urban artichoke

An American Farmer's Lament, a Poem by Hilary Hodge

2012-02-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

Hilary Hodge, a young farmer-poet and bee-keeper, captured the struggles of the organic farmer in this compelling poem she wrote and read at the 2012 EcoFarm conference on organic and sustainable agriculture. She generously gave me permission to post it:

It’s hard to open up, to display my sad depression.

But indulge me for a while, as I share this history lesson:

During the birth of this fair nation, in 1790, just for measure,

90% of us were farmers, a new-born nation’s treasure,

And when someone went to congress then, it was a deal of sacrifice,

They had to leave their stock behind, say goodbye to beans and rice.

But now our system’s shifted: the cause for my lament,

By 1950 in this nation, we were only 10 percent,

Today we stand together, but quite alone we stand,

Today 1% are farmers across this dusty land,

As we work to give this nation, the nurture they deserve,

We are sadly undermined by the people that we serve.

There’s more paperwork than acres, more hoops than there are plants,

We fear our public policy more than aphids, more than ants,

We used to cringe at thoughts of gophers, we used to shudder at thoughts of blight,

Now it’s fear of regulations that keeps us up at night.

We pander to our buyers, tally daily what’s been spent,

We fear the strangers at our door are from the government.

We keep faith that one day congress might value things that grow,

And find a way to value farmers even much more so,

Where once we all were central, we now sit down in the back,

We hope that we can conquer, picking up the slack,

Yet they wage wars in troubled nations due to scarcity of oil,

And wash pollutants into waters from our agri-business soil.

While we give to local systems, and are stewards of the earth,

They undermine our efforts and undermine our worth,

They take our money for Monsanto through tax austerity,

But true homeland protection needs food security.

Farmers have enough to fight with, the truth of climate change,

We’ve yet to see a winter here, this weather’s very strange,

Last June our dear tomatoes were underneath the snow.

We can’t hire willing workers, who want to learn and grow,

We live in fear that regulators will come knocking at our door,

We have had to tell our neighbors we can’t sell them eggs no more.

Front-yard gardens on our streets, face the fear of fines,

Money’s being siphoned from our farms into our mines,

Our seeds are all but tainted with GMO contamination,

Our trees struggle to bear fruit from a lack of pollination,

Our bees are disappearing; our birds have all flown south,

And millions in this country have no food to feed their mouth.

The amber waves of grain, are all but gone and lost,

And it’s happened all so quickly, we can’t tally up the cost,

We give to warring nations, weapons that serve ourselves,

And we import berries for our grocers to line their winter shelves.

And we subsequently wonder why resources are gone,

Looking for new ways to pick up and carry on,

We have taken mass production to the standard of our trade,

Small farmers stand and watch, saddened and dismayed.

Our officials wonder why there are problems they can’t manage,

Are they too busy playing golf to see the awful damage?

I have a message for our nation; I’m not trying to be rude:

But when you destroy your farmers, you destroy your food.

We can no longer plant our seeds and just hope that they will grow,

Putting our last dream into the vegetables we sow,

We are facing great demise, perhaps a mass starvation,

But we care enough about our people and enough about this nation,

That we put into each gesture a prayer that it might spout,

We are a group of faith: That’s what farming is about.

And it’s not about religion but it begs a higher power,

That we’ve committed all our lives to wish upon each hour,

To put seeds into the soil, and keep our fingers crossed,

To keep growing year by year, witnessing what’s lost,

We continue planting pumpkins in a world of chocolate bars,

We see a light that shines before us, under a sky devoid of stars.

We have dirt beneath our nails and a problem on our hands,

But we are working towards solutions for the providence of lands,

And when we hold each other up, we hold the world as well,

We have come to wage our peace with the produce that we sell,

We are still the sacred backbone, it’s not broken, but it’s bent,

We are our nation’s farmers, we are the one percent.

Hilary Hodge is an organic farmer from the tiny and amazing town of North San Juan in Nevada County, California. She graduated with a degree in English Literature, and after 7 years in social services, quit her job to return to the land. She blogs about sustainability, sharing her passion for farming, social justice and localism. You can read her work at her web site here.

Photo of Hilary Hodge: Stevie Ellis

Other photos: Urban Artichoke

Plan a Gorgeous Heirloom Garden

2012-02-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

Imagine what your personal garden might be like if you were the co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange. I had the opportunity to find out recently at a talk given by Diane Ott Whealy at Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education Center in Palo Alto, CA. After spending the bulk of her life working hard to build the non-profit Seed Savers Exchange, she now enjoys being a gardener again without the responsibilities of feeding a family and growing an organization.

She maintains a display garden at the Seed Savers headquarters, Heritage Farm, the Whealy’s former home in Decorah Iowa. Her approach is informal and loaded with enthusiasm.

