After the Harvest

October 15, 2018October 15, 201814 Comments

After the Harvest – An Update on the Potager plus what to do with a twelve pack of snakes.

I had high hopes for The Potager back in June, but there may have been a reason my dad planted his garden in the corn field where it could sprawl among the rows of corn. Sprawl is the key word here. My potager was a testament to good soil, it was so prolific, but then it was a hot humid summer with lots of rain, ideal conditions for a rain forest.

Where are the monkeys?

It rained every weekend, and during the week, every few days in fact. This made the mosquitoes plentiful, and some new species of tiny black bug called no-see-ums appeared and left bites which itched for days. I had never seen a no-see-um before, but they left a lasting legacy of scratch marks. I gave up and refused to go out. Luckily, I did not have to water as Mother Nature did it for me, even as she left us bereft of any beach days.

The romaine lettuce was bountiful, and after the first crop, I replanted and it was bountiful too.

Three cucumbers sprouted from the small-garden plant, just the right amount for a Greek salad, with some tomatoes if only I could find them, and when I did find them, many had split from too much rain.

The tomatoes threatened to strangle everything so in early August I gave it a haircut. By mid-Sept it had grown back, requiring a regular trim every 4 to 6 weeks.

I untangled the sole squash, mistakenly uprooting it’s lifeline, and leaving the fruit to wither on the vine. Not deterred, it re-blossomed, producing a final harvest of five smallish orbs.

I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the multi-colored carrots, and so were the bunnies. We were both disappointed.

While the tops were luxurious, the carrots were sparse, spindly and white, (and maybe useful for the Simply White Dinner). They say you reap what you sow, except I planted three seed potatoes, and got two.

In mid-October (no frost yet, leaves barely changing), I dug up the rest of the russet gems. Not bad for a first crop, but hardly enough to get me through the winter like my Irish ancestors.

Luckily the orange carrots were plentiful, if somewhat deformed from being crammed into too small a space. The bunnies were delighted, as God is my witness, they would never go hungry again. (Scarlet O’Hara – Gone with the Wind). Due to the intricate web of netting I set up, the birds didn’t get as many of the strawberries, but then neither did I – it was too much of a hassle to open and re-close all those wires to pick one or two berries. While reading about another bloggers garden adventures, she recommended rubber snakes be set among the strawberry plants and moved every few days in order to fool the birds. Thank god she told me Walmart sells them online, because I don’t know where you would buy a twelve pack of snakes, and also thank god, those birds aren’t too bright. I’ll keep that in mind for next year, or maybe I’ll just freeze some of the carrots. I also wish I had put spacing and gravel around my boxes like Empty Nest Adventures did, for easier access.

Next years orange snakes?

After the Harvest is a time to reflect on lessons learned….next year plant less, no matter how much you may anticipate the early specimens being carried off by nighttime woodland creatures.

Plant one of everything, one squash, one cucumber, if it’s something you don’t want to breed like rabbits or possibly two like Noah and the Ark, two tomatoes, two potatoes, but no zucchini – ever.

Or just buy more boxes……the New England Arbor charity sale is coming up…..

After the Harvest

PS. There is nothing so wonderful as a golden field of wheat being harvested, or so awful as After the Harvest when you would have to bale all that straw into small bales, with a baler which was forever breaking down, and then load them into the hayloft, a process which was hot and dusty and took hours. Now every time I pass a field with those really big bales that are scooped up by a front end loader, I wonder, why didn’t someone think of that sooner?

Song of the Day: Harvest Moon – Neil Young

The Farmer’s Market

October 8, 2018October 8, 201821 Comments

If you have ever dreamed of packing in city life and moving to the country then this book is for you. Canadian author, Brent Preston turned fantasy into reality in this account of starting an organic vegetable farm and ten years of trial and error and back breaking labor before finally achieving a profitable outcome.

The New Farm: Our Ten Years on the Front Lines of the Good Food Revolution by Brent Preston

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A must read manual for city dwellers and lovers of the organic food movement about a family who chose to leave the rat race and follow their dream of running a profitable organic vegetable farm. Dust off those fantaseeds and learn the gritty reality of where your food comes from.

