Farmerz!

Good morning, Christy! chicago dyke just left the answer to your question yesterday on Peterr’s magnificent thread. I only got around to reading that thread after the fact, but what a pleasure and honor to have such learned and insightful friends as all of you who commented there. FDL knocks me out every day of the world.

Roots! (in more ways than one)

Mmmm…I think I’ll have that sour cherry jam on my English muffin this morning!

Pass the jar, would you please Christy? *g*

we’ve had quite a few food threads at corrente. it’s another way in which i love the blogosphere, i got some really good advice about my gardens this year, and they’ve proven to work well.

sorry you’re not growing this year, C. if you’re in the midwest in the fall, c’mon by and try some of what i’ve got going. i think i’m going to have enough zucchini to sink a battleship.

… but can all your zucchini shoot down an ICBM ?

Fresh Veggies, yum. I just got some cucumbers and zuccini from my friend’s garden yesterday. She showed me how to can tomatoes last summer but as an apartment dweller, I just watch and wonder at it all. And help out demolishing it!

hmmmm…you all know that i’m prone to make the not safe for work strap on joke at my usual haunts? i’m not sure christy wants me to go there, at least not this early.

This year, I have tomatoes, beans & zucchini. Our Mulberry tree just finished. I ate them right off the tree as a breakfast treat after my morning walk to the beach.

In a few days my rasberries will be ripe. At least I think they are rasberrys. They taste like them, but are shiny and ruby red instead of fuzzy.

Anyway they are incredibly sweets and intesly flavored. They grow wild all around here, but I actually plant them in beds and train them on trellises and fences around my property. I started with on tiny cutting noe I have whole patches.

Each year I claim I will may preserves, or freeze some for the winter, but we always eat them all, no matter that each year my yeild increases geometrically. They are that good.

Whe you eat your berries right off the bush, you get such a rush of energy and feeling of vitality. I never really believed all that stuff about fruits and veggies losing their nutrients the longer they sit, until I lived on stor bought for a while and came back to homegrown.

I also grow herbs. Even when I had a tiny aprtment in the city, I always have herbs growing.

Now because I have more space than I can weed, in addition to my “herb garden” in raised beds, I have started using them in the rest of the garden. I have gold and green varigated mint growing in pots on my front step. They smell heavenly, give a shot of yellow color to a deep shade spot and they come back every year even though I do nothing to the pots over the winter. They are gorgeous and zero work.

Whenmy divorce is finally finished and i move away from this house, the only thing I will truly miss are my green friends.

Chicago dyke at 5 — I wish I had time to get my veggies in this year, but the rain patterns conspired against me on weekends, and the few days when I could have planted, my arthritis was kicking my ass. Oh well…next summer. In the meantime, thank goodness for produce stands.

Am hoping to get several quarts of half runner green beans and maybe a few quarts of tomatoes canned for this winter. It’s like opening up a jar of summer. :)

hahahahahahaha zucchini strap on? hahahahahahahaha Oh man, it is too early for coffee spew…

What I’d give to have a cherry tree or two again (no such luck in central Florida). Some years ago, I was back in my hometown teaching at a local university and renting a Victorian house across town from where my parents lived. It had two well-established cherry trees in the backyard.

One day my mom and I had an argument about something or other, and I stomped back to my place so mad that all I was fit for was picking cherries. Then I pitted those suckers, then I made the best cherry pie the world has ever known. By then I was cooled off enough to trot back across town with a couple of pieces for Mom and Dad’s supper.

Never made another cherry pie that good, and then I moved to FLA and the world of sto-bought cherries. *sigh*

Christy and Peterr,
I appreciate the threads on the Theocons, but by the time I get home from work, they are several posts EPU’d. Christy’s question at 115 deserves a lot of thought. I put mine here.

lotus at 2 - it is amazing how much individual knowledge is accumulated here and around the blogosphere when you sit down and think about it. That’s what always baffles me about the media’s and the politicians’ treatment of regular citizens — especially after reading Ted Stevens “my staff sent me an internet” dreck from earlier this week — people of all walks of life are incredibly smart, and out to be treated with respect, no matter how much change jingles in their pockets or how politically active or connected they may be. You can always learn something — if my legal practice among what most folks would consider the dregs of society taught me anything, it is that incredible wisdom can come from some pretty surprising places sometimes. But you have to be willing to listen to catch it.

Chicago dyke
If you think you will have more zucchini than you can use, you can yake off the blossoms and stuff them. It’s kinda like a tamale wrapper you can eat or veggie wonton wrapper. I like it with chickorina meat (italian chicken meatball) suffing and them steamed or simmer in broth.

Some people batter dip and deep fry zucchini blossoms, but I am not a big deep fry person (except freedom fries-which MUST be made with Idaho potaoes)

For an Irsh cjick, I do love italien food. Not a drop of italien in me, but you would never know it to look in my pantry or freezer

Two veggies I never plant, zukes and cherry toms, my neighbors will always have plenty of extras.

But I must confess that non-Organic gifts are accepted with a smile but dumped into trash in the dead of night.

thanks, loose- that’s a neat idea. i can eat zukes all the livelong day. it’s my roomies i worry about. i do the cooking in this house and i don’t want them to beat me with my own veggies.

luckily, i should have mountains of eggplants and tomatoes too.

