Tag: Kitchen Garden

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Kitchen Garden

Garden is Calling

Last Year's Tomato Patch
Last Year’s Tomato Patch

LAKE MACBRIDE— Unexpectedly, there were no roadside deer as I drove back to Big Grove after midnight this morning. I am getting to know their grazing areas, and crossing points. Most post-midnights there are half a dozen or more encounters. Watching for them heightens my awareness of the world in which we live.

For shift workers, the last day of the week still means letting loose from the disciplines of a Monday through Friday job. The anticipation increases the last hour of the shift, when everyone is focused on finishing the day’s work and punching out. My warehouse peers did not invite me along to socialize after work, and I’m okay with that. During the wee hours of morning, I’d rather take a load off my feet, enjoy a snack and a glass of chilled water and head to bed. Actually, I’m not sure what I would do if asked into their non-work lives. Another new adventure, perhaps?

Today’s weather looks perfect for outdoors work. I’m off to the newspaper for a while, then the balance of the day is planned in the yard and garden— ending at a restaurant for dinner with out of town friends.

The list of garden tasks is long, but today I want to clear three of the plots for machine tilling next weekend. I’ll take some of the seedlings outside to season them and bring them back indoors at the end of the day. If the wind is down, I’ll burn the brush pile. Little time for computer life today. The garden is calling.

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Kitchen Garden

Rainy Morning

Work Bench
Work Bench

LAKE MACBRIDE— The forecast was rain and raining it is. The debate was whether to don my wax jacket and rubberized boots and venture out to clear last year’s tomato plot in the garden. It was not really a debate, but an internal dialogue balancing the need to get the garden ready for planting and the common sense notion that we should be in out of the rain. Not sure which side will dominate, but I’m leaning toward going outside. Actually I did go outside and explored the garden. It was showering small pellets of ice, not big enough to be hail, but not snow either. After checking yesterday’s work and the tomato patch, I headed back to the house.

Watering Station
Watering Station

I’m hauling the trays of seedlings to the garage, one at a time to water them. We use our bedroom window for exposure to sunlight, and am watering the trays from the bottom.  The soil has been continually moist, and the seedlings are growing. The idea seems to be working.

There is always work to support the garden, rain or no, although the continued cold and rainy weather feels like another setback. One feels this year’s garden is either going to be the greatest one ever, or a complete disaster, as long as the weather continues the way it has been.

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Kitchen Garden

Garden Work

Three Rows Planted Today
Three Rows Planted Today

LAKE MACBRIDE— Today was the first real work session in the garden and I cleaned up two of the plots, built my burn pile, evened out the ground near where the backhoe dug to fix the waterline leak last fall, and planted Cherry Belle Radishes, Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach and Purple Top White Globe turnips. The arugula and lettuce seeds have sprouted and survived the gully washer of a rain a few days ago. There are chives ready to cut, and the garlic patch is growing well. Three types of bulb flowers are growing, and after they flower, will be transplanted somewhere else. That is, except for the daylilies, which will be dug and transplanted as soon as I get around to it: nothing can kill those things.

A neighbor messaged me on Facebook, and a group of us is planning to go in on a rototiller rental. I usually dig by hand, but am okay with community projects like this. Partly, it means three plots have to be turned by spade to get ready for the rototiller in two weeks.

Last week, an experienced gardener said we had missed the opportunity for spring turnips, but I don’t know. I planted a row today, and will likely do another in a week or so. She said if one misses spring turnips, the date is July 25 for turnip planting. I’ll reserve some seeds for then and attempt a double crop.

It feels good to work in the sun and soil in the morning.

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Kitchen Garden

My Vegetable Life

Dandelion Greens
Dandelion Greens

LAKE MACBRIDE— For the first time in a few days, the concrete driveway was dry when the sun came up this morning. Temperatures are in the mid-30s presently, with a forecast of snow and/or rain, and a high of 43 degrees today. No planting in the garden for now.

I failed to notice the dandelion greens while shooting the photo of the culvert at the end of our driveway. They are at a stage ready for salads and cooking. The wreck that was the contractor ditch work last fall yielded something positive, at least in a culinary way. When the rain abates, I’ll repair the ditch damage, but today will be harvesting the greens. There is a yellow squash from the grocery store in the kitchen, so maybe a side dish of squash sauteed in olive oil, with onions and dandelion greens. Mmm.

My work at the CSA earns me a share of the vegetable harvest, so we should have enough vegetables to use fresh once the shares start coming in. Likewise, my relationships with other growers, combined with our home garden should yield enough to put up some items for winter. I have been avoiding this planning of the garden for too long.

Garden Seedlings
Garden Seedlings

Immersion in the local food producing culture means my focus in the home garden can be on a smaller number of vegetables. Items like kohlrabi, cabbage, potatoes, sweet corn and fresh tomatoes can be outsourced to others who will provide them in abundance as part of the normal process. My space can be used for items that more closely integrate into our garden kitchen, which serves two purposes, cooking fresh and local ingredients, and putting up vegetables as specialty items for off-season.

