yearofplenty

Wendell Berry: A Cows Contentment Flavors the Steak

Berry's comments from the Art of the Commonplace, are helpful in describing the benefits of growing your own vegetables and knowing the origins of the meat we eat.

The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and known that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater.

The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think this bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes.

I hear people getting into debates about whether organic vegetables are, from the perspective of chemistry, more nutritious. Others debate the financial advantage of growing your own vegetables. Some take a pragmatic view of the politics and say things like, "the corporate agriculture industry would like nothing better than to see us spend all of our free time in our gardens and not in political dissent." And of course we love to debate the mathematics of carbon footprints.

While these perspectives are all important and need to be debated and discussed, none are quite as compelling to me as the one Berry makes in the quote above. Instead of breaking things down to their component parts, which is what our scientific approaches do, Berry is putting the food we eat in context, using words like beauty, memory and contentment. He says that simply knowing the source and conditions of the land and animals that provide our food makes the food taste better (and I would add, in many cases worse.) I can't prove it with a scientific study but I know it to be true from my experience.

Millwood Community Garden Organizational Meeting, Thursday March 11

Plans are quickly coming together for a community garden on the southeast corner of Argonne and Maringo just across the street from Inland Empire Paper Mill. Go here for background information.

We will be holding an organizational meeting on Thursday, March 11 at 7pm at the Crossing Youth Center in Millwood, for anyone interested in learning more and possibly participating in this project. The preliminary plan is to have three uses on this corner lot; individual raised beds that people can sign up to use to grow your own veggies and plants, a large set of row crops to be grown and given to Second Harvest Food Bank, and wildflowers and native plants to serve as a buffer and border between the road and the garden. The circles pictured above would be pumpkin patches in honor of the fact that this piece of land has been known as the pumpkin patch from it's long time use previous to the death of the farmer who tended the land five years ago.

The Paper Mill, which owns the land, will provide a basic amount of water. I'm working with Dew Drop Sprinklers to put together a drip irrigation system. The greatest need is a core group of people in the community who want to help shepherd the project and get it started. We're also looking for partner businesses who want to help. There will be a nice sign for the 30,0000 plus cars to read as they go by every day and we're planning on including sponsors on the signage.

Go to Download Millwood Community Garden Proposal to read the initial proposal.

Email me at goody2230 (at) gmail (dot) com with questions or input.

The Goodwin Garden Seed Starting Schedule

I made my annual trip to Northwest Seed and Pet today to get my gardening game face on. It's officially time to start rattling around the greenhouse and get some early season crops started. Here in the Spokane area May 15 is the traditional last freeze date, so short of using a hoop house over the soil you want to plan your seed starting around that date. I recommend Irish Eyes Seeds, a locally owned seed company in Ellensberg, WA. They source a lot of their organic seeds from the Inland Northwest. Just like most commodities veggie seeds regardless of brand are likely from the same source of "who knows where." I like the local connection and local sourcing efforts of Irish Eyes. I noticed Seeds of Change Seeds at NW Seed for the first time. They are also a good choice.

Below is my game plan for the garden. I have a greenhouse which make managing larger plants easier. You might want to push it back 2 weeks if you're putting them by a south facing window.

March 1 - 11 weeks ahead of last freeze date

• Clean up greenhouse and get heater set up
• Map out this year's garden plan
• • rotate crops to limit disease (for example tomato, potato, eggplant varieties should not be planted in the same place from one year to the next.)
  • Be aware of plants that like each other and plants that don't. Go here or here for an overview.
• Start seeds for peppers, eggplant and onions.
• Plant parsnip seeds in the garden

March 15 - 9 weeks ahead of last freeze date

• Start seeds for tomatoes, perennials and some flowers (I'm experimenting with wildflower seeds I collected last year so I'll probably plant some trays of those for the fun of it.)
• I'll either start pea plants in the greenhouse or more likely just plant the seeds in the garden. It's so mild this year you could probably get away with it.
• Six weeks is probably more than adequate for starting most tomatoes but I like to make the most of the greenhouse. The bigger they are the more fun it is to give them to friends and neighbors.

March 29 - 7 weeks ahead of last freeze date

• Start seeds for squash, lettuce, kohl rabi and other "cole" crops like cabbage. I might start the cole crops earlier. Every year I swear off growing cabbage, kale etc. because we don't eat them. But the chickens sure do like it.
• I'll probably start a another tragic saga of the giant pumpkin somewhere in here too.