Here are her top tips for creating a beautiful, naturally lush garden with heirlooms:

Grow vegetables, flowers, and herbs together (interplanting)
Let annuals reseed themselves for the next season, including vegetables (at least in part of the garden)
Learn to appreciate each stage of plant growth (lettuce gone to seed is strikingly attractive)
Plant bulbs (tulips, daffodils, etc.) for spring flowers, then interplant with lettuce for a dramatic effect
Let a flowering vine intertwine with a less showy plant, for example scarlet runner beans with sweet potatoes

The effect is a lush riot of texture and color with foliage and flowers to attract pollinators, and a feast for the senses. This technique of interplanting and companion planting creates a garden ecosystem that birds and insects love- the birds help control the insect population which will be a mix of beneficial insects as well as pests. Her display garden has about 500 species that include heirloom vegetables, old fashioned flowers and herbs. Some of her favorites are: Grandpa Ott's Morning Glory, Bees Friend (a flower from Germany), Scarlet Runner Bean, Moon and Stars Watermelon, and Five Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard, among many more.

Ott Whealy explained that the mission of the organization is to inspire people to grow the seeds: Seed Savers Exchange can save seeds but they cannot maintain gardens everywhere, therefore home gardeners are the key to keeping the thousands of useful plant varieties alive as they propagate them and share them with each other.

As she noted:

"the definition of an amateur is one who loves and cares"

You can order seeds directly from Seed Savers Exchange without a membership, or you can join and become part of the network of gardeners who exchange seeds and support the organization and their programs.

This post was also published here: Eat, Drink Better

Photos: Urban Artichoke

Gigante Beans with Salsa Verde: Sunshine in Winter

2012-01-27T17:40:00.000-08:00

Gigante beans are very large, but creamy when cooked

A simple dish of creamy, buttery, beans with bright Mediterranean flavors is bound to add a ray of sunshine to your meal. This dish combines Greek beans with Italian salsa verde. First, a note about the beans. Gigante beans are of Greek origin (via the New World). They are very large meaty white beans that are popular in Greece. How do you know you have a gigante? One gigante bean when cooked will fill a teaspoon! However, other white beans would be good substitutes if you can’t find these. Italian butter bean, cannellini runner, or flageolet would be good substitutes, and garbanzos (chick peas) will work well too. You want a bean that will hold its shape and doesn't fall apart after cooking.

Gigante beans with salsa verde and sauteed fava leaves

This dish is best with home cooked beans. For a tutorial on cooking beans, see my previous post. It’s not hard get good results and it doesn’t have to take hours, and home cooked versus canned beans are worlds apart!

Recipe: Gigante Beans with Salsa Verde
2 cups cooked beans (1 cup dry beans)
1 garlic clove, peeled
2 pieces sweet roasted red pepper, diced, about 2 inches by 4 inches per piece (sold in jars, packed in water or oil)
Olive oil for the pan

Add:
Salsa verde (see recipe below) about 2 tablespoons, or more according to taste
Broccoli florets or sauteed fava leaves
Parmesean cheese, shaved

Gently sauté a clove or two of garlic in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide pan (frying pan is fine), being careful not to burn, about 2 minutes. When the garlic has softened a bit add the cooked beans and stir to coat them with the olive oil. Add the chopped red peppers and stir. If you have fava leaves, add them now and let them wilt. Let cook for a few minutes to blend the flavors. Transfer the contents of the pan to a warmed bowl and stir in two tablespoons or more of the salsa verde. Toss well to coat. Serve with broccoli florets and shaved parmesean cheese if desired.

For Salsa Verde
1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves (in season in winter)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 kalamata or other olives, pitted (you may use a teaspoon of rinsed capers instead)
2 slices preserved lemon, or grated rind from one lemon
Salt, to taste

Buzz the Ingredients in a small blender, or dice everything very finely and mix with the olive oil. Let sit for a few minutes before serving to allow the favors to marry. This will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about a week.

Photos: Urban Artichoke

Cooking Dry Beans 101

2012-01-25T22:33:00.000-08:00

Clockwise from left: Hidatsa Shield Figure, Good Mother Stallard, Hutterite Soup, Tiger's Eye

Why cook your own beans rather than buying them in a can? Let me count the "whys": flavor, texture, and variety. Once you taste beans the way they are meant to be eaten, you'll realize that canned beans are waterlogged and over-salted to make up for lack of flavor. And the types of beans available in a can are limited. So don't miss out on a whole world of culinary exploration, and get in the habit of cooking beans and enjoying the many types available for your eating pleasure. Who knows, you may end up growing your own too, as I do (see photo below).