Although he might have started out with a simple plan in mind, by the end of the ten years he had mechanized his operations, hired agricultural co-op students for summer labor, perfected a delivery service and marketing campaign, and ended up specializing in just three crops, one of which was lettuce. One of the things he did initially was to participate in the local farmer’s market every Saturday morning, but after a few years of this he packed it in. If you think about it, never a weekend off for you or your kids, up at 4 am to load up the truck and then later in the day unloading the unsold produce. Plus, while he said while he enjoyed the social aspect with the regular customers and the other vendors, there just wasn’t enough profit in it to continue. Better to cater to the fancy restaurants who would pay premium for anything fresh and organic.

There is no doubt we are what we eat and organic food is in – food in it’s natural state. Ask a person who has been lucky enough to live to be over ninety and chances are they grew up on a farm. So farmers markets are booming because organic food is so popular, but are the farmers doing well? I grew up on a farm, 100 acres, so I know how hard it is to make a living on one and how much work is involved. We had a dairy farm with Holsteins when I was a child and my dad had a small herd, three milking machines and a cream contract. He got up at 4:30 am every day to milk the cows, then he would come in, shave and have breakfast (bacon and eggs and perked coffee), as we were getting up for school, by 7:30 he would have left for his other job, home at 4:30, early supper, then milk the cows again, and he would be in bed by ten or falling asleep while reading the paper. On the weekends there were all the other chores to do. Even back then you couldn’t quite make a living on a farm without a second job, and with a growing family, he finally switched to beef cattle instead and cash cropped corn, soybeans and wheat, and while that was a lot of work too, we were finally able to take a family vacation without being tied to the milking schedule. Now farming is big business, a thousand acres or bust. There was an article in the local paper recently about the International Plowing Match which listed a combine as worth $500,000, and a tractor with GPS the same. My dad’s first tractor in 1948 cost $1000 and had a side seat upon which we kids would ride – heaven forbid, no one would let kids do that now. My elderly grandfather who died in 1951, was against the new-fangled modern machinery, as they had to sell his beloved Clydesdale horses in order to buy it. The last tractor my dad bought came equipped with air conditioning and a few years after he died, they had CD players, now they are steering themselves. While farming may be mostly mechanized now, organic vegetable farming is still labor intensive, especially during the harvest. It’s not a job many people want to do, and often the farmers must hire seasonal workers from Mexico or Jamaica to help out.

September is the best time of year to visit a farmer’s market as it is bursting with the last of the summer produce and the early fall harvest. While the peaches and berries may be almost done, the plums, pears, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, new potatoes and onions are coming in.

Our local market is open Wednesdays in the summer and Saturdays year round. Even in the winter, the inside of the old building is full of root vegetables and cheese and butcher shops, but in the nice weather the outside stalls see the most action. They really need more space, but it’s been in the same place for eighty plus years and you don’t mess with tradition. Located in an older residential part of town, there is one small parking lot and you have to drive round and round waiting for someone else to leave. With about 50 spaces for 200 people it’s kind of like musical chairs for grownups. Luckily, no one lingers long. While you can get a pour over coffee with freshly roasted beans, there is no cafe to sit in or cooked food available. We don’t see a lot of homeless people here but one day a woman with her cart piled high with all her worldly possessions asked me for some money, and with my hands full I shook my head no, but then after putting my produce in the car, I went to find her, and gave her ten dollars, which I suspected might go to drugs but who knows? A friend of mine keeps Tim Horton’s coffee shop gift cards to hand out for this reason, but there is something so very sad about begging in front of a place with so much plenty.

Even in the winter I will visit about once a month, because there is still cheese, and apples and oranges to buy, but I’ve often wondered why they open at 6 am. All the vendors are yawning by noon, or closing up early as they have been up since four loading their trucks. Wouldn’t 8-2 be more civilized hours? If they are supplying restaurants do they need to buy that early? If I don’t get there by 11:30 (or I’m still playing musical chairs), I may miss my favorite cheese stall or they might be out of Gouda.