In practical terms, this means an expanded herb garden, more leafy greens, different kinds of tomatoes (the CSA will provide heirloom and Roma), and more onions, turnips, broccoli, bell peppers, cucumbers and squash. I will also plant some different kinds of hot peppers. The intention is to use all of this fresh, with some of the spinach leaves frozen whole, and any excess either given away or sold at a farmers market.

On my canning repertory is: vegetarian soup stock (using turnip greens, and the green parts of leeks if I have them), various tomato products (diced, juice, sauce), an annual garden ends salsa (sweet and savory types), sauerkraut, pickled hot peppers, apples (sauce, butter, juice), and some other items. Notably absent is pickles, and I have not found a recipe we like. Whatever I grow in my garden plots will also support the canning effort.

Under overcast skies, there are greens to harvest, and much more planning to get done before spring bursts on the scene— which should be soon (we hope).

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Kitchen Garden

Buds Everywhere

Fallen Maple Tree Buds
Fallen Maple Tree Buds

LAKE MACBRIDE— After the gully-washer yesterday, one noticed the buds of trees and bushes coming out. Lilacs, maple, oak, apple, pear— all of them. Spring has been here by the calendar, but these buds are a better sign of the season’s actuality.

At the same time, gardeners and vegetable farmers are itching to get into the ground, but debating whether it is warm enough to transfer from the greenhouse to the hoop house. It’s still too cold and wet to put much in  the ground.

A few earlies are in, spinach, and broadcast lettuce and arugula, and there are considerations. Should we skip spring turnips and peas, and get into the soil with transplants from the greenhouse trays instead. That is, when the danger of frost is past.

Someone received a shipment of chicks and is working to keep them warm in the garage. Hundreds of pounds of seed potatoes await planting, something that is traditionally done much earlier in the spring. It’s warm in the greenhouse, but seeds planted six weeks ago are past time for planting in the ground. There is a backlog of field work that will burst upon us, just as the buds on the trees and bushes are doing now.

There is a pent up energy soon to be unleashed in gardens and fields everywhere. If only we could get going. The time is not yet right.

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Kitchen Garden

Gardener’s Bucket List

LAKE MACBRIDE— A gardener cultivates and on most days that is enough. Whatever to-do lists he or she creates are eminently do-able, and require little more than human energy leveraging nature and selected tools on a plot of ground that is hopefully in close proximity to a kitchen.

Recently, there has been talk of bucket lists— a list of things to do before one kicks the bucket. The phrase has become part of the vernacular. “It’s on my bucket list,” said a person making a trip to China to give a lecture. Since we don’t know when we will die, such lists seem an odd endeavor.

As if a consumer, unsatisfied by an urban lifestyle, must escape— to backpack in Patagonia, view a pod of whales in the Pacific Ocean, or walk on a remnant of the Appian Way— only to return and report on the progress to friends and family. Checking things off the bucket list seems key to the enterprise.

Gardeners get along without this. There is always something to do in a garden, a weed to be pulled, a pest to be removed, ripe fruit and vegetables to be picked, a new plot to be spaded and planted. A constant renewal of life in many forms. A gardener turns nature to useful advantage and produces crops over a long season, such work being its own reward. During good seasons, the work absorbs a gardener’s attention and energy completely, producing abundance.

Bucket lists are bothersome. It has to do with cognition and how we define what might go on the list. The world and society become a big shopping mall where we select our items and venture out. Sometimes finding what we want, sometimes finding something different and better, and always, crossing what we find off the list. Compared to gardening, the process lacks imagination.

The gardener must see the potential for life in each tiny seed. She sees the delicate balance of growing seeds to seedlings to mature plants. He must determine what combination of morning dew, rainfall and irrigation will encourage the plants to grow. Answer the question, how shall the garden be protected from deer, raccoons, rodents and insects? It seems more complicated than writing “experience Maris Gras” on a list, then traveling to New Orleans for the event. Gardening also seems more enriching.

The idea of kicking the bucket doesn’t cross my mind while working in the garden. The time is too full of life’s potential, new growth, new hope, and a diversity of nature that I don’t claim to understand, as much as I try. We will all die, but why focus on that? Instead, let’s focus on living this season as best we can, finding awe and wonder in every plant in creation, and take the harvest given. There is no good reason to stop living to work on a bucket list, when gardening can be a better reward.

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Home Life Kitchen Garden

Wisps of Morning Clouds

LAKE MACBRIDE— Wisps of clouds in the western sky are colored gray and pink, touched by white, against a blue sky. The leaves on the pin oak tree are falling, making way for this year’s growth. The lilac bushes, apple trees and every other plant in the yard are coming alive after winter dormancy. The driveway is damp with last night’s rain, and there is hope the garden will dry out enough to dig today. Not much hope, but some.

The temperature is forecast to peak at 55 degrees when I have to depart to cross the lakes to North Liberty around 3 p.m. In these windows of time— between now, and the next thing— we might make a life if we apply ourselves.

