Part of the appeal, it seems to me, is that the winter die-off allows us to wipe away last season's disappointments and regroup. (Do you southern gardeners find this respite during the scorching months?) The yearly ritual of planning the garden brings out the romantic in all of us:we create Eden-like gardens in our minds to sustain us 'til the first dandelion pops out of the ground. We get a chance to experience gardening in the abstract, unsullied by drought, disease or pests.

From John Seymour's "The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It"

On the other hand, planning is as practical and necessary as any other garden chore. If you're a vegetable gardener who wants to practice crop rotation (and you probably should), you need to keep records of what gets planted where. If you have your heart set on a continuously blooming perennial border you'll need to map out size, color, time of bloom -it's a four dimensional puzzle with pieces that change from week to week.

Dana Fast's Garden 2011

How do you make your garden plan? Master Gardener Dana Fast sticks to the tried and true – graph paper, pencil and ruler. I like the ease of erasure on an Excel sheet and the ability to copy the layout from one year's records to the next. This year I've combined Dana's method with my own and created virtual graph paper on the computer so I can see all of my planting beds in scale to each other.

There are plenty of online garden planners that offer lovely graphics and even some useful planting information on spacing, days to harvest, etc. Gardener's Supply and Better Homes and Gardens offer DIY planning as well as pre-planned designs for free at their websites, and other planners have free trial periods. Go wild on paper (or pixels) – and if you have a design you're proud of, share it on our facebook page!

A very early drive from the Adirondacks got us to Saratoga on Friday in time for the "intensive" workshops. The conference was preceded on Thursday by the first Northeast Organic Research Symposium (more on that in a later post), and the weekend days were given over to shorter sessions, with several keynote speakers. Conference veterans filled the neophytes in on the real highlights: extraordinary meals made from food donated by farmer participants, and the high-energy contradance on Saturday night.

I spent Friday learning about covered growing systems – high tunnels, low tunnels, caterpillar tunnels, mobile hoophouses 90 feet long that roll on rails and can be moved by two determined 10-year-olds.  As consumers are clamoring for year-round access to local produce, farmers are coming up with creative low-cost ways to extend the growing season at both ends, without burning fossil fuels. On Saturday and Sunday, the challenge was to choose between sessions on beekeeping, garlic, farm planning, renewable energy – in the end, I soaked up all I could about ways to manage vegetable production on a small farm.

Bill Mackentley, at right, from St, Lawrence Nurseries in Potsdam, presented a talk at the conference, as did his daughter, Bali.

In fact, one of the most profound takeaways was the idea that "small farms are real farms,"  as keynote speaker John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri, asserts. They strengthen rural communities and keep farmland available for future generations. We keep small farms viable when connections are made between players in the "food chain," as, for example, in community supported agriculture (CSA) which brings together farmers and their customers to plan the farming year. The bonds that come from these partnerships, like the food that is produced, has value beyond dollars and cents.

A: Go to the World Carrot Museum, of course.

While researching carrot varieties for my winter seed orders, serendipity brought me to the (virtual) door of this essential resource. Clicking through the interactive floor plan I found Russian stacking dolls featuring bunnies of diminishing sizes, all holding carrots; recipes for carrot burgers, carrot pesto slice (a baked lasagna dish), and Gajjar halvah; an illustrated history of carrots in medieval manuscripts.

From Tacuinum Sanitatis,circa 1400. The Latin text reports that pastinace stimulates sexual intercourse but slows down digestion, and that the purple type, ripe in winter, is the best.

I had been surfing the web in an attempt to connect carrot variety names with shape, length and characteristics. It turns out that a bit of confusion over carrot types is well earned: there are currently several hundred varieties of cultivated carrots. (Carrots are members of the Apiaceae family which includes parsley, celery, parsnips and several aromatic herbs.) The drawing below was one of the better references I found for different carrot shapes. Although it betrays a British/European bias, it illustrates some of our more popular types including Nantes, Danvers, Imperator and Chantenay.

Carrots are a cool weather crop so most varieties do well in our climate, if you take care to keep the soil moist long enough for the seeds to sprout. As carrot seed can take up to three weeks to germinate, this can be the most trying part of growing carrots, especially if you are sowing seed during the summer for a fall crop. Covering them with floating row cover or a light sprinkling of grass clippings can help avoid drying and crusting. Some gardeners even lay down newspaper or boards to hold moisture; the key is to remove these barriers before the seeds sprout.

By the way, if you do happen to be looking for a vegetable-playing duo, these two would perk up any event!

We love tomatoes.

In 2009, an average of 20 pounds of fresh supermarket tomatoes was consumed by every man, woman, and child in the US. The plants are grown by the thousands (millions?) in backyards by gardeners who crave the complex sweet/tart/slightly salty taste that lingers in your mind like memories of a first kiss. It's a flavor that even talented gardeners must forgo for many months of the year, and on those dreary March days when I push the cart along rows of gleaming red ping-pong balls, I have sometimes been seduced into buying those watery, lifeless fruits that never satisfy but give just enough of an imitation of tomato-ness to make one long for summer.

Until I read Tomatoland.

The simple question "why do supermarket tomatoes taste the way they do?" led author Barry Estabrook to Florida to interview botanists, horticulturalists and tomato packers. He drove through fields with farm owners and met with crew bosses and worker advocates. He learned about Alexander W. Livingston,  who in 1870 developed the Paragon "the first perfectly and uniformly smooth tomato ever introduced to the American public," and saw unripe "mature greens" harvested, washed, gassed with ethylene (for ripening) and packed for shipping to New York.

In clear, journalistic prose he tells the reader the unsettling truth he discovered: those cheery little red packages come to us Northerners covered with suffering and exploitation.

*********

Juan Dominguez had earned a total  of $13.76 on the day that Estabrook went to his trailer.

"Dominguez swept his hand in  a gesture of invitation into a bedroom. It housed five twin-bed mattresses. Three were flat on the floor with no space between them. Two rested on four-by-eight-feet plywood sheets suspended from the ceiling by chains…The bathroom was at the end of a short hallway. Barely bigger than an airplane lavatory with a curtainless metal shower stall, it served ten men who came home each day hot, dirty and anxious to bathe…"

This, we learn, is not the worst that pickers endure. Over a thousand men and women have been freed from forced labor – slavery – in the Florida tomato fields in the past fifteen years. Asked whether one can assume that a fresh tomato in winter was picked by the hand of a slave, US attorney Douglas Molloy replied, "That is not an assumption. That is a fact."

And more: in the winter of 2004-2005, three migrant workers in the city of Immokalee gave birth to badly deformed babies. Florida's nutrient-poor soils and humid climate make commercial tomato farming dependent on regular drenchings of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, more than eight times the amounts used on California tomatoes. Workers are routinely soaked with sprays known to be harmful to humans and animals. Florida's lax reporting guidelines, coupled with the reluctance of workers to come forward, means that very few cases of pesticide poisoning are investigated.

In this case, the  parents of one of the Immokalee babies sued their employer, AG-Mart, and won an out of court settlement in 2008. The agreement may stand as a signpost for reforms that are slowly making their way into the Florida tomato industry.  In recent years the nonprofit Coalition of Immokalee Workers successfully negotiated with fast food conglomerates to pay workers one cent more per pound of tomatoes picked. Advocates have come forward to build better housing, help migrant families and pursue justice in the courts.

The long path from field-to-mouth of modern food systems allows consumers to remain ignorant of how food gets to our plates. Tomatoland brings the reader into the fields to see the true costs of winter tomatoes.

A perfect time to think about gardening! I'm bringing the Garden Plot back early this year for several reasons. The day-to-day chores of market gardening drop off dramatically once the snow is on the ground and I have time now to write a few paragraphs that can be posted later. Starting earlier will also give me a chance to bring up topics at a time when changes in the garden involve an eraser, not a shovel.  And I'm betting that there may be some other slightly cracked folks like me out there who enjoy discussing gardening any week of the year.

So, what is going on in the garden at this time of year? Not much, really, but until the temperatures dropped below the mid-30s F (or 3 degrees C) spring flowering bulbs were busily sending out roots, preparing for top-growth when the soil warms up. In fact, the cool weather of late fall is the most productive period of root growth for daffodils, tulips and other flowers that bloom early, before their leaves have had much time to pump energizing nutrients throughout the plant.

Garlic is another bulb that benefits from fall planting. A forest of roots spreads out beneath each individual clove, providing the resources for a full bulb to form during the next season. You can watch the roots proliferate over a week in this time lapse video.

In his book The Uses of Enchantment (1976), psychologist Bruno Bettleheim theorized that long periods of inaction in fairy tales (think 'Sleeping Beauty') were metaphors for internal growth:

In major life changes such as adolescence, for successful growth opportunities both active and quiescent periods are needed. The turning inward, which in outer appearance looks like passivity (or sleeping one's life away) happens when mental processes of such importance go on within the person that he has no energy for outwardly directed action.

