Q: I know I can grow radishes in spring. Can I plant any other root crops then?

A: Beets, radishes, parsnips, rutabagas, and turnips share a love for cool weather, and growing them when temperatures are cool is the secret to sweet, crisp roots. Start sowing spring radish seeds as soon as the soil can be worked, and plants will be ready for harvest in as little as 3 weeks. Fast, even growth is the secret to a good crop. Sow new crops every week or 10 days until daytime temperatures remain above about 65°F/18.3°C. After that, the roots will be bitter and tough, not spicy and crisp.

Beets and turnips also can be grown in spring, but they take slightly longer than radishes—from seed, beets take 1 to 2 months, turnips 1 to 2 months. Beets germinate in 45°F/7.2°C soil, but you’ll probably get better results if you wait a bit and sow both beets and turnips once the soil is at least 50°F/10°C. If you harvest turnips when they’re still small, you can sow successive crops every 10 days until warm temperatures (daytime highs in the low 70s/21-23°C) arrive to spread out the harvest.

Some long-season or winter radishes also can be sown at the same time as beets and turnips in spring. Look for bolt-resistant cultivars that mature in 40 or 50 days, and sow as soon as the soil can be worked. Parsnips are the slowpokes of this group. Sow them in early to mid-spring for fall harvest.

Reprinted from The Veggie Gardener's Answer Book
Copyright 2008 by Barbara W. Ellis, with permission from Storey Publishing.
Creative Commons photo credit: Chantal Foster

Posted by at 3:26 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, May 15, 2008 in The Washington Post

Ron is frantic. His urban cat has a perfectly good litter box but prefers to use the pots and planters on the sunny windowsill where Ron is trying to grow herbs. It's natural that his pet prefers natural earth to the bagged imitation. Cats' instinct is to bury their droppings in soil by digging and scratching, and the job is much easier in soil that is loose and fluffy. The kind gardeners create.

Solving Ron's problem is easy. Covering the soil surface of indoor pots with attractive stones, or a lid of chicken wire cut to accommodate the plant's stem, will send Kitty back to her box. Even cats that nibble on or play with foliage can be foiled by a hanging planter (unless they're trying out for a feline Cirque du Soleil). But for outdoor gardeners, the problem is a more serious one. Cat and dog excrement contains pathogens that are transmissible to humans, and it's especially important to keep them out of food gardens.

Soil barriers work outdoors as well as in, especially in a small garden. Strips of wire mesh that are placed between plant rows and are removable for cultivating and weeding are effective, as are flagstones, bird netting, pieces of carpet, black plastic, or any agricultural fabric such as Reemay or shade cloth. When mature, crops such as kale and squash will block access with their large leaves. Cats avoid a garden strewn with rose or raspberry briers, though you might, too, unless you wear leather gloves. Some people swear by repellents applied to the soil. I'd avoid any commercial product with a warning label on it, but a five-alarm dressing of hot pepper, curry powder, mustard, garlic, chopped citrus peels or eucalyptus oil might help. You'll need to whip up a fresh batch whenever it rains. Plants touted as cat repellers, such as rue, are unlikely to have much effect.

With any repellent, you might have to provide another place for the cat to go. After all, even a restroom that reeks of cheap potpourri (or worse) will be used if there is no nicer one nearby. Some people set aside a cat area with loose soil or peat moss and maintain it as a litter box. As a lure, they plant a cat grass to nibble, such as oats, or a stand of catnip (a cat narcotic). But I'm dubious. Most creatures prefer not to do their business where they eat or do drugs.

Your best trump card is the fact that cats hate water. A squirt gun is a handy item for the tool basket, a hose even better. (For times you're not there, you can use a motion-sensing pest and animal squirter.) According to Shannon Hayes, author of "The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook," who is wise in the ways of the four-footed, the hose trick is foolproof.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Creative Commons photo credit: A. Shoots

Posted by at 2:34 PM | Permalink

Q: I don’t want to bother with seeds this year, so how do I make sure I buy healthy transplants?

A: First, you’re better off buying transplants from a garden center than from a grocery store or big-box store, where they may or may not get adequate watering or other care. Look for bushy, compact plants that have healthy green leaves. Check the roots, too, by gently dumping a plant out of its pot while holding the top of the rootball between your fingers.

If you decide to buy larger plants, pick off any fruits that have already started forming. This redirects the plants’ energy into producing roots, which it will need for the long haul. If the nursery or garden center you usually shop at only offers seedlings in market packs, and you don’t want to grow six plants of a single cultivar, try one of these options:

-Shop at a local farmers’ market in spring. Local growers often offer vegetable seedlings for sale.
-Shop for seedlings online. There are Internet companies that sell single transplants.
-Buy market packs of all the cultivars you want to grow, and share excess seedlings with friends and neighbors. Or see if a local community gardening group, garden club, or food pantry would be able to use the extras.
-Ask if the nursery will let you “switch out” cultivars in a market pack.
-Buy all the cultivars you want to grow, and toss the extra plants on the compost pile.

Reprinted from The Veggie Gardener's Answer Book
Copyright 2008 by Barbara W. Ellis, with permission from Storey Publishing.
Creative Commons photo credit: Lord Bute

Posted by at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, April 24, 2008 in The Washington Post

Wonderful as it is to eat only what's in season, there are some vegetables that a cook always likes to have on hand, and the scallion is one of them. Whenever a dish looks or tastes a little bland, all you need to do is grab a scallion and a pair of scissors and snip away, letting the pieces cascade over the surface. Your creation will instantly look fresh and appetizing, whether it's a salad, a stir-fry, a bowl of chili or borscht.

To grow scallions properly, though, it's best to sow them in cool weather, when the soil is about 50 degrees. They don't relish heat, so if you haven't started any for your summer garden, you'll have to wait until the season starts to moderate a bit, then plant them as a fall or winter crop. In the meantime, this means no scallions to put in summer salsas or to scatter over that boring, oh-so-white potato salad.

I find that by broadening the definition of the scallion, I can extend its season. Strictly speaking, a scallion, often called a bunching onion, is an onion that never forms a bulb at the end but remains straight and slender from top to bottom -- like a leek, only tiny. (Botanically it's a distinct species, Allium fistulosum.) But you can get those slender, long green-oniony leaves from any plant that is, at the moment, exhibiting scalliony behavior.

Viewed this way, scallion season might start with the onion bin at winter's end, when your storage onions have reached the end of their shelf life. The bulbs have softened and are sending out long shoots from the tops. These are a bit firmer than classic scallion foliage but just as good to eat. If they're pale from having begun life in darkness, just set them on a sunny windowsill and they'll green right up in a day or so. In the old days, these sprouts were often the only green thing to eat before spring crops started to bear.

Regular bulbing onions, on their way to maturity, can always have their tops robbed prematurely at those times when scallions are a necessity. Sometimes bulbing onions don't ever get around to bulbing at all. Don't call them a crop failure. Call them scallions.