Mad dogs at 4 — I wish I had some of that sour cherry jam this morning, too. They were really tart cherries, and I wish I had paid attention what kind as a kid. My aunt and uncle have long since passed away and their farm was sold by their kids — and the orchard, last time we drove by, had been bulldozed to make way for a big rig truck parking lot. It was heartbreaking. I tell my husband all the time that, if we ever buy a piece of property and build a house, it will have to be out a ways and have enough space to plant an orchard. When I’m old, I want to be able to go outside in the summer and pick my own peaches and cherries and apples, just like I did when I was a kid. :)

looseheadprop: I recall seeing recently that folk that eat a “Mediterranean diet” live an average of 2 years longer…

… but can all your zucchini shoot down an ICBM ?

*ilson: No, but if you leave it on the plant a couple of days too long you can turn one into a decent silo or Trident sub.

We did green beans also. My mother swore by Kentucky Wonder (bush or pole). (Cooked fresh beans squeak on teeth. Even the frozen ones don’t do that.)

A couple of chili peppers planted last year made it through the winter and are growing again. These are *hot* peppers, one of them very hot (ate one, raw, without seeds, and it was a twenty-minute burn). I think I may use some for pepper oil this year.

With that, a sweet pepper relish from my mother’s file (her mother’s recipe, I think):

Pepper Relish

12 large green mangos
12 large red mangos
15 onions (4 lbs)
2 cups vinegar
4 cups water
2 cups vinegar
3 cups sugar
3 tbsp salt
2 tbsp pickling spice

1. Remove seed from pepper and chop fine with onions.
2. Pour boiling water over to cover. Let stand 5 min. Drain.
3. Mix 2 cups vinegar & 4 cups water, add to pepper mixture and bring to boil.
4. Let stand 10 min. Drain, throwing away liquor.
5. Add rest of vinegar, sugar, salt and spice.
6. Boil 2 min.
Seal in hot sterile jars.
Generous amount makes 7 pints.

I apparently need to learn a lot more about “a href”, but here is the link, at least I figured out how to use tinyurl. http://tinyurl.com/h3glw

Time to go to the gym and get the blood moving.

Sunday Brunch

one dozen assorted bagels, sliced
1 lb. smoked salmon, thinly sliced
bucket of cream cheese
two or three cucumbers, thinly sliced
4 or 5 ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced
3 or 4 red onions, thinly sliced
small bowl of capers
gallons of Mimosas
coffee (as needed)

Serves 10
(assign a designated driver)

Chicago — I’ll dig up my chocolate zucchini cake recipe for you in a minute. I swear, you’d never know that zucchini is in there if you chop it up with a food processer, but it is the fudgiest, tastiest cake ever. Even my veggie loathing husband had thirds, and didn’t even care after I told him it was loaded with squash. *g*

*ilson,

Probably because they are so happy to be eating it! Good food that.

hahahaha Lina at 21 — I am SO there!

My Dad taught me and my brothers about organic gardening in the late ’60’s. We always had such a huge vegteable garden in our yard. I even won a honorable mention at a county fair for a 7 lb. cantelope. That was the year we expanded the garden and the cantelopes went in where the compost pile was.

I love heirloom tomatoes. I’m fascinated by the variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and country of origin. I now call my heirloom tomatoes the Anti-Republican Garden because of the diversity that it represents.

On a political note to gardening, the USDA is taking comments until July 17, 2006 about allowing Genetic Plum trees onto the market. I got an e-mail from the Organic Seed Alliance with detailed information and an action step. I tried to get a direct link from the source that provided this information to the Allaince and havent gotten a response.

I posted the information here. http://www.qologies.com/Geneti....._plums.htm along with the action to be taken.

If you really like heirloom varities and can work with seeds, here’s a site with an amazing selection
http://www.rareseeds.com/

I prefer farmer’s markets here in Texas, and roadside vendors, too. But they can be hard to find, sometimes, these days. I don’t have much time for looking for them, either, alas, so I usually make do with organic and premium markets here.

I spent my childhood on a “subsistence” farm. We didn’t grow things to make money, but for us to eat, period. Thank goodness for it, too, or we would have been a whole lot of hungry.

When I was 3, I went out to my grandmother’s strawberry patch and ate a good portion of the first berries to ripen. I remember picking the berries (and eating them!). I don’t remember if I got sick after it. I probably did.

But my favorite farming story is about the blackberry (or what we called blackberry) patch that my grandmother used to keep going–with a stern eye, as anyone who’s dealt with blackberries could tell you. They’ll take over anything, if you don’t watch ‘em!

Anyway, in East Texas, June is the month when blackberries come up, which was really convenient for my grandmother. Back then, kids were out of school in June, and she had three of us there. She’d send my two brothers and me out with a coffee can in the morning and tell us to fill it with blackberries…but we couldn’t eat any of them. Not one, y’hear? But of course we did! They were so delicious, right off the briar vine. We’d go back inside and, before taking the cans from us, look each of us over, hands on her hips.

“Did y’all eat any of them blackberries?”

And we would lie. We would lie audaciously and shamelessly: “No, Nana! Not a one!”

And she’d stare at us in silence about five seconds, enough to make us squirm that maybe she did know we’d eaten them. Then she’d say, “Well, all right.”

And she’d set to using our berries to make a cobbler or jam, or freezing them for the winter. I never did like cobbler, btw. I’m still such a country girl that I prefer any fruit I eat uncooked. I’m so used to plucking it all right off a tree or bush or vine!