This idea has always comforted me during stretches when I have had little to show for my efforts, and seems to reflect how the garden marshals its reserves in the cold months, ready to burst into new growth when the time is right.

The outstanding weather of the past few days allowed me to get 450 cloves of garlic planted and to document the process with photos. This is my method for growing garlic; please feel free to add any advice about methods that work for you.

I began by tilling a couple of beds that had previously held melon and cucumber plants, using a new Husqvarna tiller that we bought to replace the Beast which, by the way, is still standing at the end of the row where it died.

It took about 6 small garden cart loads to cover the 5×30 foot bed with a couple of inches of rotted horse manure, and a few turns with the fork and rake to combine the manure with the soil.

Though I saved some of my own harvest, most of the garlic I planted came from a Fedco Seeds organic grower. I'm growing only one variety this year, Music, a Porcelain type of hardneck garlic with 4-6 large cloves in each good sized head. Here the heads are separated into individual cloves in preparation for planting. Note the knife-like tool in the photo: it's a very handy garden tool with a wonderful name: hori-hori.

Now comes the fun part – each garlic needs about 6 inches in all directions between it and the next plant to grow without too much competition. More generous spacing  will get you larger bulbs, but my goal is to maximize the number of bulbs so a 6 inch grid works for me. The nylon trellis that I use for peas and beans just happens to have the right sized openings.

Using the hori-hori, I opened a 4 inch deep slot into the soil and push the clove into place, root side down.

Finally, the buried garlic bulbs are covered with a light mulch to prevent freeze-thaw disturbances. Here I've used grass clippings because they were available, but straw is the classic choice. The mulch also helps to minimize weeds and to retain moisture in the spring when the garlic first shoots up.

There are still chores to be done in the garden, more than I will be able to get to before the snow falls, but at least the crucial job of planting is finished. Thanks again for keeping me company during this growing season!

My attitude has been one of benign neglect: compost happens, vegetation rots, so why should I spend my effort when I can just let nature take its course? But, after an inspiring lecture by the compost queen of Keene Valley, Bunny Goodwin, on the ease and value of accelerating the rate of decomposition from 2 years to 6 weeks, I decided to see if I can improve on my current (non)-management plan.

I emptied the waste corral (a piece of heavy, perforated black plastic fastened into a circle) of its contents of partially broken down vines and stalks, spreading them into an area where I plan to extend an existing bed. (If I add some mulch and dirt to cover the stalks I'll have the makings of a lasagna garden, another method for turning refuse into garden soil.)

Leaving some of the woody debris on the bottom for air circulation, I have been filling the corral with layers of grass clippings; dead bean, cucumber and tomato plants; wood chips; manure; kitchen scraps; and weeds. Adding weeds is risky, I know, so I won't add those with persistent roots like quackgrass. So far my pile is about 3 feet high and 4 feet in diameter; I'll stop when it reaches 5×5.

At that point, the pile should begin to heat up, due to an explosion of activity by microorganisms breaking down the vegetable matter, with more complete decomposition aided by forking in the edges of the pile after a few weeks. Hopefully, by next spring I'll have a stock of nitrogen-rich organic material on hand to add whenever the garden needs a boost.

Here's a video from one of my favorite groups, Kitchen Gardeners International on how to get started with compost. Do you have an active compost pile? What are your tips and techniques?

Dried Cherry Tomatoes – My favorite variety for drying is Sungold, a very sweet orange cherry tomato.

Cherry tomatoes, sliced in half horizontally
Salt

Sungolds pre-drying in the sun

Drying can be done in the oven on low heat or in a dehydrator. I use a cheap dehydrator that consists of plastic grates stacked over a heating element. Air circulation is key, so you may want to make your own trays if drying in the oven.

Place tomato halves cut side up on drying tray. Sprinkle with salt. Dry on low heat until leathery (this may take many hours, but the energy used is quite small.) Condition at room temperature for a week to 10 days. Store on shelves in clean canning jars or in plastic bags in the freezer.

All-purpose Tomato Sauce - This is a basic recipe culled from many sources, primarily indebted to The New Vegetarian Epicure (1997) by Anna Thomas

2-3 quarts tomatoes, peeled and cored
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped or 1 1/2 teaspoons dried
salt and red pepper flakes

To peel tomatoes: cut a small x in the bottom of each tomato and drop into boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove to bowl. Skins will slip off; cut around core.

Heat olive oil in a large pan over low heat; add onion and cook for 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook for one minute more. Add tomatoes, breaking up roughly with spoon. Salt, being careful not to add too much. Simmer for 30 minutes, longer if a thicker consistency is desired. Add basil, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and more salt if needed.

This sauce can be thickened with a tablespoon of tomato paste, which also adds a richer red color. I puree the finished sauce with an immersion blender, let it cool to room temperature, and freeze it in containers or quart freezer bags. This is not a recipe that can be safely canned in a boiling water bath.

Tomato conserve

Tomato Conserve- From a vintage 1940s Ball Blue Book, via Martha Foley. Unusual and yummy!

2 quarts tomatoes, peeled and cored
1 orange
2 lemons
6-8 cups sugar
2 cups seedless raisins
1 cup walnuts
1/4 teaspoon salt

Juice lemons. Juice orange and cut peel into very thin slices. Cook tomatoes, orange juice and peel, lemon juice until tomatoes are pulpy. remove from heat and let stand several hours or overnight. Add sugar and raisins and boil rapidly until thick, stirring as needed. Add nuts and salt.

Pour hot into jars which have been filled with water and boiled in water-filled pot for 10 minutes. Seal jars and return to pot to boil for 5 more minutes, making sure that water level is at least 1 inch above the tops of jars.

An Oak Park, Michigan family decides to landscape their front yard with vegetables in raised beds after a sewer line renovation; a math teacher in Memphis provides a place for a few students to gather after school and try their hands at gardening, bee keeping and making biodiesel fuel; a woman uses a veggie garden in her trailer's yard as jumping off point for a more ecological lifestyle. That these foks were inspired to try growing a few veggies isn't surprising. After all, thanks to well-publicized initiatives like the White House vegetable garden, home gardening for food and health is enjoying a resurgence not seen since Victory garden days.

What is surprising is the response of certain members of their communities: each of these gardeners was threatened with legal action, with one woman facing possible jail time, for plantings that were not considered "suitable." In the end, complaints against all 3 were dropped, due in part to the negative publicity their cases garnered on the internet.

Looking at photos of the 3 yards, (to find them, follow the links given above) it is hard for me to see how they could be objectionable. They look like well tended vegetable gardens and bins, especially compared to what my gar- well, let's not get into that. But it seems that our concept of what a front yard should look like has narrowed over the past 50 years. As Oak Park’s Planning and Technology Director Kevin Rulkowski says,

“If you look at the dictionary, suitable means common. You can look all throughout the city and you'll never find another vegetable garden that consumes the entire front yard.”

Is it a coincidence that our concept of agriculture has become similarly narrow over the same time frame, so that farming now refers mainly to presiding over thousands of acres growing a handful of different varieties?

Amy Ivy teaching volunteer Master Gardeners

Every Tuesday this fall, I'll be joining 25 or so other passionate gardeners who are gathering in the Elks Lodge in Keeseville to sharpen gardening skills and get an overview of horticultural science.

The Master Gardener Volunteer training, led by by Amy Ivy, Emily Selleck and Jolene Wallace from the Clinton and Essex County Cooperative Extension Offices, covers everything from botany and composting, to tree, shrubs and lawn care. For an amateur like me who has picked up gardening knowledge in bits and pieces, this is a chance to get answers to nagging questions like how to maintain a perennial flower bed (hint: it's more work than you think!), or which kind of insect is damaging the tomatoes. I'm especially looking forward to next week's class on soils and microbes - to my mind the most mysterious aspect of growing plants.

At the end of these training sessions, our group of newly minted volunteers will be turned loose in the community to assist friends and neighbors in their gardening efforts. Master Gardener Volunteers (MGVs) are not expected to provide expert advice on every topic; rather, we'll act more as go-betweens, passing along the basics that we've learned and letting people know about the latest research from Cornell Cooperative Extension. And I'm pleased to see that this class includes a number of fellow residents of southern Franklin County, so gardeners in the Tri-Lake area will soon have more places to turn to get their questions answered!

An acre of English meadow in late summer has been estimated to contain more than 2 million spiders, and it's safe to assume that wetlands and undisturbed forest contain significantly more.

That's about 46 spiders per square foot!

I tend to notice spiders more during the fall, especially when dew outlines the webs of  orb spiders hanging over our walkway and funnel spider webs sprinkled over the grass. My guess is that this is a common phenomenon: the arachnids we call "daddy longlegs" are called "harvestmen" in other parts of the world, presumably because they show up during harvest.(Yes, they are not true spiders, but a related order called Opiliones, and no, they are not the most venomous animal in the world; in fact they do not have venom glands.)

