Tag: Kitchen Garden

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Kitchen Garden

Going Without a Share

Fermented Dill Pickles

The change in our local food ecosystem from last summer to this is hard to fathom.

We let go of the summer share from the Community Supported Agriculture projects to rely on our garden.

It was a big step and I feel much less stress from over abundance. Some days I’d like more lettuce, and some of the specialty crops, but there is plenty from our garden to fill the gap. Now that tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and peppers are beginning to come in, I don’t forecast any gaps.

What is hard to fathom is why the transition has been so easy. Maybe I’m getting to be a better gardener. Maybe I was due to go on my own.

Tornadoes tore through Marshalltown, Pella and Bondurant yesterday as I got off work at the home, farm and auto supply store. It doesn’t appear anyone was seriously injured or died, although damage to the communities was substantial. Photos and video posted on social media depicted a horrible scene. The Marshalltown Times-Republican newspaper got an issue out the next day despite the storm — practicing journalists they are.

Are these storms due to climate change? I don’t know. What I do know is the seasons are out of wack. A late spring, early high ambient temperatures, and more frequent storms make our climate exceedingly weird. We adjust, accommodate, but something’s different.

Ben Santer, an atmospheric scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, led a study of four decades of climate data that concluded human activity is disrupting our seasonal balance. That is, the seasons don’t proceed through time the way they did. It may be confirmation bias, but I doubt it. Eric Roston at Bloomberg wrote a more accessible article about the study here.

In the kitchen it’s cucumber day! A batch is sweating over a bowl and the crock is full of sweet pickles to be water bath processed tomorrow. The dill pickles in the photo took 13 days to ferment. It was worth every minute.

Categories
Writing

New Potatoes and Cucumbers

Morning Harvest

The ambient outdoor temperature is 89 degrees and the heat index is 100. Another midday spent inside.

I feel caged.

Near sunup I harvested cucumbers and watered. I tasted a red tomato — they are not ready.

Won’t be long.

In the kitchen I emptied the crock of fermented dill pickles and started another batch. I washed and sorted cucumbers on the counter: first the dills, then sweet pickles, then some for eating, then a pile of too plump ones for juicing. There are so many cucumbers I could be selective. Soon I’ll run out of things to do with them… not yet.

I felt restless. I feel restless.

Cucumbers

I cleaned under the kitchen sink and returned the soaps, cleaning supplies and waste basket to their appointed places. I’m glad that work is done. I’ve been putting it off.

Using fruit thawed from the freezer, I made a smoothie for lunch with cow’s milk, kale, a banana and the fruit. It was satisfying…  and very blue.

There is only so much kitchen time a person can take before moving on.

Someone spotted water coming up through the ground near a main water line junction. I emailed our crew of well volunteers and we met near the leak. We saw water seeping up but couldn’t diagnose the problem. I told them I’d call our well service to come out and fix the leak. It was a productive exchange as I hadn’t seen some of them for a while. It was a chance to do something outside home. It will be an ongoing project for the weekend.

I came back. It got hot and here I am.

Our president had tea with Queen Elizabeth II today. I wonder if they had scones like she did with Ike. In Washington, D.C. Robert Mueller’s investigation produced 12 indictments of Russian intelligence officers who had been hacking U.S. computers in the run up to the 2016 general election. The hacking was with nefarious purpose and intent. The press event was at the same time the president was having tea. It will give him something to discuss with Vladimir Putin next week in Helsinki.

In the hottest part of the day I feel an urge to go somewhere else. I felt the same way when I lived near the main train station, the Hauptbahnhof, in Mainz, Germany, especially on weekends away from the kaserne. I would drive to the big box stores over in Wiesbaden… or maybe walk to the small grocery store down the hill and buy fresh fruit and a liter of Coca Cola. I had to time it right because they closed for a couple of hours in the early afternoon. About the same time it is now. I feel connected to those days 40 years ago.

