Grow It, Eat It.

The tub hath made me proud

2009-04-04T14:28:00.007-04:00

[view from the edge of the bathtub]

The garlic has sprouted, my friends. For some reason, this has been my most emotional moment to date. I haven't been this touched since that guy at The Wood told me he enjoyed my "womanly" ass. Planting garlic in November and then having to survive five months of brutal winter can give you plenty of time to worry... The compost I used wasn't fully broken down, it was more like a coarse mulch. Maybe the tub froze. Fat Cat (a.k.a. "The King", our ruling neighborhood stray) likes to dig in it. It won't work. But it did. [Sigh.] It did. Which means you can do it. Remember to buy organic garlic this season from your favorite farm (in late July or August) and plant the individual cloves in November. Mulch. Done. All you have to do is give them lots of water in the spring, and soon you'll have one of these:

[a dream come true]

Ok, I am not serious. What the hell is that? Your very own upside down horseshoe made of garlic. Maybe more like this:

[better]

Do you know how much this would go for at Hole Foods? Can you imagine how many cheap gifts you could give from your garden? I gave my boss a sleek bottle filled with nice olive oil and filled it with herbs I grew. Pretty and cheap and useful. It's an old standby, and the good-cook-non-growers will actually use them instead of keeping them as dumb showpieces on their countertops.

Know nothing about plants? It's time for Babs

2009-03-25T16:21:00.004-04:00

[start with Barbara]

I knew that Barbara Damrosch and I would be close the moment I read the first line of her book The Garden Primer. It reads: "I firmly believe that in order to learn anything you have to be willing to ask dumb questions."

After working for five years in documentary film production, I felt the reality of this statement. I hit a plateau. When you major in a field, work in a field for multiple years and hold multiple titles in that field, people expect you to know certain things. I knew a solid amount, but all of a sudden I felt serious apprehension when forced to admit that I didn't know something. Luckily I looked that work horse in the mouth, realized that my future in the film world would include more sleepless nights and backne than joy, and now no one cares about my knowledge of stock formats, most of all ME!

If you want to learn more about growing your own food or how to start a perennial bed, or better yet don't know what a perennial is (it's a plant that grows season after season, as opposed to an annual which you have to plant anew each year), then start here. She answers every question, every one. What is mulch? When do you plant which vegetable? How do I start seeds indoors? Everything. Oh, and did I mention she's Mrs. Eliot Coleman?

I want to kiss Michelle Obama on the mouth

2009-03-19T18:13:00.004-04:00

[seedlings for the First Family's garden]

I was watching 'City of Angels' starring Nicholas Cage (I don't want to talk about it) when I decided to check the New York Times homepage. After reading about more bloodsuckers laundering money, there it was! An article making it official: the Obamas are starting a garden on the south lawn! Not since our beloved, horsey Eleanor Roosevelt has anyone planted on white house property. Read the article here. Love.

Spring creep

2009-03-17T20:56:00.011-04:00

[spring greens for baby bad]

I'm back again! I haven't written in awhile, blah blah, let's not get into it. It's almost spring! Is anyone else planting yet? My friend Annie was going to start herbs, but she was knocked up and had her baby last week. My mom was thinking about it but said she's "not allowed" in her housing development. Put down the crack and plant SOMETHING, all of you! Yes, I will boss you around via my blog. I bought a pack of arugula seeds (500 in a pack) for the price of ONE bunch of arugula at the grocery store. Take that.

You can get a fair amount of things going right now to start the season - pepper seedlings and tomato seedlings at your house. Onions, leeks, peas peas peas, greens of all kinds in the ground. You can start seedlings for those guys too and then transplant them, but I don't have the room or a super sweet greenhouse.

[pepper seedlings]

Peppers hate to be fondled and transplanted, so I planted them in these peat pots you can put directly in the ground (get them from FedCo). Trouble is, these suckers dry the soil out, and peppers like to stay moist. Only today (over a week after I started them), did I take the individual squares of plastic wrap off the tops. I had secured them with rubber bands, and this approach made me not want to water them because it was a huge pain in the ass. My peppers are going to be exposed to open air because I'm practical and lazy. The heat mat should warm them enough without the homemade sauna of saran wrap.

[old basil]

And check out these two pots of basil I planted a month apart. The top pot is a month older, and look at it! It goes to show that soil. quality. is. everything. I used Fort Vee on the bottom pot, and the basil is beyond bountiful. No droopy leaves, no weird spotting.

[basil in Fort Vee Vermont Compost]

We also cleaned out and planted our community garden plot. Photos to come this weekend. (Did I mention I got a job?)

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

2009-02-08T11:14:00.010-05:00

[sad basil]

Hi, remember me? Uh yeah. This "blog" thing suddenly fell by the wayside, but I'm here to tell you I'm back. [Roar of the crowds... crickets?] If the lone person out there, I mean millions, is/are still reading then God love you. It's hard in the winter to write about spring. It's depressing. Plus, I was busy with things like the Obama Inauguration, hair dye catastrophies, watching my roommates watch 'The Wire', and looking for a stupid job. No more excuses! Sunday is the day. I'm in my favorite but cat hair-covered chair, and I have coffee and it's 50 degrees outside today. Zing.