"Daddy longlegs" or "harvestman" on leaf

Spiders are considered beneficial species in the garden because they prey on insects that may damage plants. These ubiquitous predators need no special invitation to hunt; they will congregate wherever there are insects to eat. Keep in mind that any pesticide use may affect spiders as well as the targeted pests.

Do you have photos of spiders or other critters in your garden? We'd love to have you share them on the Garden Plot facebook page! Here is a picture I took recently of a black and yellow garden spider among the peas on my trellis. Note the heavily reinforced zigzag portion of the web. Why do they make that?

Black and yellow garden spider

Now the potatoes and carrots, the beets and turnips and cabbages were gathered and stored in the cellar, for freezing nights had come.

Onions were made into long ropes, braided together by their tops, and then were hung in the attic beside wreaths of red peppers strung on threads. The pumpkins and the squashes were piled in orange and yellow and green heaps in the attic's corners.

- from Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Somehow I skipped the Little House books as a child, thinking they were too girly for a no-nonsense type like me.  I finally joined the vast contingent of Laura Ingalls Wilder fans many years later while reading Big Woods aloud to my son. Can anyone resist the cozy images Wilder painted of her early childhood in Wisconsin?

In this book in particular, and in Farmer Boy, describing Almanzo Wilder's childhood home in Malone, NY, the author looks back past lives filled with no small amount of hardship to a time of plenty and comfort. The work of growing, processing and preserving food – enough to last through winter months – is detailed at length, accompanied by vivid memories of feasts. Passages like one describing Ma using grated carrot to give her butter a yellow color speak to  absorption in world where such things mattered, in the same way that discussions of cars and all things automotive occupy us today.

The Little House books give a poignant glimpse of the backbreaking effort and care that went into keeping a rural family fed in the mid 1800s, with some details that are still useful for those of us trying to provide more of our own food. In the quote at the top of the page, it's interesting to note where they stored their vegetables. The Ingalls did not have access to the reams of advice and USDA guidelines we have today for proper storage temperature for various vegetables; they just knew that roots – potatoes, carrots, beets – went in the cool cellar, and fruits – pumpkins, squashes and peppers – went in the warmer, drier attic.

Wild apples

A half-bushel of  greenish Macintosh apples cools in my basement, fruits of the first visit of the season to  Everett Orchards' farm stand in Plattsburgh. Later on in the fall I'll be stopping by again for fresh eating apples- especially the wondrously complex Honey Crisps – but tart, crunchy Macs are perfect for making apple butter.

I make a variety of jams for my farmers' market stand using the fruits that come ripe throughout the growing season. Strawberry-rhubarb jam gives way to raspberry-blackcurrant, and then to cantaloupe-peach. The process for most of these is fairly simple, but apple butter boasts the shortest ingredient list: apples and sugar (with a touch of cinnamon.)

The reason for this is that apples, especially underripe ones, contain high amounts of pectin, a carbohydrate found in plant cell walls. When cooked apples are heated and combined with sugar, the pectin causes the mixture to thicken up into a spreadable consistency. In fact, commercially available powdered pectin is sometimes extracted from apple pomace, or pulp.

Making apple butter is a 3 step process (not including canning in a boiling water bath.)  Chunks of apple are cooked with a small amount of liquid – water, cider or cider vinegar – until soft. The cooked fruit is put through a food mill or sieve; fruit sauce and sugar go in a large pan in a roughly 2:1 ratio with a sprinkling of cinnamon, which is then cooked on low heat until thickened. (Searching the internet for apple butter recipes, I was surprised to find that many call for long cooking periods, either in a crockpot, baked in an oven, or on the stove. Perhaps my apple butter is not as thick as that featured in the recipes, but my batches cook down in 30 minutes or so.)

Though the quality and convenience of orchard grown apples gives them an edge, in my opinion jams made with wild apples have an extra punch of flavor. In the next few weeks I'll be scouting along our roadsides for likely trees, hoping to beat the deer to the least blemished fruit. And who cares what they look like after they cook down into that sweet treat?

Snowslip fields

Peppers

Tomatoes, with two feet of mud

Squash

Unfortunately, the advice from the Cornell Extension is to discard produce that has been flooded by surface water:

Unless you are absolutely sure that flooding is not from streams and surface water, do not use fruits and vegetables that were at or near harvest at the time of flooding.

Not much left to say. My heart goes out to all farmers and gardeners coping with this blow.

In the beginning I patrolled the garden hawkishly, pulling grass and dandelions out by the roots, scuffing along the rows to keep the lambsquarters from growing large enough to put out seed. Now, at the end of August, most of the veggies have matured, I can see the finish line ahead, and more time is spent in the kitchen, preparing and enjoying the harvest. It's hard to muster the enthusiasm to clear the beds of uninvited squatters.

Fortunately, the cool, bug-free days of September and October are perfect for "fall cleaning": yanking, raking and seeding the beds with cover crops. And the hours of quiet work may lead to a more nuanced attitude towards the wild species that take over when the coddled vegetables and fruits are gone.

Naturalist Richard Mabey shares his appreciation for weeds in a recent article in Slate.  Though we will always be engaged in attempts to overcome them, he suggests that

…every once in a while, perhaps we should take a break from weed-whacking and examine our relationship with these clever and resilient plants, if only to admire their will to live and to multiply.

The accompanying slide show features beautiful photos and bits of trivia about a number of common weeds: the perfect collection to click through while you're sipping a cool drink before returning to the hoe.

Here's how to grow melons in the Adirondacks.

1. Plant short-season varieties. I grew Halona Muskmelon and Orange Honey Honeydew this year, with seed purchased from Fedco Seeds. These hybrids are more dependable and a bit more productive than open pollinated varieties, but there are also many heirloom melons available.
2. Start plants no earlier than a month before the last frost date. Melons need warmth to germinate; set trays, covered to keep in moisture, on top of the fridge or on a heating pad until three quarters of the seeds have sprouted.
3. Set transplants after frost danger has passed in well-amended soil.  Melon vines can cover a fairly large area – I plant in 3 foot wide beds with 2 foot paths on each side. Floating row covers during the early season buffer the temperature swings of cool nights. Remove the cover when the plants begin flowering.
4. Consistent and adequate watering is key; drip irrigation with one or two lines run along the row is best. Don't let the plants dry out.
5. Muskmelons are ready when they pull easily from the vine. Honeydews will not slip; the stems should be cut when their skin turns golden and the blossom end is slightly soft. Cantaloupe flesh is deep orange and fairly soft; honeydews retain a crispness that is perfect for cutting into cubes. And if too many melons ripen at once freeze them in chunks for later- melon sorbet, anyone?

Orange Honeydews

We eat what we can, and what we can't, we can. At least when it comes to tomatoes. The unique, height-of-summer lushness of ripe tomatoes can't quite be duplicated in a glass jar, but it's probably as close as you can come in the middle of February.

I like to can tomatoes whole with salt and lemon juice because they can be processed in a boiling water bath. (Simply put, a large pot filled with boiling water in which sealed canning jars are boiled for a prescribed amount of time.)  Canning pasta sauces and salsas usually requires a pressure canner; a USDA tested recipe is recommended.

There are, of course, dozens of websites and videos with instructions for canning tomatoes. The National Center for Home Food Preservation has an entire subsection on their website devoted to a thorough, if dry, discussion on the ins and outs of canning tomatoes. One of my favorite home preservation websites is PickYourOwn.org which gives easy to follow step-by-step instructions with accompanying photos. Surfing through the various videos and websites brings up some conflicting information, but the basics are simple. Sterilize jars and lids; peel the tomatoes after blanching briefly in boiling water; pack tomatoes in jars with added lemon juice, and salt if desired; fill jars with boiling water and seal; and process in boiling water bath for the allotted time.

We'd love to see how you preserve your tomatoes – post photos of your home canning or other methods on the facebook page.

Parsnip seeds

Perhaps. Heirloom seeds and domesticated animal varieties may come to the rescue when we need new solutions. So says a beautifully illustrated article in the August issue of National Geographic. As the range of  plant and animal varieties dwindle in response to the influx of high-yielding, yet genetically vulnerable, introductions we have come to depend more and more on a small number of commercially important crops.

Why is this a problem? Because if disease or future climate change decimates one of the handful of plants and animals we've come to depend on to feed our growing planet, we might desperately need one of those varieties we've let go extinct.

Over centuries farmers bred their crops and animals to thrive in their local conditions, resisting drought or specific diseases, maturing early or late depending on climate, providing reliable yields year after year. Many of these idiosyncratic varieties were not adaptable to the demands of industrialized agriculture which dominates our food system today.

Like most gardeners and farmers, I buy almost all of my seed, with the exception of garlic, potatoes (I buy new seed potatoes every other year), and some beans and flower seeds. My neighbor plants all of her parsnips from her own seed, leaving one plant every year to flower after the spring harvest. Other gardeners I know save tomato seeds, spreading them onto paper towels after rinsing, tearing off a bit of paper and seed when it's time to plant. (If you try this, remember to save seed only from open-pollinated varieties; hybrid seed will not produce reliable offspring.)

