give up butter but can limit myself to one tablespoon per day, and some days have none.
  • There is no reason I can’t limit the amount of hard cheese I consume to one or two ounces per day, or seven ounces per week.
  • Cottage cheese is less offensive than hard cheese when it comes to encouraging LDL cholesterol production. I consume the regular product, so should limit myself to no more than one cup per day and try low-fat.
  • Fluid milk is basic in my diet, and I will measure how much I consume. Not sure of a limit, yet drinking 16 ounces per day seems like a start.
  • Peanuts and peanut butter are a daily menu item. Roasted, salted peanuts for snacks, and Jif-brand peanut butter for meals or evening dessert. Goal is quarter cup peanuts per day and no more than two tablespoons peanut butter in a day, leaning toward one. Natural peanut butter will be for some, but not all of my consumption.
  • Sodium intake is a constant overage in my diet. Need to continue to reduce how much I consume. That dang brain of mine rewards consumption of salt, so I need to be less “brainy” in that regard.
Promoting veganism.

Sadly this means I won’t be visiting Archer’s book for recipes. From time to time, though, I can remember her beautiful paintings.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Life Is Change — Fertilizer Edition

Tubs for potatoes.

It was the day for a drive to Monticello to pick up 150 pounds of composted chicken manure for the garden. I learned to use this fertilizer during eight years working on a friend’s farm where they used organic practices. Most farmers use it on a larger scale, yet 50-pound bags were available for gardeners like me. That is, they did sell them before private equity bought the company.

The first sign of trouble was the telephone number being disconnected. I found another number and asked my question, “Before I drive 40 minutes to Monticello, I want to make sure you have 50-pound bags of composted chicken manure.” In a gruff voice, a lady replied, “I can tell you for sure, they don’t have that in Monticello.” Undaunted, I looked for other options as first planting is approaching.

Life is change, Paul Kantner wrote. How it differs from the rocks.

Midwestern BioAg, the company where I sourced fertilizer for years, operates in the sustainable/biological agriculture sector, helping both conventional and organic farms reduce dependency on synthetic nitrogen and phosphorus, aligning with environmental goals, according to Google. That’s why we used them. The composted chicken manure product they made was perfect for a small gardener. It was uniform in texture, easy to apply, and enhanced yields.

When private equity bought a controlling interest in the firm in 2020, there was no noticeable change in company operations… until this week.

I had to do something. Potato planting is slated for Friday, and after that, Katy bar the door on garden work until Memorial Day. It turned out there are a number of “organic” composted manure products available, most selling for a lot less than the one I was using. A nearby hardware store advertised a 40-bag of “organic composted manure” for $2.79, so I drove to the nearby city and bought five.

On the pallet where I picked them up, one bag was open. I could see the mix was not as uniformly granulated as the other. Adaptation is a key part of home gardening. On Highway One I thought about how to address that. I have a screen with quarter-inch mesh mounted on a frame. I will push each bag through it to create a more uniform texture. I had a plan by the time I got home.

I started digging holes for six planting tubs. The soil was easy to dig and everything is falling into place. I don’t like change, yet the best policy in fertilizer is accept it and move on.

Tub with a layer of sticks in the bottom to keep the openings flowing when it rains.
Categories
Sustainability

Iowa Into Spring

Pre-dawn light on the first day of Spring.

In Iowa we pay attention to the weather. On the first day of spring, unseasonably warm temperatures — climbing into the 70s and even 80s — were part of a broader “heat dome” pattern influencing much of the United States. Record-breaking heat hit the West, and the same atmospheric setup is pushing milder air into the Midwest, giving us an early, almost summer-like start to the season. Is it climate change? Yes — but not in a simple, one-to-one way. The high temperature today is forecast to be 83°F.

These conditions are unusual for March, yet they offer a timely opportunity to begin transitioning work outdoors. As the jet stream shifts and warmer air settles in, now is a good moment to prepare for seasonal tasks, adjust routines, and take advantage of this early stretch of favorable weather — keeping in mind that spring in Iowa rarely settles in all at once.

I’m awaiting arrival of a batch of seeds. When they are in hand, I’ll plant them indoors, followed by peppers, tomatoes and cucurbits over the next couple of weeks. I will use the warm weather to clear the space for the portable greenhouse. By Good Friday, potato tubs and onion and leek starts should be in the ground, the greenhouse assembled and in use. I am simply waiting for the soil to hit that perfect window of friability — crumbly, loose texture that breaks apart easily — and then, game on!

