Catching On

Winter growing is catching on in central New York. The Ithaca Journal recently ran a story about several local farms that have begun offering winter "shares" of root vegetables and hardy greens grown in unheated "hoop houses" (or "high tunnels"). And the Greenstar Cooperative Market newsletter noted that they will be carrying the first-ever crop of winter braising greens from the newly established Good life Farm in nearby Interlaken (just north of Ithaca).

In the mid-west, Driftless Farm and Forest reports on their "Log Blog" that they are experimenting with a winter "Greens Share" for the first time, using a passive solar greenhouse. And in Maine, the pioneering farmers at the Four Season Farm have been bringing vegetables to market year-round for years.

The growing experimentation with cold weather growing -- commercially and on the home scale -- makes me happy. So does a freshly picked salad (above) and the tubful of Jerusalem artichokes that I dug from beneath the snow last week.

Simple Pleasures

This has been a difficult month for many people I love dearly. So I find myself taking comfort in simple things -- small kindnesses; the sun shining through the southern windows, warm on my shoulders as I type; the glistening of last night's ice as it melts, like thousands of crystals strung on the trees and plants outside; and the greens that continue to grow in the midst of winter. In the freezing cold, they become ever-more tender and sweet. It's good to remember that.

Here are some photos taken Christmas Day when I peaked under the plastic hoops to see how things were doing. From top to bottom: mache, claytonia (miner's lettuce), baby bok choi, turnips, a row of chard (right) and turnips, Asian savoy, and braised mixed greens.

Winter Solstice

The small flames dance

at the edge of the dark night

coaxing the season's turn

the sun's return

miracle repeated. 

May the new year bring warmth, light and joy. 

Photo: Richard Lansdowne, 2007.

What's available

As the winter solstice nears and today's weather report indicates a wind chill of about 0 degrees, the ground is starting to freeze. But it's still possible to dig, especially in beds that have been covered with the plastic tunnels. Last weekend, I took out the leeks and carrots that were still out in the open and some of the turnips. This morning, I dug about half the remaining winter radishes. We'll mulch the remainder of the root vegetables heavily. If we haven't waited too long to mulch, we might be able to keep digging the remaining root vegetables for another month. Otherwise, they'll remain in the ground until early spring.

This weekend was also time to eat the last acorn squash and turn the stored pumpkins into soup. The pumpkins had been left on the front porch which, not surprisingly, is too cold for squash this time of year. They should have been moved into our unheated entryway several weeks ago. In fact, I just read that winter squash keep better at warmer temperatures (about 50 degrees), unlike root vegetables, which prefer much cooler conditions. The slightly frozen pumpkins were fine to cook, but they had to be used immediately. Now, in the form of 3 gallons of curried pumpkin soup, they'll last for many months more. The seeds, which we toasted, were gone immediately.

It’s one thing to read claims that communities in the northeast U.S. could produce most, if not all, the produce they need locally. It’s another to see it in action. Here’s what we’re eating mid-December:

From the garden:

Leeks

Jerusalem artichokes

Garlic scallions

Salad greens (mâche, claytonia, beet leaves, mustards, spinach, arugala)

Five kinds of Asian greens (for salads and stir fry)

Kale

Chard

Radishes (French & Daikon)

Carrots

Parsley

Sorrell

Winter savory

Thyme

Sage

Growing in the kitchen

Parsley

Bean sprouts (for salads and stir fry)

Rosemary

From cool storage

(Cool room or frig)

Beets

Garlic

Cabbage

Carrots

Winter radishes

Pickles

Horseradish relish

Dill & coriander (cilantro) seeds

From the freezer

String beans

Sugar-snap peas

Chard

Zucchini & yellow squash (stored as soup)

Pumpkin (stored as soup)

Blueberries and strawberries (picked from local farms at their peak and frozen whole)

Black-cap raspberries (frozen whole)

Peach compote

Basil, mint & garlic pestos

Bought from the market (local)

Apples & pears

Potatoes

Onions

Yams

Canned tomatoes and a few bananas are the only non-local produce needed this month. Usually, tomatoes would be in the freezer, but this summer’s early arrival of late blight destroyed most of the local crop (including our own), and limited potato yields as well. It will be a couple more years until our pear trees bear fruit, and even longer for our own apples (since we haven’t planted them yet.) And we still don't grow enough onions, winter squash and other root vegetables to get through entire the winter. But fortunately, local farmers have this covered.

As the above list shows, year-round local produce doesn’t rely on any one solution – canning, freezing, storing, or growing fresh. Nor is it a question of growing it all oneself versus buying from commercial farmers. Rather, it is a combination of all of the above. Some food (i.e., summer vegetables and fruits) is best canned or frozen when in abundance. Other veggies can be grown through the winter under cover. And still others are fall crops that store well or that can be cooked up and frozen as time allows.

