Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Woohoo!
Monday, May 23, 2011
Gardening is much more fun ...
... when you can grab a handful of these off the bush in the front yard when you need a snack.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The wonders of moderation
I've been reading Just Food by James E. McWilliams, and I'm going to have a lot to say about it when I'm through. In the meantime, though, I'd like to talk about the concept of moderation.
People seem to view living sustainably as an all-or-nothing endeavor. "I couldn't do that, I like my Twinkies/Doritos/McDonald's cheeseburgers too much," is a common refrain I hear when I talk to people about my project. But no one ever said you have to give up Twinkies, or Doritos, or even McDonald's cheeseburgers, in order to eat more sustainably.
The key there is the word "more." I'm talking about improvements, not complete overhauls. Sure, the environment would be much better off if we all were exclusively vegan locavores who rode bikes to work at offices powered by solar energy and fairy farts, but realistically that's never going to happen. But most of us can make changes - even small changes - in our diets and our lives to move us in the direction of sustainability.
I don't think anything I'm doing this year is out of reach for the average suburban middle-class family. Sure, I'm lucky to live in an area with a vibrant food community - I can easily get everything from locally made cheese to local pasta to local hummus, right at the farmers' market - but Cleveland isn't the only place with farmers' markets and CSAs. Despite what my parents keep saying, they DO have access to both in Delaware:
Recycling is easy for most of us, thanks to curbside pickup and the proliferation of paper pickup dumpsters at schools and businesses. But recycling paper (dropoff at my daughter's school, which I have to visit every week anyway) and cardboard (curbside pickup) means that our family garbage output is now down to slightly more than one bag a week.
Composting works if you've got any sort of yard at all - or even a basement or cool closet, if you're willing to set up a worm composter. Our compost setup is terribly complex - it's a pile in the backyard that I flip around once in a while with a pitchfork. I decided not to harvest any of the finished compost this spring, keeping it instead to kickstart things for this summer's output. But when I'm ready to use it, it will be taking the place of some of the mulch in our existing flower beds, as well as taking the place of some of the soil amendments I need to buy when I make a new bed. Getting the kitchen scraps out to the compost pile is no work at all - I hand them to the kid and tell her she gets an extra 5 minutes of playing outside before bed if she takes the scraps out for me. Win/win!
One of our main waste sources used to be cat litter. But now that I'm using a flushable litter, that's dropped to zero, as has our need for plastic grocery bags to scoop stuff into. Come on, most of us keep our cat boxes in a spare bathroom or utility room anyway - is it that hard to scoop it into a toilet instead of a bag?
Choosing sustainable products for housekeeping is getting easier and easier. Even stores like Target and Wal-Mart carry brands that, while not perfect, are at least an improvement on conventional detergents and soaps. And things like soaps, lotions, and other personal care items can even be bought online from small vendors (we like several sellers on www.etsy.com, as well as local folks who sell at the farmers' market and the gift shop at the botanical garden).
Growing your own food doesn't take 40 acres or a mule. Don't tell me you don't have time, or space, or even a container. It takes five minutes to grab an old plastic tote, drill some holes in it, and fill it with dirt. Plant something in it. Stick it on a patio, put it on your front porch, leave it sitting near whatever sun you can find in your apartment. Even growing one tomato plant - or a small planter of herbs or salad greens - lets you control exactly what goes into your mouth in a way that trips to Safeway can't.
And one of the easiest ways to make a big impact on the environment doesn't involve farmers' markets or weird soap or finding a place to recycle #5 plastics, it just means making more informed choices when you plan your meals. We've gotten so used to having every food available every day - thank you, Chile and New Zealand! - that the idea of waiting until something is actually in season near you before you eat it is completely foreign to most of us. Asparagus with Christmas dinner? Sure! Strawberries in January? No problem!
There's nothing wrong with enjoying an occasional out-of-season treat, but partaking in the bounty of the Southern Hemisphere all year when there are local alternatives that support neighbors' farms and don't damage the environment as much - well, that's just wasteful. As I described it to the kids in my daughter's kindergarten class, when you go to the grocery store, you should think before you buy fruit - do you want a banana from South America, a kiwi fruit from California, or an apple that was grown in a suburb of Cleveland? There's nothing wrong with eating bananas, or kiwi fruit - but we don't need them every day. They taste that much better if they're a treat to be anticipated and savored, not a staple to be taken for granted.
Erg, this has gone on too long. I'm not done - plenty of blog fodder in my brain, at least today! - but I'll put it on hold for now.
Now, got grab some asparagus before the season is over!