The bed near the front steps has Bluebells. They were a transplant from my in-laws’ home and thrived without me doing anything. They are just budding in the ground on March 20. I carefully cleared the surface and planted a number of old flower seeds, some dating to 2022. The idea is to have something else grow here after Bluebells are done. With old flower seeds, one never knows.

In the garage, I opened the box of onion sets only to find they were leeks. I looked at the order form and indeed, I had not ordered onions. These several weeks, I had been planning how to plant onions, but now the ship steers to starboard in order to make a new plan. Luckily my supplier still had some onion sets left, so I ordered them.

Days like this, I put on special clothing and just go to the garage. No plan, no urgency. Just me interacting with my environment and home. Things get done.

While moving the potato tubs to the designated plot, I found the ground too wet for digging, or even walking on it. Don’t want to compress soil, so I delayed for a few days until it dries out. Spring is off to a good start.

Open for business on the first day of Spring, March 20, 2026.
Categories
Kitchen Garden

Garden in Late Winter

Garden on March 15, 2026.

The best part of a garden is the produce harvested. A close second is the fresh meals made, followed by goods processed and put up in the kitchen, making the whole enterprise a kitchen garden.

I’ve written before, “The goal of having a kitchen garden is to produce food aligned with our culinary habits that helps meet a basic human need. We have to eat, no matter where, no matter how. It may as well be enjoyable. We’ve all eaten our share of food that doesn’t please our palate. A kitchen garden should address that.”

There is more than that.

A garden is a place where decisions accumulate over time. Where the house is positioned, where trees are planted, which ground is left open, where paths form — some by intention, some by use. Over years these choices create habitat where plants, animals, weather, and human routines overlap. The gardener participates in the process but does not control it completely. A deer path appears. Birds sow mulberry trees the gardener did not plant. Wind finds corridors between structures and foliage.

The result is not wilderness. It is something more ordinary and interesting: a lived landscape, worked for food but shared with whatever life finds its way there.

Some days I get up from the writing desk — an heirloom from my father-in-law’s estate — and simply walk to the garden. In late winter desiccated foliage is beaten down, showing the ground covered in plastic and mulch from last year’s growing season. Garlic is already up. Soon weeds will follow. I cleared a plot to bury the potato tubs for Good Friday planting. As soon as I can manage — between rain showers and late winter snowfall — digging begins.

A deer path emerged between the wooded acreage a few lots to the east and an apple orchard a quarter mile west of me. I walked those woods and saw deer beds in the thick undergrowth. I followed deer paths because they existed in a place infrequently visited by humans. There is no more direct path for them to the orchard than between my garden and the house. The frozen ground is scattered with hoof prints and deer pellets. I occasionally see them browsing for food near twilight, yet mostly they are unseen. The idea of growing an urban lawn isn’t viable here because of such traffic.

Our garden is a noisy place in late winter. Crows, red wing blackbirds, cardinals, sparrows, and finches welcome spring in loud musicality. The sound of rubber tires on pavement filters across the lake from the road to the commercial district. Neighbors walk dogs in small groups, their voices circulate the way strong winds move on their own path during a wind storm.

What lives here is habitat: a built environment made of decisions about garden plots, landscaping, and use. A permissive structure that allows fruit and vegetables to grow while not impeding local wildlife except to keep them from eating tender young plants. Part of me wants a nice lawn, yet the other part wouldn’t have it any other way than it is.

Spring begins on Friday, a form of rebirth, yet not new. As garlic planted last fall emerges, the world stirs with slow, obvious awakening from winter’s decay. I am ready for it.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

AI Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut butter cookies made with a recipe created by artificial intelligence.

Suddenly there were three open jars of peanut butter in the house. I had to do something with them, and had been fancying a peanut butter cookie the way Mother used to make them. It started simply enough. I typed “Recipe for vegan peanut butter cookies” in the artificial intelligence chat box. It returned this recipe in a couple of seconds:

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar)
1/4 cup plant milk (almond, soy, oat, etc.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a bowl, mix peanut butter and brown sugar until smooth.
Stir in plant milk and vanilla.
Add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until a dough forms.
Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on the baking sheet.
Press each with a fork in a crisscross pattern.
Bake 10–12 minutes until edges are lightly golden.

Let cool on the pan for about 5 minutes before moving them.

Resisting a temptation to change the recipe, I made them and mentioned in my chat bot: “I tried. Cookies seemed heavy.”

In its “that can happen” way of hiding failure while attempting to placate me, it responded, “Vegan peanut butter cookies can easily turn out heavy or dense. A few small things usually cause it. Here are the most common fixes and a lighter recipe that tends to work better.” With all the large language modeling, couldn’t you have done something to deal with this before posting the recipe? No. AI can’t help itself.

