Tag: Kitchen Garden

To Market, to Market

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 16, 2013

CEDAR RAPIDS— Saturday was my first trip to a farmers market this season. An abundant garden, combined with a share from our CSA, reduced demand for outside produce. Until now, the cucumbers, zucchini and squash for our salads have come from the grocery store. Greenhouse operators now have local ones available, and that is reason enough to switch to the market.

There are more reasons. Depending upon how busy the farmers were at the market, they were a source of information about how they grew produce. It is a form of community knowledge about weather, temperatures and techniques for gardeners and producers that is hard to match. Hearing stories about how the early season was wet and cold, and the impact on growing, either taught me something new or ratified my own experience. Communal knowledge is part of being a producer, even small scale ones like a home gardener.

The market served to address some deficiencies in my planning this year. Not enough radishes, turnips behind schedule because of delayed planting, and kohlrabi fizzled as seeds. The farmers market made up for most of this.

The leafy green vegetables all looked good at vendor stalls, but my garden has plenty. I bought some broccoli to allow mine to grow a few more days before harvesting. Cucumbers, zucchini and yellow squash looked much better than what is available at the grocery store— everything did. Here’s what I ended up purchasing.

Farmers Market Supplies — Farmers Market Purchases

Some of the produce was cheap, turnips with greens for $0.50 each, cucumbers for a dollar. At $3 a head, lettuce seemed pricey, but I bought a pound of local honey because the pricing point seemed right at $5. Maple syrup was too dear, and I didn’t stop at any of the prepared food stalls. I budgeted the $18 I had in my wallet for the shopping trip, and spent it all.

My approach was to consider what was priced right and how items would fit into the coming week’s meals. Honey for bread making; radishes, cucumber, zucchini and yellow squash for salads; the turnips to make soup; broccoli for dinner that night and kohlrabi for an experiment of cooking it with potatoes— getting ready for the generous supply from the CSA. I kept looking at the beautiful greens, but sensibly resisted the temptation to buy more— really, I did.

As many as 20,000 shoppers come to the Cedar Rapids market on a Saturday. It’s what makes the market. It is cheap entertainment for a family, and produce is fresh and tasty raw material for an afternoon of transforming it into dishes and meals. There is a lot to write about farmers markets, but, importantly, they are a key part of the current local food system. How to use the combination of a home garden, grocery store, farmers market and CSA will be the topic of my next post. It is the case for sustainability of a local food system, beginning in a home kitchen.

Tags cooking, Kitchen Garden, Local Events, local food, Sustainability

Chance of Rain and Falafel

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 12, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— Watering the garden this morning was a no-brainer. It hasn’t rained for a couple of days and the ground was dry and crunchy yesterday. We may get some rain after lunch, a 60 percent chance of precipitation beginning at 3 p.m., but why not let the plants benefit from the moisture now? Probably should have watered after returning from Coralville last night.

One of the blogs I follow posted a recipe for baked falafel, so I tried a batch this morning. They recipe came out well, but raised the question of what kind of sauce. Improvising by mixing two teaspoons of mayonnaise with a teaspoon of branded Il Primo Giardiniera Spread from the ice box, falafel made a great second breakfast before heading out to the farm. Today’s recipe, already modified by adding some olive oil and a bit of water to bind the mixture, will be a starting point for perfecting this snack-type dish for regular use.

Full day’s work ahead, so better get to it.

Tags Kitchen Garden, lettuce, local food

Home Life Kitchen Garden

Trimming the Mulberry Tree

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 11, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— Reaching into the cooler, forearms covered with sawdust and sweat, I pulled out the last remaining bottle of chilled water. At 86 degrees and the air full of gnats, my mouth was dry. I drank greedily— momentary coolness quenching my thirst.

The mulberry tree grew from a seed dropped long ago by a bird sitting on the rebar marker of the corner of our property. Because of the way it grew, three of us now own a part of that tree, although I have been its caretaker. In this tree I first saw Cedar Waxwings eating berries. Under it, the deer and rabbits graze on the fallen mulberries. While a volunteer, it has been a good tree and too long neglected.

A neighbor asked me to trim it because the branches were so low he couldn’t get under it with his riding mower. I thought to myself, “that’s my problem too.” Today it was pruned. It looks much better with all the low hanging and dead branches cut away. The mulberries are beginning to ripen, indicating the turn of the season to summer.

The Great Eastern Iowa Tractorcade is a thing here. Farmers from all over get together in Cedar Rapids and for four days, go on extended excursions in tractors of all kinds. Some of the equipment is older than I am and still working in fields. The caravan extended a long distance, and based on the errand I was running when I passed the tractorcade, it took more than an hour for them all to pass the lane to our home. It is a chance for families to do something fun to show off their farm pride. Children of farm parents take time off city jobs to participate.