Perhaps you intended to plant bulb onions and never got around to it. Visit the garden center and see if there are any leftover onion sets, those tiny dry bulbs that turn into big bulbs at summer's end. Plant them now. They'll be more heat-tolerant than the seed-sown types, and if you keep them watered they should at least yield some green tops. Steal a few tops from your garlic and shallots while you're at it. And when the chives get fat and mature in summer, they'll be almost scallionlike, too, or at least a good enough imitation to tide you over until cool, scallion-planting weather returns.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Image credit: Aaron Freimark

Posted by at 11:56 AM | Permalink

The three basic types you can grow are shell peas, snow peas, and sugarsnaps. Shell peas are opened (shelled) so you can get the peas out of the pods. These are the traditional pea varieties grown in New England. Snow pea pods are harvested before the seeds get large. They are often used in Asian cooking (stir-fries) or salads. Sugarsnap varieties are eaten whole -- both the pod and the peas are edible -- and they tend to be sweet.

Planting peas is easy. You simply make a shallow trench (about an inch deep and 3 inches wide) in your garden and scatter the seeds in the trench. If you want to get fancy, you can coat your peas with an inoculant (a beneficial bacteria) before planting to help the plants to fix nitrogen. An ounce of seed will plant about five feet of row. Cover the seeds firmly with soil and wait for the seeds to germinate. This usually takes about five to seven days. The peas don't need to be thinned, but you will want to keep the rows weeded.

When you plant your peas, the spacing between rows depends on the varieties that you are growing. Dwarf varieties don't need to be trellised, and the rows can be planted about 18 inches apart. Full size varieties need to be trellised, and they should be spaced about 4 feet apart. If the seed packet doesn't tell you that the peas are a dwarf variety, you should plan to erect a trellis.

A trellis can be as simple or fancy as you want to make it. The easiest version is to put two posts in the ground, about ten feet apart within the row, and fasten a net trellis to the posts. (Reusable trellises that last many years are available at most garden supply stores.) If you want a more traditional trellis, gardeners for hundreds of years have grown their peas on branches stuck into the ground and woven together to form a row. If you decide to grow your peas on a brush trellis, you may want to allow a little more space between rows to make it easier to weed or harvest.

Because peas like cool soils, after the plants germinate you can keep the soil mulched with grass clippings or other materials to help keep weeds down.

Dwarf varieties are ready to eat in as little as seven weeks. Some of the taller varieties take up to ten weeks to reach maturity. Harvest shell peas just as the peas fill out the pods.

Text credit: Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association
Photo credits: Cpt. Obvious, Mira D'Oubiette

Posted by at 2:55 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, April 10, 2008 in The Washington Post

Most baby vegetables are small because we make them that way. A cute three-inch-long zucchini is the result of an intervention. If not harvested at that size, it would grow as big as your thigh. A mini pumpkin stays mini, but only because it has been programmed to do so by a modern breeder.

Currant tomatoes, on the other hand, are tiny because they are ancient and relatively un-tampered with. They look the way the first tomatoes probably looked -- clusters of delicious little fruits no larger than large blueberries (or currants, hence the name). Cherry tomatoes look jumbo by comparison. Considered by some to be a distinct species, Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium, the currant type is extremely prolific. The plants, laden with hundreds of berries, are very vigorous and disease-resistant. They can even withstand a few light frosts.

The stems are thin and lax. All vining tomatoes are floppy, but these are almost impossible to stake. An excellent way to manage them is to let them festoon a fence or ramble over a low stone wall. They're best grown off by themselves anyway, as they tend to crowd other garden plants and self-sow with abandon. Since they cross-pollinate readily with other tomatoes, it's best to keep them at a distance of at least 50 feet if you plan to save seeds.

Picking currant tomatoes can be tedious, but well worth it for their rich, concentrated flavor. They look gorgeous sprinkled over salad or as a garnish for any summer dish. Try them atop peach ice cream. They can also be dried to make sweet tomato raisins.

To some extent, currant tomatoes have been selected or bred for various traits, particularly color. The standard red type can be found at a number of seed companies, including John Scheepers. There are also yellow varieties such as Gold Currant from Tomato Fest. White varieties such as Little White Rabbit from Amishland Heirloom Seeds are actually somewhere between yellow and cream. A mix of colors in a bowl would be the hit of a summer party. Some currant tomatoes are more prone to dropping their fruits. Tomato Fest's Hawaiian Currant holds onto its fruit until the whole cluster is ripe.

There is still time to buy seeds to start indoors, or order plants in three-inch pots from White Flower Farm. They are shipped in mid- to late April, but the gardener can hold them in a protected spot if warm tomato-planting weather gets held up in traffic.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Baby corn image credit: Krissy Downing

Posted by at 6:57 AM | Permalink

We've made yet another media splash by getting our "grow your own" message into the national press. The coverage came as a result of a pitch we made and which turned into the article below. Variations of the article have now appeared in the following newspapers:

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Canada
Pasadena Star, CA
Belleville Intelligencer, Canada
San Bernardino Sun, CA
The Standard-Times, MA
Capital Press, OR
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, CA
Whittier Daily News, CA
Houston Chronicle, TX
Asbury Park Press, NJ
San Mateo Daily Journal, CA
The Courier News, IL
Naples News, FL
The Colorodoan, CO
The State, SC
Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan, SD
Dodge Daily Globe, KS
New Haven Register, CT
Detroit Free Press, MI
Dallas Morning News, TX
Times & Transcript, Moncton, Canada
Eagle Tribune, MA
Maine Sunday Telegram, ME
Jamestown Sun, ND
Lewiston Tribune, ID
The Chronicle Herald, Canada
Cherokee Tribune, GA
The Reading Eagle, PA
Sudbury Star, Canada
Lawrence Journal, KS
Baxter Bulletin, AK
Asheville Citizen Times, NC
Grand Island Independent, NE
Montgomery Advertiser, AL
Laconia Citizen, NH
Foster's Daily Democrat, NH
The Vindicator, PA
The Wenatchee World, WA
Arizona Republic, AZ

By encouraging the media to report on home gardening trends, we're helping to amplify those trends and get more people involved. Some quick math based on newspaper circulation shows that we reached upwards of 3 million readers with this timely and important message.

Did you see this article in a paper that's not listed above? Please let us know as we're trying to track the effectiveness of our media outreach efforts.

Continue reading "KGI in the press: gardens help families stretch food budgets" »

Posted by at 10:28 AM | Permalink

For the past two decades, Barbara Damrosch’s book The Garden Primer has been one of the most popular gardening resources for both novice and avid gardeners. If you’re among the latter, there’s a good chance you already have copy in your gardening library (hint: it’s the dirty one with the dog-eared cover). This winter, the long-awaited “100% organic” second edition has been released. We recently had a chance to catch up with Barbara to talk with her about her new book and life on Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine.

