Playing in the Dirt

Planting Late...As Usual

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:12:00 +0000

Between Mother Nature's harassing rains and waxing humidity and my energy roller coaster, I am FINALLY getting around to planting. Perhaps a bit late, but I'll have to do the best I can. Hopefully the heat and humidity (where the hell did spring go, by the way?) will force things to grow quickly. I'll save my early spring goodies for fall harvesting.

So, in my usual OCD overkill way, here's what I have in starter pots:

Peppers

Sweet chocolate pepper

Napolean sweet pepper

Sweet Pimento Apple pepper

Purira Chile

Sweet pepper

Herbs

Cilantro/Coriander

Cinnamon basil

Dukat dill

Genovese sweet basil

Grandma Einck's dill

Giant Italian parsley

English thyme

Italian oregano

Italian flat-leaf parsley

Tomatoes

Moneymaker tomato

St. Pierre tomato

Santiam tomato

Tall Vine Eva Purple Ball tomato

Black Cherry tomato

Querida F-1 tomato

Eggplant

Black eggplant

All the seeds are either heirloom and/or organic. I have no idea what kind of tomatoes I'm going to get from these--sweet or tart, meaty or juicy, thin- or thick-skinned, so it will be an interesting season.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to get out to the garden proper before the heat and humidity become unbearable and plant the direct-sow seeds.

Mother Nature Must Not Like Me

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:20:00 +0000

I've decided that Mother Nature doesn't like me very much--she keeps raining on my gardening parade!

I've been waiting for two dry days in a row in order to till, but only got a one-day reprieve. So I tilled anyway, knowing full well I was also compacting some of the dirt as I walked behind the tiller. The dirt is pretty clumpy in spots, and I'm clearly going to have to till again.

I only got a little over half of the garden tilled before I ran out of energy and my hands were sore. I planned to till the next day, but--you guessed it--Mother Nature wept. Again. And again.

Today was dry and cool, but it looks like it could possibly rain. I'm surprised we haven't floated away like Noah in his ark. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that later in the week it dries up and the temperature climbs into the 60's.

C'mon, Mother Nature--cooperate a little, will ya? I have crops to plant!

"Surviving Off Off-Grid"

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:56:00 +0000

I garden for many reasons: to feed my husband and myself, to eat healthy foods, to connect with nature, to live at least part of my life more "naturally," and to enjoy the peace that comes from the activity itself.

One of the major reasons I garden is because I am convinced that our food system is broken. It isn't just broken at the grocery stores, which offer us highly processed foods, foods that have traveled hundreds, sometimes over a thousand, miles and are gas-ripened before arriving at our stores; it's also broken

at the farm level (where corporate farmers in protective gear spray food with pesticides and herbicides, and meat farmers inject animals with growth hormones and antibiotics),
at the processing level (where foods are subjected to ammonia or chlorine baths, irradiation, and other methods to kill virulent bacteria),
at the scientific level (where the very DNA of our foods is forcibly invaded by viruses, genes from other crops or animals, sometimes gold or electricity, and antibiotic markers in order to force the DNA to accept the foreign genetic material),
at the government level (where agents from corporate farming and other farming-related entities, such as seed companies, are welcomed into decision-making positions that regulate the very industries they come from),

and more. And consumers, unfortunately, know very little about any of this. We go to the grocery store and assume that if it is on the shelves, it is safe for us to eat. We assume that our government is looking out for our health and welfare. We assume that companies want to do what's right, that their motivations are to make a healthy profit while providing us with food we need. We avoid documentaries and other information that tells us about the unhealthy aspects of our food because we don't want to know.

I want to know what is in my food. I want to know that my food is natural, safe, and healthy. But it isn't only our food system that is broken; it is our entire system. Commercials groom us to be perfect consumers and enter into unhealthy debts; our government tells us that we have a voice, but our legislators ignore that voice or deliberately vote contrary to that voice for personal gain. News channels spin the news to satisfy one political party or another instead of offering unbiased reporting, all the while instilling fear in its viewers or listeners. Corporations are granted individual status, allowed to spend as much money as they like to influence our government, and despite not having a moral conscience (other than to make the largest profit possible for their shareholders), they are allowed to endanger the health and welfare of the consumer with little or no liability.

Enter Michael Bunker's book, due out March 4, titled "Surviving Off Off-Grid." Bunker, too, sees that our world stopped at some point "progressing" and is, in fact, headed for a fall. Anyone who has taken a history class has heard or read the philosopher Santayana's admonition that "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it," and Bunker shows us that we have indeed forgotten that great, progressive cultures of the past, such as Ancient Greece and Rome, fell--and that our consumerist society is headed in the same direction.

Bunker's book asks us to question everything rather than make assumptions or blindly accept the status quo . . . and to do something about it. We've heard about surviving "off-grid," but what that usually means is that we are using some alternative method for power, whether wind or solar. But in order to survive "off-grid," we have to be connected to the grid itself! Bunker has been living what he calls "off off-grid" for years and offers readers the chance to learn from his experiences.

I haven't read the book; I have only read one chapter of the book, which was about food and was an early version of the chapter as it undoubtedly appears in the book. But what I read was well-written, engaging, informational, and inspiring. That chapter made me take a look at food in a much different way than I had previously.