Simple cooking method for dry beans:
I recommend you start with a cup of dry beans to get a feel for cooking them.

1. Wash the beans with cold water and examine them to make sure there are no stones or other debris.

2. Soak beans overnight in plenty of water at room temperature (you want them to remain covered even after they double in size)
or
Quick soak: put beans in a pot (preferably a heavy pot for better heat distribution) with about 2 inches of water over the beans, bring them to a boil then turn off the heat. Cover with the lid and let them soak for 1-3 hours.

3. To cook, drain the soaking water, add fresh water to cover the beans by an inch or two. I like to add a bay leaf to lightly flavor the water. Bring them to a boil then turn down the heat to a simmer. Note: do NOT add salt at this point. Salt will cause the beans to be tough and take a very long time to cook (or so it's believed).

Italian Butter beans with fresh tarragon and asparagus

4. Check the water level in half an hour. You want the beans to be covered at all times or they won't cook evenly. Cooking time can vary from only an hour for fresh beans, or up to 2 hours for older beans. After an hour check to see if the beans are tender or need more cooking time, and make sure there is enough water in the pot to cover the beans (if not add some and bring it back to a simmer).

4. When the beans are beginning to get tender add salt. The beans will absorb the salt from the cooking water. When they are tender and have the texture you want, they are ready to eat or use in a recipe. You can let them cool and store them in the refrigerator in their cooking water, or drain them and toss in a bit of olive oil so that they don't dry out.

The age of the beans: Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo, points out in his lovely book on cooking with heirloom beans that the bags of beans on your grocery store shelf might be a couple of years old or more. The age of the beans will dictate how long they take to cook. Old beans take longer. Beans from a quality supplier, such as Rancho Gordo, or your local farmer's market vendor are sold within a year of being grown. Indeed, these beans are so fresh that I've planted and grown and eaten several varieties of them!

Here is something delicious to make with your fresh pot of beans: my recipe for gigante beans with salsa verde- enjoy!

Photos: Urban Artichoke

A Simple Method for Making Refrigerator Preserved Lemons

2012-01-22T19:45:00.000-08:00

Fresh lemons are sliced and dusted with kosher salt

I experimented with the method below from the description in Chef Mourad Lahlou's' beautiful book, New Moroccan for preserving Meyer Lemons. But I tried it with both Meyer Lemons and what I believe are Eureka Lemons, from a neighbor's tree. I'm now a convert for having these "semi-preserved lemons " handy for lots of uses. Both preparations are wonderful to have ready when the inspiration strikes to add them to whatever I'm cooking up.

2 whole lemons, preferably organically grown
kosher salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
a clean jar

This makes about 1 to 1 1/2 cup of packed lemons

Scrub the lemons with a brush under running water (if they were not organically grown, you may want to use some mild dish soap and water to scrub them). Dry thoroughly. Slice into approximately 1/4 inch slices and salt each side of each slice well with the kosher salt. Stack each lemon back together as shown above. Cover tightly in plastic (a baggie or plastic wrap- do each separately) and put into the freezer overnight or for a few days.

Thaw the lemons, rinse briefly under a trickle of water taking care not to get them waterlogged. Shake off the excess water. Put into the jar and cover in olive oil. Put the lid on the jar and store in the refrigerator. The oil may solidify, but that's fine- just use a spoon to scoop out lemon slices and oil to flavor your dishes.

Giganti beans with salsa verde and red sweet peppers

You can chop a couple of slices finely and toss with vegetables or pasta, or add to salsa verde and use on fish, vegetables, or beans. The Meyer lemons will have a sweeter flavor, and the Eureka lemons will be more intense.

Next I'll be posting my recipe for Gigante beans with salsa verde and red sweet peppers, in my series on how to add sunshine to your winter meals with Mediterranean flavors!

Photos: Urban Artichoke

Gathering: A Life Spent Saving Our Seeds From Extinction

2012-01-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

Gathering, Memoir of a Seed Saver, by Diane Ott Whealy

As we fret over the increasing loss of biodiversity through extinction, we can be thankful for the dedication of a few individuals who spent almost every waking moment devoted to saving it. And they haven't stopped yet. Gathering, Memoir of a Seed Saver, is the autobiography of Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange. It is the story about a life committed to saving the seeds of thousands of plants, most of them edible, to ensure they would not disappear, all while homesteading and raising five children.

A Flower Sparked a Movement

What is now the largest seed saving organization in the country (perhaps the world?) had humble and innocent beginnings: homesteading newlyweds who wished to continue the bride’s family tradition of growing the morning glory that her great-grandparents brought from Bavaria in their new home in Iowa. From this sparked a life-changing passion to rescue seeds from plant varieties that had very limited distribution: some were grown only by families or individuals, and some had been dropped by seed companies who no longer distributed them.