KGI: Thanks very much for agreeing to this interview. It’s been twenty years since the first edition of The Garden Primer came out. How would you say you’ve changed as a gardener during this time?
BD: The main way I have changed as a gardener in 20 years is about the way most gardeners do: just by doing it more and becoming more experienced. Certainly I've read a lot and learned from other gardeners, including my husband who is by far the best gardener I know, but I think the most important thing is that the more you grow things the more you understand how nature operates. The relationship between you and the natural world becomes more one of collaboration. I am participating in a process that is going on around me, not just tackling projects. I have always been conscious, for example, that building good soil is a process in which entire underground civilizations participate, not a concoction whipped up by gardeners as if following a recipe.

This awareness has deepened, though, and I am even more gentle about the way I handle the soil, tilling less, avoiding all chemical fertilizers -- which I rarely used anyway --and paying even more attention to the wildlife that are participants in the process both above and below the soil surface. I don't cut back most of my perennials in fall, for example, leaving any that stand upright as cover and food sources for overwintering birds. I also consider myself a "recovering double-digger" and would never reverse the soil layers in an effort to loosen it to a great depth. I'd use a broadfork or digging fork instead, just using these tools to loosen the soil deep below and then applying organic matter regularly to the soil surface. This is more the way nature does it, as leaves fall from the trees and burrowing creatures help to incorporate organic matter into the soil below.

Continue reading "Interview with garden writer Barbara Damrosch" »

Posted by at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

These straightforward tips come courtesy of Charlie Nardozzi, senior horticulturist and spokesperson for the National Gardening Association. Follow them and you're sure to have great results this season.

1. Find the Right Spot. Like real estate, a successful organic garden is all about the right location. Find a spot in your yard with full sun (at least 6 hours), well-drained soil, and one that's within easy reach of the house.
2. Beef Up the Soil. Add organic matter such as grass clippings, leaves, compost, manure, hay and straw each fall. In spring, apply a 1/2- to 1-inch-thick layer of finished compost on beds before planting.
3. Raise it Up. Create raised beds (8 to 10 inches high, 3 feet wide) by mounding the soil and flattening the top. Soil in raised beds warms up and dries out faster in spring and is easer to work. You can reform the beds each spring or make the beds permanent by framing them with rot-resistant wood, plastic or stone.
4. Grow What You Like. Although it may seem obvious, grow crops you and your family love to eat. While bush beans, lettuces and tomatoes are some of the easiest vegetables to grow, if your family doesn't enjoy them, why grow them?
5. Select the Right Varieties. Grow varieties of vegetables and fruits adapted to your area. Check with local garden centers and fellow gardeners to find the best varieties to grow.
6. Start With Transplants. For the beginning gardener, purchase as many vegetables as possible as transplants from the garden center. Seeds are necessary for root crops, such as carrots and radishes, but transplants of most other vegetables are more likely to be a success.
7. Design Properly. Design your garden with a mix of flowers, vegetables, fruits and herbs. A mixed planting is less likely to get completely destroyed by insect, animal or disease attacks.
8. Plant Correctly. Follow package directions and plant at the proper spacing and depth. Thin seeded crops to the proper distance. Crowded plants become easily stressed and don't produce well.
9. Mulch. Maintain constant soil moisture and keep weeds at bay by mulching. Mulch cool-season crops such as strawberries, broccoli and lettuce with a 2- to 3-inch-thick layer of hay, straw or grass clippings. Mulch warm-season crops such as tomatoes, melons and cucumbers with plastic mulch to heat the soil.
10. Check for Insects. Inspect plants every few days for any insect activity. Handpick destructive insects and drop them in a can of soapy water.

Text credit: The National Gardening Association
Photo credit: Keeeps

Posted by at 11:21 AM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, February 7, 2007 in The Washington Post

Finding the ancient origin of a popular food is always intriguing, especially if it leads to a new adventure in the kitchen. Take ordinary lettuce. The oldest lettuce type is the upright, long-leaved Romaine, its ancestor on full display in Egyptian bas-reliefs from the third millennium B.C. The French name Romaine, a reference to its presence in papal gardens, merely points to a step along the journey to modern times. Its other common name, cos lettuce, links it to the Greek Island of Kos. But that, too, was a way station, according to William Woys Weaver in "100 Vegetables and Where They Came From."

"Those large, long, stiff-leaved sorts," Weaver recounts, "were consciously selected by Syrian gardeners so that the leaves would develop strong ribs and spoon-shaped foliage. The reason for this was simple: the lettuces were used as an edible scoop or spoon when eating tabbouleh-like foods." Still an excellent reason to grow Romaine.

Seed catalogues list many tried-and-true Romaine varieties. Parris Island cos, bred in South Carolina in 1952, is large, crisp and mild-tasting. I also like the ruddy-tipped, chill-tolerant Rouge d'Hiver and the red, carnival-like speckles of Flashy Troutback.

Like all lettuces, Romaine is a cool-weather crop. In Washington, where summer heat can arrive in May, you could sow lettuce seeds indoors now, so as to have robust seedlings to transplant outdoors in early March. For a later spring planting, the Israeli-bred, heat-tolerant Jericho is the best choice. Lettuce plants should be set out 10 to 12 inches apart in a fertile, moisture-retentive soil that is rich in organic matter.

Romaine's robust texture makes it a versatile salad lettuce. It has nearly the firmness of the iceberg type but with better color and more nutrients, especially vitamins K, A and C, as well as folate. Cooks love the way it holds up well to heavy dressings such as creamy blue cheese, warmed anchovy and garlic or the classic Caesar with egg and Parmesan cheese. To use it as a dipping scoop, I'll choose the smaller inner leaves.

But the tabbouleh test will have to wait for the first tomatoes. This wonderful dish of bulgur wheat dressed with olive oil, parsley and garlic requires the presence of chopped tomatoes picked vine-ripe. (It'll also be good with the first fall Romaines.)

Meanwhile, I'll try a lettuce-scooped Provencal tapenade with black olives, capers and tuna, or the Greek htipiti, a puree of feta cheese, olive oil, lemon and roasted red pepper. Or an ultra-garlicky Middle Eastern hummus with sesame tahini, chickpeas and olive oil, fit for a banquet in ancient Mesopotamia.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: Joi

Posted by at 2:37 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, January 17, 2007 in The Washington Post

You could say 2007 was the year of the "locavore," a word coined by California food activist Jessica Prentice to describe people who eat food that is locally grown. While the New Oxford American Dictionary was declaring "locavore" the Word of the Year, shoppers were scurrying about in search of onions grown in nearby fields, beef grazed on local pastures, chickens who had come home to roost.

This kind of foraging can take a bit more effort and time. Farm stands, farmers markets and subscription farms make the job easier but are not always close at hand and may not be open for business at the instant you need a pound of fingerling potatoes or a ripe melon. Many of the passionately locavoracious who have followed this trend find that it leads inevitably to their back yards. What could be more local than your own vegetable garden, berry patch or orchard? Once these are established, the time spent tending them is often no more than that spent scouring the county for arugula or probing a produce manager about where she gets her mache.