I just got the call the well technician is on his way. Guess I can meet that urge… for now.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Living in Society

Garden is In

Friday Harvest

It may seem late yet I declared the garden planted on Friday.

We’ve already had a bumper crop of vegetables and we’re not even started with tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, green beans and more. There will always be garden work to do but for now it’s planted.

Time to turn to other things.

What I mean is between now and Aug 4, when orchard work begins, there is writing, household repairs and cleaning, and loads of work to improve our home life. At some point I switched from being a consumer to a doer and that makes the difference in my mid-sixties. I just stay home and do.

Water Bottles

Politics plays a role in current affairs and it’s much different than it was. My focus is to understand the complex world in which we live and work to make a positive impact. My themes haven’t changed (environment, social justice, economic survival, good governance) although my understanding of what needs doing has. During the re-election of George W. Bush I re-activated in politics. Each succeeding campaign was both learning and engagement. After seven campaigns, I enter my eighth with a deeper understanding of the role social networks play in determining winners and losers. I’m not referring to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter here, but broader social movements and the momentum they bring to an election.

The first Obama campaign, with its demographics analysis and targeted voter lists seems like ancient history. What Obama did can’t be replicated, even if we wanted. To better understand the electorate, we must knock on every door, hear every voter, and determine how to fix the broken politics endemic to our lives. Creativity and networking are important. We don’t know if what’s broken can be fixed in a generation. If we don’t start now, it may never be fixed.

Flower at the Farm

Politics is not everything. After only three hours at yesterday’s garlic harvest at the farm I felt a bit dizzy, presumably because of hard work in the sun. It was a temperate day, nonetheless, I played it safe and called it early. My point is I’m not getting any younger. Working a six or eight hour shift in the sun doesn’t work as well as it did a few years ago. Working smart is replacing working harder.

The rest of the year goes something like this. July is a month to work at home: advance my writing projects, get space at home to be more livable, and work to get the yard into better shape. August through October is work at the orchard. This year I may be taking on additional responsibilities, but for sure I’ll be there weekends and on Friday Family nights. November and December will be focused on writing. While this is going on, I’ll continue to work at the home, farm and auto supply store two days a week. Every dime of income has a place to be used at this point.

Declarations like mine about the garden are ephemeral. What matters more is a process of continual improvement in which life goes on as best we can make it until the final curtain falls. In the meanwhile, we expect there will be garden vegetables to eat.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Onslaught of the Mechanicals

First Carrots

Having time to garden is helping the results.

It is one thing to know what to do and another to execute according to that knowledge.

For the first time in I can’t remember when weeds did not get the better of me this summer. With plenty of grass clippings for mulch, and plastic to suppress weeds around the cucumbers and peppers, everything looks pretty good.

There is an abundant harvest already. I’m proud of the carrots in the photo, as this is the first year I’ve grown such big ones.

While gardening is going well, mechanical things around our 25-year old house are not.

I don’t know whether it was the dryer or the kitchen sink that had problems first. Then the washer went out… then the refrigerator. Yikes!

At this writing we hired repairmen to fix the washer, dryer and kitchen faucet, ordered a new refrigerator, and have a new freezer — all within eight days. Here’s hoping the onslaught of the mechanicals is finished.

Once the refrigerator arrives from the factory in a couple of weeks, we’ll get back to normal. In the meanwhile I just finished an ice run to town so I can refresh the four coolers in the morning. We’ll use our daughter’s college refrigerator and the coolers until a loaner arrives later this week.

Kate’s Garlic Rack

This morning I stopped at the two farms where I work to pick up final settlement checks. We’ll need those and more to pay for the mechanicals. There’s a lot of action at the farms. At Kate’s place the garlic is in the barn and looking great. At a CSA the farmer must grow enough for members plus an additional amount for seed in the fall. It is a big crop and the photo is only part of it.