Each year, we grow what we are able – limited by time, weather, space, and skill, and we are thankful to the community’s commercial farmers for the rest. We are not aiming for “self-sufficiency,” but rather finding our place in a local, inter-dependent community food system that can – and will – provide enough sustenance for all.

25 degrees & still growing

Memo to self: when picking greens in 25 degree weather, use a plastic bowl, not a metal one.

Winter growing has its challenges, like how numbingly cold wet fingers get picking small greens when the temperature’s below freezing, or the way bare skin sticks to a metal bowl. On the other hand, the greens are there to be picked. It’s quite amazing given that night-time temperatures have been in the teens, and far lower when the gusting wind chill is taken into account.

There was rain before the temperature dropped, so the rocks holding down the edges of the plastic were frozen to the ground. But once dislodged and the plastic lifted, the greens beneath looked chilly (or maybe it was just me who was chilly!) but absolutely fine.

I’ve read that as the air turns cold, some of these plants begin to produce compounds (including sucrose) that act as “antifreeze,” preventing the formation of ice crystals within the plant’s cells.

So they not only survive, but thrive, becoming sweeter, more tender and more flavorful in winter than summer. These winter salad leaves also have a welcome crispness that the summer versions never do and a pleasing mix of tastes.

By dinner time, frozen fingers seemed a small price to pay for the salad that awaited. Here’s what was in yesterday’s mix (clockwise, from top left):

• Asian Savoy
  
• Mâche and Claytonia (miners’ lettuce), the hardiest of the winter salad greens
  
• Burgundy “Bulls’ Blood” beet leaves, added more for color than for its mild taste
  
• Spicy “Red Giant” mustard
  
• "Golden Frill mustard
• Mizuna
  
• Parsley
  
• “Shunkyo Semi-Long,” a French radish that is both hot and sweet

Memo #2 to self: Start designing the walk-in solar greenhouse now, so there’ll be no digging under snowy, frozen plastic near year.

White and Greens

We had our first dusting of snow earlier in the week. It’s gone now, of course, but a promise of what’s yet to come. Micro-farming has helped me appreciate the winter months more. I still don’t like the cold (which, in my mind, is anything below 60 degrees), but I’ve come to appreciate the seasonal changes in rhythm and focus. Now, instead of working in the garden until 8 or 9 pm, I sit by the woodstove and thumb through the seed and tree catalogs that have begun to arrive. Outside, I admire the neatly stacked wood pile, the result of Richard’s work through the summer and fall, cutting and splitting dead trees. There’s a cycle to the year, and it feels right.

What gardening there is these days is mostly harvesting. The leeks will be fine for a while, even with the snow. And the greens are protected by their plastic blankets. The hardiest, like kale, don’t need the cover to survive, but the added warmth is encouraging them to continue to produce new growth. Some days I remember to pick a bowlful of greens before going to work in the morning. Other days, I head out with a flashlight in the after-work darkness.

Yesterday, working at home, I made it out before dark, harvesting nearly a pound of kale for dinner. Most of it was “Red Russian,” smaller, but far more tender than other kale varieties. The “red” in the name refers to its purple stems and leaf veins; the leaves themselves are green. This crop remains, surprisingly, from a spring planting of a mesclun salad mix. Most of the other greens in the mix have long gone to seed and been pulled. But the kale is still producing, too large now for salad but perfect for braising.

I wasn’t a fan of kale until I learned to cook it well. Our favorite: sautéing a entire head of garlic in olive oil, then adding the kale leaves (stripped from the stem) with just the water remaining on the leaves after rinsing them; when they have cooked down, season with tamari and balsamic vinegar to taste. Now we can’t get enough. Last night, I added some cooked white beans at the very end and served it over pasta for a quick dinner-in-a-bowl. The pound of kale disappeared in a single sitting.

Late November

As we reach the fourth week of November, we have so much abundance to be thankful for: an ever-growing circle of friends, families (perhaps further away than we’d wished, but there), a home filled with love. And then there’s the continuing abundance of food produced by the land on which we live.

Last Saturday, several friends came to dinner. We roasted one of the pumpkins, and served it mashed and sweetened with maple syrup, along with a fresh-picked salad. Stored potatoes, fresh dug carrots, and frozen green beans went into the pot roast. The toasted pumpkin seeds made a wonderful dessert (along with the chocolate that Alicia brought and the Girl Scout cookies I bought from Michelle and Nina).

Sunday, I dug some of the Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) to bring to my sister. A member of the sunflower family, this late-blooming, spreading perennial bears its yellow flowers in late October. It’s knobby, homely looking tubers – sweeter after several frosts – can be cooked like potatoes.