For others, planting a garden is too daunting a step. "I would love to have one," a would-be yardavore will lament, "but I have a full-time job." Or kids. Or arthritis. So here's a solution: Hire somebody to install one for you and return weekly to tend it. If you're a busy person, you may already employ a cleaning service, lawn service or a landscaper. Why not a foodscaper? It's another expense, but one that pays for itself at least in part by putting food on the table, and the freshest possible food at that.

Landscapers are often asked to put in food gardens for customers. I used to do this once upon a time, and I found that instant veggie plots and apple trees brought their owners more pleasure than they got from yew hedges and junipers. In fact, if I were to nominate the job opportunity of 2008, it would be a specialty in implementing home food gardens. Call it foodscaping if you like, but I guarantee that if the practice takes hold, the apt word will emerge.

I've noticed that even a kitchen garden created by others soon invites more intimate contact. The owners get a kick out of picking beans and peppers. So do their kids, who now eat more vegetables than before. ("These are our carrots!") Weary commuters might even unwind for an hour after work by pulling some weeds, thinning the spinach or learning how to prune a tomato vine. The fact that professional backup is available makes the project less of a burden and provides a comforting safety net against neglect. Then again, the garden might draw you in completely until you have made it your own. But that's skipping ahead to 2009.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.

Posted by at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Garlic may well be the easiest crop you've never tried. The steps are simple: 1) buy seed bulbs 2) break into cloves 3) plant in rich, loose soil 2 inches (5 cm) deep and 6 inches (15 cm) apart 4) mulch 5) water and 6) wait. Ok, that's over-simplifying a bit, but not by much. This short video offers more info and will get you thinking about working some space for garlic into next year's garden plan.

Posted by at 2:09 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, November 1, 2007 in The Washington Post

An emerging tribe of hunter-gatherers colonized our farm this week. Look out the window and you'll see them creeping down the rows of crops, nibbling as they go, or reaching into low tree branches for apples. They are the grandchildren, and they know, with a primitive wisdom, how food should best be eaten. Send a grown-up out to pick raspberries for supper and he'll come back promptly with a quart. Send a young child forth with an empty yogurt container hanging from her neck by a string and she'll come back with a berry mustache, the container as empty as before.

Among this summer's best memories is the one of the 2-year-old twins, Heidi and Emily, gorging naked on tiny alpine strawberries during a warm July rain. Recently their 3-year-old cousin, Bode, joined them for the almost endless harvest of these ever-bearing fruits. The blueberries were finished for the year, but there were still a few raspberries left, and one day Bode walked in with a fistful of green pods filled with sweet, fat fall peas to savor, one by one. His grandfather lifted him up so he could reach the Swenson Red grapes dangling from the arbor. There were even some cherry tomatoes in the garden. Nobody of any age can resist the sight of red Sweet 100s or yellow Sungolds beckoning from the vines.

Everybody at our place is a perpetual grazer when easy-pick goodies are in season, but it's especially heartening to see the kids go at it. Foraging gives them hours of amusement (much more harmonious than those spent fighting over toys) and the idea that fruits and vegetables are not something they are told to eat, but delicious prizes they go out and win, all by themselves. Pretty soon, Preschool Nation will be out in fleece jackets, pulling our winter carrots, as sweet as candy, from the cold soil. One of them just came in with a fistful of kale, not yet ready to try it but, well, interested.

Even if you are not a parent or grandparent, there is no better way to welcome young neighbors or visitors than to send them out on a fruit-finding mission. And even if you are not yet a gardener, watching such a scene might turn you into one. What better introduction could children have to real food and its source in the good earth?

The snack aisle at the food store is not something you'd ever want to imitate, but it does provide a useful challenge. Make sure the rows in your garden are just as tempting, and no one will even mention candy.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: Adam Clarke

Posted by at 9:38 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, October 20, 2007 in The Washington Post

This time of year I'm like the women in Jean-François Millet's painting "The Gleaners," bent over the mown fields in their kerchiefs and long skirts, gathering scraps of leftover grain. It's completely irrational. My garden is still bursting with fresh crops for fall: spinach, kale, leeks and a dozen or so others. Winter squash is just starting to cure in the shed, and I haven't even dug the root crops yet. But somehow the oncoming winter brings out the frugal peasant in me, and I'm gripped with the urge to salvage what is left of summer's bounty.

The last of the unpicked snap beans have seeds swelling in their pods. Better not waste them. I spend an hour shelling them and another gathering the last of the old corn ears, stripping them of their kernels and adding them to the beans for succotash. There's some over-the-hill fennel, too woody for salads but a perfectly good candidate for long, slow braising.

A row of broccoli plants and another of zucchini are ready to be yanked out and composted. But shouldn't I leave them a week longer to see if they'll pump out a few more stir-fries' worth of food? I stroll through the garden, assessing what is left. I want one more dish of fried squash blossoms, one more platter of tomato salad before frost threatens. "Look, it's fall," I tell myself. "Get over it."

Then I spot the bolted lettuce. Some of the leafy towers are nearly three feet tall. Where I've harvested heads, the stems have regrown with multiple spires, like Notre Dame. Ready to rip them out, I remember something I read about once on a favorite Web site called L'Atelier Vert ( http://www.frenchgardening.com). Although the leaves of bolted lettuce are so bitter only the starving would eat them, the stems are said to be quite tasty. Curious, I cut some, strip them of their leaves and bring them indoors. Not even bothering to peel them, I cut them all into half-inch pieces on the diagonal. I would expect them to be tough, but they are succulent and easy to slice.

I saute them on low heat for 20 minutes or so in French walnut oil. They begin to exude the milky sap that gives lettuce its botanical name ( Latuca), then they slowly caramelize until they are crisp. I heap them onto a plate with coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper. They are delectable, more sweet than bitter, but with a little bite. If I leave the roots in the ground, maybe they will sprout a few more meals like this one before the season finally comes to an end.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Image: "Les Glaneuses" by Jean-François Millet, 1857.

Posted by at 1:39 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, September 20, 2007 in The Washington Post

When T.S. Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month," he might have added, "October is seriously underrated."

Consider those two months. We expect from both a temperature range midway between hot and cold, with unpredictable doses of either. But gardeners, especially, embrace April with exaggerated hope and cheer, oblivious to the imminent onset of blistering heat, drought and bolted lettuce. By October many edge wearily and even gratefully into the shadow of oncoming winter, forgetting to enjoy the gardening year's best weather.

Poke your head outside the cocoon of artificial lighting and controlled indoor temperature, and you'll better understand the rhythm of the seasons' lag time, a planetary dance in which reality and symbol rarely mesh. What we call summer solstice (around June 21) runs about two months ahead of the year's hottest weather, and the winter solstice (around Dec. 21) two months ahead of its coldest. "As the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen," the old saying goes.