April 26 - 3 weeks ahead of last freeze date

• Go cry on the shoulder of Bruce Metzger from GEM Garden and Greenhouse and ask him why my plants are dying.
• Start seeds for cucumbers.
• Buy some of his starts from his greenhouse and put them in my greenhouse and feel a lot better about the green in my greenhouse.
• Plant pea and lettuce starts being sure to cover them at night if it freezes.

May 15 - historic last freeze date

• Empty the greenhouse and get it all planted except the tomatoes and peppers that really like it warm. June 1 is the usual date to plant out tomatoes and peppers around these parts.
• Beans really do best by direct seeding them into the garden so now is the time to do that. I don't bother with corn anymore. It takes up a lot of space, hogs water and fertilizer and generally disappoints come harvest time.

May 22 - one week before I told everyone on the blog to plant out their tomatoes and peppers

• Plant out tomatoes and peppers because I just can't stand taking care of them in the greenhouse anymore.

The best way to learn is to try and try again.

My new policy on the blog this year is that regular commenters get dibs on some plant starts from the Goodwin greenhouse (if your interested). Prolific Twitter retweeterers will also get serious consideration. Nancy has made me promise to not crowd the garden so much this year so I'm going to have to do something with all the starts. Let me know what you're interested in.

Time to Sign Up for Your Spokane Area CSA (Veggie Subscription)

CSA's are a wonderful innovation in local food but it's likely you have no idea what a CSA is. They are basically subscriptions for a weekly supply of fresh local fruits, veggies and meats. Go here for previous posts that will help bring you up to speed and go here for a first hand account of someone's experience with a CSA. CSA's are a win-win for farmers who need steady reliable cash flow and consumers who are often too busy to hunt down local sources for food.

There are several CSA's available in the Spokane area but Rocky Ridge Ranch is my favorite. Go here for Gary's Ranch Ramblings blog where he says the following about his CSA;

We sent out a CSA Newsletter earlier this week to alert folks to sign up early to make sure they have a subscription share available again this season. We already have ten Members signed up. This year we also plan to offer a CSA for a variety of beef, pork, poultry, and misc meat portions. It will offer the advantage of fresh local healthy meat for a price more economical than retail. It'll be delivered in portions weekly so storage space in most refrigerators should be able to handle it. Both programs will offer a half-share for those with small families. If you haven't been a member before just send me an e-mail requesting to go on the Standby List.

Gary's web site is here and his facebook page is here. (Someone needs to make a T-shirt that says, "My Farmer Has a Facebook Page".)

If you're not in the Spokane area go here to find a CSA near where you live.

This paragraph from Gary's blog grabbed my attention;

"SO"(Gary's wife) plans to plant the first hoop house with cool weather veggies next week and after that she'll start on the indoor potted plant starts. The seed catalogs have started to arrive along with the poultry catalogs for baby chicks. Somebody else must be thinking the same as me. "SO" has been enjoying watching her Korean TV programs all Winter.

They have a small farms documentary everyday that is one of her favorites. She's been getting all kinds of ideas to keep me busy helping her in the garden setting up new things. I've watched some of the programs and hoop houses are real hi-tech over there.

The project I like best is a set up to grow strawberries out of holes in vertical tubes set up in the hoop house. Promises to deliver more berries for a longer season. If it works for us I won't have to feel so guilty when I eat the Lion's share of our berries every week.

Just like our farmers are getting ready for the new season, it's time for us home gardeners to start planning in earnest for the new growing season.

Later in the week I'll post a seed starting schedule for those who are wondering about when to start seeds and plant.

Time to Stock Up on Locally Grown Winter Squash at Siemers Farm

When we jumped into our year long experiment we didn't make preparations so when January 1 hit we desperately sought out any remnants of locally grown food. Our search brought us to Siemers Farm in Greenbluff where we had been told they had winter squash. Sure enough Mr. Siemers had the most glorious display of thousands of pounds of interesting varieties of winter squash and we bought up around 100 lbs. In our conversation we were aghast to find out from Mr. Siemers that his barn full of squash would rot in the cold drafty conditions. It's every farmers' nightmare, a store room full of a seasons harvest going to waste.

After leaving Greenbluff we headed to Yoke's grocery store, about a 10 mile journey, and we noticed that they also had winter squash for sale, all of it from Mexico.