People seem to view living sustainably as an all-or-nothing endeavor. "I couldn't do that, I like my Twinkies/Doritos/McDonald's cheeseburgers too much," is a common refrain I hear when I talk to people about my project. But no one ever said you have to give up Twinkies, or Doritos, or even McDonald's cheeseburgers, in order to eat more sustainably.
The key there is the word "more." I'm talking about improvements, not complete overhauls. Sure, the environment would be much better off if we all were exclusively vegan locavores who rode bikes to work at offices powered by solar energy and fairy farts, but realistically that's never going to happen. But most of us can make changes - even small changes - in our diets and our lives to move us in the direction of sustainability.
I don't think anything I'm doing this year is out of reach for the average suburban middle-class family. Sure, I'm lucky to live in an area with a vibrant food community - I can easily get everything from locally made cheese to local pasta to local hummus, right at the farmers' market - but Cleveland isn't the only place with farmers' markets and CSAs. Despite what my parents keep saying, they DO have access to both in Delaware:
- farmers' market in downtown Wilmington: http://www.inlittleitaly.com/events.htm
- CSA in Newark: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/M38211
- Restaurants, orchards, and more: http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?map=1&lat=39.794276&lon=-75.534321&scale=10&zip=19803
- Tuesday - visit the local grocery store chain while my daughter is in an after-school program nearby
- Thursday - pick up CSA basket (about 10 minutes away from our house)
- Saturday - visit farmers' market and Trader Joe's, which is right next door
Recycling is easy for most of us, thanks to curbside pickup and the proliferation of paper pickup dumpsters at schools and businesses. But recycling paper (dropoff at my daughter's school, which I have to visit every week anyway) and cardboard (curbside pickup) means that our family garbage output is now down to slightly more than one bag a week.
Composting works if you've got any sort of yard at all - or even a basement or cool closet, if you're willing to set up a worm composter. Our compost setup is terribly complex - it's a pile in the backyard that I flip around once in a while with a pitchfork. I decided not to harvest any of the finished compost this spring, keeping it instead to kickstart things for this summer's output. But when I'm ready to use it, it will be taking the place of some of the mulch in our existing flower beds, as well as taking the place of some of the soil amendments I need to buy when I make a new bed. Getting the kitchen scraps out to the compost pile is no work at all - I hand them to the kid and tell her she gets an extra 5 minutes of playing outside before bed if she takes the scraps out for me. Win/win!
One of our main waste sources used to be cat litter. But now that I'm using a flushable litter, that's dropped to zero, as has our need for plastic grocery bags to scoop stuff into. Come on, most of us keep our cat boxes in a spare bathroom or utility room anyway - is it that hard to scoop it into a toilet instead of a bag?
Choosing sustainable products for housekeeping is getting easier and easier. Even stores like Target and Wal-Mart carry brands that, while not perfect, are at least an improvement on conventional detergents and soaps. And things like soaps, lotions, and other personal care items can even be bought online from small vendors (we like several sellers on www.etsy.com, as well as local folks who sell at the farmers' market and the gift shop at the botanical garden).
Growing your own food doesn't take 40 acres or a mule. Don't tell me you don't have time, or space, or even a container. It takes five minutes to grab an old plastic tote, drill some holes in it, and fill it with dirt. Plant something in it. Stick it on a patio, put it on your front porch, leave it sitting near whatever sun you can find in your apartment. Even growing one tomato plant - or a small planter of herbs or salad greens - lets you control exactly what goes into your mouth in a way that trips to Safeway can't.
And one of the easiest ways to make a big impact on the environment doesn't involve farmers' markets or weird soap or finding a place to recycle #5 plastics, it just means making more informed choices when you plan your meals. We've gotten so used to having every food available every day - thank you, Chile and New Zealand! - that the idea of waiting until something is actually in season near you before you eat it is completely foreign to most of us. Asparagus with Christmas dinner? Sure! Strawberries in January? No problem!
There's nothing wrong with enjoying an occasional out-of-season treat, but partaking in the bounty of the Southern Hemisphere all year when there are local alternatives that support neighbors' farms and don't damage the environment as much - well, that's just wasteful. As I described it to the kids in my daughter's kindergarten class, when you go to the grocery store, you should think before you buy fruit - do you want a banana from South America, a kiwi fruit from California, or an apple that was grown in a suburb of Cleveland? There's nothing wrong with eating bananas, or kiwi fruit - but we don't need them every day. They taste that much better if they're a treat to be anticipated and savored, not a staple to be taken for granted.
Erg, this has gone on too long. I'm not done - plenty of blog fodder in my brain, at least today! - but I'll put it on hold for now.
Now, got grab some asparagus before the season is over!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Aphid control?