The number of daylight hours on the spring equinox (around March 21) is the same as that on the fall equinox (around Sept. 22), but while the sun in March seems feeble, in September it feels strong, thanks to the slowness with which the earth absorbs and releases the sun's heat. In spring the warming of the soil surface can lag a month and a half behind that of the air on a mild day, and six feet below, the lag can be as much as three months. In fall, the ground is comparably slow to chill.

This all adds up to fall gardening nirvana. The earth is still warm, even if you start the day with a thick sweater. Pest insects are bundling themselves up in pupae to hibernate or seeking refuge underground. The shortening days let you get away with feats impossible in spring. Lettuce and spinach, whose impulse to go to seed is triggered by lengthening days, do not bolt cruelly, but bide their time, allowing a gloriously long harvest. Arugula loses its harsh bite. Carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips and Brussels sprouts begin the magical sweetening-up that comes with the cold.

As maples turn scarlet, Tuscan kale glows with the deep green of chlorophyll. By the time such summer crops as tomatoes, cucumbers and melons have frozen or lost their flavor, far more crops have reached the perfect moment. You're then ready to compost all those tired vines and embrace the garden's benign season.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: Veronica Lynn

Posted by at 12:17 PM | Permalink

A garden can be a personal powerhouse for foods rich in antioxidants.

BY JESSIE MILLIGAN, McClatchy Newspapers

The seesaw of health news never quits. One day a study said tomatoes fight cancer. Then the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said studies on cancer and the antioxidant lycopene in tomatoes are inconclusive.

What's the best response? Eat your veggies, just like Mom said.

Antioxidants – long the darlings of the nutrition and beauty worlds – still are not entirely understood. It's well known they have the potential to protect cells from harmful molecules called free radicals, but their specific ability to target certain diseases still is being studied with mixed success.

"Antioxidants are promoted as being helpful to a number of health-related issues, but the jury is still out," said Bernie Frye, professor of biology and nutrition at University of Texas at Arlington.

The main thing the "jury" agrees on is this: Antioxidants are capable of performing amazing and beneficial acts of chemistry at the molecular level.

Some of the most antioxidant-rich foods can be grown in a garden, and it isn't too late to plant for a fall harvest. Those who do not garden still can get a good antioxidant surge from veggies and fruit at the supermarket.

What's an antioxidant?

Cells in our body sustain regular damage. Cells take a little beating even when we metabolize food. They are banged up a bit when our immune system fights viruses and bacteria. They take even more hits when exposed to toxins and pollutants.

The result is free radicals, unstable molecules that scrounge around our bodies stealing electrons from healthy cells in their attempt to become stable. Cells, proteins and DNA take on more damage as free radicals do their work.

Antioxidants come to the rescue.

"Antioxidants run interference. They are body guards," Frye said.

Antioxidants donate their electrons to slow or prevent the free-radical attack on healthy cells.

Left unchecked, free-radical damage may cause mutations in cells that may lead to cancer.

But are antioxidants miracle drugs? No. We already know that antioxidants are not always on guard.

"Nothing is going to work 100 percent. Otherwise, we would never age," Frye said.

The best sources for antioxidants are fresh foods. They don't have to be raw; the amount of antioxidants often increases when foods are cooked.

It isn't a good idea to rely on antioxidant supplements or artificially charged antioxidant drinks, Frye said.

"The consensus opinion is that taking any chemical supplement in concentrated form is not as advantageous as getting the antioxidant in food," he said.

Food, he said, serves up antioxidants in a perfect concentration and in combination with other chemicals.

"It seems like nature has decided what's best for us," Frye said.

How much should we eat?

Five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables every day are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Department of Agriculture. Colorful fruits and vegetables – from bright red to leafy green – have the most antioxidants.

The best way to get a fresh, organic supply of antioxidant-rich foods is to keep a vegetable garden.

Here are some of the best vegetables – and even a nut and an herb – loaded with antioxidants, as well as the conventional wisdom on how each keeps us healthy:

RED PEPPER

Antioxidant: Vitamin C

How it helps: Supports immune system

Garden know-how: Avoid sun scald by giving them afternoon shade.

Food fact: Get the most out of sweet red peppers by eating them raw. One cup of raw red pepper provides 283 milligrams of vitamin C, more than double the 124 milligrams of vitamin C in one cup of fresh orange juice, according to the USDA.

SUNFLOWER SEEDS

Antioxidant: Vitamin E

How it helps: Supports immune system, repairs DNA

Garden know-how: Harvest sunflowers when the back of the flower is brown. If birds are eating the seeds, cut the flower when the back is just beginning to turn brown, then hang it upside down out of direct sunlight to finish drying.

Food fact: One ounce of roasted sunflower seeds has more vitamin E than the same amount of almonds, peanut butter or spinach. One ounce supplies almost two-thirds of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin E.

SWEET POTATO

Antioxidant: Beta-carotene

How it helps: May protect eyesight, aid in preventing breathing problems and support immune system

Garden know-how: Don't put too much fertilizer on sweet potatoes or you'll get well-developed vines but poorly developed potatoes.

Food fact: Retain the most beta-carotene by baking rather than boiling sweet potatoes. The only way to get more beta-carotene is to eat canned pumpkin. Carrots are another good source.

COLLARDS

Antioxidants: Lutein and zeaxanthin

How it helps: May contribute to healthy vision

Garden know-how: Thin collards to 18 inches apart for leafier plants. Side-dress with fertilizer for the deepest green leaves.

Food fact: Fall is best for planting. Collard greens taste sweeter if harvested after a light frost. Other good sources of these antioxidants are cooked spinach, turnip greens, Brussels sprouts, pumpkin and winter squash.

TOMATO

Antioxidant: Lycopene

How it helps: May protect against prostate cancer

Garden know-how: Plant tomato transplants with part of the main stem buried. This encourages rooting.

Food fact: Cook tomatoes to increase their lycopene content. One cup of ready-made marinara sauce has nine times the lycopene as one cup of raw tomato.

OREGANO

Antioxidant: Apigenin

How it helps: Anti-inflammatory, may protect against breast and prostate cancers

Garden know-how: Oregano is evergreen in North Central Texas gardens.

Food fact: One tablespoon of fresh oregano has the same amount of antioxidants as one raw apple.

BROCCOLI

Antioxidant: Flavanols

How it helps: May protect against pancreatic and other cancers

Garden know-how: Fall planting is the most likely to be successful. Broccoli needs to mature in cool weather.

Food fact: Broccoli is considered a nutritional powerhouse, containing not just flavonols but also other antioxidants, plus calcium and vitamins.

GARLIC

Antioxidant: Diallyl sulfide

How it helps: May detoxify cells, protect the heart, support the immune system

Garden know-how: This frost-hardy plant is best planted in the fall so it has time to develop full-size bulbs. Harvest in June.

Food fact: Peeling garlic begins a series of chemical reactions in the clove. To get the best shot of this antioxidant, the National Cancer Institute recommends waiting 15 minutes between peeling and cooking garlic.