Maybe you're comfortable with the status quo. Maybe you don't want to know what's broken in our society or the downfall we're headed for. Maybe you want to see the world through rose-colored glasses and believe that it is all sunshine and daisies. If so, feel free. But you will still glean a lot of interesting and useful information from this book. And maybe you'll learn a few ways that you, individually, can change your life--even if you don't go completely off off-grid. For those of you who, like me, realize our society is broken, you will find hope and ways of fixing some of that brokenness--at least in your own life.

A trailer video for the book is available on YouTube, and an interview with Bunker is available on the Nourishing Days blog. If you do nothing else, view the trailer. The book will be available for sale on Amazon beginning March 4.

Trust No One

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:41:00 +0000

"Trust no one." You hear that a lot in action, suspense, and espionage films. But that adage could just as easily apply to any individual or corporation hawking food products. When will I learn?

The husband and I stopped at Farm & Fleet this weekend to get the flat wheelbarrow tire repaired. As we entered the store, a woman was offering samples of a Sprecher-brand soft drink. Normally I would have passed the samples by, but she indicated they were "all natural" sodas, made with ingredients like honey, cherry, and vanilla. Wow, I thought, that sounds great! I tasted the cherry cola, and it was really good: smooth, foamy, just the right amount of sweet, lots of cherry flavor. We bought a four-pack of the cherry cola and a four-pack of the orange.

On the way home, the husband asked me what the ingredients were, so I took a look at the label, expecting to see "all natural" ingredients. Here are the ingredients for the Cherry Cola that I found so delicious, in order of presentation on the label:

Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, WI Door County Cherry Juice, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Citric Acid, WI Raw Honey and Sodium Benzoate (Preservative).

I have used italics in the ingredients list to indicate what does not appear to be "all natural." First, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is bad, bad, BAD! And not natural. Artificial flavors are, by their very definition, not natural (hence, why they are called artificial), and arguably natural flavors aren't natural if you have to add them! Citric acid by itself has been through an extraction process--not natural. and who knows what sodium benzoate is--but I know it doesn't usually grow in the garden.

The Orange Dream soda ingredients are even more disconcerting in their unnaturalness:

Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Maltodextrin, Natural and Artificial Flavors, WI Raw Honey, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Vanillin, Quillaia/Yucca Extract, FD&C Yellow #6 and FD&C Red #40.

Most of the offending ingredients here are the same as those in the cherry cola, but this drink actually adds two dyes.

It's my own fault; I should have read the labels before purchasing the items. I trusted an individual who used a term I wanted to hear: "all natural." Unfortunately, her idea of "all natural" and my idea of "all natural" are clearly at odds with one another.

When it comes to food ingredients, it is probably best to adhere to the motto "Trust no one." Read the label for yourself. And, in fact, if it has a label, it's probably not good for you.

Ranting and Planting

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:17:00 +0000

My husband and I made a compromise at the beginning of the year: He gets to have the lawn company fertilize and apply weed-killer in the front yard so it looks nice; the backyard stays chemical-free. Not only do I NOT want to expose myself to pesticides and herbicides, which act like uber-strong estrogen in the body, feeding my cancer, but we eat things that grow in the backyard--mulberries from the trees, wild strawberries and dandelion leaves in the grass, and of course, produce from my garden. I also feed these items to my 11 hermit crabs, who are particularly sensitive to chemicals. So...no chemicals in the backyard. And that's the agreement we made with our lawn company.

[Note: We would really like to use all-natural items on the front lawn, but to do so for our size yard would be incredibly expensive.]

Yesterday, apparently our lawn company came out and applied the chemicals--to the back yard as well as the front! My husband and I are hopping mad. The guy claims he stayed at least 10 feet away from the garden, but that's not friggin' far enough away as far as I am concerned, particularly since the herbicide is sprayed into the air and can be carried by the wind. At least the fertilizer was in granule form, and he claims it is organic, but without knowing what brand it was or where it came from, I have no idea what organic means in his language.

So no more dandelion leaves for salads from the back yard this year (which probably were direct sprayed), and no more gardening barefoot for a while unless I wear my shoes out to the garden and then step out of them.

We'll be sending a check for front-yard application only to the chemical company and canceling our contract. Despite the expense, I think I'd rather not eat out for a month and save up for SAFE chemicals than risk being exposed to killer chemicals again.

* * *
On the upside, I FINALLY got some direct seeding done today: double-yield cucumbers, bushy cucumbers, provider green beans, black beauty zucchini, and clemson spineless okra. I have more to plant, but that's all the energy I had today.

Learning from last year, I planted only THREE zucchini plants rather than 12, so hopefully I won't be overrun with them again. I still have lots of frozen zucchini to use up from last season! I planted a lot of cucumbers, and am planning on making a LOT of bread and butter pickles this year--everybody seemed to like those.

I added grass clippings over the top since the grass clippings in the burn pile had NOT been yucked up by the dufus lawn guy's chemicals, and now I just need to find the energy to go back outside, once I've cooled down, and water.

Thank you, Mother Nature, for some nice weather for gardening! Feel free to supply some more in the very near future!

The Only Good Japanese Beetle Is a Dead One

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 05:59:00 +0000

So there I was, resting in my living room chair, drinking a Hansen's Mandarin and Lime soda (made with cane sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup), minding my own business.

And then I see it: something black flits by the window.

"Shit!" My sudden exclamation startles my husband. Not because I'm cursing--I do that a lot--but because it comes out of nowhere. "I bet it's a Japanese Beetle," I explain.