I wanted to save this idea, so I'm sticking it here in case anyone else is interested:
"Aphids don't like hot peppers, so grow a few extra. If you have aphids, put 2 whole 'Serrano' peppers and one peeled garlic clove into a blender with 2-4 cups of water. Blend well, and spray infested plants with the mixture. If you don't have fresh peppers, cayenne boiled with garlic will make an effective 'anti-aphid' tea."(I was going to add a photo of aphids here, but they gross me out too much. Hate those little suckers!)
- from a little piece of earth by Maria Finn, 2010, by Universe Publishing
Friday, May 13, 2011
Giraffe Krispies
What do you get if you use honey puffed spelt instead of the usual cereal to make rice crispy treats?
Treats that look like giraffe hide and taste like ridiculously sweet Honey Smacks!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
First garden pix of the year
Top to bottom in the bed that's between our sidewalk and our garage: The Oregano that Never Dies; 3 stevia plants, some onions I forgot to pull out last year, three bell peppers, some chives, two spicy peppers, and a nasturtium. There are some daffodils left in there, too, and what seems to be the Incredible Multiplying Allium Plant (I swear, we had one when we moved here, now we've got like 10 in this bed and half a dozen in a neighboring bed).
Top to bottom in the bed that's between our sidewalk and driveway (closest one to the street): Carrots (started seeds in planter), 3 cilantro plants, sugar snap peas (seeds started under tower), spinach (seeds started in planter), 4 dwarf celery plants, 4 freckled lettuce plants, 3 Thai basil plants, 3 purple basil plants, 3 cinnamon basil plants, 2 rosemary plants (one is a volunteer left over from last year), a lavender plant, and the Thyme Plant That Never Dies No Matter How Cold It Is. There's a nasturtium in there, too, as well as two roses, some sedum, and a peony, all of which were there to begin with and are too happy where they are to think about moving them this year.
Top to bottom in the new bed, which is right on our property line: Cardinal vine (in planter, and I'm growing it for the hummingbirds, not for us), a lavender plant which I suspect is dead, another Thyme That Never Dies, 4 fennel plants (2 regular, 2 bronze), 4 lemongrass plants, a Tumbling Tom tomato (in hanging basket), and a rhubarb. Also in this bed: some veronica I transplanted from the side of the house, some roses that grew from hips off of another plant, and a maple tree that sprouted in our junk pile in the back yard.
Not pictured: the two blueberry bushes I haven't put in yet - one's going in the blank spot at the front of the curve in this bed, and one's going next to our driveway and trashcans.
Now I'm sure some people are a little leery of the idea of decorating with foodstuffs. Maybe a few pictures will convince you?
This is what you can see from the sidewalk by the street:
This basil is more vivid (and better smelling) than any Coleus I've seen:
Oh, rhubarb, how I love your giant foliage and strangely-spraypainted-cauliflower-looking blossoms!
Gratuitous tomato shot, because - damn, it's May and I have tomatoes!
Chives - I never remember to cook with them, but the flowers are just too cute for words.
Friday, May 6, 2011
First gardening of the year
Maybe I'm being overly optimistic thinking that we're past frost for the year, but yesterday was so nice I was compelled to go out and buy vegetables for the garden.
I'm always trying new things in an effort to actually get any of my gardens to produce. First we had a nice raised bed with soil that after three years of amendments was actually friable. But it was all the way at the back of the yard (inconvenient) in a section that was so wet it actually got moss on the surface in between the plants, and it was in shade for part of the day.
Last year I cleared out some room in the front yard and actually swapped out the soil, dragging out the clay from the front and replacing it with the good soil from the back. But the site up front is still too shady for many plants, and thanks to that and some unfortunate visitors, we only got half a dozen tomatoes all year.
This year I'm trying to approach this in a more logical fashion. Last fall I put in a new bed up front in full sun, then transplanted a few things there to make it look a little less barren all winter. Now I'm on the lookout for edible plants that are also attractive - things I can grow and eat without it looking like I'm setting up a truck garden in my front yard.
My first purchase was a hanging basket full of Tumbling Toms. I have great hopes for this plant, which is already covered in blossoms and green tomatoes. I'm keeping an eye on the weather and letting it sleep over in the garage in the evenings so it doesn't get too chilled ... an hopefully I'll get a few dozen tomatoes this year!
I've also got a bed that's mostly sunny that I have in the past filled with ornamental plants like daylilies, snapdragons, and peonies.