It’s the lettuce season and more in the local food arena. The lettuce in our garden looks better than I have ever grown it. The CSA has been providing four or more heads of lettuce per week, so between both sources there is enough to be generous with our friends.

The lettuce seeds I planted last week have sprouted, growing the next batch of seedlings to plant later in the month.

I picked the second cut of spinach from the first row of plants, washed and froze the leaves on a cookie sheet with a silicone mat. Once they were frozen, I bagged them for cooking later in the year. We usually make a spinach-rice casserole with frozen spinach leaves.

Each day is bringing plenty of work, and progress in getting the yard and garden in shape. After so many years of neglect, it needs it. At the end of a day, before an evening meeting, supper is a salad made with what’s on hand in the fridge. A simple spring life in Big Grove.

Tags homelife, Kitchen Garden, lettuce, local food, spring

Kitchen Garden

In the Onion Patch

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 8, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— The harvest was 100+ spring onions, but that was not the plan. The weeds had taken over the onion patch when I went to pull them yesterday— they were too intertwined with the onions to separate them, and while attempting to preserve the onions, I ended up pulling them out. One of the produce drawers in the refrigerator is now half full of clean spring onions, which isn’t all bad.

The trouble was the onion sets should have been mulched immediately upon planting— a lesson for next year. Part of the problem is that my supply of mulch (a.k.a. grass clippings) wasn’t ready then. Another issue is that while I spaced the onions well in the rows, the rows need to be further apart to enable the gardener to access them for weeding. Live and learn, but this year won’t bring the big onion harvest for which I had hoped.

After clearing the onion patch, I mowed and bagged the lawn and now there is a tall pile of mulch where the hope of onions used to be. This afternoon’s forecast is for a 10 percent chance of precipitation, so a-mulching I will go around the Brussels sprouts, broccoli, peppers, and everything else.

It will be easy to fill the onion patch with other plants, as two trays of seedlings are ready for transplanting. They will now see service in the space formerly known as onion patch.

Tags Kitchen Garden, local food, onions

Kitchen Garden

Ely Farmers Market and Garden Update

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 5, 2013

ELY— Two vendors braved threatening rain to set up tables at the Ely farmers market yesterday. I didn’t stop. Our refrigerator is full of leafy green vegetables from our garden and the CSA. This vegetable season will produce an abundance of variety and quantity. Already I have begun putting things up: freezing rhubarb and canning soup stock. We should support our local growers; however, there is a limit to how much one consumer can help. What’s needed is a movement supporting locally grown food. There wasn’t a lot of traffic at the market, indicating local movement in other directions.

It is still spring despite passing two unofficial starts of summer: Memorial Day weekend, and the release of children from school. What that means is the ravages of insects has not begun, and the leaves on the trees maintain their fresh wholeness. It won’t belong before the bugs begin to find the delicate food— there is a sliver of springtime to be enjoyed before summer starts.

I would make a list of all the garden produce and its progress, but that seems too Edmund Spenser or Walt Whitman. English majors take note that every list or inventory is not a good one, and how many times can a person write about the progress of apples in the garden and make it interesting? There is a big difference between spending time in the garden and writing about it, although one should really be an extension of the other. Suffice it to compromise by posting a photo of developing apples.

The pressing needs of the garden are to prepare another plot for planting and to weed, weed, weed. The first four plots are growing well, and number five has three bur oak tree saplings, the remains of the garlic and bulbs of iris to be removed. It will be a relatively big project to return that space to production. It was also the first one dug and planted when we moved to Big Grove almost 20 years ago. Did I mention the garden needs weeding?

Tags apples, Kitchen Garden, local food, spring

Home Life Kitchen Garden

The Best Days

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 1, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— These are the best days. Partly cloudy, temperatures around 70, low humidity and plenty of outside work. We enjoy them when we can.

It’s not to say there is complete escape from the troubles of the world. Yet, for a few moments, beneath the cloudy heavens, it is possible to forget— a reason to anticipate such times with great fervor.

Today was what local food is. There were major farmers markets in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. Between the CSA and my garden, we have most of what we need for the week, so I passed. After an hour at the newspaper, I did go to the grocery store to buy provisions: dairy, out of season vegetables and a few special items— popcorn, chocolate, snack crackers. The bill was much lower than usual as a result of growing so much of our own food, combined with working down the pantry.

