I AM an Urban Homesteader

I don't usually count and weigh my produce. I eat it.
But, now that we are keeping score, here's some of what I am up to:

1 blackberry vine
2 grape vines
3 berry bushes
4 fruit trees
5 plots golden sunchokes
6 varieties of winter squash (red kuri, butternut, buttercup, baby pam pumpkin, Cinderella pumpkin, acorn)
7 varieties of summer squash (zucchini, yellow, pattypan, caserta, cocozelle, tatumi, round)
8 fava bean plants
9 colors of chard (white, cream, pink, green, lemon yellow, gold, orange, red, magenta)
10 sources of rescued spinning fiber (2 Ragamuffins, 2 Siberian Huskies, 1 German Shepard mix, 3 Spaniel mixes, 1 samoyed, 1 angora rabbit)
11 kinds of hot pepper (Bhut jolokia, serrano, jalapeno, giant cayenne, cayenne, poblano, NewMex Joe E. Parker, Espanola, Anaheim, bird, black pearl)
12 months of veggies!
No partridge. No pear tree. (yet)

Winter Veggies and More

I have been eating more meat and less carb this fall and winter, and doing well with it. Well, this former vegan is a little bit surprised, with all that steak and eggs for breakfast. It's in small quantities, and I still enjoy my greens for winter breakfast, just not over a potato.
The greens are especially nice this season, and I have many colors of chard popping up everywhere in the garden.
We had at least 3 good rains on the community garden so far, and each episode sends out more volunteer favorites. I have a carpet of fennel, wide swaths of baby celery, several types of parsley popping out from underneath the flowers (they seem to enjoy the initial protection), and a nice variety of chards and kales ranging in color from magenta to red to orange to pale lemon yellow to white to green.

Day 6 - Harvard Beets

I "bought" California butter with my extra money today, and now I have 3 cents left. Actually, I bought it the last time I was in the valley, but didn't use it until today. I didn't really need to buy this early, since we drove right past the store on our way into town.
I got to the community garden early today, despite all the rain. I harvested a ton of vegetables and spent over 2 hours in the kitchen, cleaning, prepping, and then making a vegan soup for tomorrow's Quaker potluck. Well, I hope it's vegan. The rain brought out the critters and I found many baby slugs taking refuge in the inner celery leaves.
For breakfast, I munched on snow peas and lettuce.
For a late lunch, I enjoyed a plate of steamed snow peas, broccoli and asparagus from partner Don, topped with a bit of butter. I had a cup of the squash soup, and finished off with a mug of Peet's tea from partner Emily.
The soup for tomorrow's potluck is made from butternut squash, frozen cocozelle summer squash, potatoes, leeks, celery, carrots from partner Gaston, turnips from partner Colin, kale, chard, fennel, dehydrated habanero pepper, marjoram from partner Franklin, rosemary from partner Gert and mixed dehydrated vegetables from partner Harvey.
Over the past couple of years, I have attempted to get seeds from beet plants, with varying success. In 2009, I finally had two types of beets blooming in the backyard at the same time: Chioggia and Detroit dark red. I hand-pollinated and came up with Detroggia, I guess, Chioggia being the mom. The germination was pretty good, but unfortunately, they aren't as nice as either star parent. Despite the parentage, these beets aren't getting into Harvard. They have the conical shape of the Chioggia instead of the nice round shape of the Detroit dark red. They have the more pale red color of the Chioggia without the interesting stripes. I haven't tasted them yet, but harvested several for myself and my trading partners to trial. The greens are of high quality, matching the red of rhubarb chard.
We went out to buffet dinner with friends. I ate everything except the lettuces and celery. It was a treat to have some raisins. I had a bit of difficulty with the vegetables. They just don't taste as nutritious as my home-grown vegetables.

Day 1 - Afternoon and Beyond

Flush with harvesting success, I set about to dehydrate half a tray of parsley. This parsley preservation is going to get old quickly, I can already tell. Here's what I had for an afternoon snack:

Vegetable stew.
Chayote squash from partner Julia
Turnip and carrots from partner Colin
Tikka masala simmer sauce from partner Karl
Celery, leek, parsley, golden chard stalks and fennel bulb from the garden.
I had expected that the jar of masala would be terribly salty, but it was not. The sauce was a bit too bland for the amount that I used. I have to make this jar last, at least until I have enough money saved up for some seasoning, so I used only a couple spoonfuls.