For the record, I was about 9 when I figured out that my grandmother knew we were lying. My youngest brother happened to be standing across from me when she asked that question, his teeth were purple and he had juice stains running down the sides of his mouth and chin, from gorging on berries. And she let us think we were getting away with it!

oooh, christy- that sounds evil and fabulous. i know the roomies love chocolate.

and just because it’s never too early to go off topic, repeat blogwhore on the youtube wars, sex, being fabulous, and winning dem strategies.

As I sit here, stuck in the suburbs, I think back to all my memories of picking berries in the hills of Bluefield, WVA and climbing the 30 foot hill to help my grandparents weed, harvest and maintain their garden.

I’m a little scared my children will never understand the love that goes into a homemade jar of jelly–The feeling of the scalding steam burns from sterlizing the jars—ort the understanding of HOW many dang berries it really takes to fill a 1 gallon bucket.

My mother and I finally cracked open the last official jar of raspberry jelly last year–hand picked and canned by my grandmother, my mother and myself about 16 years ago. Grandma has been gone just as long but I swear, it was the saddest and happiest moment I’ve ever shared with my mother.

Great memories and thank you for starting off my morning with such a great topic.

Lovely thread.

Organic George and I so adore gardening that, when we found ourselves in a new house with no place for a garden, we built a 6′X3′ “coffin,” filled it with dirt and voila — organic heirloom tomatoes and eggplant!

And containers of mint, chives, rosemary (a weed in southern Cal), basil, sage, dill…

Alas, no space yet for our usually obligatory yellow squash, bush beans and okra. Geez, children, any fearless Southerners out there needing okra recipes?

Love on you all. I heart FDL.

Christy

CHOCOLATE zucchini cake? You may have the answer to a prayer. My nephew will not eat anything green. We mash and hid peas in spagetti, pour cheese sauce over everything, nothing works.

My sister will be in heaven, cause he does eat anything at all that has chocolate.

mm @ 26- thanks for that heirloom link. i’ve been looking into that kind of planting, and i’m appreciative of your recommendation.

does everyone here use the deep bed/french bed technique? i’ve had *amazing* results with it this year.

CROCKPOT APPLE BUTTER

INGREDIENTS:
7 cups applesauce, natural
2 cups apple cider
1 1/2 cups honey
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves, optional
1/2 tsp allspice

PREPARATION:
In a slow cooker, combine all ingredients. Cover and cook on LOW for 14 to 15 hours or until mixture is a deep brown.
Spoon hot apple butter into hot sterilized jars and seal, then process half-pints or pints 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

MAKES Makes 4 pints or 8 half-pint jars.

NOTE: I use very strong Vietnamese cinnamon in this that I get fresh from Penzeys. If you are using cinnamon from the grocery store, you might want to use an extra 1/2 tsp.

I put this on in the evening and let it cook all night in the crockpot. Then it’s ready to go into jars in the morning. :) It cooks down quite thick, which is exactly how you want it — if it is watery, crack the lid a little and keep cooking until it thickens up.

Freadom at 29 — Welcome! :) When we were first married, we lived in an apartment the size of a shoebox, with a yard that was even smaller. I did some tomatoes and basil in a couple of pots on the tiny front porch that year. Our next house had an equally small yard, and I picked up a great book called “Square Foot Gardening” that I loved — and still use techniques from to maximize my yield with a minimum of digging every year. (You can tell that not having veggies in this year is killing me…SIGH…is it too late to put in a coupla tomato plants, do you think?) Anyway, check out the book — it’s by a fellow named Mel Bartholamew (sp?) and also a book called “Lasagna Gardening,” which is fantastic for getting a new planting bed ready in a jiffy.

Greetings to you, Christy, from the Great State of Maryland, where bounteous corn, tomatoes, watermelon and, if you are very nice, rockfish, hard crabs and Natty Boh await you!

LJ at 26 — Oh, man, that had me laughing so hard. That must be a granny trick, because mine did the same thing. Looking back on it now, as a mom, I can see how fun that would be for an adult. :)

Crablaw at 34 — oooh, now you made me hungry for a crabcake sandwich and some fresh ears of corn. Mmmmmm….

This is dangerous for me this morning, I started a diet this week!

One of my best “berrying” memeories is from the Adirondacks. For years, my husband and I went to a rugby tornament up in Saranac Lake in upstate new york. The final games of the tournament are held on a pitch at the local college. The grounds of the college are completely overgrown with wild bluberries.

When the kids were small(I have a stepdaughter, too), and could not follow the play, I would give them baskets and let them clamber all over the hill gathering berries.

They would come back with berries, flowers, pretty bugs they had found. Filthy dirty, covered in blueberry stains and the happiest I have ever seen them. And the berries were fabulous.

My little one, stated picking those berries when she was only 2 1/2. It was the highlight of the weekend for her. Well that, and room service at the hotel. You never met such a kid for room service.

You’re welcome chicago dyke, i’m happy to share the info.

Don’t forget mother nature’s wild bounty - yesterday I interrupted my run to scarf down blackberries along the trail. Mmmmmmmmmm, bursting with sweetness, and I’ll be back for more as they ripen sequentially.