When I arrived home, the rest of the morning was yard work, pruning the pin oak tree and repairing the erosion near the ditch with bagged soil and grass seed. The majority of the afternoon was harvesting, planting and processing vegetables: radishes, lettuce, turnip greens and oregano.

I picked the rest of the first row of radishes and put them in a bucket. Next, I harvested all of the first planting of lettuce. This cleared a space to till the soil and re-plant two rows of radishes and the rest of the first crop of lettuce seedlings. My garden mentor said one of the biggest mistakes home gardeners make is failing to plant in succession. There will be more plantings of lettuce and radishes.

Near the herb garden I cut a gallon bucket full of oregano from the volunteer plant. Finally, I picked most of the turnip leaves, leaving only those plants that looked like the root would fill out. The turnips grow too tall, too fast, and block out the nearby spinach. I have been thinking about the turnip greens since winter.

At the end of the harvest, I had a bushel of lettuce, five gallons of turnip greens, and regular one gallon buckets of oregano and radishes. A gardener has to keep the produce moving to make optimal use of it. I spent the rest of the day processing the harvest.

The radishes were easy. I trimmed them and placed them in a glass of water. They won’t last long. The oregano was also easy. Since two plants wintered (I only had one last year), the plan is to dry the leaves and make a jar of oregano flakes for cooking. I washed the leaves on the stem, placed them on clean towels on the front step, let the sun dry them and put them on the shelves of the dehydrator to finish drying. I don’t turn the dehydrator on. The temperature is too hot for herbs.

The bigger processing projects were picking through the lettuce to find the best leaves— cleaning, cleaning drying and bagging it; and making a large pot of turnip leaf soup stock for canning. Turnips make the best base for vegetarian soup stock, although leeks, if I have them, are good too.

As the day ended, I turned off the soup, left it on the stove and went to bed. Sunday will be back to the realities of finding suitable paying work, putting up the soup stock in jars, and weeding the garden.

Tags homelife, Kitchen Garden, lettuce, local food, radishes, turnips

Kitchen Garden

Garden Update

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date May 30, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— The house doors are open, creating a cross breeze that is very nice. This morning has been weeding the garden, and cleaning up the kitchen, neither of which jobs is close to finished. Time for an update on local food and the garden, beginning with the lawn.

With the abundant rains, the lawn had gotten lush and long. I spent three hours yesterday cutting and bagging the clippings on a third of the property, and now my tomatoes have their first layer of mulch to suppress weeds. Some say it is a bad idea to use grass clippings to mulch the garden because the seeds of weeds may be included. Others say the grass clippings should be left on the lawn for mulch. I am more concerned about suppressing the weeds in the garden. The rest of the spring grass clipping harvest is expected to take another four hours.

The tomatoes grown from seed and transplanted into the garden have taken. This year’s tomato plan means planting less in my plot, but because of my relationships with other growers, we should have more and diverse varieties. With the mulch being laid down, there is not much to do with tomatoes other than to watch them grow.

With our share from the CSA plus the greens from our garden, we are having salads daily, most times as a meal. The types of lettuce from each source are complementary, and there is plenty of produce to load each meal with veggie goodness. The key lesson I am learning this year is to keep planting lettuce and greens throughout the season. It will be a year of abundance.

We will have a bumper crop of oregano, and I am using the dehydrator to dry some of the herbage. A little goes a long way, so if I can store a small jar of dried oregano, it will last the winter.

Much more to write about, but there’s work to do.

Tags Kitchen Garden, local food, spring

Kitchen Garden

On the Road and In the Garden

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date May 18, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— Swiss chard, collard greens and kale have sprouted in the seed trays as the garden fills up with my plantings, and weeds. Spring has everything growing. After pulling weeds for a couple of hours, all we will need is mild temperatures, some rain, and then more weeding.

It is uncertain the transplanted lettuce seedlings will survive. After 24 hours in the ground some look a bit wilted. Will see how watering and the night air does them. The backup plan is to use the other half of the tray for replacements if needed.

The broadcast lettuce and arugula did very well, and will soon be ready for harvest. Broadcast seems the way to go for kitchen garden lettuce. A few snips and there would be salad for two or four without worrying about nicely formed heads. The epiphany about lettuce growing was working at the CSA and planting individual lettuce seeds in soil blocks. It takes time, but the results can be worth it if transplanting can work here as it does for others. There is really no reason it can’t— it takes practice.

I attended a funeral today. Mass was held in the church where my parents were married and where I was baptized and received First Communion. Mass was held for my father there in 1969, although he was not Catholic. Today, someone shared a memory of Dad’s funeral from when she was singing in the eighth grade choir. It was a special moment, possible only in special places in our lives.