So one of the most important thing I've learned to date is to tinker. around. Because things may not look like the illustrations in the gardening books as you begin. My first blunder? Using crappy soil. We had two bags of Miracle Gro "organic" potting soil safe for vegetables (puuuuuuttttt) that sat outside through last year's winter and summer. I was being cheap, and I got what I paid for. The crap is like a bug brothel. Tiny, tiny gnats took over everything! I hate these little guys, and it's so pleasurable to smash them between my thumb and pointer finger. The bastards ate holes in the arugula, attacked the parsley so hard it never got going, and now my basil has these terrible brown spots on them. I also committed a cardinal sin: overwatering. Seedlings don't need to be watered every single day. Let them dry out between waterings and then soak them real nice. I was keeping them in a shallow wading pool and I think they never bounced back. And put a fan on them! Circulation is key. Oh, and I caught my cat Potato eating the arugula. What used to be the beautiful beginnings now looks like the ugly cousin.

[what used to be arugula]

[according to the label, this is "parsley"]

Luckily, if your calendar reads February like mine does, it's time to start the real ballgame of preparing for the spring. None of this herbs in pots shit. This last week I started seedlings for broccoli and leeks. I suggest you do the same if you're trying your hand. Broccoli and leeks don't need warm soil when germinating (about 60 degrees is good) so you don't need a warming mat. You will need good seedling soil. I cannot recommend this product enough. If you want to start a garden via seedlings, this is the one thing you need: Fort Vee Potting Mix from Vermont Compost. You can order it from Johnny's or even better find a retailer near you (click here) so you can buy it sans shipping. Nothing feels more pathetic than paying $30 in shipping for dirt. (Yes, I did it.) They're only catering to New England kids, so if you're far away I recommend moving here, paying the shipping, or researching other good soil. I recommend moving here.

Another good seedling tip? Saran wrap! It's cheap, it's kinky, and it keeps the moisture in the little cell blocks so nicely that you won't have to water until after they sprout. If you have a fancy seed kit with a lid, then you don't need it. Show off.

And if you are daunted by starting your own seedlings, you can actually plant broccoli and leeks directly in the ground. You'll want to do this as soon as the soil can be worked, broccoli in late February and leeks around mid-March. They are hearty to a little frost and even snow. Others you want to plant directly in the ground around mid-March are: onions, peas, carrots, lettuce, kale, collards, radishes, shallots, scallions, and arugula. They've all got some hair on their chests and can handle the frosts.

The best reason to start your leeks inside is to avoid nubbin leeks like these.

[not that great]

See how the yummy white part (technical name) is about 4" long? Well, my boyfriend Eliot Coleman taught me how to grow leeks with 10" white parts (ok, or bulb or sheath) to impress all the ladies. I learned this at his all-day conference. Ten glorious hours together, and I know he felt something too. He came up with a homemade tool that does all the magic. Basically, you start the leeks inside. Once they look like scallions, you take them outside and use a wooden rod that measures 10-11" long with the thickness of a paper towel tube and punch it into the ground. You pop the baby leeks in one at a time, the holes 6" apart, and don't fill the sides up with soil. They will have a little give room around the sides and eventually expand to fit the space, giving you thick, long leeks. After you put the seedlings in, give them a good, hard watering. (Never have I written such a suggestive leek paragraph. This is still about gardening, people.) And keep watering! They love water. That's what gives them bulging bulbs, the water. Onions in general are always thirsty.

I hope you're buying seeds and imagining a garden of your own. Maybe I should instill a little fear in you, my very own "War on Terror" to counteract the sunny skies of the Obama administration. $20 says that the next potential attack on the U.S. will be via our food sources and distribution. Hello! Peanuts from Georgia sickening (or killing) people all across the country? One trip to Kellogg's, and it's a go. [Insert serious, movie trailer voice.] Plant your own garden. It may be the only thing keeping you alive.

All hail Fedco

2009-01-07T14:16:00.009-05:00

[get yourself one of these]

Happy 2009! I hope you had a good, warm holiday full of good, warm food. God knows I did. My friend Jin kept pinching my muffin top at work the other night. I have managed to spill over my pants in a mere two weeks. This always happens to me in the winter, time for the elastic waist!

I have a new true love in this new year, and his name is Fedco. If this catalog could embody the human form, we would be living together in Iowa having paper babies by now. I'll calm down but honestly, this company is the best. Seeds from The Cook's Garden will be $1.75 where at Fedco they'll be 80 cents. They even sell basic tools, fertilizers (I got my pack of alfalfa meal - the one thing my soil needs is more nitrogen according to the UMass soil test), and the wooden sticks to write seedling names on.

[tools]

I also ordered a soil thermometer, a pH test kit, and a super sweet folding Victorinox knife, all under $70. The pages are black-and-white, no colorful glossy shots, but the illustrations are impressive, and it will give you hours and hours of hunting material.

And as evidence of this (hopefully) prosperous new year, check out the seedlings!