Ott Whealy tells the engaging and unpretentious story of Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit organization with a grassroots movement to propagate, save, and share seeds from mostly food plants that are either heirlooms, or just plain rare. Ott Whealy and her former husband Kent Whealy, started the organization in the 1970’s, never imagining that it would become the lead organized effort for preventing the extinction of thousands of useful plants in North America.

From 1 to Nearly 14,000 Saved

Over 35 years later, the current 2011 yearbook boasts an astonishing 13,876 types of open pollinated (non-hybrid) plants to be shared with anyone who requests them. As the Whealys got the word out about their undertaking, other seed saving individuals contacted them and they joined forces in this gargantuan effort. Seed Savers Exchange was entrusted with large collections from other passionate gardeners who feared that their seeds could be lost, and as a result the scope and responsibility of the organization grew.

Saving Our Heritage

The tasks involved are not trivial- seeds must be not only be grown, collected and saved properly to remain viable, but fresh seed is needed periodically, and care must be taken to protect each particular cultivar from accidental crossbreeding. Additionally, detailed records are kept. The rewards are no less than the preservation of our agricultural heritage and genetic diversity.

Today Seed Savers Exchange headquarters is located at Heritage Farm, the Whealy’s former home, in Decorah Iowa. The garden areas have been expanded and now include a heritage apple orchard. The book is an enjoyable read, and among the many charming stories is a description of how Amish carpenters restored the huge historic barn at Heritage Farm, badly in need of repair.

Diane Ott Whealy will be speaking at Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education Center on January 28, 2:30pm.

You can check here for Ott Whealy's book tour and lecture schedule.

This post was published also on Eat Drink Better

Our Prolific Avocado Tree: Grown From a Pit in the Compost Pile

2012-01-09T16:04:00.000-08:00

Our mystery avocados are getting ripe

And they said it couldn't be done. But it's almost mid January and our avocados are just about ripe for picking. This was not supposed to happen, according to conventional wisdom regarding growing your own avocado trees. I guess we got lucky! Our tree is now about 13 years old, and about as many feet high. It was planted in the ground after my Belgian husband spotted the sprouted pit in our compost pile. For him, avocados are a bit exotic and growing one was just too tempting to pass up.

It's a beautiful tree now in our front yard, with lush foliage and actual edible fruit.

The pit may have originally come from a Haas - grocery stores don't seem to stock anything else, for many years now. I remember other types that were offered regularly in the past, for example, the Fuerte. But the Haas is a hybrid, and hybrid seeds don't breed true, so it's difficult to match up our tree with a known type.

The skin of a ripe Haas turns black (left) our mystery avocado remains green

The California Rare Fruit Growers web site has some good facts about growing avocados and the many varieties that are available.

It's a Good Thing I Quit My Day Job

2012-01-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

I recently left my career in biomedicine to devote my time to writing and gardening, and wow- I'm excited. Until I look at my neglected backyard. I've got my work cut out for me!

The frost has finally soundly killed off anything that survived into the fall. I've got to get all that dead material into the compost pile, and the herbs surrounding the planting box need trimming.

In the foreground you can see I've heaped some dry plant matter ontop of my lemon grass to protect it from frost- it will come back in the spring.

Here's how it looked during the summer:

A season for everything- happy new year!

Eat and Play Organically at Bumble, A New Family Friendly Cafe

2012-01-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

My neighbor Alexander happily assisted me in scoping-out Bumble

Bumble's ambitious goal is to be a family’s dream come true - a cozy, comfortable, kid friendly cafe that not only goes all out to make children and their parents feel welcome, but that also focuses on providing the healthiest food possible.

I visited Bumble recently with my two-and-half-year-old neighbor, Alexander, and his mom, Margie, to meet with Bumble's director, Emily Richard. I wanted to learn more about how they manage the sourcing for local organic products for this unique cafe, which would be a significant undertaking for any new restaurant.

My Bumble breakfast of oatmeal with beautiful local berries

It turns out that finding and procuring various locally grown, organically produced food items is made possible by a specialty distributor called GreenLeaf. They provide access as well as distribution of numerous specialty goods, including organic produce and local dairy products, to businesses like Bumble. And it's logical that this supports small farm and dairy operations by simplifying and reducing the time and effort they spend getting their products to market.

It is an elegant example of a local food network that benefits all parties involved, and in the process enables small businesses to make their dreams a reality while growing the local economy.

All this and healthy food too!

Bumble is located in Los Altos, California.