I get out of my chair and walk to the window, where I spy several black things buzzing about. For a moment, a very brief moment, I try to convince myself they're flies. But I know they aren't. They are Japanese Beetles, the scourge of the trees. And bushes. And garden plants.

In fact, I can't think of a single thing they are good for besides breeding and drowning. And for another fact, as you can tell from the picture, the damn things are already having kinky bug sex in my trees. (You are witnessing a menage a trois in this picture.)

Last year, we tried spraying the trees and shrubs with a cola concoction. It may have slowed them down a bit, but they came back stronger than ever. According to all the literature I've read, traps don't really work and, in fact, attract more Japanese Beetles to the neighborhood. The only thing that works is to go out in the early morning or late evening and knock the creepy crawlers into a bucket of soapy water and drown them. Apparently, the more Japanese Beetles you have, the more they attract. Their bug pheremones are powerful aphrodisiacs, so the only way to keep the population "under control" (I use quotation marks here because truly there is no controlling these beetles) is to kill off as many as possible.

So, for the next couple of months, guess what I'll be doing?

Let Us Talk Lettuce and Radishes

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:23:00 +0000

Thanks to all the rain we've had, the lettuce is really starting to fill in. The spinach (left) is still a bit sparse, but that's okay.

I really need to get into the garden and weed, lay down newspaper and grass clippings, and decide which volunteer tomato plants I'm going to keep--and stake those--and which I'll cull. As you can see, the volunteer tomato plants are growing right out of the middle of the lettuce patch.

The rain has also been good for the radishes. I plucked most of them out yesterday, and ended up with a very nice batch of radishes for salads! Some have some scarring on the outside, and a few had splits. The ones that were badly split I tossed into the compost bin. According to the University of Illinois Extension's ar ticle on radishes, the cracking and splitting may be caused by pulling radishes when they are too old (although they don't seem spongy), or because we had a dry spell followed by a moist spell (more likely, in my opinion).

Our weather has turned very hot and humid the last couple of days. It was 89 degrees earlier, and so humid that the heat index was over 100! I felt like I was suffocating this morning when I went to the downtown farmer's market. I didn't find much there other than what we've already gotten from our CSA and garden (greens, greens, and more greens, and radishes), so I ended up purchasing a rhubarb pie (not the best I've had) and a Tuscan Parmesan loaf of bread from Great Harvest.

Now, let's have some dry days in the 70s with low humidity so I can get some work done in the garden!

Off to a Slow Start

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 03:31:00 +0000

I'm having a really difficult time getting the garden started this year. On the days when it is not raining, I have no energy or am out of town or have appointments or errands to run.

When I'm ready to garden...it rains. Or the ground is still too wet from the previous rain to do anything with.

The 1/3 of the garden that I planted seems sort of, well, sparse. As of June 2, the lettuce was coming up pretty well, so I think I'll have plenty of that to eat. The spinach wasn't doing as well, but the radishes (not pictured) are flourishing. I'll have radishes very soon. Beets (also not pictured), I'm not too sure about yet.

I have a lot of volunteer tomato plants in this section of the garden (which is where the 40+ plants I had last year lived), and I suspect they'll bear pretty well this year, too. I've decided to let them live in this part of the garden--a little "chaos gardening," if you will. A garden shouldn't be too neat; let Mother Nature have a bit of her way! (Maybe she'll be kind to the neater parts if she feels appeased by the chaos.)

Another 1/3 of the garden is ready for planting...if the rain will stop. The final 1/3 of the garden still needs to be tilled, but I think our tiller died. We have some checking to do before we know for sure.

Today, June 8, I picked up our weekly CSA share, which included three heads of lettuce, one bunch of beets, one bunch of garlic scapes, one head of broccoli, one healthy bunch of cilantro, and a few sugar snap peas. We still have all the greens left over from last week's pickup, so we are up to our ears in greens!

As a result, we ate our very first fresh salads of the season tonight for dinner--a mixture of lettuce, beet greens, and arugula from last week's CSA pickup, along with some radish slices, broccoli pieces, and some crumbled feta cheese, topped off with an asiago-peppercorn dressing.

One or more of the beets will end up combined with carrots and apples as juice, and the rest will get cooked and diced for salads or snacking. The broccoli is likely for snacking (not quite enough yet to cook f or two people for dinner), as are the sugar snap peas. The cilantro is currently in the dehydrator; the dill it replaces is now in jars, ready to be used on seafood or perhaps in some garlic-cheese biscuits.

I am really enjoying the CSA. We're eating foods we wouldn't have otherwise tried (or even thought to try), and I'm learning a lot about them. Each week, Henry's sister, Terra, sends out an e-mail that tells us what foods we are likely to be getting, provides us with some background on the more unusual foods, and serves up recipes as suggestions for how to use the produce. I wouldn't have even thought to eat beet leaves--I've always dumped them into the compost pile. Now the compost worms only get the stems; we eat the roots and the leaves! I'm looking forward to experimenting with foods a lot more this summer.

Now, if I can only get my own garden moving...

Who Knew Our CSA Was Famous?

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:05:00 +0000

Well, maybe Henry's Farm isn't exactly famous, but Terra, Henry's sister, has written a book titled The Seasons on Henry's Farm: A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm. I purchased a copy of the book today when we picked up our CSA produce, and both Terra and Henry were gracious enough to autograph it for me!