[the basil was only planted yesterday, but there's parsley and arugula in the back]

[beautiful little basils in the back left, collards in the egg crate, and my favorite - little thyme. forgive the quality as I can't find the connector cord for the camera, I had to use T's iPhone]

As you can see, I transplanted the mixed trays into new pots by type. The arugula scared me as it looked really pissed and wilty at first, but it appears to be bouncing back. The collards were more experimental, let's see if they'll grow huge indoors in a pot.

I take it all back

2008-12-21T23:46:00.004-05:00

[all ye sprout]

I planted this arugula a mere two days ago, and check this! Every little guy sprouted. I don't suck! I am the garden master!

A very Merry Christmas.

[from the side]

The Beautiful Power Suck

2008-12-21T15:30:00.004-05:00

[my unnatural but super sweet grow light setup]

When you live in a cozy yet dim apartment, sometimes you gotta take nature by the balls. No I don't like it either, but until I have the space for a greenhouse (perhaps the most genius construction ever known to man besides the clapper - we just installed one in our living room), my seedlings need a little light pat on the tush. A little kick, a little umph.

We found a lady on craigslist selling fluorescent fixtures and filled them with one cool white and one warm white bulb. We grabbed a dumpy table from the basement, plugged in the seed warming mat and put those seedlings to work. We put it over our cat Potato's litter box so we don't have to look at poop.

One thing I'm realizing - old seeds, OLD SEEDS SUCK. I planted over 100 seeds of herbs, and I'm not even joking when i say that three have sprouted. Some may just need more time, but I have a feeling that their year-long shelf life is to blame. Either that or I totally suck. It better be the former. Here's hoping that by the time I get home from two weeks of holiday travel there will be lots of little green sprigs waiting. T's friend Eli will be our house-warmer and plant-waterer. I told him if my plants die I will pee on his clothes, and he will enter a world of pain. No pressure. Happy holidays!

Cans and juggs and sprouts

2008-12-15T19:57:00.009-05:00

[little batches of summer]

I am so hungry. I have been living on bar food. I think the only vegetables I've eaten in the last two weeks have been the tomatoes in my Newman's Own salsa, the decorative carrots with my fish n' chips, and the celery in my chicken salad. I haven't had much energy, and I live in sweatpants. Welcome to winter.

Next year, NEXT YEAR is going to be different, goddamnit! As T says, we will hit the ground running. We can have fresh salads all winter long - I know this to be true because the Country Farmer said come on by and cut your own from the greenhouse. Mizuna, mache, tatsoi - screw Dole romaine. I don't know which is better: refusing to buy wilted, sprayed greens in the produce aisle (living on potatoes, winter squash, yams, celeriac, and... onions) or just buy the crap one last time, because if I'm going to grow a third eye, it would've happened by now right?

I recently decided to wane from the au natural approach to gardening, the no artificial heating or lighting or expended energy. Mainly because we live in a little cave. At least the downstairs is dungeon-like. I can guarantee that "finding a sunny window" will be code for "shit won't grow." So I'm breaking the rules until I have the room for a greenhouse of my own. We found fluorescent lights on craigslist (is anyone else obsessed with craigslist 'free stuff'?), and my beloved Grandma Lucy got me this seedling heat mat for Christmas. It is amazing. It keeps the seedlings in a warm little sauna, and the germination process gets a little insurance plan. Lookie.

[basil sprouts]

I used a seedling tray donated by the Country Farmer, a mixture of half compost from the hardware store and half potting soil safe for vegetables, also from the hardware store. Keep the soil moist, the tray on the seed warmer, and voila! I hope to have hearty herb window pots for friends and family by March.

[lone basil]

[keeping warm on the mat, the plastic lid is usually on]

One way to hit the ground running is to read up on something else naturalists don't favor: canning. But I love it. It's kind of kitschy, it makes me think of old ladies, it's decorative, it's practical, and it's a form of delayed gratification. Those jars way at the top of this blog, those are our canned jars. This past August/September we canned hot pepper relish, bbq sauce, stewed tomatoes, roasted peppers and eggplant in garlic oil (Gavin said it was so good he drank the juice), pickled cucumbers, pickled green beans, pickled green tomatoes, and pickled cherry tomatoes (which might be disgusting). So far we used pickled green beans (a hit) and pickled green tomatoes (meh) in bloody marys. And honestly, canning is easy. EASY. And fun and satisfying, as long as you don't die from botulism.

There are two ways to can based on the acidity of the food - pressure canning or a boiling water bath. Very acidic foods such as pickles (if you use vinegar) and tomatoes only need a boiling water bath. More basic vegetables like potatoes (mmmm.... canned potatoes) would need a pressure canner. The basic idea is to create a sealed environment where bacteria won't grow, so many people play it safe and use a pressure canner for everything. We got ours from a lady on craigslist, she even threw in a few mason jars. Beware pressure COOKERS, you want CANNERS. Here's an article that breaks down pressure canning, but I'll also put it in layman's terms:

With pressure canning, you prepare your food (whether you make a sauce or just seed tomatoes) and sterilize your mason jars (put them in boiling water for 5 minutes - this also prevents an explosion - if you were to put hot food in a cold jar in boiling water, big boom). Then you carefully pour the contents into the jars, put the inner lid and outer lid on top, and put it in the pressure canner. There will be about 2-3 inches of boiling water in the bottom, and they just sit gently inside. You snap the lid on and put the weighted gauge on top with the weight and time listed in the recipe, in the manual, or on the list in the 'pressure canning' link above. Am I making this more confusing? I hope not.

