Tag: Kitchen Garden

First Tomato

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date July 13, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— The first two cherry tomatoes were ripe in the garden, so I picked them, along with three meals worth of green beans, two cucumbers, a bunch of kale, two stalks of broccoli and two kohlrabi. In addition, I planted more cucumbers and Swiss chard. There remains plenty to eat in our household.

It’s time to review the seed packets and plan the rest of the year’s planting. July 25 is the traditional day to plant fall turnips, and more radishes, green beans, cucumbers and spinach are in the works. The lettuce seedlings I planted about a week ago appear to be taking, and I’ll plant more before the summer is over. Because of succession planting, the salad days, where we can have fresh salads with dinner, may extend the whole summer. Here’s hoping.

When the morning garden work was finished, I cleaned up and drove to Lake Macbride State Park to sit on a bench and write. On an impulse, I stopped by a friend’s home where he was returning from a neighbor’s home with a bucket of just-picked Lodi apples. Lodi is one of the earliest producing cultivars, and the fruit is used in baking, applesauce and cider making. He offered and I took four to make a dessert. We chatted for a while, and then made arrangements to go foraging for black raspberries after supper.

With the sun heading for the horizon, we met up and drove a few miles to a mutual friend’s acreage. We spent about 90 minutes trolling the wood line, where all kinds of produce was evident. Wild plums, hickory nuts, blackberries not ripe yet, and plenty of ripe black raspberries. We filled two gallon jugs and split the proceeds.

We toured the property owner’s garden and the apricots were ripe, falling from the tree. Like many gardens in the area, this year it is doing well.

On the drive home, we talked about the Michigan cherries due in at a local orchard on Saturday. I plan to stop by and participate in the summer cycle of fresh produce and the social life surrounding it. Not sure which I like better, and both seem inextricably intertwined.

Tags apples, Kitchen Garden, local food

Home Life Kitchen Garden

Making Pesto and Other Things

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date July 2, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— Summer’s harvest has been bountiful and we are less than two weeks in. Keeping up with the vegetables we grow and get from the CSA, has been a challenge of cooking, preserving, refrigerator and freezer space, and rotation. Thus far, little that was brought into the house spoiled. We are thankful to have enough food to eat in a society where so many people go hungry. Even our small town of 2,037 souls requires a food bank, making adequate food for everyone a tangible, local issue.

Yesterday was the first pick of green beans and we steamed them for dinner. Over the years Asian aphids have been a pest for this annual favorite— to the extent I quit planting them for a while. This year they were pristine in the basket. Not sure what happened, but I suspect row-crop farmers didn’t care for the damage to soybeans, and “did something” during the past few years.

I picked broccoli for dinner, and some Swiss chard. Spinach is ready to harvest, the last before the fall planting. There is also lettuce ready to go and plenty of herbs. The apple trees are still looking good: no sign of dreaded Popillia japonica, or Japanese beetle, which during previous years had made its debut by the first of July. Last year was a horrible year with them, and they are sure to arrive soon.

A summer indulgence is to make pesto. The process is simple. Into blender put a cup of first cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, with equal amounts of chopped garlic scapes, basil leaves and kale leaves with the stems removed. Blend the mixture, adding enough olive oil to make it a liquid, or additional garlic and basil to thicken it. Then add a handful of pine nuts, half a cup of Parmesan cheese and salt to taste. Blend until the mixture is a thick puree. The recipe produced enough to fill Mason jars with pesto for the freezer. I reserved some for immediate use, of course.

The thing about pesto, is it can be made with a number of summer greens and herbs. It’s a way to preserve the summer harvest. The other thing is a person can consume only so much of the delicious spread/sauce at a time. For now, we’re living the high life and contemplating dishes, other than just spreading it on bread, in which to use it. Pesto pasta will definitely be one dish on the menu.

Once one is plugged into the local food system, there is little cost to make pesto, except for the olive oil, which is always a luxury. During the summer harvest, a gardener and cook can live in the lap of luxury, even on a limited budget.

Tags Kitchen Garden, local food, recipes

Kitchen Garden

Battle for the Cruciferous Vegetables

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 29, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— Summer arrived and the battle for the cruciferous vegetables has begun in earnest. The progeny of the white butterflies— that were flitting about laying eggs less than two weeks ago— have arrived in large numbers. Too many to count, the small green caterpillars have done their damage to broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards and kale leaves planted in the middle southern garden plot. They either like something or they don’t because the Swiss chard planted between the kale and collards was untouched by the caterpillars. The bugs also appeared in the spring vegetable plot where I put a few extra broccoli and kohlrabi seedlings. They don’t seem to bother the turnips, radishes and arugula, also cruciferous vegetables, although something else pokes tiny holes in those leaves.