Last week's timing for CSA pickup wasn't good--hubby and I went out of town for a couple of days and then spent a couple of days recovering while the produce wilted in the refrigerator. The two bags of spinach were all that survived, so I washed it this evening and boiled it in salted water for a few minutes. I'll add it to some pasta and maybe even to an omelette or two this week; the rest will go in the freezer for another day.

This week, we ended up with a lot of greens: two heads of lettuce, a head of broccoli, a bunch of radishes, some huge green onions, some beet greens (some with a bit of beet on the bottom--an added bonus), a choi of some sort, and some cilantro.

I also learned that apparently the farm has two other CSAs: a meat CSA and a fruit CSA! Henry's farm must be enormous. I'm just delighted we were accepted for the veggie CSA. Watching it unfold and seeing what new items we get each week is fun, and it's wonderful to be eating healthy, pesticide- and herbicide-free foods while my garden is just getting started!

An added bonus at today's pickup: strawberries for sale, fresh from the field! I bought 3 pints and cleaned them. Until you have tasted a field-ripe strawberry, picked that day at its peak of freshness, you haven't eaten a strawberry! The strawberries trucked in from California can't begin to compare. Plus, knowing that they are chemical-free is important to me, since berries purchased at the store are usually laden with chemicals farmers have sprayed on the fields.

I spent the evening processing the foods; I can't wait to begin eating them! It looks like we have a lot of wonderful salads in our future. Now, if I can just get some goat cheese at farmer's market this weekend...

I Bet My Thistle Can Beat Up Your Thistle

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:35:00 +0000

I mentioned in a previous post that I had tilled up 2/3 of the garden, but had not yet gotten to the final third. Thistle (and dill--more on that later) has taken over that untilled 1/3 and the largest thistle plant is five feet tall!

Yes, I know, I should have pulled it up before now, but it's been rainy. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Hubby tried to weed wack it, but to no avail--the trunk of the thistle is nearly as strong as a tree trunk! We had to switch to a hoe and shovel, and we chopped them down this evening. The roots are still in the ground, but I'll be tilling soon, which will chop the roots into worm food.

Behind the thistle was a nice area of dill. Last year, I had planted dill too close to the cucumbers, and the cucumber leaves ended up overgrowing the dill. I got a little bit of dill last year, but not much; I had to purchase most of my dill from the local farmer's market. But apparently the dill went to seed, overshadowed though it was, because I have a ton of volunteer dill! I harvested a bunch a week or so ago and let it dry out in the refrigerator (it's finishing the drying process in the dehydrator as I write this post) and tonight, harvested the lovely bunch of dill you see in the picture!

The rest of the volunteer dill will be tilled under, food for the worms. I want to plant my herbs in a more permanent place where they can seed themselves each year. I haven't figured out where that will be, exactly. But I'll let you know when I figure it out!

Where Are My Damn Peas?

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:34:00 +0000

I went out to check on the garden yesterday. After all the recent rain Mother Nature has dumped on us, I figured my crops would be doing pretty well.

But the first thing I checked didn't seem to be doing so well...my peas. When I checked on them about a week ago, I had shoots coming up within the circle. I was delighted, and I could almost taste those yummy sugar snaps in anticipation!

And now, I can only see ONE chewed up shoot. Rabbits or some other pea-eating critters have gotten through a layer of fencing and a layer of trellising and eaten my pea shoots down to the dirt, except for this one, which they must be saving for dessert.

On the other hand, my lettuce, spinach, beets, and radishes seem to be doing really well. I had to thin out the beets a bit (I had already thinned the radishes a few days ago). The picture here is of Grandpa Admire's lettuce--and it is definitely a thing of admiration!

What I can't figure out is why the critters went straight for the peas, which were harder to get to, and passed by the other tender goodies?

Our First CSA Pickup!

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Tue, 25 May 2010 02:57:00 +0000

I haven't been able to do any gardening since I planted my early season crops--Mother Nature has been raining regularly enough that the soil hasn't had much of a chance to dry out.

However, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow--our first CSA pickup!

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. People pay a fee to a local farm at the beginning of the year (which gives the farmer "seed money" to begin the season with), and in return, the farm provides the subscribers with a certain amount of produce throughout the growing season. Depending on the farm, sometimes subscribers can, in lieu of money, work off part or all of their CSA subscription fee by volunteering time at the farm.

I don't have enough time and energy to share with a farm, so we paid the annual subscription fee to our CSA farm: Henry's Farm. I selected this local farm because they plant heirloom varieties, don't plant GMOs, and avoid using herbicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. The food we get from this CSA will be healthy and wholesome! Even better, it's local--which means it's fresh and it has an exceptionally low carbon footprint.

The e-mail I received says that we'll get spinach, green garlic, chives, rhubarb, and several varieties of radishes tomorrow. I can't wait to start eating healthy farm foods again...it has been a very long winter!

Name That Weed

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:30:00 +0000

I still have 1/3 of the garden remaining to till, and in the untilled portion, I have a couple of monster weeds growing! The plant leaves are spiky and remind me of thistle; the flowers are yellow and look like dandelions, but not as round--more like a slightly closed up dandelion.

Is this weed a type of thistle? I couldn't find any pics that looked like this in the thistle category, particularly with yellow flowers. What do you think?