We had no money when I was a Kid, we canned everything tomatoes, green beans, apples, jellies and jams, and my mom made the best strawberry preserves, apple pies and apple cobler. She used to make swiss steak with her own canned tommatoes. Canning was always an interesting time steam, in the kitchen and mason jars everywhere. I remember being 5-6 and we lived on a farm near Medford, MN that is now under interstate 35. The farmer we rented from would plow a patch next to the house we she planted her garden, I remember potatoes, radashes, beets, cabbages, cucumbers, onions, green beans, peppers and tomatoes. Later when we lived in the city she had a job outside the home and had less time. But we always seemed to have strawberries and tomatoes. In the city I live in in norheastern Iowa the farmers markets are wonderfull and a growing buisiness here. Most is organic, sweet corn is just starting to arrive at the local roadside stands (We grow the best) I love to go to the farmers market on Saturday Morning,I get a sense of cummunity and a connection with my roots as I visit with the vendors and the other people there. I miss my mom who passed away at the age of 47 in 1987 - Lung Cancer is a bitch………………

There is an appointed time for everything.
And there is a time for every event under heaven -
A time to give birth, and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
- Ecclesiastes, 3:1-2

Christy,
My tomato plants still have some flowers on them. It might not be too late. Especailly if you put in grape or cherry tomatoes, sice the fruit ripen so quickly

lina @ 22: I want to have brunch with you!!!

I learned how to can, and to make jams and jellies from my friend Annamarie a few years ago. We made a marmelade that involved some sort of spirits - vodka? Rum? I cannot remember! But we were stumbling around the kitchen with hot jars by the end of the evening, laughing when the lids made their little popping sounds. I have GOT to make some this summer. If I can get the recipe from her, I will post it on the next pull up a chair.

My friend and I have a small share in the Burlington, Vermont Intervale CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm.

It’s set on about 15 acres and grows organic vegetables, herbs, flowers and berries for distribution to its member households (over 400). All produce is distributed twice a week at the farm where members are given the opportunity to enjoy the bounty of the land first hand. As Vermont’s largest membership farm, the Intervale CSA are committed to providing excellent quality organic food at a good consumer value in a sustainable and participatory manner. This week I’ve enjoyed greens, lettuce, zucchini/summer squash, red and white swiss chard and self-picked strawberries! Yum!

our search function is broke at corrente, but i wrote a post a while back about gardening, and why it’s important for people to relearn that skilset. in a nutshell, i was arguing that one of the effects of peak oil is much, much higher food production and distrubution costs.

i don’t know about you all, but as a poor person, i’ve already felt it. it’s only going to get worse. i don’t like thinking about what will happen when oil becomes truly outrageous, i fear many poor in this country will literally starve, esp in urban areas.

I subsist on literally nothing but produce riches this time of year. Watermelon, cantaloupe, new potatoes, sweet corn, cukes, tomatoes, green beans, etc etc - thanks Ma Nature, damn do you rock!

1,203 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOES ON AND ON AND…

Good Mornin’ Christy:

Thanx fer the reminder, most of us middleclass folks (at least bommers)don’t hafta go back very far to touch family that either worked the land er relied on “the garden” ta keep the family fed even durin’ the winter. Old dirt “root sellers” kept potatoes and other veggies edible thru the winter.

We are at a point where we as parents need ta bridge the gap that “futureshock” has created in our children in order to keep their expectations up and make them aware of how they got to where they are now. Most kids taday have been disarticulated from their history, they don’t know how hard their forebearers fought and who they fought to get their proginy ta the place they are now.

That’s why I appreaciate this site so much, Christy, all of you folks (Jane, Pach, TRex…)understand the connections we all have as humans (like food, work and family) and appreciate the differences that illuminate those connections.

Here in the heartland a democracy and the anus a progress, we’re havin a 6th year of almost dustbelt like drought…I’m waitin for August ta see what the local produce is gunna look like in the area farmer’s markets, but it doesn’t look good right now.

So, thanx again Christy and Jane and Pach and TRex… I raise my second cup a coffe to ya and say…

KEEP THE FAITH WITH THE GIANTS IN THE EARTH, WHAT THEY GAVE US IS WORTH FIGHTIN’ FOR!!!

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE
1/2 c. butter
2 eggs
1/2 c. canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 c. sugar
4 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa (I use Ghirardelli.)
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. each ground cloves and cinnamon
1/2 c. sour milk (scant half cup milk tsp. lemon juice, let sit for 5 minutes or so)
1 c. chocolate chips (I like the mini ones for this.)
2 c. zucchini, unpeeled, grated fine (or chopped in food processor)

PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease 9×13x2 pan. In a bowl, cream butter and eggs. Add oil, vanilla and sugar. Blend well. Sift together cocoa, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cloves and cinnamon. Add to butter mixture alternately with the milk. Add zucchini and chocolate chips. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out relatively clean (it’s fudgy, so you won’t get a completely clean toothpick, but when it pulls away from the sides of the pan a little, it’s done — don’t overbake).

One of my earliest memories is being sent to my grandmother’s back garden to pick pole beans. I can still smell the sun on the plants and the dirt, and hear the bees buzzing in the bean flowers way over my head, and feel the wicker basket in my hands, and see the beans right before my eyes.

Back in the kitchen, I was allowed to snap off the tips from the beans before my grandmother boiled them up and served them with butter. Mmmmm. I now know they were Kentucky Wonder beans, still the best and beaniest.

And Christy, you’ll need to plant more than one blueberry bush in order to get berries.

My grandparents had a fresh produce market, also sold trees, pumkins, ect. They had a farm but taxes forced them to sell. Good memories of going to the market, that was all so long ago.