If you are interested in learning more about seed-saving, the article has an online sidebar listing groups that swap and sell heirloom seeds. (While you're at the website take a look at their photo gallery of potato varieties from Peru and Bolivia. How could you resist growing "Ashes of the Soul", "Feet of the Lequecho Bird", or "Makes the Daughter-in-law Cry"?)

Do you save seeds? Are you propagating an heirloom variety handed down from great-grandparents? We'd love to hear your stories and advice.

They do this with the help of diazotrophs , bacteria that live in the roots of  most legumes. The bacteria are attracted by the presence of carbohydrates on the root hairs and root surfaces, which provide energy to grow and multiply. Invading the roots, the diazotrophs form small lumps called nodules and begin producing ammonia. The ammonia gives the plant a boost, helping it to thrive without drawing nitrogen from the soil; when the plant dies the nutrient is released into the surrounding earth.

Roots of pea showing numerous N-fixing nodules

I meditated on this mutually beneficial alliance of plant and bacteria last week while I cleared some empty planting beds of weeds. The garlic has been harvested, lettuce has bolted, and radishes have grown stalky and bitter. A cover crop sown in these beds will add organic matter and control erosion; why not add some legumes to increase the nutrients? Many legumes grow better in spring and summer but it's not too late to plant field peas, clovers or vetch along with some winter rye for a thick, weed suppressing carpet. Guess I'll have to stop by the supply store.

Terri Gilchrest, Hannawa Falls, with radishes destined for relish.

Terri steps off her back porch to this orderly garden of herbs, flowers, and some vegetables.

I first caught sight of  Rick and Terri Gilchrests' well-designed garden along Route 56 in Hannawa Falls two years ago, nearly causing a pile up on the highway when I impulsively hit the brakes to pull into their driveway.  Hearing the trailing blare of car horns, Terri stepped out of her house and graciously offered a stranger a tour of the garden.   The Gilchrests are owners of 3 Trees Farm, selling most of their produce through  North Country Grown cooperative. Hannawa Falls is a bedroom community of Potsdam, the closest thing we have to a suburb in the North Country, so it's something of a surprise to find residents here earning income from their yard.

When I dropped in on the Gilchrests two years ago, the garden was contained in a fenced area directly behind the house.  Faced with poor soil in their backyard, the Gilchrests constructed raised beds on a gravel base and placed a utility shed in the middle of the garden.  Filled with topsoil and compost, the beds are very productive, especially since Terri sows seed every couple of weeks during the growing season.

Right after my visit two years ago, the Gilchrests created a second garden space on a strip of their yard running parallel to Route 56.  This garden is surrounded by an attractive wooden fence, enclosing long rows of well-tended vegetables.  With a second garden came more defined division of labor.  Terri maintains the raised beds, Rick the long planted rows, and they keep up a fun "his and hers" rivalry about who is doing a better job.  When I pulled into the Gilchrests' yard last week — again on an impulse — Terri was packing up beans to sell.  She really believes in the local food movement, and plans what she grows very carefully to complement what other producers are selling.  Unperturbed by my unannounced visits, Rick and Terri assure me they are always  happy to give garden tours.

Rick Gilchrest calls himself "the dirt guy" of 3 Trees Farm. He manages production of compost on the property, with sufficient yield for generous applications on the planting beds every year.

Rick gets out to this garden by 5:30 a.m. to weed before breakfast. The success of Rick's compost project is obvious in the health of the plants.

Cucumbers like hot humid weather, something we’ve had a lot of lately.  I returned home after a 2 week absence to find that my cucumbers were especially prolific this year, so I got out a recipe that I’ve modified over the years and my husband and I made 17 quarts of dill pickles.

My husband likes diversity in his dill pickles, so I had planted two cucumber varieties that pickle well:  Marketmore 76 and Calypso Pickler. I also grow the garlic, dill and hot peppers that are needed for this particular recipe, but they should soon be available at the Farmer’s Markets across the area.

My mother taught me that you should let home canned goods cure until Thanksgiving, so I never open any of mine until about then.  I suspect that her rule was an attempt to make sure that the canned goods lasted through the winter, but do let your pickles sit for at least several weeks so that the wonderful flavor has a chance to permeate the whole cucumber.

Dill Pickles

I Recipe Makes 6 ½ Quarts of pickles

1 pint Cider Vinegar

3 ½ Quarts Water

¾ cup salt without iodine

2 heaping tablespoons pickling spices

Mix above ingredients together.  Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, fill sterile jars with cucumbers.

After the cucumbers are packed in the jars, add

Hot pepper seed or 1 fresh chili pepper

1/8 teaspoon Alum

1 clove garlic

2 heads of fresh dill

When brine comes to a boil, pour into filled jars.

Wipe the rim of jar with clean cloth and seal.

Note: The National  Center for Home Food Preparation recommends Low Temperature Pasteurization Treatment for raw pack pickles:

The following treatment results in a better product texture but must be carefully managed to avoid possible spoilage. Place jars in a canner filled half way with warm (120º to 140º F) water. Then, add hot water to a level 1 inch above jars. Heat the water enough to maintain 180º to 185º F water temperature for 30 minutes. Check with a candy or jelly thermometer to be certain that the water temperature is at least 180ºF during the entire 30 minutes. Temperatures higher than 185ºF may cause unnecessary softening of pickles.

Most food pantries are happy to accept donations of fresh produce, but may have little space to store or display vegetables. Community lunch programs often put their menus together weeks in advance, so spur of the moment additions of fresh vegetables are not easy to accommodate. Here are some tips to smooth the process.

• Contact your local food pantry (resources listed below) before showing up with a donation. Aviva Gold, associate director of Gardenshare, suggests calling a few days ahead to offer, for instance, a basket of tomatoes to give away.  Talk to a pantry volunteer to arrange a drop-off time that doesn't require produce to be refrigerated over night.
• Plan to bring your surplus to the distribution site yourself – don't expect the food program to send someone to pick the vegetables. Food pantries are staffed by volunteers, most of whom do not have the time or experience to harvest from your garden.
• Wash and sort the veggies at home, culling produce that is bruised or beginning to wilt. Again, the volunteers will not have the time and facilities to sort through the "seconds." If you have a large amount of one item, packing it in bags or containers sized for one family – a pound of beans, 2 or 3 zucchinis – is helpful.
• Describe how to cook and eat the produce that you've brought to food pantry staffers and clients. Members of the First Presbyterian Church in Saranac Lake who cultivate a plot in the Common Ground garden set up a card table  next to the ecumenical food pantry on distribution days to provide information along with the vegetables they donate.

Resources for finding your local food pantry:

• Gardenshare maintains a list of contacts for St Lawrence county food pantries on its website, here.
• The Adirondack Daily Enterprise lists Tri-lakes food programs in its Community Resource Directory and on its website, here.
• The Food bank of Central New York covers Jefferson, Lewis and Herkimer counties, as well as some further south. Find the link, here.

Those who do not have outdoor space for compost bins can turn their kitchen scraps into rich soil for houseplants and container gardens by vermicomposting: using worms in containers to make compost indoors.

Last winter, Hannah Harvester took up vermicomposting in her Canton apartment.  She purchased composting worms at a farmers market, placed them in a plastic tub, and began feeding them organic waste from her kitchen.  It took a while to figure out how much food the worms could process and how much moisture they could endure.  Once balance was achieved in the system, the humus steadily accrued.    This week, Hannah wrote to The Garden Plot with a cautionary tale about worms and heat:

When I first prepared my worm bin several months ago, I came across the term “worm crawl” in a book I was reading about composting with red wigglers. While the writer gave no description of a worm crawl, it was fairly easy to conjure up an image of one, and I hoped it would never happen to me. Today, my hopes were dashed. I woke up in my second-floor apartment after a night that was partly sleepless, due to the extremely high temperatures of the past few days. The first thing I noticed when I entered my living room was the dried out carcass of a worm on the carpet. Then another, and another after that. Upon lifting the lid of my worm bin, I saw hundreds of worms gathered at the top of the bin, trying to escape en masse: WORM CRAWL.

A couple of days ago, I'd fed the worms and nothing was amiss. I realized instantly that the high heat must have made conditions unbearable for my poor little worms. They live, or lived, in a large plastic tub with several cloth-covered ventilation holes, in my living room closet. I kept the tub filled with damp bedding, mostly shredded paper, and buried my food scraps in the bedding every few days. I don't have a garden; the reason for my worm bin was to divert organic matter from the landfill. I once read that due to a lack of oxygen in landfills, food waste does not decompose as it would in nature but turns to methane gas instead. Bad. Since then I have found different ways to keep food out of my trash bin. In the last place I lived I could bring my food scraps to the local co-op, a ten minute walk from my house. Here, especially given the long winters, I decided on a worm bin.