Last night, I took out the horseradish roots I dug earlier in the fall. Like the sunchokes, they are not much to look at. But they make a wonderful grated horseradish preserve that my dad -- and we -- love. Richard scrubbed; I grated. We haven’t tasted it yet, but inhaling near the food processor sent a fiery rush through my nasal passages and tears to my eyes. And I was worried that holding them in the frig for so long had weakened their taste!

This morning, before we pack the car, I will pick fresh salad greens for my niece, Dori, and parsley, sage, winter savory and thyme for my mom.

Along with thankfulness, food, friends and family, however, late November brings Thanksgiving, a complicated holiday, made ever more complex as we continue to learn to separate the rosy myths that surround it from clearer-eyed looks at the arrival of the English colonists to this continent. One excellent version, 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving, offers a more complete look at this history. So does the "The Real Story of Thanksgiving."

The challenge is that what most people in the U.S. learned about Thanksgiving is a mix of both history and myth. The relationship between the Europeans and the Native people in fact included at least one shared feast and some ongoing diplomacy. The early English settlers first survived only because of the generosity and help from Native people knew how to live on this land. However relationship between the two groups also was characterized by European kidnappings of hundreds of Native people taken to Europe as “novelties” and slaves, the repeated stealing of Native food stores, the privatization of collectively-shared land, massacres, policies of genocide and forced removal. Many of the first "thanksgivings" observed by the English settlers were actually "victory" celebrations after massacres of the "heathen savages." Within a generation there was a state of ongoing war between the two peoples. It is a painful story that many of European descent struggle to attend to.

The part of New York State where we live was – and still is – home to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people. So even as we love and tend this plot of land on which we live, we must grapple with the painful awareness of who else loved and tended it before us, what happened to them and why. There are no simple answers for rectifying historic wrongs. But there is the obligation to continue to question how those of us who live here now, enjoying the harvests of this place, are should respond to horrific injustices we didn’t create, but of whose histories we are now a part.

Creativity and Connection

I love things that are simultaneously functional, beautiful, sustainable, and help remind us of our connection to the world around us (both human and natural). In fact, for me, an object's beauty usually comes from its intersection with those other three attributes. That's the basis for our foray into edible landscapes. Thus, I was thrilled when, late last week, Richard sent me an inspiring New York Times article (11/4/09) about Roald Gundersen, a Wisconsin forester, architect and builder who creates passive solar homes, greenhouses, commercial buildings, and other structures from whole trees, rather than from milled lumber. 

I learned that building with a whole, unmilled tree is more frugal, more sustainable and can support 50 percent more weight than largest piece of lumber milled from the same tree. The brief online slide show accompanying the article led me to look up Gundersen's firm, Whole Trees Architecture and Construction, and blog (see The Log Blog, in blog list at right). Turns out that building with whole trees is also exquisitely beautiful, leading to human shelters that resonate with connections to the natural world.  Gundersen's wife and business partner, Amelia Baxter, a former urban farmer, community organizer and co-owner of the firm, manages a community forest project modeled after community-supported agriculture. Members can harvest firewood, foods like mushrooms and watercress, and building trees from the woods in ways that sustain forests them as living resources, rather than as raw material to be extracted and used up. 

The Whole Trees web site also offers a cool "tree word of the day." The day I looked it was "thigmomorphogenesis," which, I learned, refers to a tree's ability to strengthen in response to tactile stimuli (e.g., wind blowing against a trunk). 

 

In the past two years, we have been more actively managing the 6 wooded acres surrounding our house, selectively culling some trees so that others have a better chance to grow. Gundersen's work has me looking at the dead elm, small-diameter ash, and occasional cherry trees we have been taking down in new ways, thinking about what we might build next. 

A Warm Weekend

I enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather this weekend, even as I know it can’t be good for the plants that are blooming out of season. There were several flowers on the primroses last week (above), and I saw a flower and many blossoms on one of the strawberries as well.

I used the sunny weather to advantage, however: mulching, dividing and moving some hostas, and working on the flagstone paths. Richard composted the horse and alpaca manure that our neighbors dropped off, worked on strengthening the deer fence and put markers along the edge of the new driveway.

Moving the driveway into the woods was partly practical; it will allow us to construct a large, walk-in hoop house next year on the straight stretch in front of the house – the area with the longest hours of winter sun – that was the previous driveway. But it’s lovely driving into the woods as we arrive home; and it’s wonderful to sit in the garden without looking at the cars (now hidden from view behind the wood pile).

A complete change in perspective, with only a few extra feet to walk between the cars and the front door.

After harvesting a large bowl of parsley (which went into a batch of tabouli for lunch), I dug up four parsley plants, potted them and brought them into the kitchen. Several small dill plants that started to grow late summer from the first crop’s seeds, will follow as soon as I get another bag of potting soil. Along with the rosemary, brought in before the first frosts, they will be right on hand to season soups and stews.