I don’t have many defenses, except to limit the damage by picking off the caterpillars and dropping them into a bucket of soapy water. Because my fingers are so big compared to the bugs, I went to the medical supply house and bought a surgical grade, stainless steel forceps to aid me in plucking them off the leaves. It’s a nice piece of equipment.

I harvested all of the kale to get rid of one food source for them. It is now debugged, washed, dried and stored in the refrigerator. I have new collard, Swiss chard and kale seedlings ready to plant, so I need to consider where to put them. Outside the current colony/restaurant for caterpillar dining, methinks.

While I mull that over, I’ll make a smoothie with kale, strawberries, peach, Greek yogurt, honey and ice. By acting quickly, I got my share of the kale harvest and intend to enjoy it.

Tags Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability

Writing

Turnip Harvest

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 27, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— Today was the turnip harvest, and the crop was the best ever: plenty to use this season, and more to give away. There were so many greens that once I reserved a couple of gallons for soup stock, the rest went into the compost. It is turnip city over here.

We have a tradition to make soup stock in our household when the turnips are in. A large pot is coming to a boil on the stove. It includes, broccoli stalks, carrots, onions, celery, zucchini, yellow squash, bay leaves and importantly, the turnip greens which color the stock deep brown and add a delicious flavor. No salt is added until the stock is used in the final application. After cooking for a few hours, the stock will be turned off, to sit on the stove overnight, and canned in Mason jars tomorrow. In the past, I’ve used the cooked vegetables from stock making as a base for barbeque sauce, but I have several jars leftover from the last batch.

With all of the large roots, we’ll have roasted root vegetables with turnips, potatoes and onions. If we had similarly size beets, those would be added. The recipe is easy— cut everything in half, approximately the same size. Coat with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, and place open side down on a cookie sheet. Roast at 350 degrees for one hour or until done. It is a highlight of the season.

According to a CSA farmer, July 25 is the date to plant the second crop of turnips, and I’m about ready. One more row this year should be sufficient, and if I can find beet seeds, I’ll plant those as well. The question is how to arrange the spring vegetable patch for optimal July planting. A topic for another day as I bask in a successful harvest of a traditional vegetable in our family.

Tags cooking, homelife, Kitchen Garden, local food

Kitchen Garden Living in Society

Vegetable Gardening and DOMA

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 27, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— When President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, it seemed wrong. It was one more in a series of his actions I didn’t like. The political reasons for denying federal employee benefits were easy to understand. The blatant discrimination was not, and time and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decision yesterday vindicated the judgment of those who felt like I did.

Yesterday, bills were introduced in the U.S. House and Senate to remove DOMA completely, as some don’t feel SCOTUS went far enough in saying, “DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.” The decision was good enough for me, although I downloaded the text and will read it— comparing it to Iowa’s Brien v. Varnum, dated April 3, 2009, that held the state’s limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.

After three days of rain, thunder, lightning and hail, I spent time in the garden yesterday. Contrary to my previous post, I found hail damage, particularly on leaves of cucumber and squash plants. The damage was not severe, but a lot of leaves had small punctures.

Food production is outpacing our kitchen’s ability to store and process it. This afternoon’s local food shift at home will include harvesting turnips, preparing and freezing broccoli, planting seedlings and rearranging the fencing in the plot where the green beans are located. With the rain and fair weather, combined with more knowledgeable planting, this year’s garden is already a bin buster. More food will be given away as the week progresses.

At the farm, I soil blocked for the seventeenth week yesterday. The seeds planted are for fall harvest of cucumbers, broccoli and cabbage. While I was working, one crew had finished and was doing bicycle maintenance near the machine shed, and another was processing kohlrabi for share holders. The germination building was completely empty, and when I entered to get trays for soil blocking, the temperature was intensely warm. Seedlings trays were on wagons under a nearby tree to avoid the heat while they waited for planting.

With the rain, trip to Des Moines and farm work, everything is behind this week. Hopefully today will be a catch up day as I endeavor to stay on the property, with nose to the grindstone.

Tags Kitchen Garden, local food, politics

Environment Kitchen Garden

A Local Food Saturday

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 22, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— Herbs are abundant in the garden, so I have been making dishes that taste better with fresh herbs: red beans and rice with fresh thyme, pasta sauce with fresh basil, and bread with sun-dried tomato and fresh rosemary. Each iteration of a dish, prepared in a moment of time, has consequence in our lives. Every bowl of soup, sandwich and plate of pasta is different for a home cook. Sometimes the food is better than others— our homemade meals speak to who we are, what we want to be and what we can be.