Everything's Coming up Lettuce!

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:35:00 +0000

Well, not everything is lettuce. The picture to the left is of radishes. But the lettuce, peas, beets, and spinach are also coming up!

It's funny how anxious I feel after I've planted seeds, checking each day until I finally see the seedlings poking their tiny heads through the soil. In many cases, it's difficult to tell whether the slight bit of green I see is the actual plant or weeds growing in the recently tilled soil. Now that the early crops are planted, it's time to turn my attention to some of the other planting that needs to be done.

For instance, it's time to plant the seedling tomatoes--the Sun Sweet and Super Sweet cherry-size tomatoes, the Big Beef, and the Best Boy tomatoes from the local community college's horticulture program.

I also have a lot of other seeds to plant and seedlings to grow; hopefully we'll get some dry weather soon so I can do that!

Meanwhile, I will just have to be content with harvesting the runaway mint that lives in our yard and the volunteer dill that is coming up in the part of the garden I have not yet tilled.

Let the Planting Begin!

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Fri, 07 May 2010 00:05:00 +0000

We've had a couple of nice days in a row, and I decided today was the day I needed to get out and begin planting. I probably should have gotten some of my seeds in earlier, but I've had a lot going on.

I managed to re-till 2/3 of the garden, which I had tilled a couple of weeks ago during another nice day. I pounded in the fence stakes and got some fencing up around the section I planted (about 1/2 of what I've tilled).

I managed to plant a lot of the early summer crop--lettuces, spinach, beets, radishes, and peas, as well as some marigolds along the fence line. I wanted to till the last 1/3, but I think the tiller ran out of gas...and I know I did!

I really need to get my seedlings started, but I'm wiped out from today's work. Those will have to wait until sometime this weekend, I'm afraid. But I feel good that the garden is started! Now, if Mother Nature will bring us a nice, gentle rain to get those seeds germinating...

Planning This Year's Garden

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:21:00 +0000

According to The Old Farmer's Almanac Frost Chart for United States, April 22 was the last frost date for our area...which means it's time to get planting! I probably should already have started seedlings for some plants--I'm not very good at knowing when to plant things--but I should be able to plant early crops now, like beets and carrots and lettuce and such.

I've tilled through the garden once during one of the warmer dry spells we had recently, tilling in some organic mushroom compost and tilling under the newspaper shred and grass clippings from last year. The dirt looks better than last year; I hope it is. Enough rabbits pooped in it during growing season that it should be fertilized pretty well.

I have all my seed packets, and then some. I bought the majority of my seeds from four sources this year: Seed Savers Exchange, Seeds of Change, Park Seed, and Ferry-Morse. I tried to select as many organic and heirloom types as possible for variety. So here's the rundown of what I plan to plant this year:

Greens

FM Organic Spinach, Bloomsdale, Long Standing
SOC Organic Red Oak Lettuce
SSE Grandpa Admire's Lettuce
SSE Flame Lettuce
SSE Red Romaine Lettuce
SSE Yugoslavian Red Lettuce
SSE Bloomsdale Spinach

Herbs

SOC Organic Dukat Dill
SOC Organic Genovese Sweet Basil
SSE Cinnamon Basil
SSE Grandma Einck's Dill
SSE Giant Italian Parsley
PS Organic English Thyme
PS Organic Italian Oregano
PS Organic Parsley, Italian Flat Leaf
PS Organic Dill Bouquet

Tomatoes

SOC Organic Peacevine Cherry Tomato
PS Organic Kellogg's Breakfast Tomato
PS Organic Cherokee Purple Tomato
PS Organic Cherry Sweetie
SSE Red Brandywine Tomato
SSE Martino's Roma Tomato
I'll also be planting tomatoes purchased from Richland Community College's horticulture program sale: Beefsteak, Best Boy, and Sun Sugar.

Peppers

PS Organic Peppers, California Wonder
SSE Sweet Chocolate Peppers
SSE Napolean Sweet Pepper

Cucumbers

SSE Bushy Cucumbers
SSE Double Yield Cucumbers

Beans

SSE Purple Podded Pole Bean
SSE Provider Bean

Peas

SSE British Wonder Pea

Zucchini

PS Organic Zucchini, Black Beauty (and no, I won't be planting 12 plants this year--only 2 or 3)

Eggplant

SOC Organic Turkish Orange Eggplant
PS Organic Eggplant, Black Beauty

Radishes

PS Organic Radish Sparkler
SOC Organic Cherry Belle Radish

Beets

SSE Edmunds Blood Turnip Beet
FM Beet, Tall Top Early Wonder

Other

SOC Organic Red Wethersfield Onion
PS Organic Carrot Nantes
PS Organic Okra Clemson
PS Organic Broccoli Raab
SSE Petite Yellow Watermelon
SSE Sunberry

Edible Flowers

SSE German Chamomile
SSE Arikara Sunflower
FM Organic Sunflower, Mammoth

As you can see, I have way too many seeds as usual. But I will plant a little bit of everything and see what happens! Every year is an experiment, and I learn a little more about what to do and what not to do. For instance, last year I learned that 12 zucchini plants were WAY MORE than a healthy-sized army could consume in a year, so I'll only be planting a few of those.

This year, I'll also plant marigolds and white alyssum to try to keep bugs away from some of the plants, and I'll probably plant some nasturtiums to add to salads. They're quite good, having a kind of peppery flavor.