Here's what I ate for dinner:
Handful of almonds from Igor (home grown!)
Leftover vegetable stew, this time with fresh cilantro from the garden. The cilantro really made all the difference!
Garden Rhubarb chard, Siberian kale and garlic sauteed in oil left over in a pan from dinner last night, and a dash of olive brine.
Sliced beets from the garden
The other half of the meal replacement shake
I made a large cup of tea, from herbs I grow in my garden.

I had planned to cook beans for dinner, but their tough skins made soaking difficult, and after a full day on the kitchen counter they were still shriveled and tiny. I pulled out the almonds instead. I don't really want to use all the almonds up in these first few days, since they are so expensive to purchase.
We sat down in the evening to watch House while I snacked on a Lychee jelly cup from partner Lisa, a couple of almonds and a few slices of apple. I thought it was Lupus for sure.
I didn't buy any food today, so I have an 83 cent surplus.

Winter Squash at the Community Garden

It was a real treat to get to the community garden after several days off for the holidays. I don't usually notice how much it grows when I visit every day. Since I am entertaining guests this week, I need lots of fresh veggies for soup and salads. Here's what is in the harvest basket this week:
I am still harvesting a bit of zucchini and baby butternut squash! They are tiny but very appreciated. The beans have been growing and flowering and I was able to harvest several servings. I harvested over a cup of small broccoli flowerettes, and a couple of small fennel bulbs. I left the leeks alone. Before Thanksgiving, I harvested gobs of leeks, only to leave them at home when packing our car for the trip, so I have plenty. I did snag a few scallions. I also brought home plenty of kale and chard, two greens that were greatly missed during our time away. I also harvested plenty of celery for the bean pot.
We made a large salad with freckles romaine lettuce and baby purple mustard. This practice will probably continue almost daily until late spring.
And the new events at the garden? The cabbage is bursting out of its cage, so I set them free. My transplanted lettuce has been eaten down to stubs inside its cage. Slugs? Not sure, but I am sure something is happy and well-fed. The garlic is up, and the newer broccoli plants are ready to start flowering.

Lazy Housewife Ronco Gardening

I have added another permanent plant to my garden, one that requires virtually no care or replanting, only an undisturbed place in the garden. First it was bunching onions. Then, to my surprise, I found out that overgrown leeks come up with baby plants all around, so when the leek is harvested (for soup!?) the tiny plants can be replanted. I have a couple of pole bean varieties that come up year after year. I just cut them down for the season and throw some mulch on top.
My scheme was to discover and promote plants that re-seed themselves like crazy, ensuring a steady supply year after year with little effort. The list started with celery, and then branched out with Italian parsley, leeks, amaranth, chard, kale, and my new favorite, fennel.
My fennel experiment last fall turned out so well that I tried to sneak another crop in this spring. Both batches of seeds took forever to germinate, and the plants struggled in the beginning, but I decided that the taste was worth it. The spring plants didn't do too well. They took forever to get going and then went to seed with the heat. I kept them around anyway, enjoying the tasty seeds and watching the birds devour them. One morning, the cat was going bonkers, so I looked out the window and saw about 20 flitty birds perched on a single fennel plant, eating all the seeds in a few moments.
Eventually the tomatoes overtook the fennel plot and I couldn't get through the thicket anyway, so I just left it. This fall, while cleaning, I discovered about a million fennel seedlings. After transplanting tons of the seedlings, I discovered that plenty of fennel bulbs were growing out of the roots of the plants I had harvested earlier. And, like the bunching onions and chard before, seed-saving and even transplanting is a waste of time if the plant just won't die and just won't quit. I get to eat fennel every day, tons of these little bulblets, much more sweet and tender than the best of last year's harvests.
A neighbor commented that my gardens had character, but I think that one of them is just overgrown. If I squint hard enough, there is a large area that looks like a lawn. Look closely and visitors will see that it is just a field of Italian parsley and fennel seedlings, mowed down by munching rodents.
I have decided that the many of our favorite foods through the years are just noxious weeds that also happen to be tasty. Ronco-set-it-and-forget-it growing, self-sowing, self-mowing. An elegant kind of laziness. This gives me more time this winter to curl up with a hot mug of herb tea and browse through all the seed catalogs.