The cheese wars can be fierce. There are two cheese vendors, right across from each other, and the Battle of The Gouda got so bad last year, they both decided not to post their prices. They will glare across the aisle if they think you have abandoned camp, but if they have run out, what is the alternative? My grandmother was Dutch, so I grew up on Gouda, the mild form, not the spicy seeded variety she bought from The European Shop.

Dutch Inheritance

The market cheese is better than at the grocery store and they will give you a sample if you are undecided. Even if you know you will like it, a sample will often tied you over if you got up early and missed breakfast. Buying cheese at the market is also much cheaper than in the grocery store so I usually stock up on aged cheddar as well as the Gouda. The one cheese vendor has recently retired and been bought out by the egg lady beside them, who I don’t think has gotten the hang of the weigh scale yet as she is very generous with her pounds, or kgs. I don’t buy eggs from her though as I can’t stomach those brown eggs with the bright yellow yolks. It reminds me of the eggs growing up on the farm, but I know free range chickens are all the rage and I am sure they are full of omega-3’s.

I like to look at the flowers, the glads are out now, but I seldom buy as I have lots of flowers at home.

I have my own semi-successful potager, so I don’t feel the need to buy tomatoes, cucumbers or lettuce, but one whiff of the dill brings back memories of my mother canning dill pickles. You can get a free bunch of dill with every large purchase.

The early apples are starting to come in, which will soon mean spies and pies. I can smell the cinnamon now.

My favorite time of year is when the summer fruits are available, the strawberries and peaches. You can get a bushel of overripe fruit for ten dollars and make a whole batch of jam for what you might pay for two jars. There is a jam vendor also, for when you run out, who also sells homemade fruit pies. So definitely there is a cost savings, and the food is so much fresher and better tasting, not to mention not loaded with tons of preservatives and artificial ingredients.

Not everything is better at the market though. Sadly, it is home to the world’s worst bakery which sells the most tasteless bread ever baked, not to mention tarts with uncooked dough and a scant quarter inch of fruit filling. The next time I walk pass, the owner asks if I want something so I venture a tactful complaint – I figure if no one tells him he can’t fix it. He tells me he hired a new baker so I bought butter tarts this time. Same thing. I gave up. There must be an art to making play-doh like that? Butter tarts are a national institution in Canada but I have a fine recipe inherited from my mother. We have much better bakeries in town but I suppose once a vendor has tenure in the building, it’s for life, and so many people don’t know what good pastry tastes like. But the bread – there’s simply no excuse. Bread is the staff of life, but so is good nutritious food. If you ate today, thank a farmer!

PS. Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving today!

Wild Turkeys

All That Jam

September 12, 20189 Comments

The farmer’s markets are full of peaches right now, a little past their prime which is perfect for jam-making. Last Saturday I bought a big box of peaches for $16 and made 3 batches of jam on Sunday as they had ripened so fast as to be almost spoiling – two of freezer jam and one the old-fashioned boiled on the stove way.

Unlike last year, where I experimented with different types of pectin, I just used the Bernardin No Sugar Needed brand as I don’t like jam to be too sweet, although I did add 2/3 of a cup of sugar as the package insert suggested. I like to be able to taste the peaches. Of course there is nothing so lovely as a big bowl of peaches peeled and sliced on their own, or mixed with some vanilla yogurt.

I woke up with a sore right shoulder (probably from carrying the box), so I recruited my mother to help peel the peaches, which she enjoyed very much as it reminded her of all the canning she did on the farm. My nostalgia for homemade jam was one of the memories which lead to the creation of the homeplace blog (see Out in The Country).

For more canning memories, you can check out last fall’s unpublished blogs, Jamfest and Lavender and Pears, (although it is not quite pear season yet).

Peach jam is best served in January during a blizzard while looking out the window at two feet of snow and dreaming of summer….

