Those of you already feasting on (or anticipating) broccoli harvests will enjoy this preparation from our friend Chef John of FoodWishes. Be forewarned that if you don't already have an immersion blender, you'll want one by the end of this video.
And you thought you loved compost! Compost bins, like the people who maintain them, come in all shapes and sizes. While there are some beautiful prefabricated bins out there you can buy like the one pictured above, why not put your do-it-yourself skills to the test by building your own? Here are a couple of plans you can follow for two classic bin designs.
The "oh-so-easy" mesh circle bin (click image for plan):
The more advanced 3-bin structure (click image for plan):
Alternatively, you can use the Zen approach to compost by simply leaving it in a heap. Compost happens.
Compost bin photo credit: Brixton
Bin plans courtesy of Pierce County (Washington) Public Works
Dear Kitchen Gardener,
Longtime readers of this newsletter know that when it comes to promoting
home gardening and home-made foods, we'll pretty much try anything.
We've appealed to people's "higher" emotions, their sense of reason, and
their desire to create a better, healthier world for their children and
grandkids. Now, we're trying something new: bribery.
Well, not really bribery and not really new. We're not actually
paying off people to advertise their gardens and gardening passion,
but encouraging them with the lure of international fame and
fortune.
Welcome to the 2nd Annual Grow-Off Show-Off contest where the gardeners of the world have a chance to strut their organic stuff! One part Victory Garden, one part American Idol, the Grow-Off Show-Off pits gardeners against one another in a friendly, light-hearted creativity competition to see who can come up with the cleverest and most effective ways of singing the praises of home-grown foods.
Junkfood and processed food companies spend billions of dollars a year pitching their products to us and our families. While we can't outspend them, we can "outcreate" them and we can use something that they can't: the truth!
We're tickled pink to have Mother Earth News as our co-sponsor. They'll be kicking in our grand prize of $500 and helping us get the word out via their great magazine and website. Other companies donating prizes include Mantis, Patagonia, Johnny's Selected Seeds and Neptune's Harvest, over a $1000 worth of prizes in all.
As you'll see from the contest website, we're really open to just about any type of entry. Whether you choose to paint your car with garden slogans, make a yard sign, direct your own YouTube video, or film yourself walking around in public with your buddies dressed as your favorite vegetable is entirely up to you.
I'm hoping you'll have some fun with this and give it a try. Anyone or group (a community garden, school garden, etc) may enter. We welcome international entries and entries in other languages. In the case of the latter, please include a an English translation (or transcript, in the case of a short online video).
And remember: it's alright to show off a bit when you've got a good thing to show...and we do!
Until next month,
PS: This year's Kitchen Garden Day is Sunday, August 26th. Please start bringing some gardeners together in your area to plan an event. Let me know by e-mail how I can help you. That's what I'm here for!
If you haven't planted Nasturtiums before, let this be your year. With their good looks and spicy kick, these flowers do double duty in the kitchen garden.
Nasturtium (literally "nose-twister" or "nose-tweaker"), as a common name, refers to a genus of roughly 80 species of annual and perennial herbaceous flowering plants. It is native to South and Central America.
They have showy, often intensely bright flowers, and rounded, shield-shaped leaves with the petiole in the center. The flowers can be added to salads for an exotic look and peppery taste. Its unripe seeds, when pickled, have been used as a substitute for capers.
Source: Wikipedia
Did you know that there are kitchen gardeners living in high-rise buildings growing food on their rooftops, balconies, and windowsills? We do because we had a chance to meet a few of them last month at the NYC Grows festival organized by the National Gardening Association (NGA).
It's really inspiring to hear their stories and encouraging too. As of next year, the United Nations estimates that there'll be more people living in cities than in rural areas. We're going to need creative ideas for feeding all these veggie-hungry city folks and urban gardens will be part of the solution. Thanks to our friends at the NGA for allowing us to join this great annual event.
If a picture's worth a thousand words, this one's worth 6000. We love process montages like this one that get us thinking about the steps involved in a recipe.
If you're in the mood to get involved in the process yourself, here are a few recipes you might try:
GLAZED STRAWBERRY PIE
STRAWBERRY ICEBOX PIE WITH ALMOND CRUST
ITALIAN STRAWBERRY TART
Photo credit: AmUnivers
By Barbara Damrosch
Nothing is forever, even a good bed of asparagus. But as garden investments go, this one pays off richly for decades to come. Establishing a productive bed takes some work, and some patience as well, because the first real harvest won't come for several years after planting. But after that, those little spears will poke up dependably every spring as long as the planting is well maintained. That's the tricky part. Long after spring asparagus with hollandaise has given way to summer tomatoes with vinaigrette, this crop still needs your attention.
