I am getting so sick of greedy people trying to block others from using names/words they think they have a right to own. UPS has “brown”. Facebook is trying to get the word “face”. Seriously??
Well now someone is trying to own the term “Urban Homesteading”. That doesn’t seem to either belong to this one family, or be in the spirit of the whole movement. Read more about it here.
Here’s a short video that shows The Windowfarms Project. I think it’s a great idea, and is especially suited for school classrooms. They have kits especially designed for schools, but the biggest hurdle is funding. A kit for elementary schools sells for just under $300.
The other day I got an email from my friend Victoria. She’s a food stylist (she styled the cover of Omnivore’s Dilemma), cookbook author and generally interesting and curious person. She started a blog, which maybe she’ll continue if enough of us convince her to.
Anyhow, in her email she was desperately trying to find a highbush blueberry that had fruit on it. At the time mine only had flowers on it. I couldn’t imagine any plant in this hemisphere having berries and kind of chuckled about clients being so far disconnected from nature as to think they could get blueberries in early spring. Well, it is New York and if you can’t find it here, you usually know someone who has it. Sure enough, the photo assistant’s family has a blueberry farm in the Berkshires. A call was made and two bushes with berries arrived in time for Victoria’s shoot. Don’t ask me how they found a bush up north that had full-sized berries on it, but they did.
After the shoot, Victoria offered me the bushes. And being the scrappy (greedy?) gardener that I am, I walked to her house to pick them up. They were enormous and heavy, but I managed to walk home with one slung over each hip. I am thrilled to have these massive bushes because I have one with blooms and another very immature one that wasn’t able to help with cross-pollination. You can see the difference between the new bush with it’s huge berries and mine, which I don’t think will develop into berries.
I just recently planted this little creeping wintergreen plant in a shady spot in my garden. This plant first came to my attention while I was reading Farmer Boy to Lindsay. The character Almonzo and his siblings would dig in the snow for the red, mint-flavored berries. I was reading the book during the period I was getting more and more interested in foraging, native plants and edible plants in particular. Seemed like the perfect plant for me. Plus it is meant to grow in the shade. My tiny, Brookyn garden has several different zones. One of them is pretty deep shade once the neighbor’s mulberry tree fills in with leaves. I had been considering growing mushrooms, but somehow forgot about that endeavor.
In case you aren’t familiar with this beautiful, native plant, it bears bright read, slightly mealy berries in the winter. The foliage turns a lovely red also. What makes it so interesting is that it is the source of oil of wintergreen. All the flavoring for toothpaste, gum, candies, etc. came from this plant before an artificial wintergreen flavor was developed. I squished one of the berries and sure enough it had a very strong wintergreen scent. You can use the leaves to make a tea. The plants grow in the woods and have pretty bell-shaped flowers. Take a look around when you go hiking to see if you find the plant. Here’s a link that gives some more information on growing it and has a photo with the berries.
The plant likes well-drained, acidic soil. Hopefully it will like its spot in my garden and spread all over the place. In the meantime, I’m going to do some research to figure out what I can make with the natural wintergreen flavor.
One of the bright spots of winter for me is when the seed catalogs start to come in. I can snuggle under a blanket and dream about the warm weather to come. I ordered 2 currant bushes and 2 gooseberry bushes to go along with the 2 elderberry bushes I already have.
Here are the seeds I just got. Who could resist the name Sugar Daddy peas? A friend is giving me some tomato and zucchini seedlings. I’ve never grown zucchini in my tiny yard and might regret the amount of space they take up. I am going to try and train them over my railing instead of the ground. The tomato seeds that I bought are Black Krim. I grew them last year and really enjoyed the taste.
What’s growing in your garden?
Tomorrow 4/2 Martha Stewart will air a show all about chickens. She and some guests brought their own chickens to the taping of the show. The show will air on WNBC at 11am and then again on 4/4 at 9am.
And how do I know this? I was one of the many chicken keepers asked to be in the studio audience. If you watch the show, look for me. I will be the one with the head of somewhat uncontrollably curly hair (hey, it was raining non-stop and I had to wait outside in it for 40 minutes). If you look at the photo below, which isn’t from the chicken show, you will see the spot where I was sitting. You might see the front of my face when Martha talks to some audience members who were sitting in the chairs on the left.