A generation is passing to the other side, and recently, there have been plenty of funerals to attend. Parents of my cohorts, especially the World War II generation, have been leaving us for a while— their numbers among the living are dwindling. Each event has been a reunion, and a moving forward. We miss them, but know there is new life to be lived.

I stopped at the cemetery where my father and many relatives are buried. Birds left their excrement all over Dad’s marker. After pulling dandelions from around it, I regretted leaving the grass clippers on the work bench. Next trip over, I’ll bring clippers, a gallon of water and rags to tidy the grave— to feel like I contributed something. That memorial day is approaching escaped me and what the hell. The birds own the cemetery most of the time.

An accident on Interstate 80 had traffic backed up for miles, making the trip home tedious and desultory. As we crawled toward the scene of the accident, a wreck of a car was being winched onto a flatbed. There was a magnetic sign on the side that said “caution: student driver.” They use those signs for a reason.

By the time I returned to Big Grove, the idea of proof reading the newspaper was out. After watering the garden, I walked over to a neighbor with a gift box of seedlings for their garden. Her two little children were with her in the yard, learning about the world. Is it possible to see things a they do, at least for a while? Answering that question is the stuff of dreams.

Tags Kitchen Garden

Kitchen Garden

Gardening Trees

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date May 14, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— Sometimes gardening is about trees— mistakes that were made with saplings, acorns planted intentionally, and a host of maple and locust tree seeds that sprout voluntarily. If you work a full-time, stressful job, I don’t recommend planting saplings or growing oak trees in the garden, as they can get away from you before you know it.

Locust Tree

My locust trees are forty feet tall and growing in what used to be the center of the garden. Each year they yield a host of seed pods and invariably dozens of seeds sprout in the spring. Temping as it is to grow more full sized trees, the seedlings are plucked and composted. Two mature trees in the garden is enough. Their shade protected the spinach and lettuce during last year’s drought.

I have a row of three oak trees planted from acorns collected the year our daughter graduated from high school. The challenge will be to dig them up and place them around the yard now that they are ten to twelve feet tall. I have a mind to replace the misshapen green ash tree with one of them. The other two will likely go on the south side of the house for shade in a decade or so. Moving them would make the garden plot where they sprouted and grew more usable for vegetables. It will be a big job.

Growing trees requires a different way of thinking from planting vegetable seeds. Our yard had two trees when we moved here, of which only the mulberry remains. The rest of them are a reflection of thinking and planning, some better than the others, and we appreciate the shade and fruit our trees provide.

Today’s garden report is of planting green pepper and parsley seedlings, and sowing spinach, collard, kale and Swiss chard seeds. The weeding has also begun. I also re-potted some broccoli seedlings and started a tray of leafy green vegetable seeds. I continued to experiment with a high fence to discourage deer from jumping it. It looks kind of dopey, so maybe the deer will shun association with it. Here’s hoping.

I feel like calling off work and continuing to work in the garden, something I have never done in my work life. Nice as the weather is, it’s very tempting.

Tags Kitchen Garden

Kitchen Garden

Frost versus Hard Frost

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date May 13, 2013

LAKE MACBRIDE— There is a difference between a frost and a hard frost, and last night’s temperature dip provided an example of what it means. From looking at the thumbnail to the left, one likely can’t see the frost damage on these yellow squash seedlings. If the reader clicks on it, the damage is evident along the left row.

Try a closer view of one of the plants and see the blackened, frost-damaged leaf. The big picture is that temperatures at ground level are not uniform, and while some leaves were damaged, the patch of yellow squash plants survived the frost as a whole. Last night, when I decided that a 34 degree overnight forecast did not warrant covering the seedlings, I pushed the envelope, but my judgment was vindicated by this morning’s surviving squash patch.

Likewise, the seedlings that matter most to my summer salad plate were safely put away in the garage.

Apples are another matter. My report is that bees are busy pollinating this morning, and an apple crisis due to frost like last year was averted. There are some blossom petals on the ground, indicating post-pollination, but not many. Today the apple trees were again in full bloom.

The closeup shows there was some frost damage, but not enough to endanger the entire crop.

In the work-a-day world, people may not have time to spend closely observing the garden, and do worry about frost. At the same time, Mother Nature will provide for us, if we provide for her. There is no need to worry, just evaluate available information against one’s experience, think, take action, and live with the results.

If the yellow squash seedlings had all frosted, there is time to replant this spring. If my squash fails completely, other growers provide my safety network. In the web of life, we are never alone to face the frost, and that should provide some comfort.

Tags apples, Kitchen Garden, local food