This year I’ve got 25 Rhoade Island Red chicks, all hens. So far the wild creatures haven’t gotten them. I’m growing beans, sunflowers squash, tomatoes, not as much as I’d like but I don’t have much ground, mainly rock and clay. Everything in raised beds and fenced. I do appreciate the growers and eating fresh at a reasonable cost.

One of the nice things about eating things as they grow and ripen sequentially, is the “advent” feeling. They are like a miny christmas season. you have the anticipation when the blossoms first turn to fruit, it gins up as the friut begins to ripen, then the couple/few weeks of celebration as you it in every possible way your imagination can conjure. Just when it feel slike too much, it’s over.

Till next year. How cool is that?

Garden talk….perfect.

I planted my first ever veggie garden this spring after being inspired by one of the threads here and the related “planning for a world after oil” exchanges here and elsewhere. Did some research about gardening in New England, got my seeds online (heirloomseeds.com…big thumbs up!) and I built a 12×6 frame for my raised beds. Planted snap peas, carrots, bunching onions, zucchini and some spinach.

Now for the bad news. I situated the garden too close to the treeline along the border of our yard as I was trying not to stick it smack dab in the middle of the yard (the dog and the kids wouldn’t have liked that much) and as the trees filled in I soon realized that the garden isn’t getting enough sun. Things are growing but I suspect whatever I pull from the ground will wind up being pretty feeble. Live and learn. Next year I’m going smack dab in the middle of everything, we’ll all just have to work around it :)

What a lovely piece of writing to start the day. I’m off shortly to the local farmers’ market to stock up for the week. How can we keep the shysters who govern us honest over the long haul, if we don’t sup on primo grub, inhabit a harmonious environment and generally take good care of our bodies and minds?

Lurve these food & nature thredds, Redd!

Norske: my farming relatives all had “tornado cellars” for protection from the whirling winds but those cellars also doubled as “root cellars” … very practical!

found it.

i don’t know about you all, but sometimes i’m just overwhelmed by how hard it can be to manage a blog. which is another reason to garden…the zen peacefulness of the garden is sometimes sorely lacking on line.

sharkbabe 45 - you must be a skinny minnie.

bee at 48 — thanks, I know. I’ve heard three is actually the optimal for a small planting — anyone know for sure? Anyway, our yard is a wee bit small, and I’m trying to figure out where I would put them. *g*

Square Foot Gardening just had a mention in our local newspaper, Christy! Recommended read for someone who wanted to make raised beds for disabled seniors.

Our local Farmer’s Market just opened along the Red River…I echo your appreciation for those who still work so hard to keep alive the real food that sustains us.

In the lake country, it’s strawberry time and there’s a family business in PR that really does have wonderful produce. But stopping there last weekend I was assaulted everywhere in their red barn by campaign advertising for the rightwing Repub candidate for Minn Senate. Told the woman at the checkout that I was disappointed to see the aggressive political tone and she said “we’re strong Republicans.” My reply was since I was committed to getting the strawberries, I would choose to make a campaign contribution double their price to the woman running on the Dem side.

Don’t think she appreciated the irony of “choice,” but the little ol’ lady standing next to me was chuckling so I suspect the story made the rounds of the Hubbard County senior set. And I found a couple new sources for fresh produce instead.

Even in produce there are opportunities to buy blue and make a quiet statement of authenticity of one’s values. Going to look up a recipe now….

TROLL — http://www.WhoIsJoeLieberman.com

(PS — LYING TROLL who lives in Atlanta.)

IP 24.254.239.5

My yard is so small and half shady, so I haven’t been able to plant much in the way of veggies since I’ve lived in this house (seven years in September). But this year I bought a pepper plant and an heirloom tomato, both of whom seem happy in one of the few full sun patches out there. They’re by the kitchen door along with some perennial herbs, and basil and cilantro in pots, so I have a real but modest kitchen garden, something I’ve been steadily working on since I moved in.

On a somewhat related topic, I’m currently reading Marion Nestle’s What to Eat. It’s a fascinating book about the politics of the grocery store, as well as a guide to what is healthy, a good deal and environmentally reasonable. Last night I read about margarine and the whole trans fat thing. It’s not a screed against the grocery and food manufacturing industries, although she is hard on them when it is warranted. There is not a lot that is absolutely new info for me, well, except for the history of margarine, but it is sensible, has a “cut through the crap” feel to it and is in a very readable style. Anyone else read it yet?

Awright, zucchini. Love the stuff, and the very best zucchini dish I ever ate was on Crete. Later in Athens I bought the cookbook that’s become my favorite of the many I own, The Best Book of Greek Cookery, by Chrissa Paradissis (2d ed, 1972), because its recipe for stuffed zuchs is the one I found to be closest to those served me on that hotel verandah in Heraklion.

Here ’tis:

STUFFED ZUCCHINI (KOLOKITHAKIA PAPOUTSAKIA)

2 1/2 lbs. medium-sized zucchini
1 small onion, chopped finely
1/2 cup butter
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup grated cheese
1 1/2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
3 eggs
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 cup bechamel sauce [recipe follows]

BECHAMEL SAUCE
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
dash of nutmeg (optional)
1 cup milk

Melt butter over a low heat; add flour [sift in], salt, pepper and nutmeg; stir until well blended. Remove from heat. Gradually stir in milk and return to heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until thick and smooth. Makes 1 cup.

Scrub and wash the zucchini and cut off ends. Cook whole with one tablespoon salt in boiling water for about 8 to 10 minutes; drain.