Finally, the warm weather meant that we opened up the low hoop houses, making it easy to admire the hardy greens that are continuing to grow, as well as to weed and harvest. Tonight’s salad included several mustards, savoy (an Asian green not unlike spinach, pictured left), Mizoona (another Asian green), magenta beet leaves, radish, carrot, calendula petals, and viola blossoms. I also pulled a leek and dug up some Jerusalem artichokes. They went into a frittata, along with some stored potatoes and the rest of the harvested parsley. Dinner was, Richard said, “gourmet.”

More fall colors

One benefit of this summer's rain has been the particularly splendid show of colors this fall. For weeks now, the trees have been adorned in vibrant yellows, fiery reds and warm oranges that call out for attention in the midst of an over-busy life. They remind me to leave my desk and computer screen, even if only for short walks around the neighborhood outside my office.

This week, there are still trees to admire as I drive down into Ithaca. Out our way, though, most of the deciduous leaves have dropped, nearly all blown down by Friday night's strong winds. But last week's photos of the American filbert (above) and blueberry (right) -- both planted in the north beds we added this summer -- prolong the memory. These native shrubs would be worth growing just for the fruit and nuts they will eventually produce; in the meantime, we savor the color they add to the landscape.

The small plant with the red berries, behind the blueberry, is a lingonberry, an edible fruit-bearing evergreen ground cover native to Scandinavia. Cousin to the American cranberry, it favors the same acidic soil conditions as the blueberries, making for a wonderful pairing. I put in a dozen small plants this year; eventually they will spread to cover the ground between the blueberries bushes. Surprisingly, even as we pick the tart ripe berries, new flowers are continuing to bloom.

And then there are the mums and dwarf barberry right outside our front door. Just reaching their peak, they still welcome us -- outside and in -- with color on even the greyest of days.

New Rhythms

The first frosts have come, and in the past several weeks, we have hurriedly gathered the last of the pole beans, basil, and some heirloom cherry tomatoes that proved surprisingly resistant to the late blight. We stored the squash, garlic and potatoes; replanted next season’s garlic; cleared debris from spent beds; and began to mulch the berries and fruit trees. We gauged the remaining chard, kale, and sorrel, whose leaves withstand even the early killing frosts; enjoyed the resurgence of arugala which has reseeded itself throughout the garden (and garden paths); and knew that the cabbage, leeks and carrots could be left in the ground to harvest as needed over the coming months. These are familiar rhythms to gardeners and farmers in the Northeast U.S.

But for us this year, some of the rhythms of this transitional season are new.

This fall, we are also evoking rituals of spring, tending young greens – planted in late August and early September – and watching them thrive in these cooler days. Some of the crops are familiar, others are as new as the rhythms of planting, weeding, and thinning at a time when most of the garden is heading toward dormancy. There’s spinach, beets, mâche, claytonia, radishes, mustards, raddichio, a mesclun mix, and a variety of Asian greens.

The photos (from top to bottom): late summer-planted Vitamin Green and Pac Choi surrounded by marigolds, before last week's killing frost; fall-planted Hon Tsai Tai, Savoy, and radishes; claytonia ("miners' lettuce"); self-seeded Asian "spoon greens"; and an early summer planting of spicy mustards that is continuing to produce new leaves. Some of those greens made a wonderful stir fry earlier in the week (along with some bright orange calendula petals) and a crisp, tangy salad last night.

Our goal is to eventually have freshly harvested greens throughout the entire year. Our guide: the writings of Eliot Coleman, an inspiring farmer, researcher, writer and local foods activist from Harborside, Maine. The author of (most recently) The Winter Harvest Handbook, Coleman profitably brings vegetables to market year-round from his zone 5 Four Season Farm using unheated, plastic-covered “hoop houses.” His success challenges the myth that we must ship food 3,000 miles across the U.S. because northeast winters preclude year-round vegetable production.

While “fall gardens” – vegetables planted in mid- to late-summer for fall harvest – are an old, if relatively lost, North American tradition, Coleman’s work opens the possibilities of extending that harvest into the frigid, snowy months by selecting cold-tolerant crops and providing minimal protection. One version of this protection, low “hoop houses” – plastic secured over small wire hoops – is quick and inexpensive to erect. We put them up a couple weeks ago when night-time temperatures began to frequently drop below freezing.

Next year, we will replace them with a “walk-in” structure – a hoop-framed greenhouse -- still unheated, but significantly larger and easier to access.

We’ve made only a small start this year, still acclimating ourselves to these unexpected rhythms. But we hope to have fresh salads and stir-fries into the new year. I’ll write more about what we’re growing and how it’s doing as this new gardening season unfolds.