The difference with a boiling water bath is you put the jars in a huge pot of boiling water so the water COVERS the jars. You'll need tongs for this stuff so you don't scorch your hands.

I listed a book on preserving and canning on the right, right over there ------> and if you're interested you should study up now before the good produce rolls in. Mark my word: don't can crap from the store. It won't taste good. The idea is to preserve fresh produce from your garden or a CSA so you have a whiff of summer in the dark months. Green peppers and eggplants that have traveled hundreds of miles in an icebox to your local grocery store won't taste that great now, let alone canned. Give it a whirl, I swear it's not that hard.

Be careful what you wish for

2008-12-08T06:56:00.005-05:00

[a view i never see]

So last night I said my famous last words: my friend Rea wakes up every day at 5 am, I hope to be like that someday. But I didn't mean starting TOMORROW. Wouldn't you know, our cat Potato decided to puke up an ungodly load of fancy feast at 4:30 am, and I've been up ever since. I'm realizing that after applying to school for Sustainable Agriculture, this brutal hour could very well be a regular occurrence. Will I end up like my Grandpa John, a farmer, awake by 4 am, in bed by 7 pm? I would write more, but I feel like a crazy person.

The Best Christmas Gifts Ever, You Saw It Here First

2008-12-02T13:05:00.010-05:00

[better than bills in the mail]

Seed catalogs are some good reading. If you don't like reading, there are pretty pictures. And if you do like reading, they are full of fun facts. Did you know that you can dry out gourds and make birdhouses? That the Black from Tula Tomato was described as "the ugliest, most delicious tomato"? That lemon balm was a favorite of French King Charles V in the 14th century, and it is also said to have a calming effect on children and can soothe stomachs? You can even buy Nosegay Peppers, Rat-Tailed Radishes, Music Garlic, Udumalapet Eggplants, Jelly Melon Cucumbers, Bloody Butcher Corn and Baby Pam Pumpkins, to name a few.

More pictures! Here are some potatoes and lettuce.

[me gusta]

So what are you getting your family and friends for Christmas? May I suggest getting every person just one package of seeds? Make them weird, make them intimidating, or make them useful, like a little mix for an herb garden. You can fill out the order section in the magazine old school style, or if you're more high tech just order them online. Grandpa gets Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch Kale and the mailman gets Banana Melon. If your giftee actually gets something growing, it'll be better than a new puppy. The pride is palpable.

Here are some of my favorites:

Seed Savers Exchange
High Mowing Organic Seeds
The Cook's Garden
Turtle Tree Seed
D. Landreth Seed Company
Fedco

This list is tailor-made for my east coast location (and the Seed Savers is to give props to my people in Iowa), but google 'seed catalogs' and your state to get local. Call them up or write them to request a catalog.

Some seed-catalog words they tend to pepper through the descriptions: indeterminate and determinate. Indeterminate plants will continue to grow until killed off by frost or some other external factor. A good example is most pea plants - you have to pick and pick and pick every day, because if you slow down the plant will slow down too. If you keep up on harvesting, it will keep spitting out the green pods. Determinate plants have a growth pattern that stops once a genetically pre-determined structure has completely formed. When it's done, it's done. They'll also talk about your zone. Gardening brains divided up the country into convenient slices so you could easily tell what you could plant where and when. Here in Boston, we are Zone 6. If you live in California and down south, you are in fat city. Here in New England we make due. Oh, and go for the heirlooms. Hybrids have been tinkered with and tailored to take the most flourishing characteristics from various species and combine them into SUPER VEGGIES. Boring. Overrated. Bullshit. Plus, if you save the seeds from the fruit of hybrids and plant them the next season, you may end up with a severely dismembered distant cousin of your original. Heirlooms are the real thing.

[look ma, radishes]

[a little salt, a little pep]

Don't count your chickens...

2008-11-16T16:39:00.008-05:00

[oats sprouting in hay]

[a real garlic sprout]

Ah, yeah. So... We've had an extra bag of hay sitting on the front porch for a few weeks now. As we were unlocking the front door, T looked down and asked me, are you sure it was the garlic that was sprouting? Because this bag is sprouting, too.

Hello! Embarrassing. Those sprouts weren't garlic. Those sprouts are oats popping out of the hay. The City Farmer says they'll die off and come back in spring, just pull them like weeds. I love that I thought my skills were so great that I got garlic to sprout in 8 days. I need a cocktail.

My first sprout!