Back and forth we went, refining the recipe I eventually wrote in the workbook with culinary experiments. I will bake them again before putting it in the permanent cookbook. Finally, I said what was on my mind:

To address texture issues, would I be better off to consult cookbooks that place this recipe in the context of a specific culinary culture, such as Regan Daley’s In the Sweet Kitchen: The Definitive Baker’s Companion?

The chat bot immediately searched the internet, presumably to read Daley’s book before answering. There was no indication the machine was stunned by the threat of my leaving its environment to consult actual food authors on the same problem.

In what can only be described as a smarty-pants response, AI came up with this:

Yes — consulting a cookbook like In the Sweet Kitchen: The Definitive Guide to the Baker’s Pantry & Craft by Regan Daley is a very good idea, and your instinct about culinary context is sound. But there are actually two different kinds of cookbooks that solve texture problems, and they help in different ways.

I can’t say how much more I detest the word “but.” It went on to say my whole premise of “vegan peanut butter cookie” was a problem. It responded, “Your specific case (vegan peanut butter cookies) adds another layer.” Didn’t you know that from jump street, I thought.

Artificial intelligence displays little idea how we humans cook. If it were paired with a robot chef, the results could be generic and unsatisfying to the simplest palate.

Next time I’ll know to contact my sister and ask her if there is a copy of Mother’s recipe.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Local Food Renewal

Three trays of seedlings on Feb. 28, 2026.

After five planting sessions, there are seven trays of seedlings between the heat pad, grow light and table in the dining area. This year, indoor planting is proceeding well.

My foundational experience in gardening improved dramatically during the period 2013-2020 when I worked on area farms. 2026 is the year I introduced artificial intelligence into the process.

The results of ai have been surprisingly good. Because the large language model has so much information in its database, without hesitation, it can give me planting schedule adjustments, ways to use two spots on the heating pad, and two more under LED grow lights. The rest of my process from seed to seedling to greenhouse to planting has fewer uncertainties this year compared to last. Optimizing use of the heating pad has been a boon to productivity.

On the second day of March, I am of to a good start.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Food Algorithms — Getting Started

Stack of garden seeds.
Seeds arrived for the 2026 garden.

It’s cold outside, the kind of cold that stings my cheeks while walking on the state park trail. I’m standing at my workbench sorting seeds for early planting. The heat pad is already plugged in. Grow lights hang overhead. In front of me is a cabinet with last year’s leftover seeds, sorted by variety. On the bench are two dozen packets with this year’s seeds. I’m still looking through seed catalogues. It’s time to decide what to plant first, what to wait on, what to try for the first time, and what to abandon. Each small seed packet represents a choice made long before anything reaches the kitchen.

Every decision reflects a value. Food is no exception. In this series of posts, I will discuss the idea of a “food algorithm” to see where it goes.

Simply put, an algorithm is a repeatable sequence of steps used to accomplish a task. With food, this could be a recipe, yet that’s not what I mean. The intent is to take food from the seed, seedling, or cutting as the first in a series of decisions about what goes on a table.

Agriculture is a large field to consider, but food algorithms are individual. An active agent — a person — decides whether to plant a bean seed, use raw beans from a farmer, rely on prepared, canned beans from a retailer, or use beans that have been prepared with other ingredients. This decision is elemental and part of a discussion most cooks have when preparing a dish. My focus is at this entry point, not to gather and analyze recipes, although one could.

An algorithm is simply a structured way of getting from here to there. We use them constantly in many aspects of our lives. Following food from seed to table is a more comprehensive look at a process we follow, yet do so largely unawares.

I see three interlocking layers:

Biological logic — the natural requirements and rhythms of the plant or animal.

Human practice — the gardener’s labor, the farmer’s tradeoffs, the cook’s improvisations.

System forces — markets, logistics, regulation, energy use, and scale.

By showing how these layers interact, the discussion could make visible the hidden structure beneath everyday meals.

Taking steps in the process from seed to table represents ordinary choices that shape resilience, community, and ecological health. It could create awareness and the quiet power of understanding the paths food has taken before it reaches us.

The adventurer in me wonders what will be next. I hope readers will too.

Categories
Living in Society

With Spring a Month Out

Predawn sky on Feb. 17, 2026.

Winter is escaping, and with it the best time of year to write. It has become a household meme that “I am losing more darkness every day!” There is so much to get done on the book project. Monday the ground was frozen, yet soon it won’t be. Putting the garden in is also a major undertaking.