Read the full post at Eat Drink Better

Photos: Urban Artichoke

T'is the Season for Meyer Lemon Marmalade

2011-12-26T17:56:00.000-08:00

My simplified 5 step version of this Meyer Lemon marmalade recipe is less work than the original recipe and was easy to make on the first try. If you love lemons you'll enjoy this lemony-sweet marmalade, and besides spreading it on toast it can be used in baking to flavor muffins or bread, or as a topping for pancakes.

Citrus Season: an Abundance of Meyer Lemons

Late fall and winter are prime citrus fruit season in California, and we are happily enjoying an embarrassment of riches thanks to our large, mature Meyer Lemon tree. We inherited the tree when we bought our house here in Silicon Valley, and this tree seems to be loaded with fruit in almost any season. It produces new fruit twice during the year, but these tender lemons are best kept on the tree where they ripen slowly and can be used in cooking in their different stages of maturity. The fruit turns from green to bright yellow, then becomes orange-yellow if left unpicked. As soon as they are slightly yellow we begin to pick!

Ripe Meyer Lemons are a beautiful golden-yellow

Cooking with Meyer Lemons
We use lemon juice almost every day in our meals: on salads, fish, vegetables, or fresh fruit. The zest is especially delicious in a number of baked goodies or to add to savory dishes. How is the Meyer different from other lemons? It is less acidic, has a thin skin with almost no white pith (the bitter part on inside of the skin). The Meyer is slightly sweet, very fragrant, and the skin is wonderful grated for its zest or as a candied peel.

Container Gardening with Meyer Lemons

If you don’t have a yard to plant a tree, the Improved Meyer Lemon is a dwarf that can be grown in containers indoors. This variety was developed in California after the original Meyer Lemon established in the USA from China was found to be spreading a virus that threatened the citrus industry. Although the Improved Meyer Lemon can grow to 10 feet high, it will stay smaller in a container and can be managed by pruning.

Making Meyer Lemon Marmalade in 5 Steps

Here is a marmalade recipe I tried last week with good results. My version is less work than the original recipe and was straightforward to make. This is the first marmalade I’ve ever made. It set very well and is lemony-sweet with a hint of bitter to make it interesting. I’ve tried it on my toasted olive oil bread, and even mixed a spoonful with some crème fraiche (or sour cream) to put on top of pancakes with maple syrup- very yummy!

This recipe calls for the juice and skins of 12 lemons,

My Lazy Version of Emily Kaiser’s Meyer Lemon Marmalade

12 Meyer lemons, juiced
3 cups of sugar
Water for blanching and rising the lemon strips

Makes 5-7 half pint jars

Step 1

Rinse the lemons, dry them, cut them in half and juice them. Set the juice aside until ready to use.

Step 2

Slice the juiced lemon halves into thin strips, the thinner the better. Note: In Emily’s version you scoop out the lemon halves so that only the skin remains. It took me approximately three seconds to realize I was not up for that amount of work, so in my version you cut the halves into strips without scooping them out.

Slice the lemon rinds into thin strips

Step 3

Put the lemon strips in a pot of cold water so the water just covers them. Bring to a boil. Let boil for one minute, pour the strips into a colander to drain them and run cold water over the strips to rinse them. Repeat two more times. The third time don’t rinse the strips, just drain them.

Step 4

Return the drained strips to the pot and add the reserved juice and stir in 3 cups of sugar over moderate heat to dissolve. Let the mixture simmer, stir occasionally to make sure it is not sticking. It will begin to thicken and should set in about 30 minutes of cooking (test by dripping a bit onto a cold plate- it should gel nicely).

Pour or spoon the marmalade into half pint canning jars

Step 5

Put the marmalade into half pint jelly jars (it will be very hot, so don’t use regular glass jars- they might crack)) and put on the lids. Let the jars cool and store them refrigerated, or follow instructions for canning to store them at room temperature for up to a year.

See more recipes for Meyer Lemons and an entertaining podcast at Kitchen Window here.

With thanks to Emily Kaiser for her recipe.

This post was also published @ Eat Drink Better

Photos: Urban Artichoke

Sweet Olive Oil Bread: A Holiday Tradition

2011-12-19T18:20:00.000-08:00

From Provence to California: An Adopted Traditional Holiday Bread

This version of a traditional holiday bread from the Provence region of France is incredibly versatile and simple to make. It has a rich satisfying texture, yet has no dairy products. The key to its signature flavor is extra virgin olive oil - a lot of it. Although it's a Christmastime tradition in Provence where it is known as pompe à l'huile, I've been making this bread in different seasons throughout the year since 2007 when I discovered the recipe in Saveur magazine. The traditional way to make it is with orange flower water, but I make it as a savory bread to serve with special dinners. In this recipe I added fresh herbs from my garden: rosemary, thyme, and lemon thyme. The fresh herbs gently perfume the bread and pair well with the flavors of the holidays. You can experiment with whichever herbs you have available.