(200 words – almost makes up for the last weeks 4000)

Peaches for Sale

The Simply White Dinner

July 24, 2018July 25, 201822 Comments

The Simply White Dinner is an annual event which originated in Paris twenty-five years ago and has now spread to cities all over the world. The local version of this outdoor picnic has sold out again. Every year this event gets bigger and more extravagant and every year people pay for the privilege of sitting with 300 other guests all wearing white on a summer evening and listen to jazz music while they dine on their own picnic fare. Tickets are $60 per pair, (only pairs as the organizers want an even number of tables), and every year it sells out. And yes, you bring your own food. The $60 charge is only for the ambiance. Bottles of wine (presumably white) are available for purchase, but you must bring your own bottle opener, white picnic basket/bag/cooler, white china, glass ware, real cutlery, (no plastic please), white linen napkins (to wave in the air for the group picture) and centerpiece (perhaps white hydrangeas). You must wear white, and only white, except for footwear. Elegance is encouraged, hats, fascinators, white boas, white gloves etc. They supply the tables and chairs, the white tablecloths and the music. The rest is up to you. The location is top secret until the day before the event, presumably to avoid gawkers (although it might be hard to hide 300 chairs) but is usually somewhere along the waterfront. This year they had a perfect summer evening with a lovely breeze coming off the water, last year it was sultry and sweltering hot. It’s hard to dress chic when the humidity soars to over 40 C.

Now if you are a romantic at heart this sounds very enticing. The event organizers promise a magical evening of outdoor dining, music and dancing under the stars. It does sound wonderful and very Gatsbyish….who wouldn’t want to dress up like Daisy Buchanan?

Except even the local newspaper christened it The Chic Potluck because……where are all the men? The closeup in the paper showed a long table of stylishly dressed women with hats and white flowers or wreaths in their hair, with a few dapper men here and there, coerced into white suits or white golf shirts and white pants by their wives, but they were older, grayer men who may have grown up with John Travolta’s white disco suit in Saturday Night Fever, or perhaps Don Johnson’s pale linen jackets in Miami Vice, or maybe even Humphrey Bogart’s white tuxedo in Casablanca. White is not a color favored by a lot of men, except for the classic white dress shirt which accompanies suits and ties, and I believe even that has fallen out of favor except for funerals and weddings. Women enjoy wearing white, and as Jane Austen famously quoted in Mansfeld Park, “A woman can never be too fine while she is all in white” but I think Jane was probably thinking of younger women. I abandoned white years ago as it can be unflattering to the skin tone of women over fifty. In fact I don’t believe I own a single white item in my wardrobe. I also can’t sit in the direct sun for three hours – would my beige parasol be confiscated at the door?

Informal poll: Female readers would your boyfriend/husband/male significant other be willing to don white (and we’re not talking white t-shirts here), to attend such an event? (Male readers I would like your opinion too). Men might be enticed by the promise of a good meal, but remember you are bringing your own food and it probably won’t be them making or packing the picnic lunch. All of these are perfectly valid reasons to just stay home. Still I am feeling a bit wistful about missing the promise of an enchanting evening. (musical interlude from South Pacific)

The first year they allowed registrants to pre-order a boxed meal of a salad with protein/chicken for $22 (has anyone noticed that the $15 salad has now become $20) but that was soon abandoned, probably for liability reasons. There are suggestions for picnic fare on the website…..appetizers, sandwiches, deserts. The food does not have to be white, but what if it was? If we’re going to have a theme here let’s go all out. How about aged white cheddar with crackers, and white radishes and cauliflower veggies with ranch dip as appetizers. Lobster or lobster rolls, or tuna on French bread. Or that perennial picnic favorite, cold chicken and potato salad with white chocolate mousse or crème brulee for desert? Sounds like a plan, and you don’t have to pay sixty dollars to do it – you can put the money you save towards the lobsters. Just organize a party for your own backyard some soft summer evening. Invite some friends over and serve Prosecco or Pina Coladas. Play old vintage Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin tunes instead of that horrible screechy jazz. You might even cheat and stay out until midnight if your neighbors don’t object, instead of packing it in at ten as the official white party does. (I’m not sure how much dancing under the stars would get done when it doesn’t even get dark here until well after nine, but you might get a good forty-five minutes of twilight twirling in).