So, there you have it. OCD kicks in again this gardening season. If you'd like to trade some seed varieties with me, let me know asap before I plant them all!

Egg-cited about Spring!

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:33:00 +0000

Yesterday, some friends of mine brought me some farm-fresh eggs. Over the winter, I've been buying organic, cage-free eggs at the store, but eggs never taste as good from the store. I've missed our farmer's market, so yesterday's gift of eggs was most welcome! The eggs were so beautiful, I had to take a picture of them.

They almost look as if they were colored for Easter: rich ivories, deep tans, and delicate mint greens. It is amazing to see the color variations in these fresh eggs when we consumers are so used to seeing sterile white eggs for years, or only whites and browns if we are buying organic. What a loss.

That variety is such a big part of what our food system has lost. According to the UK Biodiversity Coalition, "More than 90 per cent of crop varieties have disappeared from farmers' fields" worldwide. When was the last time you ate orange cauliflower or a purple carrot? Did you know that corn used to have a very high protein content until the geneticists started messing with corn traits in order to improve yield and resistance to herbicides? Now, corn has very little protein and is primarily starch. (For more information, I recommend the enlightening and amusing documentary King Corn.)

When we lose varieties, we lose nutritional value. For example, orange cauliflower gets its color from a high level of carotenoids, from which our Vitamin A precursor, beta carotene, is derived. Purple carrots are purple due to the high levels of anthocyanins, also nutritionally valuable. When we lose these varieties, we lose the high nutritional values, the different flavors, the unique beauty of these varieties.

Some people fear that our loss of crop variety could lead to a food crisis. For instance, very few varieties of corn are grown commercially, and if a disease came along that those varieties were vulnerable to, our entire commercial corn crop could be decimated. It could happen easily; remember the Irish potato famine?

Back to eggs...most of today's commercially sold eggs are gathered from Leghorns, but so many more varieties of chickens for egg laying are available! (See Henderson's Handy Dandy Chicken Chart.) Additionally, store-bought eggs are typically less nutritious overall than farm-fresh eggs from farmers who pasture their chickens (in other words, allow them to either roam free or have a chicken tractor that moves the chickens from fresh pasture spot to fresh pasture spot). Why do we allow a few large corporations to determine the nutritional value and selection of what we eat instead of seeking out the largest variety and most nutritional options?

Buying eggs from a farmer might cost a little more...up front. But you'll increase diversity in the market and be healthier for it...meaning you might just pay a lot less on the back end to doctors for nutritional deficiency-caused illness and disease. I'd rather fork out a few extra dollars on the front end and enjoy the beauty of my fresh eggs!

Not Your Average Spring Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:24:00 +0000

Each spring, one moment seems to stand out from the rest and shout, "It's here! Spring is here!"

Sometimes that moment occurs when I'm walking to my car in the infant warmth, the sun kissing my head and arms. I stand in that moment, arms outstretched, eyes closed, and head tilted back to catch the sun's glorious rays on my face.

Sometimes that moment is the first butterfly that flits past, stretching a quick moment into an eternity on an updraft. My eyes follow the flutterby as it circles me, and I slowly stretch out my hand, hoping it will casually land on my palm, tentacles lightly tickling, just as a butterfly did once at the Butterfly House in St. Louis.

Today, that moment was holding three chicks, one at a time, feeling their tiny claws curl into my palm, touching their warm, soft, downy feathers, hearing their delighted chirping: "It's here! Spring is here!"

In that moment, my heart soared. It is now past the spring date on the calendar, but I never have judged spring by date. But today, in that moment, spring made its appearance.

Clearing the Thanksgiving Leftovers

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:15:00 +0000

One of the problems with Thanksgiving is the grocery shopping: I always end up with left over celery. It takes up space in my refrigerator goes bad before I can ever use it up.

In addition to having leftover celery, I recently found baby portobello mushrooms for $1.79 (1/2 price) and button mushrooms for $.75 (regularly $1.99) at Kroger and purchased several packages.

So today was "clean out the refrigerator" day to get rid of leftovers and to process the veggies before they go bad.

I chopped the celery and bagged it and sliced and sauteed the button mushrooms and the baby portobello mushrooms. I chopped the last of the leftover turkey; half went into tonight's dinner (turkey and noodles), while the other half got bagged for future turkey enchiladas. One benefit of sauteeing all those mushrooms was the leftover mushroom broth--which I put in a pint canning jar, labeled, and moved to the freezer, along with all the bagged vegetables. The mushroom broth will make some awesome mushroom gravy at some point in the future.

My next project: cranberry bread and cranberry dessert bars to finish off the fresh cranberries I still have in my crisper...

A (Mostly) Organic Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:53:00 +0000

I believe it was President Herbert Hoover who promised America "A chicken in every pot." Figuring turkey was close enough, I named my free-range, locally raised turkey "Hoover" in his honor. And Hoover was mighty tasty this Thanksgiving!

The fact that I named my turkey has weirded out a few people. And frankly, I would have gone to pet him (or at least see him) before his demise if he had lived a bit closer. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I am currently reading), has mentioned that consumers are very much removed from the "animality" of our food due to our industrialized food system. Our cellophane-wrapped, styrofoam-packaged meats look very little like the animals from which they originally were carved, and we don't even call our meat the same thing we call the animal itself. Pig becomes pork, cow becomes beef or veal; only chicken and turkey seem to maintain any resemblance in name or look, and even then, they are often lumped together as poultry.