2008-11-13T12:40:00.007-05:00

[8 days of garlic in the tub]

Check it out! My first sprout! Ok, it's not necessarily a good thing since you don't want garlic to sprout in the fall - you just want it to establish roots for next season. But lookie lookie, it's working! I feel like a proud parent. My little baby garlic heads. These delicate strands will get slaughtered by wind and snow in the next few weeks, but they'll be back.

The day before yesterday I helped out with the winter share at The Country Farm. The Country Farmer and I spent the morning bagging yellow onions and purple, bloated turnips. I was inundating her with questions about seedlings and soil quality and this and that, like I always do... when all of a sudden she just paused and in her patient way said, "You know, you just need to remind yourself that vegetables and plants want to grow." It was such a refreshing point, saying don't try so hard, have a little faith. I mean, a knowledge basis is never a bad thing, but Mother Nature is the big boss, don't forget. And here it is: hard, cold evidence in the tub!

Do you have a CSA share? If not, please please google "CSA" and your hometown. It is the most beneficial way to receive fresh produce if you don't want to grow the lot yourself (for all involved) - and it gives farmers money up front. CSA stands for 'Community Supported Agriculture.' You pay somewhere between $200-350 for about 30 weeks and get a huge box of produce each week. Sounds like a lot of cash, but if you break it down it's about $6.50-11.50 a week. And the veggies, good God. You may never shop in the produce section of your grocery store again. I am perfectly willing to starve this winter once our freezer, canning, and my [fingers crossed] winter sprouts die out. It also encourages people to branch out in what they eat. Do you like kale? I must say that is one of my new loves. Throw it in soup. Parsnips? Roast the thing with chicken, it's like a sweeter, earthier carrot. Still never mastered kohlrabi. Check out a few photos of our share from last season...

[bright purple and red potatoes, celery, red onion]

[a little kale, some lettuce mix, rusty screwdrivers, and don't even talk to me about the tomatoes]

I hate newspapers

2008-11-10T18:54:00.005-05:00

[the plot before]

Today we cleaned out the plot, and somehow it only took about two hours. I pulled up the fruits of Neil's labor - all dried up and sickly by now. Actually, Neil didn't have much of a chance to love his plot. He lives 50 minutes away. (And I thought my 15 minute drive was stiff.) But he still managed to grow corn, beans, some weird grass/parsnip looking things, and NEWSPAPERS. Newspapers are what Neil used for walking paths, and it is true they are a cheap way to prohibit weed growth... but man, oh, man did they look like shit. Call me a priss, but in the beautiful garden of my dreams, soggy Boston Metros weren't included. So I ripped those suckers up. Actually peeled is more like it. Poor T helped me haul weeds to the compost pile, but he spent half the time nursing a brutal hangover via watching me work. I told him the fresh air would do us good, plus I bought him a huge German meal full of various schnitzels afterward.

So if you have a yard, a. you're lucky, and b. TEAR IT UP! Facing south is good, off your kitchen if you can.

[the plot now! this much space could feed a family of 12. maybe 10. 4 plots, each 6 feet x 6 feet.]

One woman's trash...

2008-11-09T10:10:00.009-05:00

[Farmer's Gold]

Human beings could be the most ridiculous species ever to walk the planet because they actually throw out their garbage. Coming in second place is the opossum because they eat it. Can I please share a disgusting and entertaining bit about the opossum with you? I was flipping through our worn copy of The Joy of Cooking, looking for the creepiest recipe, when I found this:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GAME OPOSSUM

If possible, trap 'possum and feed it on milk and cereals for 10 days before killing. Clean, but do not skin. Treat as for pig by immersing the unskinned animal in water just below the boiling point. Test frequently by plucking at the hair. When it slips out readily, remove the 'possum from the water and scrape. While scraping repeatedly, pour cool water over the surface of the animal. Remove small red glands in small of back and under each foreleg between the shoulder and rib. Parboil, page 88, 1 hour. Roast as for pork, page 485. Serve with turnip greens.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like that it says "IF POSSIBLE, trap 'possum and feed it on...", suggesting that if you can't nurse it with real food for over a week, you can just roast the giant rodent with a belly full of garbage. Mmmmm, I bet it smells real nice.

I may have lost over half of you with that little home cooked recipe, but honestly - there are parts of your garbage (not all of it) that are your ticket to a lush garden. Let's start here - back in the day before humans completely lost their marbles, the widespread design of a farm was: animals graze on land, their shit acted as a natural fertilizer which made the grounds rich and delicious, they would munch on lush greens, fertilize the land again, and so on. What do we do today? Keep animals (especially cattle) in overcrowded slaughterhouses, dispose of their excrement at a separate location, creating a haven for toxicity, feed them specially made feed corn, and fertilize the dying land with chemicals made from leftover nuclear materials from WWII. (I have a direct source for this fact, but I can't find it now for some reason. I will update it.)

[Tennessee Valley Authority's "Results of Fertilizer" Demonstration, 1942, Wikipedia image]

Phosphate and lime, as seen on the right, are organic fertilizers, much like compost. As my boyfriend Eliot Coleman states, "A fertile soil is the key to growing garden vegetables; compost is the key to a fertile soil."