Last year I punted some of the flowers out of there and put in herbs - rosemary, basil, thyme, lavender - instead, and they did really well. I also put in a tomato plant which went toes-up in a matter of weeks, so it's not a full-proof spot, but it's better than the shady swamp out back. This year I'm upping the ante a bit. All of the snapdragons are gone and have been replaced by freckled romaine lettuce and dwarf celery plants, and I'm planting cilantro in between the daylilies. I've got some stevia tucked into a corner, as well, and a flat of basil plants in the garage waiting to harden off a bit more before I stick them in the ground.
Over in the new-this-year bed I've got some lemongrass (which is supposed to look like ornamental grass) and some fennel (which is supposed to get to be 4' tall, and I don't care because fennel is awesome). I transplanted some of the thyme over there, moved a shepherd's crook up there for the tomato planter, and I've still got room left for a couple more short things. The soil's not bad over there ... maybe I'll try carrots again this year. I've got a spot saved for a rhubarb, too - I just have to pick which type I want.
I've got several decorative metal tepees I'd like to cover with climbing crops, maybe sugar snap peas or even pickle cucumbers. I'll have to fence them somehow to keep the groundhog out, I suppose, but if I can get anything to actually grow I'll be happy to do that.
I don't have any pictures yet (too busy planting yesterday to photograph anything!), but I'll get some soon. I can't wait to see what this is going to look (and taste) like!
I'm always trying new things in an effort to actually get any of my gardens to produce. First we had a nice raised bed with soil that after three years of amendments was actually friable. But it was all the way at the back of the yard (inconvenient) in a section that was so wet it actually got moss on the surface in between the plants, and it was in shade for part of the day.
Last year I cleared out some room in the front yard and actually swapped out the soil, dragging out the clay from the front and replacing it with the good soil from the back. But the site up front is still too shady for many plants, and thanks to that and some unfortunate visitors, we only got half a dozen tomatoes all year.
This year I'm trying to approach this in a more logical fashion. Last fall I put in a new bed up front in full sun, then transplanted a few things there to make it look a little less barren all winter. Now I'm on the lookout for edible plants that are also attractive - things I can grow and eat without it looking like I'm setting up a truck garden in my front yard.
My first purchase was a hanging basket full of Tumbling Toms. I have great hopes for this plant, which is already covered in blossoms and green tomatoes. I'm keeping an eye on the weather and letting it sleep over in the garage in the evenings so it doesn't get too chilled ... an hopefully I'll get a few dozen tomatoes this year!
I've also got a bed that's mostly sunny that I have in the past filled with ornamental plants like daylilies, snapdragons, and peonies.
Last year I punted some of the flowers out of there and put in herbs - rosemary, basil, thyme, lavender - instead, and they did really well. I also put in a tomato plant which went toes-up in a matter of weeks, so it's not a full-proof spot, but it's better than the shady swamp out back. This year I'm upping the ante a bit. All of the snapdragons are gone and have been replaced by freckled romaine lettuce and dwarf celery plants, and I'm planting cilantro in between the daylilies. I've got some stevia tucked into a corner, as well, and a flat of basil plants in the garage waiting to harden off a bit more before I stick them in the ground.
Over in the new-this-year bed I've got some lemongrass (which is supposed to look like ornamental grass) and some fennel (which is supposed to get to be 4' tall, and I don't care because fennel is awesome). I transplanted some of the thyme over there, moved a shepherd's crook up there for the tomato planter, and I've still got room left for a couple more short things. The soil's not bad over there ... maybe I'll try carrots again this year. I've got a spot saved for a rhubarb, too - I just have to pick which type I want.
I've got several decorative metal tepees I'd like to cover with climbing crops, maybe sugar snap peas or even pickle cucumbers. I'll have to fence them somehow to keep the groundhog out, I suppose, but if I can get anything to actually grow I'll be happy to do that.
I don't have any pictures yet (too busy planting yesterday to photograph anything!), but I'll get some soon. I can't wait to see what this is going to look (and taste) like!
This is what $20 looks like
When I got my morels ready to cook, I was very surprised to find that they're hollow inside - I guess I expected the part that looks like a brain to be solid inside, like a button or portobello. It's more like a gnarly-looking balloon.
It was good, but honestly you couldn't really taste the mushrooms that much - it would have been as good (and much cheaper) with any of the regular varieties of mushrooms you can buy at the grocery store.
And then we tried fiddleheads. This was much less of a success, due in large part to the fact that when boiled they're fuzzy and curled up and have little leaves that look like feet and it's very hard to get over the "Ack! I'm eating caterpillars!" factor. Jason and I each had one bite and threw the rest away. Luckily, those were only a $5 investment ... it would have killed me to have to do that with the Solid Gold Fungi.
So now we've tried the three most common wild-harvested spring vegetables! Yay!
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