Tag: local food

This spring unfolded early in Big Grove, a reminder of how closely gardeners watch nature. Phenology — the study of recurring seasonal events in plants and animals, such as leaf-out, flowering, migration, and fruit set — is an unfamiliar term that gives meaning to what gardeners do by nature when weather and climate change.

Garlic scapes are already emerging weeks ahead of what once felt normal, while fruit trees set despite the season’s accelerated pace. Kale, collards, chard, basil, and herbs surged into abundance under the steady warmth and rain, producing the kind of lush May growth more typical of June. The landscape feels slightly ahead of itself this year, as if the growing season quietly skipped a page on the calendar. As I said to a neighbor who stopped by the garden, “Garlic doesn’t pay attention to human calendars.”

A single lilac bloomed on Tuesday, May 26, far later than the main flush a few weeks ago. Perhaps one bud missed the cue for the stage call, yet persisted in making an entrance. It felt weird to see a late bloom, yet this has been a season of weird weather, so anything seems possible.

Main work last week included preparing the soil, ground cover, and cages for 19 varieties of tomatoes. This is a main crop, so doing it right is important. Rain on Sunday delayed planting again after 1.5 of 6 rows in.

I opened the covered row and everything looked good. Herbs were in abundance, with six basil plants leading the way. Everything I planted is growing in the herb bed. I harvested lettuce for tacos, and left everything else to mature. I am continually amazed by the productivity and quality of what I grow under the covered row.

The cruciferous vegetable plot is going gangbusters. I am just a few quart bags of scarlet kale from filling the four bins in the freezer for the coming year. After that, we will keep them to use fresh, with more than we can use to be given away to neighbors or the local food pantry.

I am experimenting with spring vegetable broth with deliberate attention to which greens I use for it. The first batch will include a 2:1 mix of collards to chard in an effort to make it more flavorful, and less generic. As a finishing herb, I plan to cut the outside green leaves from leeks and add them in for the final minutes of cooking. The idea is to harvest only the tops of the outer leaves so leeks can grow to maturity. I am looking forward to tasting this first batch.

Radishes and onions are plentiful. I finished picking the first round of radishes and sparingly culled a few green onions. I am determined to have a good crop of onions this year. The aforementioned leeks should be plentiful.

Week 8 feels like it should for a gardener. That’s before popular crops like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, and celery are planted. It was a good week.

There was heavy rain overnight from Monday to Tuesday, our fourth night in a row of it. We should enjoy spring rain. It cleanses the atmosphere, and cleans the house, driveway, and yard. Instead, I feel tension that garden planting is not further along. This despite the fact the growing season extended by 10-20 days over the last 50 years because of global warming. What is planted is thriving. It’s the remainder that has me concerned.

The problem is some of the seedlings are getting too tall for soil blocks and need to get into the ground. It has me changing the configuration of the plot I spent last week prepping, moving cucumbers in and delaying zucchini and squash until the next plot. I had wanted to plant celery and fennel is a separate plot, but I will make a row of them in the current one simply to get them in the ground before they become root bound. That’s how it goes in the garden, sometimes. Our plans must remain flexible.

Despite the travails, this has been a spring to remember. I lived in it as a human, undistracted by the political and social climate in which we find ourselves. In that, gardening is needed respite.

I attended a political event last Saturday and was surprised at how many Democrats are birders. I reported to our table I saw two loons on the state park trail and it caused a stir. A retired union member said he would make the trip to our state park in hope of crossing loons off his bucket list. Of course we were discussing Gavia immer, not the human form of loon.

Monday I took training from the county in how to check in voters at the polls. The county information technology shop made it easy for people who have never done this before to sit down and immediately begin. When we consider technology tailored to the task, this has to be one of the best I’ve yet seen. After two hours of training, I feel ready for my work as an election day poll worker.

On Tuesday I got outdoors and did what I could to advance the garden before spring slips away. What else is there to do after spring rain?

While locating seedlings for the next plot, I could not find the zucchini. I planted yellow and green, then realized they didn’t germinate and I pulled them from the greenhouse. After stewing for a while, I planted more of the same old seeds and made a special order for new ones. Luckily, there is enough recovery time. When the seeds arrive, they will go directly into the ground. In the unlikely event the old seeds germinate, they will also go into the ground.

This week was hit or miss. Most of Wednesday was devoted to a trip to Des Moines. Friday we took care of early voting since I will be a poll worker all day on election day and we wouldn’t be able to vote together. Saturday morning I woke to the sound of rain, which continued until predawn light. We need rain. Sunday morning it rained again, this time, a thunder storm. It rained again Monday morning. Garden work continued in the gaps between these events. Mostly it was in the garage and greenhouse.

Some of the kale leaves were large enough to harvest. It made a five-gallon bucket full. Half went into the freezer, and half will be for Taco Tuesday dinner next week. The first fresh kale is always the best. Everything in the cruciferous vegetable plot is growing and—fingers crossed—predators are staying away.

I planted the rest of the covered row. Although a few of the first-planted seedlings didn’t take, most did and it looks like there will be a normal production run. This year the covered row is greens and herbs. There were enough parsley seedlings in the greenhouse to harvest a cup of leaves for the kitchen and plant four of them in separate small pots for elsewhere in the garden or to move to the kitchen herb garden.