V11

Honestly, I don't know how my aunt canned 40+ quarts of tomato juice every season. Even with my new food mill, it does take some time to make even 1 quart. My first attempt was by accident. I had too many tomatoes on hand, and had to process them or lose them, but I didn't have enough time for sauce so I just cooked them, milled them, and threw the juice in the fridge for later. Well, it sure was looking good all by itself after a hot morning in the garden. I mixed it with a little bit of lemon juice and it was wonderful.
Today I made another batch with other vegetables. I haven't enjoyed very much of it yet, since it needs to be Arctic-cold and that won't be until tomorrow.
Here's my recipe:
4 cups tomato
1 rib celery
1 red serrano pepper
1 slice cooked chopped beet
1 green onion
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup chard (I used the red kind)
pinch oregano
pinch summer savory
2 sprigs Italian basil
1 sprig lemon basil
Cut the tomatoes into chunks. Finely chop the other ingredients. Simmer for 15 minutes and put through a food mill. Chill.

Am I elitist?

Local food is expensive in my area, but I tell myself that I can safely avoid the “elitist” designation by attempting to grow as much of my own food as possible. Anyone can do it, right? Well, I rely heavily on my plots at the community garden.

Not everyone can do as much food-growing as I can. (M, one of my garden neighbors, insists that I live at the garden, and has suggested that I have a campsite somewhere underneath the fava beans and chard.) Gardeners with unrelenting and inflexible work schedules cannot do as much. But anyone living in an apartment or even in their car can get at least one small plot or share it with others, all for about the yearly price of a pair of Nike sneakers, can’t they?

When I managed the community garden, one of my highest priorities was to increase the number of gardens so that we could spread fixed costs around and keep the rental fee affordable. I succeeded in filling the place so that we could get our landlord to fund an expansion. A year has passed since the expansion was completed and as of a few days ago we are full again. Now, all the sudden, not everyone can do this. This makes me a bit uncomfortable. I want everyone who lives on a budget to be able to eat locally and sustainably.

St. Pat's Breakfast

Oh, you probably figured out this was coming. There is only one day I can get away with this meal. Since one of my exceptions for March is oats, I decided to make them green.

Green Oatmeal

Cook the oats in the usual way with a bit less water than usual.
Remove the leaf off one green-, yellow- or white-stemmed chard leaf. Puree in a blender with just enough water to get it going. Strain in a fine mesh strainer and add the chard juice in the oatmeal a little bit at a time until the desired color is reached. Cook a bit more until the raw veggie taste disappears.
Remove from heat and add a touch of honey and cream or half 'n' half.

Why I am called the Chard Lady

Swiss chard is sort of like zucchini, only flatter. One plant will provide more than enough for a typical family, and more than enough to exhaust all your friends. But like zucchini, no good gardener plants just one chard plant. First there are a couple of plants, just in case one dies, then a neighbor plants a couple of other colors and soon there is chard envy and pretty soon there is every color of chard growing in every available corner and chard stuffed in a gaggle of bread bags in the vegetable crisper. And that doesn’t even account for what happens in the next year, when the plants start to send up a seed stalk that needs to be chopped back daily. Pretty soon the greenship is overrun with chardlet tribbles. You know you are really in trouble when the chard starts finding its way into smoothies and breakfast cereal.

I have a really great garden, and some of my friends do as well. Sometimes we grow just a little bit more than we can eat. I’ll admit that I am just a little bit like octomom when I get to gardening. If I get great germination, well, I need to plant each and every seedling, regardless of how I might take care of them or whether my tiny plot is already full. After all, they’re my seedlings, and I am not going to kill them, even if in the end it kills me. I never had chard when I was a kid and now I want to create that perfect chard garden that I longed for in my youth.

Sometimes my friends and I go on long vacations during the peak seasons, so we harvest for each other. Faced with my own surplus, and that of my neighbors’, I started taking all the extra chard to the local food pantry. After a couple of years of almost-weekly delivery, the director started calling me the Chard Lady.