CABBAGE

Antioxidant: Dithiolthiones

How it helps: May lower LDL "bad" cholesterol and protect the immune system

Garden know-how: Keep soil uniformly moist near harvest time to prevent heads from splitting.

Food fact: Raw or cooked, cabbage also is high in beta-carotene, potassium and iron.

Data sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Texas Cooperative Extension, Texas A&M Horticulture Department, American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, International Food Information Council

Article © McClatchy Newspapers, reprinted for educational purposes in accordance with section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.

Photo credit: one2c900d

Posted by at 6:13 PM | Permalink

Whether it’s lysteria in hot dogs, e.coli in ground beef or salmonella in peanut butter, bacteria is more often than not seen as one of the “bad guys” of the microscopic world. The result of this is that we are fast becoming a "bacterophobic" society.

If you have any doubts about this, just take a good look around you next time you go to the grocery store or pharmacy. A few years ago, only a few dozen products containing antibacterial agents were being marketed for the home. Now more than 700 are available. We're now being bombarded with ads for cleansers, soaps, toothbrushes, dishwashing detergents, and hand lotions, all containing antibacterial agents. Ironically, new research out of the University of Michigan suggests that not only are these anti-bacterial products no better than good 'ol soap and hot water, but that they could render some useful antibiotics less effective over time.

While bacteria has recently been cast in the bad guy role, organic gardeners know that bacteria do much of the behind-the-scenes, dirty work in the soil and in the compost pile. What a lot people don't know is just how critical this work is. Were it not for soil bacteria, there would be no kitchen garden. In fact, there'd be no life at all. We've posted a slideshow to our website (available as a PDF or a PowerPoint file) which explains how bacteria fit into the big picture called life.

If you're not a soil bacteria fan by the end of this blog post, then consider this one last fact: bacteria might even make you a happier person. Researchers at the University of Bristol in the UK have found that a common soil bacteria called "mycobacterium vaccae" could act like antidepressant drugs. This bacteria has been found to stimulate the immune system of mice and boost the production of serotonin, a mood-regulating brain chemical.

You always knew that gardening made you feel good. Now, perhaps you know why.

Bacteria photo courtesy of Vijñāna

Posted by at 10:08 AM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, August 2, 2007 in The Washington Post

If pole beans are allowed to get into trouble, they will. Early on, they are like a good baby that sleeps through the night. You poke the conveniently fat seeds into the ground, then let the warmth and easy moisture of late spring nudge forth the young shoots -- big healthy-looking things grouped in tidy circles at the base of their poles or lined up in long rows.

A vine will sometimes seem to hesitate in its upward climb, poised like an acrobat a few feet above the soil as if looking for a trapeze to clutch. That's your cue to guide it gently in the direction of the pole, trellis or fence you have provided for its support. Sometimes a lethargic plant will need to be lifted bodily from the ground and taught to twine. But from then on it's go, go, go.

Continue reading "Pole bean or out-of-control bean?" »

Posted by at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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

Posted by at 3:48 PM | Permalink

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

Posted by at 8:27 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, May 3, 2007 in The Washington Post

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.

Continue reading "Carve Out a Cozy Niche For Cold-Sensitive Plants" »

Posted by at 5:02 AM | Permalink

An article in today's San Francisco Chronicle talks about some things suburbanites can do to reduce their environmental impacts. Their suggestion: start with your lawn.

The authors recommend replacing power tools with hand tools when feasible and composting all yard and food wastes on site. The data in both of these areas is amazing. Lawmowers, it turns out, are the Hummers of the gardening world. According to one estimate, gas-powered mowers in the United States consume 800 million gallons of fuel per year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says 17 million gallons of gas are wasted annually while refueling mowers -- more than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

The data on home composting is also compelling. One study found that a home composter typically diverts 579 pounds of yard waste and 225 pounds of food waste from the waste stream in a year's time.

Here are their 10 tips:
-- Buy local.
-- Grow your food.
-- Shrink your lawn.
-- Replace power tools with hand tools.
-- Keep green waste out of the landfill.
-- Compost at home.
-- Avoid synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
-- Save your seeds.
-- Spare your trees.
-- Garden for wildlife.

Posted by at 8:34 AM | Permalink

This garden in Ashland, Oregon will have you thinking about your backyard in a whole new way. Note the number of different varieties grown and the balance achieved between plant, animal, insect, and human populations. Truly inspirational!

Posted by at 2:07 PM | Permalink

While we're not sure any process with 15 steps to it can truly be considered "easy", we like the steps set out in the article below and think you'll get good results following them.

Continue reading "Growing from seed in 15 easy steps" »

Posted by at 3:28 PM | Permalink

Pruning fruit trees is one of those garden tasks that is hard to pick up from a book. It's best to learn it directly from an expert in the orchard, ideally by making a few cuts yourself. Whether you are a home orchardist, a Star Wars fan, or both, there's something to make you happy in this short instructional video. May the pruning force be with you!

(for general info on the pruning of apple trees, this link may be of interest)

Posted by at 2:43 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, February 22, 2007 in The Washington Post

At the time of our country's founding, the saying was that a good gardener could produce peas by the king's birthday. The date was the Fourth of June, and the ruling monarch was George III, nicknamed "Farmer George" for his zest for agriculture. Less beloved by his former colonists, his connection with their pea crop became remote. Northerly states strove for a July 4 harvest instead, a choice both patriotic and timely for their climate. Meanwhile, in the region of the nation's capital, the traditional date for English or garden pea planting became George Washington's birthday, which happens to be today, Feb. 22.

Free now to honor the George of our choice, any American gardener is still nonetheless subject to the imperious whims of weather, temperature and the state of the soil. Whether you go out today with packet in hand depends on whether your soil can be properly worked. If it is still frozen, you will have to wait at least a week or two. If it has thawed but is still gummy with moisture, wait. Peas germinate best in a soil that is cool and moist, but not cold and wet.

If you are very sharp at this game, you might already have dug some shallow trenches for your peas last fall and filled them with compost, covered with an inch or two of soil. You can then plant your peas without having to do any more than cover them with an inch of soil, pat the furrow and say, "Go!" Apart from organically enriched soil, pea plants need consistent moisture when flowers and pods are forming. Lime is also needed if the soil pH is below 6.

To read the full article at washingtonpost.com, please go here

Photo credit: Lobo235

Posted by at 7:25 AM | Permalink

by Cindy McNatt, printed February 17, 2007 in the Orange County Register

I dropped a pile of books off at the local library the other day and saw the groundskeeping crew blowing the last gram of organic matter out of the landscape.

The leaves were gathered to throw in the trash and the plants that lived there, daylilies and rhaphiolepis, looked stunted and sad as they choked on the fumes of the leaf blower and shivered at the loss of their leafy blanket.

Mulch is a simple idea. Leaves that fall to the ground and carpet the surface to keep it cozy are an essential part of how nature makes soil. Leaf litter is a mulching process as old as the planet.