The most important thing is to keep it free of weeds, especially those with long tiller roots. My parents once lost a bed to orchard grass, with its powerful snaking rhizomes, and I lost one to the raspberry planting I thought I'd set at a safe distance. Not so. It was impossible to remove the berries' wandering roots without disturbing the asparagus crowns, and there was nothing to do but start over with fresh plants.
Watering the bed in dry weather is important, too. Asparagus plants won't wilt in dismay the way your lettuce will, but they'll be less productive the next year if allowed to dry out. A good mulch such as hay, straw, shredded bark or chopped leaves will help keep moisture in the soil and deter weeds.
Keeping the plants healthy will pay off in beauty as well as in future harvests. A vigorous stand of fluffy green asparagus tops, aptly called asparagus fern, is a beautiful backdrop for a vegetable garden or even a flower bed. In autumn the foliage turns a sunny gold color. If your site is windy the plants may flop, and it is worth running a length of sturdy twine, held up by stout stakes, on either side of the row to hold the stems upright. In late fall, after you remove the dead ferns, you might apply a top-dressing of manure, compost or seaweed to help keep the crop vigorous next spring. Just brush the mulch aside and replace it after you're done, adding more as needed.
If your asparagus seems to need a serious boost this year, stop picking it earlier than usual to give it a rest, and feed it with a liquid seaweed fertilizer.
In the summer days ahead, it will be easy to forget about a crop that has ceased to bear when others are screaming for attention. Just remember what spring asparagus tastes like when picked and eaten right away, slicked with butter. It's a treasure that no amount of money can buy.
Article copyright of the Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: Poslfit
Have you ever - just for the fun of it - tried turning your compost pile with a dinner fork instead of a garden fork? Of course not. Having the right tools is important and can make the difference between not only success and failure, but fun and drudgery.
Mark Bittman of the New York Times has recently written an article on what he considers the "must have" utensils and cookware that no self-respecting cook should be without. Above you'll see his choices which may not be yours. It's fun, though, to see what other people find essential and what you've managed to get along without for years without any noticeable effects on your quality of life.
Photo and graphic source: the New York Times
By Barbara Damrosch
After an April marked by high drama (airports paralyzed by storms, peaches frozen on the trees), spring planting requires an extra shot of courage. Even if you've hardened off cold-sensitive transplants such as tomatoes and cucumbers by setting flats outside on sunny days, it's an act of faith to finally put them in the ground. Has the weather "settled," as it must for tender crops? Will it ever?
Siting a garden with wind and frost in mind will help conquer spring's uncertainties. The soil at the foot of a south-facing, heat-absorbing wall is prime real estate, and any piece of ground protected from wind by a fence or hedge is better than one out in the open. Wind does more than just batter plants, it dries them too. Sunny enclosures act like sun traps during the day, then reduce radiational cooling at night, when the earth gives back the warmth it absorbs during the day. Most yards have a variety of microclimates from which you can choose, but you can also create them. One of the many tips found in T. Bedford Franklin's wonderful little 1955 book "Climates in Miniature" is a temporary windbreak made by sticking two-foot spruce boughs into the ground along the north side of a planting row -- thereby gaining two or three degrees of heat.
Over the years gardeners have used many tricks to cosset spring plantings. Hilling soil into a ridge running east to west, then planting a row on the south-facing side of the ridge, will boost the temperature a few degrees. So will darkening the soil, since a dark surface absorbs heat. In the old days people spread soot or charcoal (worth a try, but avoid chemical-laden briquettes). A black plastic sheet, slit with an X at each planting hole, is a modern solution. If your soil is "black gold," thanks to enrichments with compost and manure, you're a bit ahead of the game. Protective devices such as cold frames work for small areas and low-growing plants. Floating row covers can be spread over larger beds. Insulators that surround each plant with an upright, water-filled plastic cylinder have been sold in catalogues for years.
Until such companies come out with a gardener's crystal ball, the thermometer will always give the final go-ahead. For tomato transplants, night temperatures should be at least in the 50s. For direct-sown cukes or squash, the soil should be about 70 if possible.
And at that point you will simply decide that spring is here and get on with it.
Article originally published in the Washington Post. Reused with the permission of the author.
Photo credit: Lord Bute