The idea of local food Saturday is simple. In order for there to be a vibrant and sustainable local food system, individuals must want to find, purchase and cook with local food items. We have to make a market in the things we hold dear. That’s how I landed on the important role home cooks can play in sustaining a local food system. Saturday is a weekend choice that fits a lot of people. It’s not like I am the first to come up with this— I’m not.

It is possible, and rewarding, to change our outlook from a being a consumer who goes to market to being a producer of home cooked meals that includes local food. One could do as well to develop a meal plan that includes local food and local food outlets, since almost no one cooks all, or even most of their own food at home.

The act of buying is such a brief part of our lives. We should make the most of it by unchaining ourselves from the mega-mart and relegating grocery stores to a more proper role as supplemental sources of provisions. It costs nothing to change one’s perspective, and the financial and personal payoff can be superior.

What did I do with the items in the photo from last Saturday’s farmers market?

The turnips were an impulse purchase as I could have waited a week to get fresh from my garden. I cut and washed the greens, cutting about a cup into quarter inch strips for soup, and putting the remainder in a container to use as cooking greens later in the week. Using the bulbs, I made turnip soup that included a quart of homemade stock, carrot, onion, celery, the turnip greens and the finely sliced stalk of the broccoli in the photo. I added dried chervil, salt and a bay leaf to make four servings.

The kohlrabi was for an experiment cooking it with potatoes. There will be a number of kohlrabi from the CSA, and a couple are growing in the garden. I’m trying to figure out how to use them. They also go well in a salad, cut into raw, matchstick-sized bits.

The radishes, cucumbers and zucchini were for fresh salads. The garden and CSA are producing lots of lettuce, and we have salad almost every night— sometimes as a meal. Lettuce and other leafy green vegetables are an important part of a local food system, and because we produce our own, there are none in the photo. The yellow squash was to slice and cook with greens.

Broccoli was to steam with dinner as it is a favorite and the broccoli in the garden was not ready yet. One stalk is not much, so we also steamed the last of the fresh asparagus from the CSA. A vegetable side dish to soup and a salad seems a bit weird, but was delicious nonetheless.

Finally there is the local honey. I got it home and realized there was another open jar in the pantry. I made the previously mentioned bread with local honey, fresh rosemary, sun dried tomatoes and a custom mix of flours.

In all, I spent about two hours in the kitchen with local food preparation, not including the rising time of the bread. On average, people spend a lot less kitchen time in a day, but ganging up on the prep work on Saturday made for better meals later during the week.

The revolution in local food will come when we change our attitude from being a consumer of goods to a producer. There will be a time when our lives are more interesting than who gets booted on the television program “Chopped.” For some of us, that time is already here, at least on Saturday afternoons.

Tags cooking, farming, Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability

Home Life

Some Summer Pest Problems

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 21, 2013

Tags Kitchen Garden

Kitchen Garden

Garden at the End of Spring

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 19, 2013

Tags Kitchen Garden, spring, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden

June Lettuce Planting

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 17, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— According to a local organic farmer, “one of the most common mistakes home gardeners make is not planting sequentially.” What does that mean?

Certain crops, like lettuce, spinach and radishes, have a short planting to harvest cycle, and multiple crops can be planted during a season. That is, as soon as one row is harvested, another can be planted as long as the plants can tolerate weather as it get hotter and dryer.

What I learned at the farm this year is that lettuce produces the best crops when they are planted as individual seeds in a starter tray, then transferred to the garden as seedlings when the ground is ready. This accomplishes two things.

First, and this is really important, when planting lettuce, plant individual seeds, using a starter tray, or an old egg carton. Because lettuce seeds are so small, the temptation is to sow more than one together. By using a starter tray, and one seed per cell, if one cell fails to germinate, no problem when planting the seedlings in the rows in the soil. If the seed didn’t produce in the starter tray, there is no seedling to transplant. Planting single seeds ensures sufficient moisture and nutrients for each head of lettuce by avoiding over-crowding. It makes for larger leaves.

Second, by planting seeds in trays, the garden space can be more productive. A four week old seedling will take less time to mature once it is planted in the garden. If timed properly, a garden can be in lettuce most of the summer, into fall. For example, I have two and four week seedlings started in successive trays. They’ll be ready to plant when the current crop is harvested.

Avoid a common mistake, plant lettuce sequentially this June.

~ Written for Iowa City Patch