This story sums up for me much of what is mixed up in our food system. I understand how this happens. Grocers want a reliable supply of food to sell, and they don't have time to deal with 20 different local farmers. So instead of dealing with a bunch of local farmers they deal with 2-3 wholesalers. And the wholesalers are traders, with an eye on profit margins, and in some twisted turn of free market economics, winter squash grown in Mexico, over a thousand miles away, is cheaper for them to buy than winter squash grown 10 miles away at a local farm.

Some wholesalers have been making strides embracing local growers. C&S Hydrohuts in Otis Orchards where they grow lettuce year round in greendhouses is a great example. Apparently they're in coversation with Sysco, because restaurant customers like locally grown foods on the menu.

What if grocery store customers started demanding locally grown winter squash? I've heard that it takes a grocer hearing a request from 10 people for them to act on it. Another option is to stop by the grocery store and scoff at the Mexican squash and let your grocer know your driving to Greenbluff to get squash at Siemers. I just talked to Mr. Siemers and he said he's still got lots of squash for sale. Give him a call, (509) 238-6242. Here's directions on how to get there. Bring the kids and make a field trip out of it. Mr. Siemers is full of wisdom and willing to share. Or come by the Millwood Market on Wednesday between 2-6pm where winter squash is abundant and C&S Hydrohut lettuce is for sale also. 

The great thing about winter squash is that it will last all winter and it's full of nutritious goodness.

Spokane County Fair Deadline is August 5

Last year the girls and I entered a bunch of stuff in the fair including our 80 pound giant pumpkin. We're hoping for something over 100 pounds this year. We also entered some sunflowers, and other items from the garden. It was a great shared experience for me, Noel and Lily and they even got $25 out of the deal.

The Deadline for getting in your entry form in is August 5 and you turn them in at the Fair office right by the main entrance to the fairgrounds. Just enter everything that you think you might conceivably have to offer in early September and you can sort it out when you arrive with your items. The entry form is here.

Here are some of the categories: Food Preservation, Floral, Baking/Cooking, Wine, Beer, Fruits/Vegetables (including the Giant Pumpkin contest.)

Go here for the full list. Good luck

Before and After

Before: End of March sprouts in the Greenhouse

After: End of June harvest of kohl rabi, kale, and garlic scapes

 

Why Pay More for Good Local Food?

This is one of the questions we get a lot. People want to know if what we are doing is more expensive, as if the answer to that question might bring into question the whole operation. Here is how Barbara Kingsolver addresses this issue of food and cost in her book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle";

Grocery money is an odd sticking point for U.S. citizens, who on average spend a lower proportion of our income on food than people in any other country, or any heretofore in history. In our daily fare, even in school lunches, we broadly justify consumption of tallow-fried animal pulp on the grounds that it's cheaper than whole grains, fresh vegetables, hormone free dairy, and such...It's interesting that penny-pinching is an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains. The majority of Americans buy bottled water, for example, even though water runs from the faucets at home for a fraction of the cost, and government quality standards are stricter for tap water than for bottled.

Kingsolver can be a little overbearing in her commentary, but I think she makes a good point. Eating less food and better quality, fresh food might be the most simple and powerful answer to our public health issues. It's been a good policy change for the Goodwin family public health initiative.

The Joys of a CSA Veggie Box

Here's a report from a reader about their experience of opening up their first CSA box of the season. Note that they live in Sacramento area, so they have more in their box than you would find in a Spokane area CSA.

We're joining you in spirit today(if even just a little bit).  We picked up our first box from our local CSA.  You can find their fancy info at www.naturaltradingco.com.  It was nice to see the farm they are located at is more what you would expect a working farm to be and not so sanitized and picture-perfect as the flyer.  We brought our big box home (ordered big Fruit box, regular veggies and tomatoe share) and it was like opening a present.  I think the kids were surprised to see lettuce that didn't come in a plastic bag and I was surprised to cut up garlic that was moist and fresh. (You mean you don't have to peel off the hard, stale part before you chop it up?)  In our box we got a few varieties of garlic and onions, small yellow tomatoes, basil, spinach, kale, pea shoots (the farm likes pea shoots so will see alot of these-they taste kind of like peas), bib lettuce, red lady apples, oranges, satsumas and the tastiest little honeydew melons.  Made a salad and pasta with lots of veggies and honeydew.  All very, very tasty!!  It's fun to have to find recipes to use the veggies in.  Does anyone have a good Kale recipe?  The farm is two miles from our house.  I can't wait to see what we get next week.

See "Putting the Farmer's Face on the Food" for our take on CSA's and options for Spokane, and other regions of the country.