Just as missiles and machines and computers have made war morally easier in some ways (it is easier, for instance to send a missile flying overseas at a target where unnamed, unseen foes lurk rather than to look a foe in the eye while you gut him with a bayonet), our industrialized food system has made it morally easier for us to eat meat; after all, as a rule, consumers don't have to look their Thanksgiving turkey in the eye before slitting his throat.

By naming Hoover, I was trying to get a little closer to my food. Animals give their lives daily to help sustain us, and somehow it just seemed respectful to give him a name. I feel like I owe it to the animal to appreciate its sacrifice, and knowing that Hoover was happy, running around in a grassy area, living a turkey life before becoming my meal makes me feel better about eating him in some bizarre, ironic way.

This summer, I want a chance to at least watch a chicken slaughter, if not actually participate in one. If I can't bring myself to look a chicken--or turkey--in the eye before slaughter, I don't think I have the right to eat it.

In addition to Hoover, most of the rest of the meal was made of organic or pesticide-, hormone-, and antibiotic-free ingredients.

The candied sweet potatoes and garlic-parmesan mashed potatoes were made from farmer's market potatoes. The herbs used in the dishes were insecticide- and pesticide-free herbs from the farmer's market and my own garden, dehydrated and stored in spice jars for use in cooking. The raspberries in the White Chocolate Raspberry Bread Pudding (pictured) were organic, purchased at Meijer. Only the cranberry sauce really wasn't organic-based; I couldn't find organic cranberries anywhere!

More and more, I am moving to organic--or beyond organic--foods. It's easier than people think, and not as expensive as they might expect, particularly if consumers watch stores for organic food sales and then stack coupons.

Onion Chopping Block

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:55:00 +0000

You might remember an earlier post of mine about chopping onions. I chopped 5 pounds of walla wallas, leaving the entire house smelling of onion. Fumigation with various de-scenters didn't help much.

I think I found the solution for only $20 at a garage sale--a potting table! The hole in the table portion houses a plastic tub for soil, although I'll be using it for chopped onion. I'll be able to go outside and chop to my heart's content (I will probably don goggles this time) without smelling up the house!

It will also come in handy during planting season as I am starting seedlings and repotting.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back into the Garden...

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:56:00 +0000

It was sunny and 70+ degrees today, so I decided it was probably time to hit the garden and yank out the sunflower, okra, and tomato stalks and throw them on the burn pile. I managed to get out the sunflower and tomato stalks, but couldn't budge the okra stalks (picture at left). I had forgotten how thick they get and how tightly they hold the ground, unlike the sunflower stalks, which are a bit easier to remove. My low back was already hurting a bit from lugging boxes of books around inside to put on the Ikea book shelves, so I didn't have much oomph to put into the okra. I'll have to see if I can talk hubby into digging them out for me.

A few days ago, I decided it was time to harvest the last of the green peppers, no matter how small they still were. I had diligently covered them with kitty litter buckets at night and on days when the temperatures were supposed to get near freezing, and they had been uncovered for several days where lows were in the 40s. But then, when I went to harvest them, they clearly had not survived the cold, wet weather (picture at right). The plants were shriveled and brown, and the peppers were a sickly green, wrinkly, and sporting black rotting spots. Only a week before they were green and healthy looking. [sigh] The moral of the story is, I guess, to plant green peppers much sooner in the season. I knew it was a crapshoot when I planted them, but I was hoping to get at least one pepper! At least I have several bags of diced green, yellow, red, and orange peppers I nabbed at the farmer's market over the summer.

Once I had all the sunflower and tomato stalks on the burn pile, I took one last quick survey of the garden. I need to rake the grass clippings and compost a bit more evenly over the garden (a job for another day, because the garden is still a bit muddy). It's a very different sight from the lush, green garden of summer.

But wait...are those onions?

Yes! They are! I couldn't believe my eyes. The cold and wet had taken out my precious pepper plants, but the white onions I couldn't find because of all the other encroaching plant cover were growing up through four inches of grass clippings, and looking pretty healthy at that! I wasn't sure at first whether they were onions or shallots (I never did find my shallots), so I dug a couple up. They were small white bulb onions. The outer couple of layers were slimy and clear--probably destroyed by the cold--but the rest of the bulb looked healthy. They were too small to do anything much with, so I left them to rot in the garden, to provide nutrients for the soil for next season. What amazed me is that they had about 12 inches of green on them from the top of the bulb to the tip of the green! They really wanted to get to that sunlight!

Free Chicken from KFC on Oct. 26...But Do You Really Want It?

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:29:00 +0000

You probably remember that not long ago, KFC offered a coupon for a free grilled chicken meal that Oprah promoted. And then KFC ran out of chicken. People who held the coupons but didn't get the chicken meal were promised rainchecks.

Well, in a recent Associated Press article posted on Yahoo News, KFC has a new offer, no coupon needed: one piece of grilled chicken for each customer tomorrow (Monday), October 26. According to the article, "KFC executives are pinning hopes on grilled chicken to build stronger U.S. sales by winning over health-conscious consumers turned off by the chain's fried offerings."