And God love it, you already have all the materials you need. What goes in compost? The more eclectic ingredients, the better the compost. Begin with any organic materials you would normally throw away: banana peels, potato skins, apple cores, stale bread, coffee grounds, etc. Egg shells are great, but no meat products or dairy! That's a recipe for delicious bacteria. Where do you store this stuff? I'd recommend a bucket with a lid in your kitchen (feel free to hide it), and you can empty it as it fills. Where will you empty it? In your compost bin, of course. Don't have a compost bin? It's easy. You can buy ready-made ventilated bins here, make one out of a trash can, build a vermicompost (help from worms! we are planning this, more info to come), stack piles of straw bale and dump it in there, or just take some wood and make a frame, filling in the sides with chicken wire. This won't allow it to heat as much (which is important), but hell, you gotta start somewhere.

The art of compost is finding that delicate balance, that perfect mix of green material (the kitchen scraps, grass clippings, weeds), brown material (dried stems, hay, sticks, kept separately), soil, straw, and autumn leaves and animal manure. Autumn leaves should ALWAYS be kept separate - they mat together and create airless conditions. A well-created compost heap shouldn't stink. And you have to flip it: you'll see the bottom begin to decompose much quicker than the top. If you're a beginner, I don't want to intimidate you. Remember I am a beginner myself. Like I said a few postings back... at my old apartment we just threw kitchen scraps in a wood/wire cage in the yard and dumped the disgusting thing onto the soil come springtime. It worked! Just experiment! I can't tell you the difference it will make. And you can feel smarter and more earthy than your idiot neighbors who take their leaves and scoop them into those paper yard waste bags. More detailed info on compost to come, if you are so inclined to further investigate.

Oh, and exciting news! We (we, for future reference, is me and my man, let's call him T) offically have a garden plot in Dorchester, MA. The bliss is palpable. The place is totally trashed, but we will have news of our progress to come. Have a wonderful weekend fellow vegetable lovers (or readers)!

[70s style picture of what your healthy compost will one day look like]

Everything in it's right place

2008-11-05T18:03:00.006-05:00

[let the garlic begin]

First of firsts, OBAMA! No words.

I thought it fitting to have a small ceremony for Barack by planting the garlic in the tub. Wouldn't he want it this way? I thought so, too.

According to The City Farmer, I should be putting the garlic bulbs in frozen ground, but I can't wait any longer. I feel like this is the cardinal sin of gardening, at least that's what I've heard. March One rolls around and enthusiasts are ready to get out there like it's June, but premature planting can kill the youngins. Instead I followed the calendar and the fact that our hay was sitting outside because it's supposed to rain tonight. Have you ever smelled wet hay? I wouldn't wish that experience upon my worst enemy. Actually, that sounds pretty good, I'd make them smell it. But not you and not me, thanks.

So there you have it - we transported the compost (the heated topic for the next blog, get ready to befriend your garbage) from The City Farm via plastic trash bins, dumped it in and smelled it (healthy compost shouldn't stink, instead gardeners call the smell "earthy"), put the little bulbs in one bulb deep (Chesnok Red, a standard purple stripe from the Republic of Georgia), and covered it with hay. It's almost too simple. And then I moved my hands over it in an enchanting, hypnotizing way, asking the planet for this experiment to please please work.

The next time you look at your head of organic garlic, just imagine multiplying your profit by ten fold, twenty fold. After it grows and dries out, you can even braid the stalks and hang them in your kitchen. People will be impressed with your rustic motif, even if you're not a die hard. There's still a few weeks left!

And on a non-vegetable note, but rather a dairy one - check out our first brick of homemade farmhouse cheddar cheese. We dipped it in pretty pink wax the color of tacky lipstick. Six months from now, we'll be eating some bad ass cheese and crackers.

[garlic in the tub, cheese in the wax, Obama in the White House]

The man

2008-10-28T22:13:00.008-04:00

[Eliot.]

Eliot Coleman. See those tiny rows of green behind him? Those are seeds from the bounty of his brain. That sweet greenhouse? It's his design. (I don't have absolute confirmation this is true since I found it on google images, but I bet it is.) He is the man. Any posting I can or try to write will be a mere dribble in the pond compared to Eliot's vast ocean of greatness. Don't believe me? Go to the library and check out his books, especially The New Organic Grower or Four-Season Harvest. You'll feel ready to serve on President Obama's agricultural council or at least have a mini garden, even in the winter, even in Maine. Because that's how Eliot rolls. AND if you want to see him in person and you live in New England, attend the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Winter Conference in scenic Worcester, MA on January 17th. Sure, it's $100, but so is three weeks worth of sprayed and genetically modified produce from the grocery store.

It's not you, it's me

2008-10-22T13:28:00.010-04:00

[Neil's community garden in Dorchester]

Today I got laid off from The City Farm.