Basic Tips for Making Olive Oil Bread

The recipe uses a semi-liquid starter called a poolish, which is a mixture of water, flour, some sugar and yeast, that is allowed to ferment to give the bread a unique flavor. The following recipe makes one 12 inch round disk-shaped loaf that bakes in 15 to 20 minutes. My instructions may appear to be long but they're not complicated. I've included my tips so you'll get off to a good start and be able come up with your own variations.

Click here for the recipe and instructions...

Jerusalem Artichoke Sautée with Mushrooms

2011-12-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

Sunchoke and mushroom sautée is simple and delicious

You can find Jerusalem Artichokes, or Sunchokes, at farmer's markets and grocery stores, but if you want a ready supply throughout the fall and winter try growing them yourself. If you like the mild nutty taste, they are great addition to your edible landscape as they are easy to grow. They don't require a large space and make pretty clusters of showy sunflowers. Just a few plants produce lots of tubers to harvest in the fall.

The tubers are crispy when eaten raw in salads and have a texture similar to water chestnuts. They can also be cooked like potatoes: pureed into a soup, mashed, roasted, or sautéed. Here is a simple recipe for a sautée with mushrooms:

Sunchoke and Mushroom Sautée: Simple and Delicious

Try them sautéed in olive oil with mushrooms and chopped garlic for a quick and simple dish. We loved the creamy texture and earthy flavor; the addition of brown mushrooms makes for a savory combination that will go well on its own or as a side dish.

You will need:
4-5 Sunchokes, cleaned and sliced thinly
4-5 brown or white button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thinly
1 large clove garlic, peeled and chopped
chopped fresh parsley
Olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Makes enough for 2 people as an accompaniment to baked squash or other side dish.

Clean the Sunchokes with a vegetable brush and slice thinly

To Prepare Sunchokes for Cooking:
Scrub any remaining soil off of the tubers with a vegetable brush under running water. If you have trouble cleaning between the bumby parts just break them up. You can peel some of the thin skin off but don't worry about getting it all. Slice the tubers about 1/4 inch thick.

To Sautée the Sunchokes:
Warm up some olive oil in a skillet. Add the Sunchoke slices and cook on medium to low heat so that they don't burn- stir occasionally and cook for about 10- 15 minutes. Add chopped garlic and sliced brown or white button mushrooms as the Sunchokes begin to soften. Season with salt and pepper. As the mushrooms become cooked thoroughly, test a piece of Sunchoke to see if it is done- it should be soft. You can cook them a bit longer if you like them creamier, or serve them while they are still bit firm.

To Serve:
Serve warm with a sprinkle of chopped fresh parsley. This dish is a great accompaniment to other winter vegetables such as baked squash.

This recipe was also published at Eat Drink Better

Photos: Urban Artichoke

Ripe for Change - The Story of California’s Local Food Movement

2011-11-27T21:04:00.000-08:00

The film Ripe for Change is a beautiful and engaging tribute to the origins of California’s local food movement. It describes how California became a key mover and shaker in the movement for local organic food production and went on to have enormous influence on the rest of the nation. This journey is captured through vignettes via interviews of the passionate, committed people that believed in saner and healthier approach to food as a core value. Healthier for all concerned: consumers, soil and Earth.

Making a Difference Through Passion and Vision

The near hour-long film features the rock stars of California ‘s organic food and local produce movement, notably Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, and David Mas Masumoto, author of Epitaph for a Peach, as well as other lesser known key players (including Dru Rivers of Fully Belly Farm). Alice Waters became famous as the champion of cooking with fresh, local and seasonal produce that became known as California Cuisine. Her restaurant, Chez Panisse, opened in1971 in Berkeley and became the epicenter for her experimentation in sourcing supplies locally to offer the freshest ingredients possible. She even used backyard growers for some of her fresh produce in a trade for meals at the restaurant. Waters wisely urges consumers to think carefully about who and what they are supporting when they buy fast-food versus buying from a farmer’s market. She asks us to consider if we really want to support industrial agriculture that is destroying our soil, or small farmers striving to bring sustainably farmed fruits and vegetables our tables.

Risking it All For a Peach

David Mas Masumoto has used his eloquent writing style to bring visibility to the plight and struggles of the small organic farmer. It’s a touching moment to hear him tell how after the Los Angeles Times ran his story about Sun Crest peaches, he received passionate letters urging him not to destroy his trees in favor of planting commercially popular peach varieties that shipped well, had appealing color, but alas, no flavor. It was the encouragement he needed to take a huge risk and leap of faith that his flavorful peach, although not favored commercially, had a place in the world. It was with tremendous courage that he kept his Sun Crest orchard. Sun Crest peaches are now listed in Slow Food’s Ark of Taste.