The cucumber, zucchini and yellow squash seeds I planted April 7 have germinated and are forming their initial two leaves. The tray of lettuce has grown, and the tomato seeds are still a bit spindly, but for the most part have four leaves, and should be ready to plant when the last frost is past. The experiment with seedlings is progressing acceptably.

After consulting with a farmer friend, I decided to wait to plant the turnip seeds in the ground, rather than start them in a tray. This year, I hope for a lot of turnip greens to make soup stock for summer and beyond.

I can  make a brush pile from the twigs and branches collected since last fall. That is, if the ground is too wet to dig. Take down the short chicken-wire fences where I started peas last year, and clear a spot for the burn. It is an hour’s work to be done mid-morning.

Under a clearing sky I’ll make a day of it— gardening and yard work— before crossing the lakes. This shore preferable to that, but both important to sustaining our life on the Iowa prairie.

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Kitchen Garden

Watching and Waiting to Plant

Greenhouse FillingRURAL CEDAR TOWNSHIP— Three of us were working in the greenhouse this week, and the weather forecast was for more cold weather. The season is running late, late enough that when compared to recent years, it is difficult to distinguish it as a season rather than another series of random freaky weather days. Said one grower, “we can deal with drought with irrigation, but cold weather is something else.” There is always a different worry for a farmer.

A few early items, spinach and lettuce, are in the ground, but most of the action continues to be growth in the greenhouse, and hoop house. It is early in the season, getting on later.

029The ground thawed in our garden, but because of the rain, it is too wet to plant. When conditions ease, there will be a lot of work to get the soil prepared and planted. For now, we work inside and wait.

One can’t help but be excited about the abundance of new growth, even if we had a hand in planting the seeds and nurturing them in the artificial world of the greenhouse.

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Kitchen Garden

Wetlands are Wet

LAKE MACBRIDE— Water stood in low lying areas of the Atherton Wetland off the Ely blacktop this morning. Lingle Creek was up to its banks, and the ditch near 600 acres, the ATV park, had about a foot of standing water. The rain is doing its job.

I spent some time with a hoe shifting the flow of runoff in the ditch in front of our home. The fall grass planting did not take so there is a mess of exposed roots, and leaves embedded into the soil mix applied by the contractor. The home owners association is negotiating for a re-do, but I plan a self-do to get things done the way I want in a timely manner. The prerogative of retirees.

Today is my work day at the farm, so I won’t miss being in the garden here. When the soil is tillable, I plan to turn one plot over, apply corn gluten meal and plant radishes. The indoor seedlings are growing at a rapid pace, with significant leaf formation while I was working in the warehouse yesterday. Spring is definitely here, and we embrace it.

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Home Life Kitchen Garden

Dreams of Marble and Granite

Bonnie Swearingen - Photo Credit: Jet Magazine
Bonnie Swearingen – Photo Credit: Jet Magazine

LAKE MACBRIDE— Right on schedule, thunder and lightning began to build around midnight as I crossed the lakes on Mehaffey Bridge Road. The county funded reconstruction of this road, and in a week or so, the direct route to the warehouse won’t be available until the roadwork is completed. The thunderstorm moved in after retiring to bed, and I followed the sound and light until I fell asleep.

I spent some time in the garden yesterday, although not much. The ground was too wet for planting radishes— the next outdoor vegetable. The lettuce and arugula have not sprouted yet, and I drove the fence posts into the mud-like soil, inspected the garlic, chives and oregano, and went back inside. The chives are big enough to split, which I will do when the soil dries.

Indoors, my basil, arugula and lettuce “bombs,” have sprouted, and the trays of seedlings need watering. The tomatoes are showing the third and fourth leaves, and soon will be sturdier than their current spindly presence. Planting my own tomato seedlings, and growing them to this stage is new ground, and it looks promising.

Either waking, or dreaming— maybe somewhere between— the Standard Oil Building in Chicago was on my mind this morning. I viewed it being constructed while in college, and worked there for the oil company. The bad decision to clad the exterior of the building with 43,000 slabs of Carrara marble was being rectified while I was there, replacing it with Mount Airy white granite. It was a big project, and ongoing for my entire tenure working for the then ninth largest corporation. The company easily afforded the $80 million price tag for the project.

Some say it was Mrs. John E. Swearingen, who wanted the marble. The spouse of Standard Oil of Indiana’s chief executive officer, Bonnie Swearingen, was active in the Chicago art culture, and was photographed with Mayor Daley, a host of celebrities and art patrons, such pictures appearing regularly in the Chicago papers. She likened her husband to Napoleon saying, “Napoleon isn’t really dead. He’s alive and well and disguised as my husband.”

One can’t blame her for the problems— the marble was too thin, the effects of acid rain were too harsh— but the building itself seemed a tribute to ego, hers and her husband’s. The marble slabs started falling off during construction.

Working with our hands frees a mind to wander, and mine is wandering down a lane that includes much of my past life. I don’t know if it is my life passing before my eyes during a steady march to the grave, or if memory is loosed, distracting me from present work, and saying something else. Exactly what, is not clear, except for the persistence of dreams about marble and granite.