September 2007 Newsletter
To read the full newsletter, please see: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/newsletterseptember07.html
Dear Kitchen Gardener,
I hope you're either enjoying or planning bumper harvests. We
harvested a great crop of participation and awareness raising at this
year's Kitchen Garden Day celebration and have put together
a short video to share some of what happened that day.
While it'd be nice to bask in
the warm glow of those harvests, October is too busy a gardening month
to kick back. In Maine, there's
pesto and
sauerkraut to be made, squash to be cured, apples to be picked, and
tomatoes to be canned or frozen. October also offers some of the
crispest, best-tasting salads of the year just ready to be
cut, rinsed, and
spun. Garlic traditionally goes in the ground on or around
Columbus Day, but that day seems to be slipping back a week or two in
our brave new, globally-warmed world.
October's also a month for
adding new life to tired beds through the addition of compost. For
those of you who don't have a heaping pile of chocolate cake-like
compost to dig into, autumn's a great time, the best time in fact, to
start a new pile using all those vines and stems that have stopped
delivering, fallen leaves, and the lush, nitrogen-rich grass clippings
that suburban lawns so effortlessly produce in the fall.
The fall is also the best
time for planning and starting new garden projects. Last week, I
paid a visit to the French School of Maine to help them identify a site
for a new "potager". Monsieur le Directeur and a
group of professeurs directed me to a rolling,
field available for the school's use just a three minute's walk from the
school. I felt a bit envious glancing over the grassy expanse,
doing quick math in my head at all the food that such a large plot could
generate. While the field was gorgeous and had very tall weeds
(usually a reliable sign of soil fertility), I urged them to scope out a
spot closer to the school. What holds for home gardens holds for
school gardens too: the closer to the kitchen, the better.
We ultimately chose to site
the new garden in a high profile and high traffic spot right in front of
the school. Not only is it the best spot in terms of sunlight and
promixity, but it sends a strong message that health and good food are
high on the school's agenda. Once they've got their potager
dug and their systems in place, they can consider turning the larger
piece of land into a true farm capable of supplying their cafeteria.
This experience and some
others I've been a part of recently have got me thinking about where our
schools' priorities are now and perhaps ought to be. A few years
back, Maine boasted being the first state to prepare its children for
the "information age" by
providing every 7th
and 8th grade student and teacher with a laptop computer.
Several years into the program, it's amazing to see how comfortable and
skilled Maine's young people have become with this important tool.
This, of course, got me
pondering new "firsts" for Maine and other forward-looking states or
regions, in the US or abroad. Which state or region will be the
first to prepare its students for the coming "ecology age" by mandating
that every primary or intermediate school in its area have an organic
kitchen garden and age-appropriate garden curriculum? Surely,
there is no better way to teach health and healthy eating than to engage
young people in the process of heathy food production.
As with the laptop initative,
such an idea would surely encounter resistance, but what revolutionary
idea hasn't?
Wishing you a delicious
October,
PS: It's still not too late
to win your chance at over $1000 in prizes through our
Grow-Off Show-Off Contest, but the clock is ticking. As an
added bonus, the first 50 entries automatically win a free subscription
to Mother Earth News. Deadline for entries is November 1st.
Note sure what you can enter, then see
here.
continue reading...
Added on: Oct 7, 2007 in
Category:
From the Garden
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Other News in the From the Garden category |
| 1. |
The last of summer's bounty
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By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, October 20, 2007 in The Washington Post
This time of year I'm like the women in Jean-François Millet's painting "The Gleaners," bent over the mown fields in their kerchiefs and long skirts, gathering scraps of leftover grain. It's completely irrational. My garden is still bursting with fresh crops for fall: spinach, kale, leeks and a dozen or so others. Winter squash is just starting to cure in the shed, and I haven't even dug the root crops yet. But somehow the oncoming winter brings out the frugal peasant in me, and I'm gripped with the urge to salvage what is left of summer's bounty.
The last of the unpicked snap beans have seeds swelling in their pods. Better not waste them. I spend an hour shelling them and another gathering the last of the old corn ears, stripping them of their kernels and adding them to the beans for succotash. There's some over-the-hill fennel, too woody for salads but a perfectly good candidate for long, slow braising.
A row of broccoli plants and another of zucchini are ready to be yanked out and composted. But shouldn't I leave them a week longer to see if they'll pump out a few more stir-fries' worth of food? I stroll through the garden, assessing what is left. I want one more dish of fried squash blossoms, one more platter of tomato salad before frost threatens. "Look, it's fall," I tell myself. "Get over it."
Then I spot the bolted lettuce. Some of the leafy towers are nearly three feet tall. Where I've harvested heads, the stems have regrown with multiple spires, like Notre Dame. Ready to rip them out, I remember something I read about once on a favorite Web site called L'Atelier Vert ( http://www.frenchgardening.com). Although the leaves of bolted lettuce are so bitter only the starving would eat them, the stems are said to be quite tasty. Curious, I cut some, strip them of their leaves and bring them indoors. Not even bothering to peel them, I cut them all into half-inch pieces on the diagonal. I would expect them to be tough, but they are succulent and easy to slice.