Cut an inch strip from one end to the other of each squash; arrange in baking pan. With teaspoon, carefully remove centres. Chop into smail pieces.

Heat 1/4 cup butter in a small saucepan and saute onion till tender. Add chopped zucchini centres and cook for about 5 minutes. Add breadcrumbs, 2 eggs, pepper 1/2 cup cheese, parsley and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Pile mixture into zucchini shells.

Preheat oven to 350. Make bechamel sauce, stir 4 tablespoons cheese and 1 beaten egg. Cover stuffed zucchini with sauce; dot with remaining butter and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for about 30 minutes, or until brown on top. Serves 4.

Stuffed zucchini with meat: Prepare as above, but omit 1 cup breadcrumbs. Saute the onion with 1/2 lb. minced meat.

Christy

Re: the blueberry bushes. The house I had in Jersy some years back, had them planted instead of ornamental landscaping shrubs. They were just part of the flower garden. I thought that was ingenius.

Instead of a boxwood or an azalea. I don’t know what variety were had, but they were semi evergreen like an azalea.

Sometimes when Im afraid the world as we know it is in danger, I look at my raised bed garden, full of food, and my fruit trees and hope that if the worst happened Id be able to feed my husband and myself and our children who live in big cities.

Maybe its not realistic but it helps. Ive always had gardens but here in East Tennessee it’s about perfect for growing.

We even have figs and when they are ripe, fig jam.

I grew up on the Jersey Shore, where it really was the Garden State. Growing tomatoes in our backyard was great. The heat and the rain gave us great crops every year. When I was fourteen I rode my bike up into Holmdel and worked on a farm for a couple summers, picking fruit and vegetables with other local kids and migrant workers. Hardest work I’ve ever done, but every night before I came home the farmer let me pick what I wanted to bring home. Corn, big industrial-sized turnips. I think all of those truck farms are gone now for housing developments.

Christy @ 14, masaccio @ 13, and lotus @ 12 -

Those threads are really quite something, once folks start to dig in and wrestle with a topic. I think a lot of people are anxious to discuss things like religion and science - if they know they are among friends where they can speak (and listen) freely. What makes FDL such a great place for that is that we are (obviously) not necessarily like-minded when it comes to matters of religion, and so the conversation goes in some amazing places. I’ve tried to stick around for a couple of hours, as the thread gets started, but I always go back to check on the comments by those who were EPU’d.

On to veggies . . .

lhp, one of the toughest things for me in moving to the Bay Area was losing my tomato garden (it just doesn’t get hot enough here by the Bay to ripen them well - I tried!), but the herbs you can take almost anywhere. Fortunately, I found a great produce market (Monterey Market in Berkeley) where I can get about anything I want, fresh, at very cheap prices. The housing costs and $3 gas may drive us nuts out here, but the prices for great wine and the fresh produce try to balance it out.

Here’s a neat summer salad with an Asian slant:

vinagrette:
6 T seasoned rice wine vinegar
1.5 T vegetable oil
1.5 t fresh peeled ginger, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped

salad:
8 oz. cellophane noodles (bean curd noodles; they come in 2 oz bundles)
1 seedless cucumber, halved lengthwise and then sliced thinly on the diagonal
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
2 thin carrots, thinnly sliced on the diagonal
1 mango, sliced thin and cut into bite-sized pieces

Combine all the ingredients for the dressing and mix with a hand blender. Set aside.

Soak the noodles in cold water until pilable - about 15 minutes. Drain, then chop/cut each bunch of noodles in half. Bring a 4 qt pot of unsalted water to a boil, then boil the noodles until just tender - about 2 minutes. Drain in a colander, and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking. Drain the noodles well again, then spread out on paper towels and blot dry to soak up the excess liquid.

Put the noodles in a bowl, and mix them with the dressing. Add the cucumber, scallions, mango, and carrots, gently tossing to mix.

Eat it all at once, or it keeps for several days!

The following is why I grew zucchini only once. It is from a little quarterly publication called “Greenprints: The Weeder’s Digest”. The essay begins, “Did you ever take a basket of zucchini over to your neighbor’s house and get “The Look” - an expression that makes it clear your neighbor wishes she’d looked through the peephole before opening the door? Jehovah’s Witnesses and people who grow zucchini are well acquainted with “The Look.”

Fresh garden tomatoes are another story. Our farmers’ market sellers cannot bring enough of them to sell.

Even here in Little Rhody locally grown produce is available. We now have a weekly farmer’s market at Colt State Park in Bristol. The best corn comes from a farm directly across from the Stop ‘n Shop…I don’t know why the Stop ‘n Shop bothers to stock it in season, except for tourists and republicans. :-) The farmer picks three times a day–four times if he’s really busy, so the corn on the stand is never more than 3 hours out of the field.

I believe the old ways of cooking are best, which is why I use an old microwave to do my corn on the cob.

Leave the husk and tassel on, wrap each ear of corn in a sopping wet paper towel. Nuke the corn 3 minutes, give it a minute to cool enough to touch it (if you can wait that long), and dig in. The husk and tassels come off with minimum work, and the result is perfect, I think. You may need to adjust the time depending on your microwave.

When I was a kid in Minneapolis we used to have one meal each summer of just corn on the cob, which my mom fixed in the biggest kettle she had. The four of us could go through a dozen and a half ears in no time.