My friend Megan and 3 of her friends were there also. They wouldn’t seat all 5 of us together, which is how I ended up in the 1 empty seat in the front. You Megan is right in the center of the audience behind a row of people with chickens on their laps. You will be able to spot her easily because of her gorgeous red hair.
One of the signs that summer is ending and fall has taken over, is when we have to cut down our basil. Neil always makes a huge batch of pesto that we freeze and enjoy all winter. On Sunday, we had friends over and made a batch of pesto pasta, from some of the last of the pesto. I also harvested the first greens in my garden for a salad. I planted the mache lettuce in the fall and covered the planters with a plastic tarp. There they sat all winter under snow and in the cold. It is amazing to me that anything could grow at all. But grow they did and the salad was delicious. I adore mache greens and have taken to growing them because they are so difficult to find in the store. I have found them at Trader Joes in my neighborhood.
Mache salad with pear and walnuts
Toast about 1/3 c. walnuts. Peel and thinly slice a bosc pear. Thinly slice a shallot. Use a vegetable peeler and shave about 1/3c. parmesan cheese. Add everything to the salad.
Dressing: Mix 1T dijon mustard with 2T sherry vinegar and 1/4c. olive oil. I put them into an empty jam jar and shake it until it emulsifies.
Just a couple of weeks ago I was commenting on how unseasonably warm it was. Since then we’ve gotten colder with most nights below freezing and the ground feels hard under my feet. Neil wrapped the chicken’s run with plastic to protect them from the cold wind and they are spending a lot of time in their little hoop house instead of the larger (un-wrapped) enclosure.
I had many green cherry tomatoes left on the vine, which I didn’t want to go to waste. I did some searching online and found a few pickle recipes. I decided to make a recipe that didn’t use water-bath canning techniques, which just means that I need to eat them up sooner.
Adapted from John Kessler’s Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes (or tomolives)
1 quart green cherry tomatoes or quartered large green tomatoes
1/2 bunch of dill (about 6-8 stems)
1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
2 t salt
1 t freshly cracked pepper
5 large cloves of garlic, peeled and thickly sliced
Optional: 1-2 hot peppers. I chose not to put them in because of my daughter, but I think it really would help the flavor.
Pierce the tomatoes all the way through with a skewer and then place in a clean quart-sized Mason jar. Add the dill sprigs and pepper.
Bring 1 1/2 c. water to boil with the remaining ingredients. Pour liquid into the jars and cover the tomatoes. Stir the dill and garlic into the tomatoes. Cover and bring to room temperature. Let the tomatoes absorb the flavor overnight in the fridge.
What I would do differently: The original recipe just said to pierce the tomatoes in the stem end. This made 1/2 of the tomato taste pickled and 1/2 taste like a sour un-ripe tomato. After piercing them all the way through, I let them sit another day. I think the longer they sit, the better. These aren’t “officially” canned, so they will go bad. Don’t let them sit around too long. I also thought they could use a little more flavor, so will experiment with the hot pepper next time. I thought they were interesting and definitely a good use for what would have just gone to waste. There are also recipes for friend green cherry tomatoes (cut in 1/2, dip them in some sort of flour or corn meal and then fry), but it seemed as though the breading just wanted to slip off the smooth tomato skins.
Actually I’m really getting jazzed to learn about canning, pickling and fermenting, so I think I’ll try some different pickling techniques next time.
Here’s a great video of Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl, showing how easy it is to build a raised bed garden and hoop house. She doesn’t get into it in depth, but she keeps chickens and rabbits in cages over the gardens to help fertilize the soil.
It’s finally starting to get cold here and I wanted to save some edibles from my garden. On the left is lemon verbena and on the right is flat-leaf or Italian parsley. I washed all the leaves and they are on this wire rack to dry. I put the parsley in the freezer to use it in sauces. I dried the lemon verbena to use as tea. It makes a wonderful tea mixed with mint leaves. You can also chop up the leaves and put them into baked goods.