They caught me fondling a pair of winter squash. I wish this were true (me getting caught, I mean) because at least the reason why I'm now JOBLESS would be a little more interesting. Ok, I wait tables too, but I don't want to talk about that. Turns out this "economic crisis", this "recession" is indeed more than NPR masturbation. It's real. And the proof is: less and less people are coming to the produce farm/gourmet cheese and garden supplies shop to buy an $80 banana plant or decorative corn stalks. Now I can't cry too hard because this wasn't the ideal farm for me anyway - and I do find pleasure in the irony that my lack of seniority trumps the fact that I love vegetables so much I want to write about them in my free time. I worked with kids who graduated from ivy league schools who don't love leeks half as much as I do. But no hard feelings. Godspeed to you, The City Farm, I will look ahead to the horizon and continue on my own. At least the head farmer has agreed to field my onslaught of vegetable questions over the coming season.

What a fitting transition into the topic I was originally going to discuss - LAND! Or lack thereof. Lack. No job.

This is a big, warm planet, so how is it some of us don't even own (or rent) a green slice of our own? Do you have a lush yard with decent sunlight? Then you are set. But if you don't, fear not. You are not out of the garden loop forever. There are many alternatives that reveal their own benefits with just a little research and tenacity.

The first step is to look at your home in a new light. Do you have a deck or patio? Lettuces and herbs can flourish in pots or raised beds at yardless homes. Even tomatoes can grow heartily in ten-gallon buckets. Do you have windows? (Please answer yes.) Little window boxes can hold chives, scallions, or whichever garnishes you love most. Do you have an accessible roof? Blacktops can be scorchers on delicate plants or seedlings, so a white sheet (or red for tomatoes! they love red) under trays will dim the intensity while giving them access to constant direct sunlight.

But for the big guns and transplants... they need a piece of land, real space. Do you have a friend or family member with an underutilized lawn? It's a great trade-off to suggest sweating through the labor while splitting the harvest. If you don't, or if you want something more independent, there is my favorite - community garden space! Green pockets exist all over various cities, and there are organizations out there designed to seek them out and fill them with life. Just google 'community garden' and your city name - for us here in Boston, the ringleader has to be bostonnatural.org. They have coordinators and contact lists for spaces in various neighborhoods - some plots free of charge, some with a small fee of $10-15 for a year's use. You can be surrounded by fellow gardeners while making a space of your own. And NOW is the perfect time to start this research - I know the trendier neighborhoods have wait lists. But do put your name on! I met a customer who was #17 on a plot wait list and got in that season.

After three weeks of emails and phone calls (many people said they'd take my name or write us in March), I met Neil in Dorchester. Neil sought out an overgrown space two years prior - the garden was named for and dedicated to the former lunch lady of a nearby school. She had loved gardening. But over the years, the plot was all but abandoned. It was Neil's hope that one day it would be full of people, many people, each with a fruitful space. The day I visited, there was only one couple signed up so far - for a plot of 500 square feet! (For those without distance-oriented brains like myself, the area is about the footprint of a medium-sized home.)

The neighborhood is a bit far from my house (a 15-minute drive), but the potential was unreal. Neil informed me that the city of Boston will DELIVER free compost to community gardens. Organizations like Boston Natural arrange for discounts on seeds and equipment for gardeners. There are water sources and hoses, and Neil had even written a grant and received enough money to build a small shed. He said that the upstairs neighbor loved to blast Marvin Gaye all summer long.

Neil is holding a meeting next month to organize plans for the upcoming season, and I will surely attend. But just as a backup, I contacted a community garden closer to my house. (It is probably realistic to try to find one within walking distance. You want your space to be a gift, not an inconvenience.) They only correspond by written letters via the P.O. (which I love), so we'll wait and see. In the meantime, good luck on your own search, and let me know what you find.

Season of the stink

2008-10-15T16:17:00.013-04:00

[guess which is from the farm and which is from the store]

For those truly blessed and probably ungrateful people who have a garden out their back door (I promise to be bitter about my lack of land for no more than one week), the season ends or begins with garlic, depending on how you look at it. I think of it as the beginning because garlic takes so damn long to get going. That's probably why I consider it the best thing ever and a necessary ingredient for 90% of dishes.

Garlic goes in the ground about six weeks before the first frost (mid September through November, depending on where you live) and those tiny heads aren't ready to pop out until mid-summer. For those of us in the Northeast, we'll want to plant about two weeks from now. Anything that hides underground for over ten months has got to spurt out a delicious, stinky surprise. Garlic goes in so early because you want to establish the roots - you won't see any growth from above for months to come. If you do see green tops before the frost, you probably planted a bit too early. Just leave them, they'll either die off and return or get tough and bear the cold.

If you have the space, plant the bulbs 8" apart (but 4" is fine if you're short on space) the depth of one bulb deep. Next comes the mulch. Make nice with a farmer and get a haystack on loan or use a mix of leaves, pine needles, or straw and cover the area as if with a blanket. This cover gives your bulbs a sense of security and protection from the winter and weeds (hopefully) through harvest. No need to ever de-mulch. Take some sticks and string to make a tiny tightrope over your work to mark where you planted the wee ones. When you see them start to sprout in the spring, you can give them a circle of mulch-free room with your fingers. Now kiss the patch goodnight and get inside because it's getting COLD, damnit.