Yet we routinely clean up the litter that ironically leaves only dirt behind. And dirt isn't soil unless it contains organic matter.

A top dress of mulch not only provides it, it offers other immediate benefits. Joanne West of Sierra Soils in San Juan Capistrano offers five:

"Two to three inches settled on the top of exposed soil helps hold moisture in, keeps the soil temperatures even around the root zone of plants, prevents weeds from germinating, prevents erosion and makes landscapes look neat and tidy," she said.

Continue reading "Marvelous mulch" »

Posted by at 11:06 AM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, February 8, 2007 in The Washington Post

"Never shop when you're hungry" is good advice. On the way home from work it's easy to fill the cart with food you don't need. On Saturday, after breakfast, there's a chance you'll stick to your list.

With seed shopping, though, you have no choice. You're starved for the taste of fresh garden produce. So here come the new seed catalogues to tempt you in midwinter, when your resistance is low.

I always succumb. Theoretically a seed is the world's biggest bargain: One tiny speck yields so much food! But I'm lured by catalogue descriptions into buying far more than I can grow. Luckily, most seeds keep their spark of life for years if stored in a dry place, and I share extras with neighbors.

Recently I spent a stormy day by the fire with a tall stack of catalogues and surveyed the riches of spring 2007. The top starlet of the season seems to be a very dark brown, mildly spicy chili-type pepper called Holy Molé, highly touted as the first hybrid pasilla pepper, an elongated type that's a current favorite with chefs. It was chosen this year as a coveted All-America Selection -- an award given after objective trials in test gardens nationwide. Holy Molé was repeatedly praised as the perfect pepper for molé, a luscious Mexican sauce sometimes enriched with unsweetened chocolate. I'm skeptical. Making the sauce browner has little to do with producing a good molé, and some "chocolate"-colored peppers struggle to get past muddy purple-green. Organic Gardening magazine gave it a positive write-up but noted that three of its four testers would not grow it a second year, and it scored low for flavor. I'll wait on that one.

Dark vegetables are a big hit in the 2007 lineup. Thompson & Morgan is among the catalogues introducing the Black Cherry tomato, with dusky purplish skin. I like the heirloom black tomatoes I've grown, even though they aren't very prolific. A cherry version sounds great, because cherries have higher yields. This one would look great in a bowl with orange Sungold cherry tomatoes and some red ones, such as the Cook's Garden's Ladybug, a crack-resistant cherry ("Our Tomato Taste Testing Winner of 2006").

To read the full article at washingtonpost.com, please go here

Photo credit: Angelo Cesare

Seed sources on the Web:
Thompson & Morgan, http://www.thompson-morgan.com; Cook's Garden, http://www.cooksgarden.com; Burpee, http://www.burpee.com; Nichols, http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com; Renee's Garden, http://www.reneesgarden.com; Pinetree Garden Seeds, http://www.superseeds.com; Seeds of Change, http://www.seedsofchange.com; John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com; Bountiful Gardens, http://www.bountifulgardens.org; Johnny's Selected Seeds, http://www.johnnyseeds.com; Fedco Seeds, http://www.fedcoseeds.com; Seeds From Italy, http://www.growitalian.com; Vermont Bean Seed, http://www.vermontbean.com; Shumway's, http://www.rhshumway.com.

Posted by at 8:47 AM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, February 1, 2007 in The Washington Post

I used to think that parsley was especially prone to winter predation by rabbits or deer. As its growth slowed in cold weather, something would always nibble it to the ground. Because it is very cold-hardy, the bright green foliage normally would persist in the garden long after most crops had succumbed to winter, and the plants sometimes have still been there in spring.

It seemed logical that creatures foraging for food in the cold season would find them. But when even the ones protected by a cold frame were chewed down to little nubbins, I knew I'd have to look elsewhere for a culprit. The trail led to my husband. Some people chew gum, others keep their hand in a bag of chips. He grazes on parsley. He loves its flavor and puts great trust in its nutritive powers.

It's widely known that the plant is good for you: high in calcium, potassium and folate, richer in iron than spinach, higher than oranges in vitamin C. Just how many grams of these vital substances you obtain from eating it is never quite clear to me, even when linked to a fixed unit such as one cup. What's a cupful of parsley? How full do you cram it, and how hard do you mash it down to measure it? That is irrelevant, according to my mate. For him it's a simple fact that chewing parsley stimulates the digestive juices, keeps you from getting colds and helps you deal with winter. He leaves a trail not of cookie crumbs but of parsley stems from which he has nibbled the leaves. We have learned to sow plenty, for a generous supply. This year, with winter's mild beginning, our crop was abundant.

Not long ago parsley emerged from the garnish ghetto and became a bona fide culinary herb. Cooks embraced the flat-leaf kind, as opposed to the more firm-textured curly type, but both still have their place. In our house, parsley has further progressed from herb to full-fledged vegetable. There aren't many green plants you can pick generous bunches of in January, but parsley holds its own with spinach, leeks and kale. Also, there aren't many culinary herbs whose flavor is mild enough to eat in large quantities. Recently I pureed a big bunch of it with some cream, then simmered the mixture to reduce and thicken it, melting in some Parmesan cheese and pouring the sauce over ravioli. It drew raves, as did a quiche in which parsley was the key player.

To read the entire article at washingtonpost.com, please go here

For more info on parsley cultivation, please go here

Some parsley recipes worth exploring:
PARSLEY GARLIC BUTTER
PARSLEY DUMPLINGS
PARSLEY AND SWEET ONION SANDWICHES

Photo credit: Corydora

Posted by at 6:35 AM | Permalink

The well-read kitchen gardener is familiar with the classic homesteading guide "Five Acres and Independence" by Maurice Cains. One California family is showing that the food independence equation may be be more flexible than previously thought.

Very few of us have five acres or even one for that matter. The Dervaes family of Pasadena is proving that what you lack in land can be more than made up for with creativity and passion. Their urban family farm, built on an ordinary city lot, yields 6,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables each year. They were recently featured in the Los Angeles Times. Below is a shorter "how to" article that went along with the feature.

For more info about the Dervaes and their farm, please see: www.pathtofreedom.com

Continue reading ".1 acres and independence" »

Posted by at 12:33 PM | Permalink

Beets and carrots are reliable performers in nearly every climate. This short video shot at the gardens of The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts gives some hints on how to space and use the thinnings of carrots and beets.

Posted by at 3:55 PM | Permalink

"To own a bit of ground, to scratch at
it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the
renewal of life -- this is the commonest delight
of the race, the most satisfactory thing a
person can do."
-Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, 1870

Yeah, yeah Charles. That's all well and good, but what do you do when you have the kitchen gardening itch and little or no ground to scratch? Much has been said and written about the loveliness of little things, often by those who own large ones. For example, the German-born economist E. F. Schumacher (pictured right) is known for his visionary book Small is Beautiful, yet he is also known to have tended a very large organic garden at his home in Surrey, England. When it comes to kitchen gardening, the more appropriate catchphrase might be "small can be beautiful".