That said, posting here will slow down as I focus on completing the current editing pass on my book. If all goes well, it will take a few weeks. A photo one day, maybe a video of a favorite song, a few kind words. All place holders until the book is where I need it to be come spring.

Thanks for reading along.

Categories
Living in Society

Trip to the County Seat

Photo by Edmond Dantu00e8s on Pexels.com

I’m from the government and I’m here to help. Now that I on-boarded with the county auditor to be a poll worker, I can truthfully say that. Ronald Reagan made a joke about those nine words, yet voting is no laughing matter.

On-boarding consisted of driving to the county administration building, locating the appropriate area, entering data on their system, and providing my I-9 documents for photocopying. I completed a time sheet with ten minutes and 20 miles. Easy-peasy.

About eight of us used IBM Think Pads for data entry. IBM sold that business line in 2005 and the company that bought it soon discontinued the product. I’m glad to see our county government using technology to get every last penny from the investment. I had forgotten how to use the track pad, so needed help.

As is usually the case, I ran into people I know from politics. I maintain a friendly relationship with everyone I helped elect at the administration building.

I made two other stops while in the county seat.

On the way in, I stopped at the used book store to see if they had certain titles by John McPhee whose Draft No. 4 I just finished. They had a McPhee reader with parts of the essays I sought for five bucks. A while ago, I had asked them if they had a copy of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. I gave my copy to our child and wanted a replacement. When they said they didn’t have it, I procured it elsewhere. On Friday, they had been unexpectedly holding a copy for me. I declined it in person, yet on the way home, reconsidered it. Surely I could find a home for it. I emailed I would buy it if they still had it.

The other stop was at the grocer. It is conveniently located on Highway One which leads to our home near the lake. It has long been a stop when I have something to do in the county seat. I like the wholesale club better, yet they don’t have the granularity of item selection a home cook needs to run a kitchen. This produce section is particularly loaded with organic fruit and vegetables, all in a single location with non-organic. Too, when I fill my cart, the total is usually less than $100. At the wholesale club it can be double or triple that with less items overall.

I won’t be lording my new government employee status over too many people. The small bit of income will easily find a home in our budget. In fact, even though the general election is not until November, the money is already spent.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

First Day in the Garden

Frost in the ground.

After struggling to get the fork into a pile of grass clippings, I gave up for the day. Everything was frozen solid, even after a few days with ambient temperatures well above freezing. Highs in the 40s and 50s are forecast the rest of the week. Maybe I will accomplish my goal of clearing one plot this week to use as temporary storage. Not that day, though.

I am in the garden way early this year, so there is time for preseason work. I seeded the first indoor trays last Saturday and by Tuesday some of the varieties already had leaves. I hope they all germinate by this Saturday when I prepare the next tray of seedlings. Warming pad space is at a premium the next eight weeks.

When we moved to Big Grove Township there were scrub grasses and a lone mulberry tree on the vacant lot we purchased. The tree appeared to have been planted by a bird’s droppings while it perched on a surveyor’s re-bar marker. The ground had a high clay content which suggested the farmer who made his farm into a subdivision had removed the topsoil before selling plats.

From that clay I built soil in a garden that now occupies one fourth of the 0.62 acres we own. When I started, the first plots were small with a large grass border around them. Today I can’t get the mower between the plots to cut foxtail grasses and other weeds that grow there. I got big after working on a vegetable farm for eight years, bringing home the skills and techniques I learned there. After years of expansion, it seems time to bring order to what I do. This is likely why I am outdoors in the garden the second week of February.

We did not set out to build habitat when we moved here. The decision to site the house closer to the north property line — as opposed to in the center — mattered more than I knew. Placement of the foundation determined what remained open, how wind would move, where trees should be planted. We were thinking of how to build additions when finances permitted. Now, a deer path runs the length of the lot on the south side of our home. When winds come from the west, there is a corridor on the north side where it sweeps through the fruit orchard, and into the back yard. Over the years wind has taken a toll on the many trees we planted here. We never built an addition, nor even a deck.

The abundance of wildlife remains mostly unseen. There have been birds of all kinds, opossums, foxes, and after many years of waiting for trees to grow, there are squirrels. There are too many deer, although by developing a path from their space in a nearby woods to an large apple orchard to the west, they mostly leave me alone.

As I contemplate today’s schedule I plan more time in the garden. Maybe the dead vegetation will have loosened enough to move it. Maybe not. In either case, there is plenty of time for preseason garden work.