After working out the initial kinks, like my desire to give my worms more food than they could handle when still a small population, figuring out the proper dampness of the bedding (less damp than I'd initially thought), and learning how to keep fruit flies out (cloth covering  for the holes), my worm bin was great. It wasn't smelly, it was low-maintenance, and I loved being able to turn things like used cotton balls and q-tips into compost. In the late spring, I gave a gardener a big tub of nutrient-rich vermicompost. It all felt good.

This morning, realizing it would stay too hot for my worms in my apartment for a few days at least, I acted fast. I called Bob Washo and Flip Filippi, who run the CSA I'm part of,  Little Grasse Foodworks. Bob agreed to take my worms. He said he was building a new compost bin the next day, and would work the worms and their castings into the new bin. Luckily, Bob and Flip are raising pigs, so I plan to take my food scraps to them for the rest of the summer. When the weather turns cold and I don't want to make the bike ride up to the farm, maybe I'll try again. I've saved a few worms who are in a mini-worm bin in my stairwell where it's cooler. Come October or thereabouts, they'll be the progenitors of a new population of apartment dwelling red wigglers, and my vermicomposting adventure will begin again.

Jan Rutella's potager in the village of Potsdam is luxuriantly healthy and productive this year. Jan made her first batch of pickled beets this week.

Jan is very happy about the ripe eggplant in her garden, not so happy about the disease attacking her dwarf apple trees.

I know from driving around the North Country peering into people's yards that many gardens are robust and apparently productive this year.  That said, I've been hearing regularly from gardeners battling insects and disease they don't normally find in their yards.

Last summer, Dale Hobson reported at The Garden Plot about an invasion of leek moths in the North Country.  This week, a reader in Potsdam  reported that he has seen signs of these moths in his garden this year for the first time.  He pulled his crop a bit earlier than he might have this year because it seemed stressed, whether related to the moths or not.

Crop rotation is one recommendation for outwitting pests.  If you usually plant all of your garden space, crop rotation is complicated by the fact that when you are ready to plant garlic in the fall, other crops are still bearing in the space you might use.  One solution is to always leave one section of your garden fallow for rotation.  Is anyone else out there experiencing leek moths? Any other troubling insects besides the cucumber beetles we covered earlier this week?

Martha Foley and horticulturalist Amy Ivy periodically discuss insects in the garden during their Monday morning conversations.  If you are not sure whether the insects on your plants are good ones or bad ones,  listen to this discussion.

Last summer, Sue Rau of Massena wrote to The Garden Plot to say that in spring she protects small plants from beetles by placing plastic cups as protection over them.  Any good ideas for this time of year?

Starting with plants  supplied by Campbell's Greenhouse in Saranac, they have rows of cabbage, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and broccoli pushing each other aside to grow. Donna says," I didn't know how big the zucchini plants would get! I've only seen the squash in the store before." They have already harvested their first peppers, and have had plenty of lettuce, enough to share with friends and coworkers.

Although it was Donna who initially pushed for starting the garden, Bob has been the one to visit it most regularly, keeping the weeds hoed and building a fence to deter a neighborhood woodchuck. Here are a few photos of their lovely vegetables, not bad for a first attempt!

Happy plants

Tomatoes and zucchinis vie for space

Romaine lettuce

For Peg Cornwell, a summer resident of Tupper Lake, picking wild blueberries is a favorite ritual of the season. Her family has been coming to the same spot for years. Photo courtesy Cornwell family.

Peg is the quickest picker in her family and rarely comes home with less than a good bowlful, even though bears work the same patch.

Right now in overgrown clearings and meadows around the North Country, wild raspberries, known to locals as "black caps," are ripening.   Easily recognizable, black caps are an obvious choice for wild picking.  Here are other options:

-Wild grapes are too bitter for my taste, but when the conditions are right, you can pick enough for a pie.    Several years ago I interviewed a Greek woman in Watertown who picks wild grape leaves to make dolma.

-Elderberries are usually picked to make wine, but with enough sweetener you can produce a respectable pie or jelly.  Anyone care to write in about the virtues of the elderberry?

-Mayapples are an endangered plant in the Adirondacks.  Herbalist and plant conservationist Jane Desotelle believes this may be due to maturation of the forests where they grow.  Jane harvests fruit from a patch of mayapples growing in sun alongside her solar panels.  Some years she collects enough fruit to make jelly to sell at farmers markets.

Jane Desotelle, Chateaugay, built her business Underwood Herbs on wild plants. Her product line includes jams and jellies made from wild fruit.

-Abandoned orchards and wild-seeded apple trees are common where farm land is reverting to forest.  With just a bit of pruning, these trees will produce fruit for cider or sauce.

Next week, I'll write about growing fruit in the garden.  If you are growing unusual or less common fruits in your garden, please send me photos and a description to share.

Grasshoppers eat almost anything green and they feed throughout their life cycle, which takes the form of several similar-looking stages over the summer months. (The insects I saw in my garden were in one of the nymph stages.) Although not a widespread problem in this area, they are  characterized by population explosions or outbreaks which do major damage to western crops. Early predictions call for this year to be the worst in 30 years in the Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest.

Because these voracious insects are mobile and numerous, backyard controls focus on protecting vulnerable plants.  Here are some recommended methods:

• Row covers. Fairly effective, although one or two hoppers trapped underneath can still cause damage.
• Homemade spray of cayenne pepper and water, with a drop of dish soap to help adhere to the leaves. Must reapply after every rain.
• Garlic Barrier, a commercial product of 100% garlic juice. From the Fedco website: "One warning: this stuff stinks and is best mixed outdoors."
• Nosema locustae, Grasshopper pathogen. Sold as NoLo bait, this is a disease that affects only grasshoppers. If spread early in the season, it causes the nymphs to slowly sicken and die. It is a bit tricky to time the application properly, but it is thought that the pathogen can carry over to subsequent years.
• Bug Juice. Not for the fainthearted, this concoction is made by selecting dead and dying grasshoppers, pureeing them in a blender with water, and letting the mixture sit at room temperature for a day or two before applying it to the plants. I have not been able to bring myself to try this, but if you have had any luck with this method, let me know!

This garden in Canton has been a place for neighbors to spend time together over decades. This is approximately 1/3 of the total area John Hall cultivates.

When John Hall moved to Church St.  in the late 1960s, he discovered that his neighbors Don Peckham and Don Huddleston were avid gardeners.  They decided to share equipment.  Soon, their adjoining lots blended to form one big garden across three backyards.  As John explains it, this was not so much by design as an outcome of spending a lot of time out there together: "That evolved.  We all worked together, liked each other, and helped each other."  Betty Peckham recalls, "They had some great conversation in the yard, solving the problems of the world."

Donald and Betty Peckham moved into their home in 1956. Donald's garden was known for raspberries and the rhubarb Betty made into punch for neighborhood parties.

Needing more space, John negotiated in the 1970s to purchase a piece of land stretching behind the three backyards.  The parcel had been rented to store concrete vaults and mortuary equipment; John spent years improving the soil. Further down Church St., neighbor Jack Klemens also had a garden and joined the annual neighborhood competition to grow the first ripe tomato of the year.  The prize was a six-pack of beer.

For many years, the men happily grew and processed fruits and vegetables from their Church St. gardens.  Their wives were supportive, but not interested in gardening themselves.  Betty  remembers that even though she didn't garden, her life revolved around the garden: "We couldn't go out of town in the spring until the plants were in, and we couldn't leave later in the summer when the raspberries were ripe.  I was always very aware of what was happening out there."  John's wife Dotty has been known to support her husband's work by blasting her trumpet at a woodchuck to scare it out of the garden.

Small animals are the bane of John Hall's garden. He built this cage around his blueberry bushes to thwart the birds who would beat him to harvest.

In 1995, Anne Mamary moved into the house where the Huddlestons lived.  Though she loves her house, the communal garden was a major factor in her decision to purchase the property.  She was attracted to the obvious care that went into building and maintaining the gardens over time: "You have all the convenience of the village out front and paradise in the back yard."  Don Peckham and John welcomed her into their garden community.   Anne's garden produces a consistently impressive harvest of currants, thanks in part to the pruning her mother does.

L to R: John Hall, Betty Peckham, Anne Mamary

Don Peckham gardened until his death in 2009.  Since then, younger neighbors have helped Betty keep Don's garden cultivated.  John still spends long summer days working amongst his plants.  Anne freely invites friends to come pick produce during the long periods she is out of town for work.

Our woodchuck is back in action at Old Lake Colby Road Garden.  I hadn't see any sign of it before now and was hopeful that it had passed peacefully this winter. But, no, he is back!  I'll call it a "he" because I sure hope it is not a "she! " He lives under the house.  He has an obvious entrance outside of the fence to the right of the front gate. He, however, has a taste for garden goodies and digs holes from under the house into the garden. Unfortunately, as evidenced by me, this guy has already done a lot of damage especially in the  plot closest to the garage. I have filled in two of his new holes into the garden, already.