I saute them on low heat for 20 minutes or so in French walnut oil. They begin to exude the milky sap that gives lettuce its botanical name ( Latuca), then they slowly caramelize until they are crisp. I heap them onto a plate with coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper. They are delectable, more sweet than bitter, but with a little bite. If I leave the roots in the ground, maybe they will sprout a few more meals like this one before the season finally comes to an end.
Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Image: "Les Glaneuses" by Jean-François Millet, 1857.
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| 2. |
Kitchen Garden Day Celebrations
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For those of you new to Kitchen Gardeners International, we organize a global garden party on the fourth Sunday of August each year which we aptly named Kitchen Garden Day. The day started as a tongue-in-cheek challenge to the snackfood makers of the world who have claimed the entire month of February as "Snackfood Month". Our logic was that if the fluorescent orange cheese-puff makers of the world could have an entire month to celebrate their vision of good eating, home gardeners and cooks deserved at least a day. The video above was some local press coverage we had in Maine.
What started in one backyard in Maine is slowly, but surely spreading to others and a few frontyards too! Kitchen Garden Day this year (August 26th) will be recognized in different places and in different ways: a street parties, picnics , potlucks, gardening workshops, and locally-sourced dinners cooked by area chefs.
Why not join the fun and organize a gathering of your own with friends and good food? But, please, no artificially-flavored bacon snacks or foods containing "blue #40". Those are for another day month.
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| 4. |
June 2007 Newsletter
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To read the full newsletter online, please see: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/newsletterjune07.html
Dear Kitchen Gardener,
You are cordially invited to my house on August 26th to celebrate
Kitchen Garden Day. We'll be organizing a walking tour of some
home gardens in my neighborhood, making a stop at the newly-planted
kitchen garden at our local elementary school, and munching on some
delicious food along the way.
Since I'm assuming that some
of you will not be able to make it (for example, those of you from
Argentina, South Africa and Australia!), I thought I'd give you a quick
virtual tour of my June garden through the picture above. I've
left out a few identifying labels (e.g. garden hose, kale, onions,
misplaced toys, etc.) for lack of space , but it gives you a feel for
what's planted. For those of you who are curious, that's not grass
growing in between my beds, but fresh untreated grass clippings that I
put down as a mulch...very soft under summer's bare feet. I've posted a
high resolution picture of my garden
here without the labels if you want to see it in its natural state.
As you can see, it's been a
busy month getting plants and seeds in the ground and quite a few greens
out and into the family salad bowl. It's also been a busy month at
KGI "headquarters". We harvested a bumper crop of public awareness
raising this past month due to an
Associated Press article that featured our efforts to bring about a
kitchen garden revival. The article appeared in over 30 papers
across the US and has attracted a number of energized people to our
effort. Welcome newcomers!
Speaking about reaching out
to new folks, I continue to brainstorm ideas for reaching out to people,
some old, some new. In the new category, I've recently posted a
new short video to youtube,com which hopefully will get people
thinking and, ultimately, eating in a different way. If nothing
else, it's good for a chuckle. Please pass on the link if you find
it worthwhile. We're also adding prizes to our "Grow-Off
Show-Off" competition, too, so be sure to check that out.
Grand prize is $500 and all the international celebrity one gardener can
handle.
For those of you who can't
make it to Scarborough, Maine for our celebration of Kitchen Garden Day,
why not throw a little garden party of your own? That's the best
way I know to grow the number of home-growers: by bringing new people
into kitchen gardens - whether big, small, urban or rural - to
show them the quantity, quality, and diversity of crops a small plot can
produce.
I know this works because I
just recently helped some neighbors who attended our Kitchen Garden Day
party last year plant their first garden. They're delighted
to be eating their first home-grown foods ever. If that's not
cause for celebration, I don't know what is.
Happy summer,
PS: Next month, I'll report
from southern France: ooh la la, good things ahead!
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| 5. |
Easy garden fresh tabouleh recipe
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Tabbouleh is a Lebanese dish, considered by many as the "national salad". Its main ingredients are bulgur, finely chopped parsley, mint, tomato, scallion (spring onion), and other herbs with lemon juice and various seasonings, generally including black pepper and sometimes cinnamon and allspice. In Syria and in Lebanon, where the dish originated, it is often eaten by scooping it up in Romaine lettuce leaves. In the Middle East, it is truly a salad with the green ingredients dominating. The dish's global popularity has led to new interpretations and regional modifications such as the use of couscous (which originates from Northern Africa) in place of bulgur.
Ingredients
2 bunches of fresh parsley (1 1/2 cup chopped, with stems discarded)
2 tablespoons of fresh mint, chopped
I small onion, finely chopped
6 medium tomatoes, finely diced
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup bulgur
juice of three lemons
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Procedure:
Rinse bulgur in water and add to a large mixing bowl. Combine all chopped ingredients, salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, and stir. Cover with a clean dish towel and let sit for 1-2 hours or until bulghur is tender.
Photo credit: Ulterior Epicure
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Other News |
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Many a music lover makes a pilgrimage to the holy land by visiting the Martin factory in a town named Nazareth.
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Prunes are plums? Plum Recipes
Yes, indeed! Prunes are simply dried plums. I don't know why prunes have such a bad connotation to the younger generations, but a few years ago, the prune industry banded...
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