I should add that the farmer who sells at that stand told me last summer he has put four kids through college on the proceeds, so if you have access to a couple of acres, you might want to think about it. :-)

Our family has several ranch-farms here. Cows, winter wheat and Sudan is mostly what we do. I am charged with growing the veggies for everyone. This year I’ve got an acre and a half of four different tomatoes vf res. and since I had such good luck with the nemitode resitant variety last year, I’m growing them now too. These plants are bit dear, as they are $4.00 per plant. But for us they are well worth it. We’re doing okra, (natch) cukes, egg plant, silver-queen, green and wax beans, black-eye peas (again natch) sweet spuds, bells, and hot peppers, onions, h2o mellons, loupes, and of course, crook-necks, and more. I can and freeze a lot of this stuff. And toward the end of the season, before school starts, I will journey to La. to buy loads of crawdads, shrimp and gator tail for gumbo soup, also to can, etc. This may sound like a lot of work and it is, but we have lots of tractors and the other things necessary.

I take summer squash,zuccini,baby carrots,and bell peppers,roughly chop them,add fresh herbs and minced garlic(along with a good dash or two of olive oil)wrap them in foil and put it on a hot grill for about 10 minutes.Oh,yummy.

Has anyone here ever built a sunflower house for their kids?It’s easy and fun,and here’s how you do it:

First,you’ll need to measure out about a 6×6 ft square in the yard.Then you’ll need to dig out a shallow trench around the perimeter,leaving an un-dug place for the door of the house.

Next you need bamboo stakes,the big tall ones.Place those at the four corners,on either side of the doorway,and at intervals in between.Connect all of the stakes with two rows of twine,the first row about a foot off the ground,the second row about a foot from the top of the stakes.

Then you plant the sunflower seeds in the trench.At each stake you plant morning glory and/or moonflower(a morning glory that opens only after the sun goes down.Big white flowers that smell wonderful)seed or two(soak these for 24 hours before planting).

Then you water the seeds well and wait.And watch.And water some more,and weed,and wait,lol.

As the sunflowers and morning glories grow,they make the walls of the house.The morning glories will grow up the stakes.When they reach the top,you’ll need more twine to connect the stakes on opposite sides.The morning glories will crawl along the twine to form the roof of the sunflower house.

You can also make a teepee,using the same bamboo pole and twine combo.Instead of sunflowers,you’ll want to use vine-ey plants,like gourds,morning glories,pole beans,etc.

Little kids love this stuff,my son spent hours in his various sunflower houses when he was little.Once I found him in there with a baby rabbit that had wandered in for a visit.Mom hid out there upon occasion too,lol.The big green luna moths often come to visit the moonflowers,if you’re lucky and patient.

I got these ideas from Sharon Lovejoy’s books.Her books are WONDERFUL,I recommend them to anyone who loves to garden or thinks they can’t garden.

My grandma used to say this line at her dinner table….”Okay, everyone, eat what you can and what you can’t we’ll can.”

Who’d have thought we’d get trolls when talking about gardening and veggies?

Thanks, moderators!

I read an article this spring about a man with a stuningly beautiful arden who mixed his veggies in with his flowers.

The only really, really sunny part of my property is the flower bed in the front of the house. I ahve had a tough time with my tomatos up unitl this year because my raised beds don’t get enough hours of full sun.

So this year, I put my tomatos in the fancy flower garden. Instead of tomato cages I put wrought iron “tutueres” (sp?) over them. and planted marigolds at the base to keep the tomato bugs away. There they bloomed with their little yellow flowers and mixed in with all my perrenials.

They look great, are loaded with ne jsut forming fruit, and no one, not even my mother,queen of all gardening, realized I had tomato plants in my flowers until i pointed them out.

this thread is now in my recepie bookmarks. thanks to all!

there’s this great eggplant dish i made for guests last night. even if you don’t like eggplant, you may want to give it a try.

take an eggplant and cut it into the thinnest circles you can. heat a wide pan full of canola oil to very hot. chop up at least a cup of fresh parsley, and squeeze out a dozen or so lemons (essential step, don’t use the fake stuff) take a half cup or more of minced garlic, and in a separate pan, sautee it to golden brown in olive oil. fry the eggplant slices to a dark golden brown, till they’re crispy. then make stacks of eggplant generously sprinkled with the parsley and garlic, pouring lemon juice over it as you go up. serve immediately.

seriously, i’ve not had anyone not like this dish.

chcicago dyke-I love the spiritual part of working with nature, it’s the payoff for me. I feel connected to the higher energy of the universe. I also feel that it’s my duty to provide a safe haven for nature by working organically.

That sounds great chicago dyke, I just printed it out and will try it this weekend…love eggplant! Thanks.

crablaw 35 - hey from Indian Head. Yes and of course the the odd crab feast. I’m too damned empathetic, always manage to take a crab’s POV and the barbarism is unspeakable…still it’s like a quilting bee, slow, sociable.

My ex had (still has) a Rockfish Guy. Guy just loves fishing and catching em, sorta digs her but in a shy, here-I-give-you-fish kind of way. Always inviting her to fish with him, which she’s done a few times. Still lavishes his bounty upon her (& me by association). What a guy and WHAT FISH.

OK kid

Sudan?

Peterr,

I hope it wasn’t my mention of Jehovah’s Witnesses that prompted your troll comment! Even if it was, thanks for the thought provoking essay yesterday. I love it when people I have been following from the comments hit “the big time.” I am waiting for *ilson to write something big. Or maybe not. I might not be able to get off the floor.