Being possessed of an analytical mind, I decided to do the math. 300 tickets X $30 is $9000. Nine thousand dollars to cover the rental of the table and chairs, the tablecloths and the jazz trio and DJ, might still leave some money left over, but as I don’t know anything about event planning, maybe they just break even? They say they do it for the fun, it’s not a charity event. It does seem like a lot of money though for some ambiance. Last year I had tickets for a Local Harvest dinner, where for $30 a person you got an actual meal outdoors at the local farmers market square. Although it was the end of September (timed for the harvest moon) and a coolish night they had heaters and a band played later. (This reasonable price however might have been subsidized by the culinary arts students from the local college learning their trade). The meal itself consisted of artisan bread, potato soup, locally sourced salad greens, a beef and a turkey entree, rustic vegetables and assorted homemade pies for desert. And recently I attended a church dinner where the menu was a starter chopped salad, roast beef, chicken cordon bleu, mashed potatoes, carrots, coleslaw and homemade strawberry trifle for desert. (This meal however might have been subsidized by the church coffers as a thank you to the volunteers). And last June I attended a WW2 swing dance in an airport hangar, with a truly memorable roast beef and chicken buffet with the most scrumptious cheesecake for desert with a choice of lemon, cherry or blueberry toppings, and afterwards an evening of big band music with a 23-person orchestra. Vintage dress was encouraged, some women did, most men did not, although I did see a few who might have been wearing their grandpa’s old uniform. Tickets for that charity event were $75 per person, but as they have increased it to $100 per person this year they must not have made any money. So, it is possible to have both food and ambiance for a price, (and it is possible to get members of the male species out for an evening of dining and dancing if there is a vintage B17 bomber on display to tour).

Perhaps it is a case of country mouse versus city mouse, but if given a choice I think I prefer food over ambiance. Still if Jay Gatsby offered to buy the tickets next year and pack me a picnic basket I might be persuaded to attend.

Song of the Night: Dancing in the Moonlight

Quote of the Day: “There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. (The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald)

The Potager

June 5, 2018June 5, 201820 Comments

A potager is a French term for a kitchen garden. Because of my intention to take a break from all things floral, (see the Danger Zone blog), I decided my gardening project for this year would be a vegetable garden. Flowers are pretty to look at but hopefully this will be a more productive endeavor, with the end result being healthier meals to enjoy plus the added fun of growing my own food. Who doesn’t like the convenience of a salad freshly picked from their own garden?

Mandarin salad with raspberry vinaigrette

My first foray into vegetable gardening was last summer as I had bought a raised garden bed and started with some romaine lettuce and two strawberry plants,

plus twelve tomato plants, obviously way too many for such a small space, as a Tomato Jungle (see Sept blog) quickly ensued.

So needing more space, last fall I bought three more raised garden beds at the New England Arbor Charity sale (75% off, $25 each) and after dumping seventy bags of $1 dirt and compost into them, they were the regular price. Never underestimate how much dirt a 4X4 square can hold, or how quickly it can settle. I placed them in the sunniest spot in my yard, but the aroma of lilacs in the back corner is an added perk.

I am not completely unfamiliar with gardens. Growing up on a farm (the homeplace), we always had a large vegetable garden. It was a way of life back then, as anyone whoever spent the hot summer months canning and preserving can testify, plus it was a healthy and cheap way to feed a family. The farm garden was always planted in the cornfield closest to the house for easy access, spread out among the rows of corn, so as not to waste precious corn acreage. It was never planted until the first of June when the danger of a late frost was over. Sometimes we would help my dad plant it, he dug the holes, and we put the seeds in and covered them up with dirt, but other than that I don’t remember it being any work, it just grew. We didn’t weed or water it as it was in the cornfield, mother nature did the rest. It had the usual garden staples, tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow beans, sweet corn, squash plus pumpkins for Halloween. The beans and tomatoes were canned, and my mother made dill pickles with the cucumbers. Many a hot August day, in the years before air conditioning, I would wake and go downstairs to find rows of inverted mason jars covered with tea towels on the kitchen counter-top, as my mom would have been up early to can in the cool of the morning. Later they would be moved to pantry shelves in the basement. I don’t remember eating the canned goods, (as a child I was a picky eater), but I recall my parents having the stewed tomatoes with onions and a fried steak, and we would always have the sweet corn in August, slathered with butter. So, I had great ambitions for my little white squares and visions of a bountiful harvest.