Seed catalogs offer the widest variety of garlic, and they'll ship it to your front door. If you have a local farm you love (and I hope you do), stop in and ask if they have garlic bulbs. Or if you're really feeling lazy, just stick cloves of garlic from the grocery store in the ground. But make sure they're organic! Garlic from the store is most likely sprayed with God knows what and is unlikely to sprout.

There are two farms that will make appearances in these stories - the farm that employs me, and the farm that feeds me, otherwise known as the farm where I did my workshare. The first we'll call The City Farm and the second we'll call The Country Farm. I asked my boss at The Country Farm if I can grow garlic in pots since I don't have land, and her response was hesitant yet supportive. She said I don't know anyone who has had any luck, but you can give it a try. Is it because garlic loves well-drained and aerated soil? Isn't that little hole in the bottom of the pot enough? Is it because the heat generated by Mother Earth gives it a warm winter squeeze at night, whereas a pot turns the plant into an orbiting ice cube?

For fear of being left out of the garlic loop altogether, I decided to try a third alternative - planting it in my bathtub. No, not that bathtub - the bathtub in our yard. One of the charming perks of our split-level apartment is that it comes with a rusty (which will give great flavor), clawfoot tub on the side of the house. The landlord was apologetic and offered to have it removed, but we insisted - no keep it there, it's quirky, we like it. And it has sat empty ever since. Until now. The City Farm is kind enough to donate compost to fill the sucker two weeks from now (we can share a cocoa and a chat on the beauty of compost later) and reassured me that the tub has a chance.

And for the record, the garlic we grow today isn't even real. I mean it isn't authentic. What I mean is, our garlic is grown by the planting of cloves, not seeds, which we call asexual reproduction. True wild garlic that produces seeds is found only in Central Asia - Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Might I mention that another 'stan is the original home of the apple - Kazakhstan. Someone please tell Sarah Palin that the apples in her Joe Six Pack's lunch pail and the garlic on his pizza is a mutation courtesy of the peoples of Central Asia. And tell her to say thank you.

*Sources: D. Landreth Seed Company "Garlic and Flowers" Catalog, The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, the wisdom of various Boston farmers

The 101

2008-10-15T11:47:00.009-04:00

[cat grass on our back porch]

Obsession: vegetables.

Problem: no yard.

Solution: find one and plant sweet stuff. Hopefully inspire you to do the same.

First potential challenge: one word, SEEDLINGS.

It's October in New England, 2008. Fall is upon us, and the dead blur of winter will be here soon. I don't envy the west coast kids of California with their year-round bounty. Our winter is a time to bury and hoard and read up on just how in the hell you can get things to grow.

I've had one previous garden experience in my old apartment in Jamaica Plain. We dug up the yard and added our barf-inducing compost heap, planted some seeds, added small tomato plants, and waited. I couldn't believe it, but after only a few weeks things GREW. It worked! Our onion stalks looked like firm hair plugs popping out of the soil, the beans crawled and twisted around a wire frame, and the carrot stalks were wispy, but they were there. My roommates and I accepted compliments and gave complimentary tours during bbqs. And then one day my friend Karen asked me a shitty question: Did you have the soil tested?

I had no idea what she was talking about. You need to take samples of the soil, she told me, you live in the city and it's a safety precaution. Send it to UMass, they'll do it for $15. And so we did. And the results came back. And they were not good. The soil was contaminated with lead, and we couldn't eat anything. Well we could, but we'd have the words 'LEAD' and 'toxic chemicals' stamped in our minds, and if we fed any children our fruits, they might grow scales. My roommate Iso ate a few tomatoes just to prove he wasn't scared. But the garden was abandoned, withered, turned brown, and eaten alive by weeds.

I've been playing it safe and growing easy things on my own to build my confidence - herbs and cat grass. Well, I didn't actually grow the herbs, I just bought the plants and made sure they didn't die. And cat grass? You could sprinkle this stuff over concrete and it would find a way to sprout. If you or your neighbors have a kitty, I suggest getting some seeds and dumping them in soil. You will be amazed by the results, and the furry poop tube can pig out. Just don't let them eat all they want, or you'll be cleaning up liquid green from your kitchen floor.

So thanks to a few successful herb pots, I think I'm ready for the big time. Here is my big list. The cornucopia of vegetables and herbs in the 2009 GARDEN will include: Arugula, the Seed Savers Exchange lettuce mixture (Amish Deer Tongue, Australian Yellowleaf, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Lollo Rossa, Pablo, Red Velvet, and Reine des Glaces), De Cicco Broccoli, Dragon Carrot, A + C Pickling Cukes, Early Fortune Cukes, Ailsa Craig Onion, Long Red Florence Onion, Fish Pepper, Sutton's Harbinger Pea, Rattlesnake Snap Bean, Christmas Lima Bean, Sweetie Tomato, Cherokee Purple Tomato, Tommy Toe Tomato, Black from Tula Tomato, parsley, chives, sweet basil, thyme, cilantro, and lavender. Seeds I still need to track down are more root vegetables (potatoes, more onions, celery root, shallots, squash), collards, kale, and dill.

Seeds are alive! Party time.