Ohh YAY,my hubby just called and said our little local farmer’s market is FINALLY open.I gotta run and get dressed now,and head out the door,they close at 1pm.Oh happy dance!

Angry Old Broad

Sunflower houses!

What a memeory flood you just brought back form me.

I hadn’t thought about them for years!!

I always plant moonflowers in the same spot as mornign glories. Usually in contrasting colors. The effect is stunning

MM @ 75- me too. technically, i’m an atheist. but the spiritual part of me worships the beauty and awesome diversity in nature, and i revel in the knowledge that no matter how bad we screw this planet up, our Mother the earth will eventually bounce back, even if that means raising up the next phase of intelligent life in the form of mutant cockroaches that can survive in nuclear weapons-irradiated environments. we’re all just blips in Her time frame.

Lotus: Do you like blueberries? A friend of mine has about 15 acres of them. In season, he leaves boxes of them at my door as an incentive for me to go help him and momma pick them. When the price falls, he can’t pay to have them picked so they are up for grabs. I live in Central Florida. I take the blueberries, clean them and put them in small freezer bags and freeze them. I take them to work and munch on them frozen from the bag. They are great.

We had so much rain in the last two days. The lake is really low so we need it. I’ve been spending my time cleaning out the weeds down on the shore the last couple of weeks but, 2 nights ago a nice alligator delayed my progress. It rained so hard that the water clogged up and didn’t run into the lake like it should. Instead, it ran into my laundry room and now I’m afraid I may have a crop of mildew soon.

Sweet, sweetcorn …. My husband grew up on a vegetable farm in Arkansas and absoultely refuses to eat sweetcorn from the grocery store (don’t even think about the KFC frozen corn). His mother would have the corn pot filled with water on the stove, and he would head back to the field to collect corn for their dinner. Ten minutes from field to pot was the requirement for maximum sweetness.

Today’s modern supersweet varieties are sweeter and keep their sugar content longer after harvest. These are so sweet that they give me a headache if I eat more than 3 ears raw in the field. I have had a constant headache this week.

Sweetcorn is at peak production here in Arkansas. When I am grazing out in the field, I don’t mind the earworm feeding on the tip - just break it off and start munching (An ear with a ’sideworm’ ends up on the ground).
To grow wormfree corn in the south is nearly impossible without the help of modern chemistry, but if you don’t mind cutting off the tip, there usually is enough to share with the caterpillars. The problem for commercial growers is that infested corn will not ship - 1 bad apple spoils the whole bunch, you know. Corn earworms are canabalistic, so even though there may be a dozen eggs laid on silks of a single ear, generally you get only one or two BIG larvae per ear. Cutting the tips off is OK for corn going to your table or to a nearby freezer plant, but for shipping on the fresh market, corn must be worm free. Once the caterpillar hatches and burrows down in the ear, it is too late to kill it. The ear is spoiled.

I wonder if wormy corn makes better ethanol?

Thanks also, for the great way to start the day…thinking about growing and enjoying your labors. I made some bread and butter pickles the other day with my cucumbers from my little garden. I came across a recipe a couple of weeks ago and was reminded that my grandmother used to make these. I hope that they will taste like hers and further remind me of those days past. My tomatoes have not done as well this year…I think the deer or the racoons got them. The deer also ate my first round of Swiss chard, but they are growing back, so we’ll have some sauteed chard for dinner tonight. In hot south Texas, it’s time to put more tomatoes out for the fall garden. I’ll get that done this weekend and hope that the critters will maybe leave them alone in the fall. Thanks for such a wonderful blog effort. FDL is one of my favorites every day.

Can I just say how much I love this thread on Saturdays — especially because we get some many readers who come out of the ether and comment and the whole FDL just feels so much more complete? Just having my Saturday smile…

My favorite berry picking story comes from a summer day when my wife and I were just cruising through the woods up on Buttermilk Hill where we had a few acres. Just out for a walk, looking around. We had our first Brittany with us, our beloved Bonnie, and were walking along a cleared area under some cross country electrical transmission lines when we came across a rasberry thicket. They were perfect, large, sweet, bursting with juice, and we were busily eating them, threading through the stickers for the best ones when I heard a small yelp from Bonnie. I turned to look and saw her going for one for herself. She was intent to have it and had set her mouth so that she looked as though she was straining to kiss a loved one though some barred barrier. She loved her some people food and having seen us gobbling them she would not be denied. Much as I love them I don’t think I’d try her hands free method.

lina 57 - yeah that’s another reason to keep as direct to Ma N as possible fuelwise - great for the waistline - now that I’m back on the market :)

btw chicago dyke - I’ve always thought you had the best handle ever - best city on earth, and well, dyke, duh…

Sweetcorn and wild blueberries. I miss my New England childhood. Does anyone else here eat their corn raw? I prefer it to the cooked. It is also my secret ingredient in many of my salads. The sweet little crunch is a surprise and a pleasure in pasta or bread salads.

Hi Christy,

I was a farm kid, and I loves me some fresh veggies. Turnip greens and fall collards!

My alltime favorite is to put a little olive oil in the skillet, and throw in sliced yellow squash and a bit of diced onion. If I’m feeling carnivorous, I’ll toss in a little bacon torn into tiny pieces.

Better than any fancy restaraunt.

for any of your readers who are thinking that they have to miss out on the gardening experience because they don’t have a