Giving Thanks for Local Food Producers

After watching the film I’m grateful once again for these visionaries and their hard work, and I’m reminded that wherever we live, if we want our local producers to thrive they need our consistent support.

Ripe for a Change is a film by director Emiko Omori. You can view it for free courtesy of Snag Films here.

This post also published on Eat, Drink Better

Is Locally Grown Food a Booming Business?

2011-11-22T15:18:00.000-08:00

The Buzz on Local Food Sales

A new report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is creating quite a buzz after reporting that in 2008, the sale of local foods was a whopping $48 billion. As stated on the United States Agriculture and Food Law and Policy blog:

“A new U.S. Department of Agriculture report says sales of "local foods," whether sold direct to consumers at farmers markets or through intermediaries such as grocers or restaurants, amounted to $4.8 billion in 2008. That's a number several times greater than earlier estimates, and the department predicts locally grown foods will generate $7 billion in sales this year.”

The USDA report sends an encouraging message for those who care about local food production as a solution in part, to our broken food production systems. The billions of dollars in sales of mainly fruits and vegetables is an impressive number but is only a small percentage of total food sales in the United States. Still, if you take a closer look, the impact regionally is impressive. For example, farms on the West Coast (California, Oregon and Washington) produce 56% of the fruit, vegetables and nuts nationally and account for 31% of local food sales, due to a long history of farmer's markets and farm-to-grocer networks (since the 1970s) in that region.

Urban Agriculture: Coming to a City Near You?

The report also contains some interesting data about the makeup of the farms that supply local foods and the regions in which they are clustered: the West Coast and Northeastern United States. Not surprisingly, small farms (farm size is based on sales) use direct-to-consumer sales as their primary market venue. Medium farms are more likely to use a combination of direct sales to consumers and intermediary sales (to grocers or restaurants).

Large farms exclusively used intermediary channels for their produce and tend to be located away from urban areas, whereas small and medium farms are found closer to the urban areas they serve. Large farms make up only 5% of farms with local food sales. Although the large farms had higher sales in total dollars overall, the small and medium farms had less costs for transportation since they are located closer to their consumers. Small farms appeared most likely to reach profitability sooner than medium or larger farms, even though their dollar value in sales is less.

The report concludes that:

"Findings suggest that local food sales have the potential for community economic development in certain areas of the country, particularly those close to urban areas."

This movement has been quietly growing for some time through the dedication of committed individuals. Organizations such as Slow Money, the Fair Food Network, Local Harvest, and scores of others that are devoted to expanding urban agriculture and local food networks already know that the economic benefit is real and viable.

You can download the 38 page PDF report at here.

Reference:
S.A. Low and S. Vogel, Direct and Intermediated Marketing of Local Foods in the United States, November 2011; Economic Research Report Number 128, USDA.

Heirloom Bean Project Wrap Up

2011-11-14T09:07:00.000-08:00

Growing Heirloom Beans

Last summer I grew several bean varieties for my self-designed heirloom bean trial; my goal was to see which grew best and to choose a few to expand in the next season. I want to grow enough to have dry beans for cooking over the winter. Why the excitement? I think it's fantastic to be able to grow a tasty and healthy protein source in my own suburban back and front yards. Besides that, I love the versatility of cooking with beans, and the varieties are endless if you venture beyond the grocery store.

Home grown: Good Mother Stallard, Cranberry, and Italian Butter beans (left to right)

Bean Trial Results

Now that it’s fall the results are in: a total yield of almost four pounds of beautiful dry beans of several types. That's more than I expected since I didn't grow very many of any one type for my trial. In all I tested seven runner beans and five varieties of common beans.

Runner bean varieties: Scarlet Runner, Ayocote Morado, Ayocote Negro, Alubia Criollo, Cannelini Runner, and Gigandes.

Common beans: Cranberry, Hutterite Soup, Good Mother Stallard, Tiger's Eye, and Hidatsa Shield Figure.

The seeds came from three sources, Rancho Gordo, Iacopi Farms, or Seed Savers Exchange.

Another motivation for growing some of these is that they are not widely commercially available. You won’t find most of these, if any, in your supermarket. It’s extremely satisfying to be able to propagate them on a small amount of land, my suburban garden for example. I highly value being part of the grassroots movement to grow lesser known food plants to keep them from extinction.