So...if I am reading the subtext of that statement correctly, KFC is implying that its grilled chicken is healthy? I could tell you what I think of that implication, but I think it better if you arrive at that decision for yourself. In fact, you can get the information from the KFC Web site's Nutrition tab. Under Nutrition Guides, click on the link for the KFC Ingredient Statement.

For simplicity's sake, I've copy and pasted the ingredients from that KFC Ingredient Statement below for the grilled chicken--but you are welcome to verify the information. Here is the list:

KFC® Grilled Chicken
Fresh Chicken Marinated With: Salt, Sodium Phosphate, and Monosodium Glutamate. Seasoned With: Maltodextrin, Salt, Bleached Wheat Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Monosodium Glutamate, Secret Kentucky Grilled Chicken Spices, Palm Oil, Natural Flavor, Garlic Powder, Soy Sauce (Soybean, Wheat, Salt), Chicken Fat, Chicken Broth, Autolyzed Yeast, Beef Powder, Rendered Beef Fat, Extractives of Turmeric, Dehydrated Carrot, Onion Powder, and Not More Than 2% Each of Calcium Silicate and Silicon Dioxide Added As Anticaking Agents.

I don't know about you, but I generally don't marinate my chicken in sodium phosphate and monosodium glutamate. Oh, and then season it with monosodium glutamate, chicken fat, rendered beef fat, and anticaking agents. Yum.

You go get your free, healthy, grilled chicken if you want. I think I'll just cook and eat one of my frozen free-range chickens without MSG and anticaking agents.

Loading the Freezer

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:50:00 +0000

I spent some time in the kitchen today doing a bit of rearranging. I put all the jars and bags of frozen food into the chest freezer, leaving mostly meat and some other odds and ends in the fridge freezer. It took 3 pictures of the freezer to get in all that I have preserved this summer. Keep in mind that I've already supplied several friends with food from the freezer and have used some of the tomato sauce and diced tomatoes now to cook with.

On the left, you'll see the bottom area of jars are stacked about two deep; the tray to the right of it slides over the top.

In the second picture, you see the more recent foods preserved (I want to make sure I eat the oldest first, moving to the most recent last). Some of the jars are stacked 4 high. I couldn't stack all of them that high, because in some of the smaller jars, I didn't leave enough head space, which caused the metal lids to puff up. When I use those jars, I'll toss the old lid and use some of the Ball plastic lids I picked up at Rural King.

Next to the jars, you'll see I have some of the shredded zucchini. I still have a LOT of bags of zuke shred, slices, and chopped pieces for winter soups and breads. Oh, yeah--and you'll see some chapati (whole wheat) flour I bought at the Indian grocery store. Reasonably priced and much healthier than white flour.

The last picture shows the freezer section that contains more chopped zucchini, the 5 lbs. of onion I chopped earlier in the summer (I've used a bit of that already, too), several bags full of 1/2-cup packs of chopped green, yellow, red, orange, and gypsy peppers, a pack of sauteed button mushrooms and a pack of sauteed portobello mushrooms. I picked up a couple of packages of oyster mushrooms on manager's special yesterday that I need to sautee and add to these.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this summer's preservation efforts. We won't have enough food to keep us through the winter, but we'll certainly have enough to supplement what we have to buy at the store. Cooking is much easier, too, when you don't have to take the time to saute mushrooms or chop onions--just open a bag and dump them in!

Next year, I need to get more organized about preserving. That will give me something to blog about this winter: changes I'm going to make to simplify or make more efficient the food preservation process.

The Bug Yeller

noreply@blogger.com (EnglishProf) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:53:00 +0000

I know she looks sweet, but she is really quite fierce. Well, not fierce, exactly. Her name is Davita, but she goes by various other names that may not be repeated here. She can be quite loving, but what gets her into trouble is chewing on anything that looks like a string. That includes string, iPod earphones, electrical cords, fringe, sweat pants ties, shoestrings, yarn, and more.

Her role in our little homestead is to yell at bugs. She doesn't really catch them, although if they are slow enough and within reach, she might eat one occasionally. Mostly, she just yells at them in this strange, chatty, broken squeak.

The problem is this: the bugs don't listen.

We still have some flying gnats, although I've trapped and drowned most of them with my apple cider vinegar trap. I expect they'll be gone soon. But now, of course, we have the Asian ladybeetles attempting to invade. In fact, our sliding glass door strip is littered with their dead bodies.

I'm still nursing my pepper plants along in what's left of the garden. Each has at least one pepper growing on it, and a couple of them are soooooo close to being large enough to pick! I've had the kitty litter buckets off of them for the last few days, and as long as the temperatures stay in the 40s-60s range day and night, I'll let them breathe. I'm watching carefully for any impending frosts, and will probably simply cut my losses and pick the peppers before then.

Tonight I chopped up 12 peppers--9 green and 3 gypsy peppers--from last weekend's farmer's market. They're in the small freezer in 1/2-cup packs, and tomorrow I'll put the bags in a larger Ziploc in the chest freezer. I also purchased several herbs at this weekend's farmer's market: parsley, sage, rosemary, and lavender (nobody had thyme, so I can't sing the song). The sage is spinning in the dehydrator as I write this; tomorrow, in will go the lavender. I don't like to dehydrate more than one herb at a time; I want to concentrate their oils and scents rather than mix them. I am, however, looking forward to trying some recipes with lavender, perhaps even some lavender sweet tea. Mmmm.