This guy really needs to go and unfortunately, I don't know how.

Beets

"How do you grow your crops?" When customers at the farmers' market ask this question they often want to know: (a) if the item on my table is something that I have grown, and (b) whether it is "organic." Answering the first question is easy – I grow almost everything that I sell, and label those items that come from other farms – but the second question delves into more complex territory.

The produce from my postage-stamp sized farm is not certified organic, mainly because of cost and record keeping requirements.  To comply with the USDA standards, a farm draws up a production plan including crop rotation, cover crops where applicable, and practices that enhance soil structure and biodiversity. In addition, they agree to use only approved substances. (Scrupulously detailed lists of allowed and prohibited substances can be found here, at the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations.) Farms are inspected yearly, and are required to show that no prohibited substances were used for 3 years prior to certification.

Technically, I could say that my veggies are organic, because I do follow the organic standards and I make less than $5,000 a year from my farm (unfortunately.) In fact, I am in the process of having my farm re-certified through a grassroots peer-to-peer network, Certified Naturally Grown, which sends farmers, consumers and extension agents into the fields to document that growers are adhering to organic production methods.

Yet I harbor  misgivings about the sharp delineation made between "organic" and "conventional" growing practices on today's farms. By completely separating certain substances and ways of growing, we give the impression that one way is "good" and the other is "bad." As in most of life, things aren't that simple. I'll try to dig into the more subtle questions in future posts.

First, a goof: though Anneke Larrance sent this update before June 18th, I neglected to post it in time to let people know about the garden workday. Here is the contact information for anyone who would like to help out with this project.

Second, Val White sent a few lovely photos of perennials, posted below. Keep the garden pictures coming!

From Anneke:

The Canton Central School is beginning the third year of their garden project.  Spearheaded by two teachers the cafeteria manager and a parent, the garden project consists of 9 raised beds that are located close to the school.  Workers hope to ready a second garden area during a work day on June 18.

Harvesting spinach in the Canton Central School Garden

This spring Canton school children sowed seeds, squashed bugs, weeded and then harvested spinach, lettuce and radishes that were really enjoyed in the cafeteria. Local volunteer garden adopters will maintain the gardens over the summer, harvesting and preserving any crops that are ready before students return to school.

Various local businesses, farmers, individuals and families have donated everything from seeds and starts to gravel and topsoil, to skilled labor and snacks during work days.

Val White's flowers, including a gorgeous closeup:

Lupines

Spring Perennials

Iris

One of the things I like about this book is that Timmermeister moved to his land 20 years ago.  He writes from the perspective of someone who has committed to a piece of land long enough to write about his successes and failures with the understanding that only time allows.  He's gratifyingly honest about all the things that can go wrong when you set out to plant an orchard, or tend a garden, or raise livestock.  Part of becoming a gardener is accepting that every year there will be disappointments.  Yesterday, I stood with a gardener in Morrisburg, Ontario, who was fretting that the Cinderella pumpkin seeds he'd planted have not germinated.  The rest of his 1/2 acre garden is magnificent and well on its way to an abundant harvest,  but he couldn't stop staring at the bare dirt where pumpkin vines should have been. Timmermeister writes about planting 130 apple trees one year, most of which he promptly lost to deer browse.  He's been on an annual  program of replacing trees lost to one hardship or another ever since.

We had our own disappointments at home this year.  The eight varieties of heirloom tomatoes and three varieties of specialty peppers we carefully selected from a catalog and babied in seed flats in the house all spring withered up and died right before planting time.  I'm blaming the potting soil we used, but who knows?  We bought replacement plants and vowed to try again next spring.

Barb Heller's perennial island

months and then suddenly shooting up up flower stalks when they are ready to bloom. Perennials are the lazy gardener's friend, persevering in less rich soils, without additional watering. There is an art, and science, to planting a perennial flower bed that will  provide color and contrast all season; however, I am largely ignorant on this topic. My enjoyment comes from the fact that these flowers add beauty to the world with so little effort on my part.

Here are a few photos of perennials taken over the past few days. If you'll send me some pictures of your garden, we can have  a blooming bouquet for Friday's post!

Verbascum "Southern Charm," my current favorite

Oriental Poppies

Iris and Lupines

Barb's Coreopsis, self sown

Good old Rosa Rugosa -watch out for the thorns!

Laments and curses were uttered this week by several of my gardening friends upon seeing the mess that crows had made of their corn and potato plantings.  It reminded me of Jill Breit's recent suggestion to add a scarecrow to the garden mix. For inspiration, here are two more scarecrows of years past sent in by Bob Washo.

His...

...and hers.

Anneke Larrance has been reveling in a different garden aesthetic. She writes:

Ever notice the smells in your garden?
Earlier in the week my front yard was so strong smelling that I almost couldn’t stand it. I have Miss Kim lilacs (Korean lilacs) in the front yard which bloom a bit after the regular lilacs. Wow! I first noticed it on a muggy, warm day and I straightened from my wedding job and just stood there, inhaling the odor—and almost got light headed.

As I moved around the beds, weeding, I found myself breathing in my favorite flower scent: the smell of iris. Oh, I love that distinctive scent and I wish I could describe it for those of you who don’t grow iris. I can’t seem to find the words—lavenderish-sandlewood with a very faint hint of musk—is the closest I can come. Some of the hybrid iris don’t have the distinctive smell of the older “common” ones, and I’ve also found that blue iris seem to smell the best.

These two scents got me thinking about other distinctive smells in the garden right now. I’ve been pulling volunteer dill (Good heavens, no! I don’t discard it. It ends up in a salad or in my famous dill dip) since there’s so much of it– and its clean crisp smell is always a welcome one. I also recently thinned the garlic and whew–it can take my breath away. My garlic is a distant relative from my grandmother’s garden in Michigan some 40 years ago and I think of her when I pull it. I also have garlic chives and regular chives which are pretty smelly, but I cut them only when I need as a special garnish.

Oh, an update on Sophia’s radishes. Some of them are ready now and she’s not due here for 10 days yet. I hope we continue to have some cool weather so that there are still radishes to pull when she’s here. Another confession: I didn’t completely trust the “days to harvest” note on the seed package, and I also planted a few seeds between the celery plants—just in case the first ones were gone by.

Garlic scapes are the stalk and flower bud of the garlic plant. They emerge in June on hard-necked varieties, and start to curl around on themselves if not trimmed off promptly.

We're picking garlic scapes in our garden this week — lots of them.  If you grow hard-necked varieties of garlic, you are familiar with the rush in June to cut them off the plants before the plants set seed,  stealing energy from the bulb growing under the soil.  Occasionally, soft-necked varieties of garlic will send out a scape.  These will be more delicate and less conspicuous than those on hard-necked garlic, and fall more in the category of shoots than real substance.  For reliable scapes, stick to hard-necked varieties.  Purveyors of seed stock will always indicate which type a particular variety of garlic is.

Until recently, we tossed scapes on our compost pile.  Then I discovered that I actually prefer the mild flavor of scapes to that of the pungent bulbs we grow.  If you wait until the scapes are more than a couple of inches long, you'll have a tough product and might want to go the compost route.  If, however, you get to them sooner, they are very fine in salads, grilled with asparagus, or used for early batches of pesto.  A quick search online has revealed that many chefs  currently tout the wonders of garlic scapes in early summer meals.  If you don't have any in your garden, look for them at your farmers market.  Garlic growers have begun to sell them as more people have learned to use them.

If you are interested, here's a recipe to try.  It's posted on a gardening forum called iDigmyGarden. com, shared by contributor hikingonthru:

Garlic Scape Soup – Served Hot or Cold

2 tablespoons clarified butter or extra-virgin olive oil
2 dozen garlic scapes, flower buds discarded and green shoots chopped
3 large russet potatoes, unpeeled and cut into ½ inch dice
5 cups vegetable stock or water
2 large handfuls spinach leaves, stemmed
Juice of ½ lemon
½ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup heavy cream (optional)
Chive blossoms, for garnish (optional)

Heat the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat, then add the scapes and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the potatoes and stock, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through and beginning to break down.

Remove from the heat, add the spinach, and puree using a hand blender. (If you must use a conventional blender, be careful; the hot liquid can burst out the top and make a huge, potentially painful mess. Try leaving the lid slightly ajar to allow steam to escape. Cover the top with a kitchen towel and blend in batches at low speed.) Season with the lemon juice, salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Whisk in the cream for a silkier texture. If the soup tastes flat, add salt a few big pinches at a time until the flavors really pop. Serve garnished with the chive blossoms.

Future chefs sowing seeds

McCarthy is one of a growing number of chefs who promote locally sourced  foods in their restaurants,  some going so far as to start their own farms to insure fresh produce. In other cases, chefs work closely with farmers to craft menus highlighting local specialties. Diners appreciate eating the seasonal bounty of a region, and farmers are more free to experiment with a wide variety of crops.