BusinessWeek On the Changing Food Marketplace

BusinessWeek is out with a lengthy article on how the food marketplace is changing because of consumer interest in local sources. Here's a choice quote:

It's a movement that is gradually reshaping the business of growing and supplying food to Americans. The local food movement has already accomplished something that almost no one would have thought possible a few years back: a revival of small farms. After declining for more than a century, the number of small farms has increased 20% in the past six years, to 1.2 million, according to the Agriculture Dept.

Say what you will about capitalism as an economic system, it knows how to listen to people's consumer choices. The article reminds me of the power and significance of these choices. One of the most powerfully political things we do is buy stuff and few things do more to shape our community than these decisions.

Livin' La Vida Locavore

Willamette Week, in the Portland area, announces that SPIN classes are being held, and it has nothing to do with stationary bikes or obnoxious spandex pants. It stands for Small Plot Intensive Farming. Here's the description from the article:

SPIN, or Small Plot Intensive farming, aims to put underemployed yards and other plots of urban dirt to work growing astonishing quantities of fancy-pants greens, garlics and other gourmet grazing material. If you’re doing SPIN farming, you sell your products at farmers markets and restaurants; if you SPIN garden, you’re growing for family and friends...SPIN guide co-author Roxanne Christensen says SPIN’s greatest goal is to bust the mindset that says there are “places vegetables and fruit don’t belong.”

SPIN’s wee urban farms churn out grub at a breakneck pace. The veggies are selected, pushed, groomed, harvested—and almost instantly replanted—in relays. It’s the Olympic foot race of vegetable-development programs, with each raised bed passing the baton to the next crop like a championship 400-meter sprint team, year-round. The Philadelphia SPIN farm, using just a half-acre of land, grossed $68,000 last year and drew salad addicts to line up weekly for its unique mix of greens.

It actually sounds like a good workout. So strap on your Ipod, tune up the heart rate monitor, heck even wear those shiny black pants with the cushions on the bottom if you want, and get out there get spinning.

Master Food Preserver Class Week 1

Yesterday I gathered with 27 other folks for the Master Food Presever class, through the WSU Extension office. The first class was a bit of a wake up call. I went in with nostaligic longings to connect with a heritage of community resourcefulness; Canning the Kaiser from WWI, Victory Gardens from WWII, and all that. The first class was more about food safety so I came away realizing that, if you don't do it right, canning is a good way to "can" your close friends and relatives with some nasty bacteria. We learned some common myths that are good to know about.

1. Just because the jars are sealed does not mean the food is OK. The heat penetration makes the food safe by killing all the bacteria, the seal keeps it safe. If the food isn't safe in the first place, the seal doesn't matter. Some methods that may get a seal but don't kill bacteria are using an iron on top of the can, using the oven to heat them up, and running them through the dishwasher (yes someone actually did that.) Basically, any method other than the one specified in the recipe from a science based source, is unsafe. They actually put probes into the cans with the particular recipe to take the temp throughout the can, and determine how long it takes for the heat to penetrate. Different foods conduct heat at different rates so no guessing allowed.

2. Just because you've used the same recipe and method for many years without problems does not mean it's safe. We heard the story of a couple who used the same unsafe recipe for 50 years without a problem, but year 51 was a killer.

3. Just because one can is OK, doesn't mean the whole batch is OK. We learned about someone who ran out of brine on the last can of pickled asparagus and added water to top it off. That was just enough to dilute it and make that one can out of the batch toxic. 

4. Just because the food looks fine doesn't mean it's OK to eat.

5. Just because your friend that gives you homemade pickles is too nice to try to kill you, doesn't mean that they won't inadvertently put you in danger with their family recipe from the 1800's.

I guess the big lesson is that you have to follow the proven canning recipes. Save the culinary flourishes for when you serve the food. The good news is that if you follow proven recipes faithfully, you are guaranteed safe. Two reliable sources of safe recipes are www.homefoodpreservation.com and the Ball Cook Book. Both sources are backed up by good science. There is a book and DVD version of the home food preservation web site called So Easy to Preserve. Old canning cook books are not a good source of recipes because of changes that have been made in the guidelines due to new research. If you have any food preservation questions you can call 866-986-4865 and talk to Master Food Preservers of Eastern Washington.

Eastern Washington asparagus is in stores now, so it's time to break out the cans and get pickling. Go here for the basic recipe for pickled asparagus. Or if you're into freezing check out these instructions on how to freeze asparagus.