Those of you who have been scratching at the ground for a while know that gardening is very much about doing "what you can with what you've got". This pertains not only to one's space, but to one's soil and climate. To expand on this, the organic approach to gardening is about living as lightly and creatively as possible within one's natural limits. One soon discovers in doing so that there is much joy and even beauty to be had in this approach.

Here are a few categories of "smallness" along with some ideas for finding beauty in them:

Apartment dweller, no space:
This is a category I know very well having lived in it for nearly 10 years in Brussels. The first and obvious solution is to grow what you can indoors on a sunny windowsill which essentially limits you to fresh herbs in clay pots or, if you're lucky, a window-box. You may succeed with other things like compact varieties of tomatoes and peppers depending on the amount of sun you can provide them. You can improve your chances by using the right soil mix and types of containers. For more information about that, see the links below.

My longing for extra space ultimately led me beyond the confines of my family's two-bedroom, 7th-floor apartment. I was working at the time for a European environmental organization called Friends of the Earth Europe and had an office whose window gave access to a small rooftop with an unprotected fall of 80 ft (25 m) onto a paved courtyard. Environmentalists are known for being "crunchy" (think granola); I was also a bit "nutty" or maybe "nuts" is a better word. My colleagues would watch me with a mixture of worry and wonder as I climbed out my window during lunchbreaks to tend my tomato plants. The owners of the the building ultimately closed down my operation for safety reasons which led me to appropriate a small plot of land at my parents-in-law's house. You might be able to do the same thing -- not at my parents-in-law's because I doubt they'd approve -- but by seeking out a small piece of available land in your area. There's a vibrant and growing community gardening movement (a.k.a the "allotment movement" in the UK) happening in the world whereby city-dwellers can have their vegetables and grow them too. See the links below for more information on plots near you.

Apartment dweller, small balcony:
In addition to having the options above, a person living in this category has the possibility of growing some varieties that require more space and more sun. I've even seen people growing dwarf fruit trees on larger balconies. I mentioned before that living within one natural limits involves creativity. Here's a photo sent to us by one kitchen gardener who has devised an elegant solution for extending his balcony an extra 4 feet (1.2 m). He tells us that he's also designed a small collapseable table for his balcony so that he and his wife can enjoy breakfast in the garden when they want, proof that kitchen gardening is not just an activity but a lifestyle.

Home, apartment, or condominium dweller, very small yard:
It is when one owns a small plot of land that is part of the earth that one can really begin to experience the delight that Charles Dudley Warner describes. Here, several options become possible from a salad garden (ie different varieties of greens and lettuce) to a soup garden (ie carrots, onions, potatoes, etc) to a salsa garden (ie tomatoes, peppers, cilantro a.k.a coriander)) and everything in between. For people just starting out, I think a small tossed salad garden (ie a few varieties of "cut and come again" lettuce varieties or mesclun mixes, 1-2 favorite herbs and a compact tomato plant or two) is great introduction to the pleasures of the kitchen garden. It is important that the beginning gardener be aware of the space requirements of different plants and varieties. Your love of zucchini (courgettes) may well preclude your love of anything else if you're not careful.

The important thing, once again, is to do what you can with what you've got. Schumacher wrote that "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." Planting a small garden, whether in the ground or in containers, is way of taking a small step in this other direction towards simplicity and living in harmony with nature. It's true that it requires a bit of courage and genius, but its returns beat Wall Street's even in the bullest of years.

Posted by at 8:57 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, January 4, 2006 in The Washington Post

New Year's resolutions are useless. In fact, I think they're a sort of jinx. Proclamations about losing five pounds or maintaining a perfect garden are doomed to failure because they're too much like homework. "Positive change," as the self-help books call it, happens accidentally when you're fully engaged in life. Progress occurs when you're so caught up in a project that you can't quit.

If your vegetable garden isn't fun anymore, this is a good time to ask why it's not, and what you can do to make it the place that gets your attention. A garden that becomes a burden is easy to avoid, so that by fall it's a disaster you can't face at all. Instead of promising yourself to do better next year, see if you can figure out just what makes that spring-planted Eden slide downhill. Use the tranquil dormant period we're in now to make a new plan. Not somebody else's plan. Yours.

Any garden will depress you if the plants in it fail, and this almost always takes place because of dreadful soil. Only if you've actually seen superb garden loam can you fully appreciate what yours ought to look like, and what its magic effect on your plants will be. Four-star soil is dark and crumbly like chocolate cake. Your fingers can probe it so effortlessly you don't need a trowel. It's full of happy worms and venturesome roots, and you don't achieve it by scattering a bag of 10-10-10 but by adding fertile organic matter -- more than you think you need. Make it a project to round up as much good-quality aged manure as you can find, add some peat moss, dried seaweed and greensand -- a bagged product containing a broad range of trace minerals. Spread these amendments over the garden and till, fork or dig them in thoroughly, whenever weather permits. Instead of struggling, your plants will explode with vigor.

To read the full article at washingtonpost.com, please go here

Posted by at 1:28 PM | Permalink

By Jean English, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

The hubbub of the holidays over; it’s time for gardeners to get down to the nitty-gritty of ordering seeds, and the first step in that process is to inventory what’s in that shoebox on the shelf. Many seeds that are left over from last year or even previous years will still be viable. An organized checklist can help you go through your stock, see what you have, and order what you don’t.

Continue reading "Ordering Seeds: Inventory the Old, Plan for the New" »

Posted by at 6:52 PM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, December 21, 2006 in The Washington Post

Tonight at precisely 7:22, while you are washing dishes, doing your holiday shopping or reading this newspaper, the sun will stand still. At that point in Earth's yearly orbit around the sun, the Northern Hemisphere will have tilted away from the sun as far as it's going to go. The sun's zenith (the high point of its arc) today is the lowest of the year. Six months later it will reach the highest. Today, the winter solstice, marks the year's shortest day and longest night.

The sun doesn't literally stop, but, to highly observant Neolithic man, it seemed to, partly because the increments by which the days shorten and then lengthen at this time are so small. The sun, on which all life depends, withholds its power in winter and seems to hesitate before deciding to return and gradually wake up the Earth again. To early man, it was a solemn, frightening moment.

Most modern religious occasions correspond to agricultural festivals that predate them, and our present customs still reflect that connection. In spring, the observance of Easter has roots in fertility celebrations universally practiced at that time of year. Some people have linked its name to Eostre, a Saxon fertility goddess, and images of fecundity still abound. Eggs are discovered in green grass. They are brought by a rabbit -- an animal that can conceive even while bearing a litter.

In the Christmas season, we still deck the halls with evergreen branches just as the ancient Romans did during the late December feast of Saturnalia, which honored Saturn, a god of agriculture. The tradition passed to Europe