"We'll tend this garden through the season, then harvest and serve the vegetables along with locally raised chickens and ducks. The students will take part in all stages of food production, including processing, plucking and preparing the poultry," McCarthy says. "This will give them the full experience of how food gets from the producer to the table."

This modest garden will give the future chefs a sense of what it takes to grow a beet or carrot. Meanwhile,  rows of little seedlings have appeared, interspersed with less welcome plants. I'm guessing the next gardening lesson might be titled "How to Weed."

Baby beets

A couple of  years ago I bought an old Ariens Rocket rototiller from a friend for $200. I believe it dates from the 60's, with a 7 hp Tecumseh cast iron engine that uses dual shafts to go in forward and reverse. It weighs a ton, and could break into fresh sod without jumping around the way lighter rototillers do. When it worked.

Alas, it tills no longer.  My spouse applied his ingenuity to keeping it going for two years by, for example, replacing the head, welding the counterweight, fixing the starter motor, re-gluing the flywheel weights and rebuilding and reattaching the carburetor.

Despite his attentions, the Beast had been in declining health all spring. Yesterday, I steered it confidently into the lower part of the garden where it putted uneventfully for about 10 minutes before abruptly choking up and going silent, leaving wisps of steam or smoke curling from the air baffle. The engine had seized.

While it sits motionless in the field, I ponder whether it is now time to commit unflinchingly to the Ruth-Stout-No-Work-Garden route, or whether I need to find another rototiller. Let's just say that I'm in the market, if anyone wants to pass along some leads.

Tiller at Rest

If you have scarecrows or other great art in your garden,  please send photos to radio@ncpr.org.

Frank Mitchell, Watertown, grew up in the south and always grew okra and collard greens in his city garden. He placed a scarecrow at the center of his garden plot. Photo by Varick Chittenden.

A simple frame, old clothes, and material for stuffing are all it takes to add a scarecrow to your garden. You can make them as simple or elaborate as you are inclined to do. Some makers model their creations after family members or other people they know. This example was found in the garden of Dawn Atkinson, Pierrepont. Photo by Martha Cooper.

Artist Kristen Jones made this scarecrow for Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake. Rather than using old clothes stuffed with hay, she assembled scrap material found on site. Incorporating moving, metallic elements into a scarecrow may improve its efficacy as a bird deterrent. Photo by Jill Breit.

• Contrary to assumptions, a recent survey of Vermont farmers markets found that prices for produce were comparable with or cheaper than supermarket prices for most conventionally raised vegetables. For organic items, the farmers market prices were almost 40 percent lower.
• The number of farmers markets has skyrocketed over the past ten years, growing from 2,863 in the year 2000 to 6,132 in 2010. That's an increase of 114 percent!

• Vendors often travel many miles to sell at certain markets. The average distance traveled for vendors at the Portland,OR farmers market is 50 miles one way.
• Between 85 and 95 percent of farm income comes from off-farm sources such as income from other jobs and businesses, according to the findings of a 2004 USDA survey. Unsurprisingly, this leads to fewer young people  going into farming; current statistics show that forty percent of farmers are age 55 or over.

Anneke Larrance writes:

Everything’s growing!

Grapes for juice and jelly

I happened to glance up at the grape vines 2 days ago and found—to my utter delight!—that there are lots of tiny little grape sets on the Concord vines.  Already I’m anticipating the October grape juice and jelly that I’ll make.   I think anticipation is a familiar feeling for a lot of gardeners.  We imagine, plant, weed, water, and tend all the while anticipating the delicious results.

Another thing that I’m anticipating is my granddaughter’s visit in late June. She’s just three and so I’ve planted radishes and sugar snap peas for her—and I hope they’ll both be ready for harvest by late June when she’s here.  It’s important to teach our children and grandchildren where food comes from.

Will Sophia's radishes be ready in time?

A third thing I’m anticipating—no actually dreading—is a season of weed control.  Over the years my husband and I have used a variety of ways to control weeds.  At one time we used old carpet pieces, cutting holes for tomatoes and peppers, etc.  We also cut other pieces of carpet in strips to lay down between rows.  It worked well, but it was a pain to clean up in the fall because we would dry the carpet pieces, roll them up and store them for reuse.  Actually, I still have a few pieces I use to separate the rhubarb from the herb section of the garden.

One year I laid down news papers as mulch and then they were tilled in at the end of the season.   That was onerous for the one who runs the tiller (my husband!) so I didn’t do that again.

Now I plant and let things come up for a few weeks.  During this time I hand weed and my husband uses our little row tiller.  When the ground has warmed up, my husband uses the bagger on our lawnmower to catch the cut grass (or I rake it by hand and gather it in a wheelbarrow) and then it gets emptied in the garden between the rows.   It may take several grass cuttings to mulch the whole garden, but it works well.  It helps retain the heat and moisture in the ground and has an added bonus of providing great stuff that gets rototilled into the garden in the fall.

Although the promise of harvesting a new kind of produce is alluring, I confess to feeling out of my depth in understanding how to establish and maintain a mushroom patch. Fortunately, I was able to watch a step-by-step demonstration last week by Brooks Worden, mycology enthusiast and grower, as he sowed his plot of mushrooms at the Paul Smith's College garden.

Brooks Worden with Stropharia spawn

In the photo at right, Brooks holds a 5 pound bag of compressed sawdust impregnated with Stropharia rugoso-annulata spawn, common name Wine Cap. At his feet are rings of clean pine shavings (hardwood shavings are preferable, if available) spread on top of a weed barrier layer of cardboard and wood chips.

Distributing mushroom spawn

I helped Brooks break the sawdust brick into smallish pieces and scatter them over the shavings. He capped the sowing with a layer of partially broken-down straw to retain moisture. The first flush of mushrooms should be ready for harvest this fall or next summer, depending on growing conditions;  harvestable flushes can occur for  up to two years.

Stropharia can be grown between rows of corn and may increase yields of these and other vegetables. They are known as the "Garden Giant" because of the great size that can be reached by some of the mushrooms, and are reputed to be quite tasty. I hope to take photos when the plot fruits, and possibly taste some samples!

EarthTainers with built in trellis

If you haven't planted your tomatoes yet, or have simply run out of room to fit any more in your garden, consider constructing a few of these self-watering EarthTainers designed by Ray Newstead. Made from two 30 gallon totes, an aquatic plant basket, and a short length of PVC pipe, these containers incorporate a substantial reservoir to water the plants from the bottom through capillary action. Trellises can be anchored into the pots before filling with soil.

EarthTainer cutaway

Newstead, a Silicon Valley executive,  was inspired to create growing containers that minimize water use after the Californian drought of 2008. He hopes that these low-cost, easy to build containers can be used in places around the world where access to water and arable land is limited. Full instructions, including an optional water level indicator can be found here. The plans are free; a voluntary donation to Feed the Children is  encouraged.

For the record, my current tomato growing scheme leans toward closely spaced hoophouse grown plants, pruned  and tied to a stiff trellis. (Photo below.) How do YOU grow tomatoes? Give us the details here or at facebook and post some pictures.

Tomatoes in the Hoophouse

This week, Hannah Harvester, Canton,  wrote to The Garden Plot about her first experiences as a member of a CSA:

I recently joined Little Grasse Foodworks (littlegrass.blogspot.com), operated by Flip Filippi and Bob Washo of Canton. It's the first time I've belonged to a CSA, and I joined this particular one for a few reasons: the gardens and pick-up location is walking distance from my home, meaning a reduction in the amount of fossil fuels spent getting food to my table; there is a hands-on component to membership; and there's an opportunity to learn how to preserve foods in their community canning kitchen. I'm not ready or able to plant my own garden at this moment of my life, so I relish the chance to help out in a small way and learn from others' expertise in the process.

Members of Little Grasse CSA, Canton, joined farmers Bob Washo and Flip Filippi to plant potatoes on May 21. Later this summer, CSA members will receive allotments of these potatoes in their weekly delivery of vegetables. Photo by Hannah Harvester.

Rather than simply receiving a box of produce weekly, Little Grasse members are required to be involved with the work of the gardens to help produce that food. Usually, this happens on monthly workdays. I attended my first workday earlier this month, where I learned how to scuffle weeds, prepare flower beds for mulching, and harvest over-wintered spinach. I was amazed at all the spinach planted in late fall of 2010 that was now green and leafy—everyone brought home plenty. After working all morning, we enjoyed a delicious potluck lunch, featuring a salad made with greens and herbs from the garden and plenty of pickled veggies.