Last year I had bought two ever-bearing strawberry plants and had berries right up until October, (what a wonderful idea, why didn’t someone think of that sooner), that is if the birds didn’t get them first. So this year I bought two more, but covered them up with garden netting. A few days ago, a big black ugly starling lured by the sight of all those green berries, managed to get under the netting, and in a mad flapping panic tried to get out through the chicken wire. I undid the top netting, but the stupid bird still couldn’t find it’s way out, so I turned the garden hose on it and sprayed it (gently, on shower not jet) towards the opening. Bet it doesn’t try that again! (I could understand a little brown sparrow or a hummingbird getting in but a starling the size of a crow? It must have been part of the Cirque du Soleil acrobat team).

Into the same bed, went some romaine and red leaf lettuce. Lately I have been buying red leaf lettuce at the grocery store, but it is also nice to mix the two. The romaine I grew last summer was the best I had ever tasted, or maybe it just seemed that way as I grew it myself. Because I had these in early before the holiday weekend, they are almost ready for picking. Hopefully, they will regrow after, but I intend to fill in two of the other squares with some more in a few weeks to stagger the crop.

Into the second square went the tomato plants, big fat Beefsteak for sandwiches and smaller Roma for salads. I gave up on those tasteless little cherry tomatoes, you can buy those year round in the store, but a big fat home-grown tomato has a distinctive taste and aroma and is a truly wonderful thing.

Into the third square went two rows of carrots, because they are good for your eyesight, one orange, and one multi-coloured. I imagine they will look pretty curled on a salad like in the food magazines.

I am hoping these bunnies aren’t high jump Olympic champions in fence hopping.

Somebunny is waiting for me to plant the carrots.

Also, into that square went three seed potatoes, barely breaking ground now but at least they made it. My dad never grew potatoes, perhaps lingering ancestral memories of the Irish potato famine, so I have no experience with growing potatoes. Maybe I will get enough for a potato salad?

Into the fourth square went my Acorn squash for Thanksgiving, (not butternut as most people prefer), plus one cucumber plant designed for small gardens, so hopefully it won’t sprawl too much.

I did not plant any radishes, because my memories of the farm were the radishes were always way too hot and/or tough depending on the rainfall, nor butter beans as you can buy those in the store cheap and they are often tough as well. My mother often planted gladioli and zinnias in her farm garden, but I have had zero luck with zinnias, although I do have glads planted along the back fence. What I planted seemed like enough for a first-time endeavor – I am looking forward to the harvest. (Next week I will tell you about a new way to cook all your nutritious produce, in my blog, Under Pressure, Instant-Pot for Beginners).

Lately, I have been neglecting my book recommends. This book, In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan, plus his first book, An Omnivore’s Dilemma really changed how I think about food and eating. Perhaps a bit out of date now, with the current popularity of the high protein Paleo diets, but it made me really stop and think twice before eating any processed food. Much better to eat food in as natural a state as possible, and for those who don’t want to grow their own food, the farmer’s markets are now open!

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Simple words that changed my eating habits ten years ago when I first read this book, or at least made me stop and think first. Don’t eat anything your Grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Also wise words. This book provides an interesting history and peek into the multi-million dollar processed food industry – what started out as an attempt in the fifties to make food better and healthier and last longer, has backfired so that we now have transfats, plasticizers and softeners in our bread and fast food burgers which never decompose. Certainly an eye-opener – you may never eat the same way again.