I caught up with Carmen tilling a field and made arrangements to help with her garlic harvest on Saturday. She has an international crew of students helping us. I asked if there was any dill to make pickles. She said most of it bolted but I could glean what I could. There was plenty to make a gallon batch using yesterday’s cucumber harvest. Those pickles are already in a crock.

Recent days have been like an Indy 500 pit stop of getting things fixed and serviced. Now I’m ready to get back to the track.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Kale and Garlic Scape Pesto

Garlic Scapes

Here’s a second recipe for kale and garlic scape pesto. The first uses walnuts and Parmesan cheese and can be found here.

Get out the food processor and place it on the counter.

Measure the following and place in the bowl of the food processor in the same order:

Two thirds cup raw pine nuts
One third cup thinly sliced garlic scapes
One and one half cups roughly chopped kale, packed
One third cup whole basil leaves, packed
One teaspoon sea salt
One half teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Two tablespoons lemon juice. If fresh lemon, peel first and add the yellow rind
Two thirds cup extra virgin olive oil (reserved)

Turn on the processor and grind the mixture until it starts to break down.
Drizzle the olive oil into the mixture as the machine runs.

Scrape the bowl into a quart canning jar with a spatula.

Spread some immediately on a slice of sourdough bread toast for the cook and any kitchen visitors. Screw on the lid and refrigerate until ready to use.

Fresh pesto keeps only briefly without oxidation in the ice box. If you want to use it way later, put the jar in the freezer.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Garden Garlic

Garlic Patch

Garlic growing happened in our home garden.

After randomly planting it in a plot where it propagated year after year without care, last October I planted cloves the way I learned from my friend and mentor Susan Jutz.

I harvested 20 head of garlic this morning.

What made this year different was devoting time to find every available opportunity for good growth. It was worth it.

Following are some photos of the harvest.

Garlic Scapes
First Head of Garlic
The Garlic Harvest
Makeshift Garlic Rack

Now that the harvest is in the garage, I’m heading to the kitchen to make some kale-garlic scape pesto for lunch.

Categories
Living in Society Writing

Pickling

Pickling Cucumbers

Beginning Monday, I’ll be covering the editor’s desk for Trish Nelson at Blog for Iowa for the month of July.

Everyone needs a vacation and Trish works harder and more persistently than most to get a progressive message up every weekday.

That means a lot of writing for me. It also means I get better with the work. I’m looking forward to the renewal.

With work at the farms finished and the home, farm and auto supply store down to two days per week, There is more time for writing.

For today, it’s home repairs, cleaning and making the first batch of dill pickles with this morning’s harvest. It is expected to be a full day and for that I’m thankful.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Summer Harvest – 2018

Cart of Kale

It has already been a good year for our garden. We’re just getting started.

Yesterday I picked first broccoli, along with cucumbers and cilantro. The ice box is jammed with garlic scapes, greens, beets, turnips, lettuce, sugar snap peas, celery, herbs and much more.

Yet to come are pears, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, zucchini, and lots more. The challenge becomes figuring out what to do with the abundance through cooking, preserving and giving it away. It’s a nice challenge to face.

For dinner I made a simple salad with oddly shaped cucumbers from the garden. The recipe is easy: peel and chop cucumbers from the garden, four small ones; one cup Greek yogurt; two teaspoons finely chopped fresh dill; salt and pepper to taste. Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl and gently stir until fully incorporated. Refrigerate until dinner time. Served with a simple pasta dish, the flavor was excellent, the meal satisfying — perfect summer fare.

Our news is we found a plumber who fixed our ailing kitchen faucet. After 25 years of normal use the brass ring where the lever hooks to the valve had worn out and we couldn’t draw water. I examined the problem in the morning and determined since the pipes were soldered together, fixing it was beyond my skill level. I made three calls before getting a live person on the telephone. The plumber arrived within a couple of hours.

“As long as there is indoor plumbing there will be work for plumbers like me,” he said.

Once the repair was completed, we admired the new faucet… for more than a little while. It’s small things like running water in the kitchen that make our lives better. A brief interruption in service brought with it an appreciation of things we take for granted.