A few weeks later, there was an optional (I thought of it as a bonus) workday for potato planting. Between 9 and a bit before noon, Flip and Bob oversaw the planting of 18 rows of 9 varieties of potatoes, and, since there was a good turnout, also got two gardens fenced. This feat took a lot of careful organization, clear communication, and only a little bit of improvisation. The main jobs in the potato field were trench diggers, potato droppers, potato spacers, and rakers. The trenchers got going first, and once a trench was completed, the rest could get to work. The dropper walked along dropping seed potatoes into the trench, while the spacer (me) followed behind on hands and knees with a foot-long stick, making sure the potatoes were evenly spaced and, when possible, that shoots were facing up. Behind me came the rakers, raking soil over the potatoes. In addition to this cover, the potatoes are also going to be “triple hilled.” Changes in potato variety were marked by a stick pounded into the ground, as were the rows, which were evenly spaced 3 feet apart. It took a couple of rows to get the sequencing and timing right, and after that things worked smoothly. The seed potatoes were already counted, neatly organized and lined up in the barn, bearing index cards with their name and the order in which they were to be planted. Some serious math had gone into calculating how many potatoes could be planted at 12” apart in 1500” of ground!

I liked my spacing job—I got to be down in the dirt, it wasn't too strenuous, and I had a good look at the different potato varieties—there were some purple ones called “Peter Wilcox” that looked like they came from Jupiter, and a cute, oblong one called Russian Banana. I realized that I'd only seen a few kinds of potatoes before, and hadn't given that much thought. Planting 9 varieties sure seems to make sense, though, especially when you're not relying on chemicals and genetic engineering to keep your potatoes free of insects and blights.

I'm glad I joined Little Grasse. The level of organization required to pull off that group potato planting is truly impressive, as is the willingness of members to work hard and pull it off.  Members' and leaders' commitment to sharing info on food issues and getting more closely involved with the food they eat daily food is always present. At the planting, Flip unveiled the new lending library at Little Grasse, with books on herbs, wild foods, and fermentation. One couple just embarking on yogurt making for the first time got advice from a CSA member who's been making yogurt for years. I'm looking forward to the next workday, and to being a part of this community of workers, learners, and eaters.

Taking up gardening at the age of 45, Stout turned her unconventional mind to watching natural processes and incorporating them into her garden. Plants grow very well, she reasoned, without digging up the ground every spring. Instead of plowing the soil she layered her gardens with 8 inches of mulch, pushing it aside to plant her seeds. In this delightful video, filmed when she was about 90 years old, she explains her philosophy and plants a few potatoes for the camera.

The second half of the video covers more stories from her colorful life – including smashing saloons with Carrie Nation and gardening in the nude. Watching Ruth Stout handle a hoe in her slippers inspires me to take her advice and "pay attention to my inner voice."

Scott and I planted this garden in 1995. Looking at this photograph now, I see how much I didn't know. The rhubarb was taking up valuable space inside the fenced area; it now grows along the edge of the meadow outside the fence. The melons were growing outside the fence on black plastic. Amazingly, no critters disturbed them; we harvested a bumper crop that year. Now, we grow melons in a second fenced area.

We gardeners trick ourselves into believing that we will remember the details of each growing season for future reference.   In fact, we won't.  Our gardens evolve; we lose track.  As the years go by,  we conflate results from different seasons, or outright forget them.   Photographs keep us honest about what worked, what didn't, and help us carry lessons learned from season to season.  Ideally, written notes accompany photographs, but if you don't have the discipline to do both, I lobby for pictures.

This is the same garden space, shot in August 2009. Though I have large flower gardens in other parts of the yard, you can never have enough flowers, so I slip them in with the vegetables. We are looking at eggplant, melons, peppers, two varieties of sunflowers, tithonia, and acidanthera in the black pots.

You don't have to be a great photographer to get serviceable shots.  Here are a few basic tips I learned from photographer friend Martha Cooper:

• Get  shots of the garden in context.  Step back far enough to show the garden in its entirety, and how it relates to other features on your property.
• For closer views, get low to the ground and take shots at the level of the plants, but not so low that you only see the stems of the plants right in front of you.  Move around and photograph from different angles. Shots taken from the corners of the garden are often successful.
• Photograph in soft light: early or late in the day or mid-afternoon when it is overcast.
• Get some shots of people working in the garden.  That's an important part of the record.

If you get photographs you like this growing season, email them to Ellen Beberman, radio@ncpr.org.  She'll post photographs from contributors every week.

Gina Vaillancourt ventured out between rain showers on May 17 to work in her garden in the town of Lawrence. This is her second year working this soil. Gina likes the planting scheme to be orderly; she strings cords and uses a measuring tape to get the spacing just right.

A scene that is recognizable to gardeners all over the North Country this time of year. In this garden, rocks dug out of the soil mark the ends of rows.

Gina Vaillancourt established her garden patch in 2010, soon after she and her husband Rick moved to their property on Route 11. She grew up on a dairy farm in Gouverneur, where her family always had a vegetable garden.  At her new home, the plan is to create a mixed garden of flowers and vegetables: "Eye food and tummy food,", as Gina calls it. The first move was to plant herbs in the middle of the patch: lemon balm, sage, peppermint, and dill.  The peppermint is a priority for tea.  Rhubarb is already established, too.

Along the edge of the garden facing the road, Gina planted a mix of wildflower seeds,  which will make a colorful border for drivers passing on the highway to enjoy.  I applaud gardeners who keep passers-by in mind when planning their gardens.  Behind the wildflowers, Gina will grow broccoli, peppers, radishes, brussel sprouts, onions, and peas, interspersed with a planting of cosmos.  One tip from this gardener: plant your peppers in a tight cluster to improve prospects for good pollination and large peppers.  Gina plants her peppers in a block in the middle of the garden, spaced so that the leaves will touch when they reach maturity.

We'll visit this garden later in the season to see how things are growing.

Rick Vaillancourt takes responsibility for tilling the garden, and hoeing occasionally. Gina likes to do the rest of the garden work herself.

Lester R. Brown, director of Earth Policy Institute and an authority on world agricultural issues, tells us that people around the world  confronted this reality as the price of wheat rose by 75% during the past year. There are reasons to believe that this and future price hikes will not dissipate quickly. The New Geopolitics of Food in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine outlines the pressures on the global food system and predicts how those pressures may lead to crisis within a few years.

The squeeze is coming from both sides of the equation -the amount of food we need and the amount we can grow. Rising populations, increasing wealth (which correlates with more people eating meat, ultimately requiring more grain) and diversion of food stocks to fuel production is pushing demand. On the supply side, we are bumping up against the limits of technological advances, crop reductions due to climate change, and falling water tables in dry countries. Brown writes:

In arid Saudi Arabia, irrigation had surprisingly enabled the country to be self-sufficient in wheat for more than 20 years; now, wheat production is collapsing because the non-replenishable aquifer the country uses for irrigation is largely depleted. The Saudis soon will be importing all their grain.

Recognizing this necessity the Saudi government, along with South Korea and China, has bought and leased land in Africa to grow grain for their people. It is too early to tell whether this is a winning strategy for those countries, but it is unlikely to alleviate hunger in the areas where the grain is grown. Grain-importing countries without the means to buy land on other continents will need to find their own solutions, making control of food resources a political priority for coming decades.

This is an important issue and an important article. For further details, here is an interview with Brown by Leonard Lopate.

The New Geopolitics of Food

Rhubarb, also called "pie plant", is standard in North Country gardens.

I love rhubarb.  It's  tough, perennial, exotic-looking, thrives in our climate, tolerates drought, resists pests, is ready for harvest long before just about anything else is getting started, and tastes great.  (I know some of you will heartily disagree with the tasting great part.  I find the tartness refreshing.)

If you are one of those people who avoids gardening because of a tendency to kill plants through neglect, go right ahead and plant some rhubarb.  A few years ago, I decided that the patch in my garden was spreading too enthusiastically, so I dug up a lot of it and dumped it in full sun in a gravel pit to compost.  Two weeks later my neighbor spied the roots withering in the heat, took them home to plant, and in a few weeks had plants of his own.

Rhubarb does respond well to applications of manure and compost, but doesn't require it.  If you harvest judiciously — I've read that you should take no more than 1/3 of the stems on a given plant at each cutting — you can keep your rhubarb in good, productive health without much care for many years.  If anyone out there has ever had trouble growing rhubarb I'd like to know about it.

First rhubarb pudding of the season, made by Martha last night.

I made the first batch of the year last Sunday.  Rhubarb season is officially underway.

RHUBARB PUDDING

3 cups diced rhubarb

5 tablespoons butter, divided

2/3 plus 1/2 cup sugar, divided

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

Pour enough boiling water over the rhubarb to cover it; set it aside for 10 minutes, then drain it.  Spread 2 tablespoons of the butter in the bottom of a shallow 1-1/2 quart baking dish or a pie plate.  Sprinkle the dish with the 2/3 cup of sugar.  Place a pie bird or a vented dome of aluminum foil in the center.  Place the rhubarb all around.

Stir together the flour, salt, the 1/2 cup sugar, and the baking powder.  Melt the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter.  Beat the egg with the milk and the melted butter.  Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir until they are blended into a fairly thick dough.  Spread the dough over the rhubarb.  Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden brown.

Martha has been known to freeze rhubarb so she can eat this any time of year.

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