A deer stopped by the potato patch for a snack of the young leaves. After seeing the evidence, I put up a temporary fence to keep them from further dining. Only two or three tops of plants were taken by the ever present herbivore mammals.

The next plot is taking longer to prep. After designing it, specially configured ground cover was required. The main issue was finding places to let okra, zucchini, huckleberries, and tomatillos spread. There are two small patches in the shaded area where I seeded arugula, daikon and regular radishes, tatsoi Asian greens, and chard. The rest of the plot is planned for rows of green beans, sweet peppers, eggplant, and remaining sundry items. The ground cover is mostly laid, so the fencing can go back up and seedling planting begin. I hadn’t grown huckleberry before, and it has been a while since I had a good tomatillo or okra crop. Same with daikon radishes. This plot represents a lot of experimentation, and provides hope for new things.

It looks like I will run out of rolls of ground cover. I re-use what I can, but don’t want to fall short. I mail-ordered from the same supplier as last year. It should be here when I need it for the following two plots.

Despite the hit or miss nature of this week’s gardening, progress was made, and muscles got sore. This is the time gardeners live for.

Bok choy and mizuna were outgrowing the germination tray so I harvested instead of planting them. Along with containers of arugula growing in the kitchen, I have three cups of four kinds of fresh greens: the first harvest of the season. I enlisted artificial intelligence to suggest a dish featuring them.

The goal is to make a warm, one-bowl meal.

Of the options presented by the chat-bot, I picked a rice-based dish. One cup uncooked white rice to allow the flavor of the greens to show. My standard rice preparation is to use homemade vegetable broth to cook the rice.

For protein I used MorningStar Farms® Chik’n Strips, which were browned in a small amount of oil, then set aside.

Next, the process goes quickly:

• Saute garlic, onion in extra virgin olive oil until translucent.
• Add the greens and toss for about 30-60 seconds until slightly wilted.
• Make a rice dressing in a large bowl: 1-2 tbs miso; 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil; 2 tsp apple cider vinegar; dash of maple syrup; tbs chili crisp; Teaspoon of hot pepper powder; dash of sesame oil. Mix well.
• Add cooked rice to the bowl and mix thoroughly so grains of rice are coated.
• Add the cooked greens mixture and the protein. Mix thoroughly.

Makes 3-4 servings.

A couple of nights dipped into the 30s this week, so I am holding off planting temperature-sensitive crops. The portable greenhouse is at capacity. I continue to used a space heater overnight. Other work besides planting remains to be done.

Plot preparation continued. The first round of weeding radishes and turnips was followed by hilling potatoes. I pruned the dying Red Delicious apple tree. The Zestar! and Crimson Crisp trees had a full bloom uninterrupted by frost. Cruciferous vegetables look good. The main question is how will I get everything done by Memorial Day? I probably won’t.

The brush pile got to six-feet tall so I burned it on a windless, cool Friday. Mostly, it was brush from that particular plot, combined with cuttings from the dying apple tree. It was quickly reduced to a pile of glowing embers that continued to smolder until nightfall.

With the burn pile now ashes, it will soon be time to prep the soil for tomatoes. I deconstructed last year’s tomato cages and stacked them closer to the plot. My main interest is to move the hardware as little as possible, but to remove it from where tomatoes were. That will be the first plot for seasonal, warm-temperature vegetables.

I mowed last week with the deck set to three inches. The idea was to let the clippings dry on the lawn before using them to mulch garlic. There are not enough clippings with this mow. The garlic is wanting weeding, or weed suppression. Mulching is a high priority, yet unaccomplished last week.

It was a good week in the garden. I started thinking about what would be first to harvest,  maybe radishes. Turned out it was mixed greens still in the germination tray.

This week’s highlight was finishing with the LED lights and heat pad, and moving most production outdoors to the portable greenhouse. The shelves are full with some 700 seedlings, waiting for trays to be planted in the ground before the pepper plants can find space to move from the dining room. It’s all good.

Mixed into this week’s schedule was making the garage space more usable. I ordered a heavy duty shelving unit—capacity 3,500 pounds— and put it up next to the long handled implement rack. This allowed me to clear surface space on the work bench, the work table, the radial arm saw and the long, narrow table I made that will serve as a garlic rack when the crop gets harvested in July. A political candidate stopped by with some campaign materials and we strategized over a calendar laid out on the trash bins. Every inch of garage space has better functionality now.

Most mornings I started by taking a cup of coffee to the garage and simply taking in fresh air, morning light, and considering the day’s potential. One thing leads to another, and soon I get productive with tasks to fill the day.

Work presents itself without much planning. Experience developed since I began lawn and garden work here in 1993 leads me without it. For example, to clear greenhouse space before the last frost date of May 10, the covered row goes in next. After that, clearing the tomato cages from last year’s spot and turning it over for spring planting. Garden tasks naturally queue and will continue until the whole garden is planted, hopefully by Memorial Day.

This week, I got cruciferous vegetables planted and broke down the tomato starts from channel trays into individual soil blocks. Over the weekend I tilled the covered row plot, making it ready for herbs, Asian greens, spinach and other perennial favorites. Along with this was the first lawn mowing, although this pass it was mostly to even it out. I did not collect clippings for mulch but will need more than the yard can produce.

Week three was valuable in all these ways. A gardener needs that as we move through this new season of hope.