It rained overnight, vindicating my decision not to water the garden last night. Rain nourishes the landscape and can wash away our problems if we’ll let it. Knowing how to go with the flow of rainfall can be a source of constant joy.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Reviews

Summer Begins

First Marketmore Cucumber

A letter from our rural medical clinic reached me early this morning. I read every word it had to say.

I said, the letter reached me early this morning, I read every word it had to say.

Rural life ain’t nothing but the blues, how much longer can we live this way?

The physician I saw in April is moving his practice to Williamsburg — too far to drive for routine appointments. His replacement is an ARNP, which stands for advanced registered nurse practitioner. I read the definition but don’t understand what it means except we’re changing from two physicians to one… another nail in the coffin of rural health care.

We’re lucky to live close to the clinic’s hospital, and a large teaching hospital operates in the county seat. We won’t be deprived of care. I don’t look forward to changing physicians for the fourth time since leaving my transportation career.

I’ll try the new arrangement. What else is there to do?

This is the last weekend for soil blocking at the two CSA farms. After that, the farmers will make their own for the remaining fall share starts. I’m taking a break before returning to the orchard in August.

I finished reading The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks before heading to the garden.

The shepherd went to Oxford, so it’s natural he would do something outside the normal range for a sheep herder. He’s been traveling and speaking to groups of farmers about his life in the Lake District of England. Last January in Ames, he spoke to members of Practical Farmers of Iowa at their annual convention. They made a YouTube of his speech. I haven’t viewed it yet.

What struck me about the book is the comparison with Iowa. Not necessarily what one might think.

On the one hand a well-settled place of William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Beatrix Potter and the Lake Poets. In front of us a landscape barely settled since the Black Hawk War of 1832. Any sense of ancient Iowa prairie is long gone and replaced with a grid of roads outlining row cropped fields and concentrated animal feeding operations. The long history of sheep herding in the Lake District served as a reminder most Iowa farmers are recent trespassers as agriculture and land use continue to evolve. There won’t always be soy and corn in what was once an ancient lake bed.

Rebanks informed my view of the annual cycle of sheep farmers. Now I know why some of my friends are so stressed during spring lambing. I’m sorry I missed the speech, and when spring farm work is done, I plan to spend the hour to watch it.

For the time being back to working on the garden to chase away these summertime blues.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Heat Advisory Blues

Rest Area in Polk County, Iowa

It seems like spring was never here.

Big Grove is under a heat advisory until 7 p.m. today. That means hot temperatures and high humidity creating a risk of heat-related illnesses. It barely cooled overnight so the day gets a head start on being oppressive.

There is a three hour gardening window before temperatures rise back into the 80s. As soon as the sun rises, I plan to harvest what’s ready and plant bell peppers and basil seedlings. There’s a lot of gardening and yard work to do. I’ll keep at it as long as I can.

The rest of today I’ll work inside — at my desk, in the kitchen, and folding laundry — getting ready for another busy week.

My shirt was drenched with sweat on the drive home from Des Moines yesterday. I made a pit stop at a state run rest area and bought a 20-ounce cherry Coke to drink on the way home. I can’t recall the last time I had one but couldn’t bear the thought of buying bottled water. Regretfully, I forgot my refillable water bottle at home.

I finished making and canning spring vegetable broth after arriving home. Seven new jars are on the shelf with three and a half more in the ice box, about three gallons. My target is to have two dozen quarts on hand, so another batch of seven will do it. There are plenty of turnip and beet greens plus kale for the broth.

We have a functioning air conditioner and will run it to cool down the house. It takes the edge off the heat and humidity and that’s positive. I learned the oppression of high heat and humidity during the drought of 2012. It felt like there was no escape. Today reminds me of that summer.

Light peeks around the curtain on the east side of my study. It’s time to get out in the garden for a while. And to contemplate what is next.