A trellis of Italian Butter beans attracted many types of pollinators

Favorite Beans to Grow

It's going to be hard to choose only a few types to grow in quantity next summer, but I do have some favorites. We loved the Italian Butter Bean from Iacopi Farms in Half Moon Bay, near the SF Bay Area. Iacopi Farms sell at our farmer’s market every Sunday, and they are the only vendor with dried beans for sale. I grew about 18 plants around two trellises in our front yard, which attracted a lot of bees. It turns out that the vines are beautiful, vigorous, and produce an abundance of long lasting cascading white flowers. I enjoyed telling admiring passersby that these lovely vines were actually bean plants! I harvested almost a pound of dry beans.

Italian Butter beans sauteed in olive oil with fresh corn and garden basil

The cooked beans are creamy and luscious when sauteed in olive oil with freshly cut sweet corn off the cob and fresh garden basil or tarragon. Otherfavorites are the Hidatsa Shield Figure and Tiger's Eye. Thesebeautiful rare beans have intriguing histories. The Hidatsa Shield Figure beanwas grown by the Hidatsa tribe in the Great Plains region, and Tiger's Eye is anew world bean that originated in Argentina or Chile. It's worth expanding thesmall amount of seeds I got into a bigger crop next year.

Butfor now, I look forward to enjoying my dry beans well into the winter withtasty satisfying dishes.

Photos by Urban Artichoke

This post published @: EAT, DRINK, BETTER

Be Your Own Seed Bank: How to Save Seeds

2011-10-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

My saved seeds from the lovely Hidatsa Shield Figure bean

As we celebrate World Food Day on October 24th, I’m especially thankful for one of life’s most precious gifts: seeds. Seeds are magical and mysterious in that our future rests in them. Without the thousands of varieties of useful plants we cultivate for their products, human civilization would simply cease. We could no longer feed ourselves nor our animals.

Preventing the extinction of a wide variety of food plants is not just romantic and historically interesting, it’s a matter of ensuring a healthy future for humanity. As industrial agriculture becomes increasingly focused on growing fewer and fewer varieties of food plants, home gardeners play an unexpected important role in propagating and saving old varieties of vegetables, fruit, and herbs by continuing to grow them, sharing the seeds and providing the seeds to organizations such as Seed Savers Exchange.

Label your saved seeds carefully; you'll be thankful when its planting time!

Seed Saving Basics
If you have never had the pleasure of saving seeds and planting them the next season you are missing one of life’s simple and deeply gratifying pleasures. Fall signals the prime time for saving seeds and it is not difficult for many popular garden plants; all you need to know are a few basics. Try starting with easy seeds such as beans, nasturtiums, and basil, for example.

First, remember that the plant you intend to save seeds from must be an open pollinated type and not a hybrid. If it is an heirloom type it is open pollinated.

Follow these key steps:

1) Make sure you let the seeds stay on the plant until they reach full maturity. For example: if you pick bean pods while they are still green you may as well eat them, because the seeds won’t germinate!

2) Let mature seed pods or flower heads dry on the plant as much as possible. The timing is tricky in some cases because you need to collect the pod or flower head before it begins to release its seeds. In general, wild plants disperse seeds very efficiently with clever spring-loaded pods (poppies) or flower heads that fall apart readily to be transported by animals or blown away (dandelions). Domesticated agricultural plants were bred and selected for seed collection and for food harvesting, so the pods stay intact.

3) After collection and harvesting the seed pods or flower heads must dried completely. This is very important to prevent mold and spoilage. I like to keep my harvested collection in an open container in the house for a couple of weeks to make sure they dry out before extracting the actual seeds. Choose a cool dry spot out of direct sunlight.

4) Next, remove the seeds being careful not to damage them, and discard any debris. At this point I leave them to dry some more (a week or two) then store in a labeled airtight container. If I have a small number of seeds of different types I put them into labeled envelopes then put these into a jar with a lid.

Calendula flower seeds from a dried seed head.

It's a good practice to get in the habit of labeling your seeds with basic information that will be very helpful later such as: the exact name of the variety, where you got the parent plant or original seeds, and the year of collection. You'll be amazed at how fast your collection will grow, and you'll enjoy sharing them.

There are good reasons for saving the seeds of your favorite food plants besides just the fun of it: perhaps you have a special heirloom variety that is in limited supply, or one given to you by a neighbor. Saving the seeds allows you to expand the number of plants for next year’s planting season, or to share them with others for years to come.

You might even create a new variety or cultivar from natural crossbreeding in your garden!

But most importantly, you will be a a part of a growing movement to save our agricultural biodiversity, all from your own home garden.

Jerusalem Artichokes: An American Native

2011-09-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Artichokes, (Helianthus tuberosus) a.k.a. Sunchokes, are actually in the sunflower family and native to North America. They aren't related to artichokes and didn't originate in Jerusalem, but their edible tubers do have a wonderful artichoke-like flavor.

Sunchoke tubers with globe artichokes: they aren't related!

They are very easy to grow and are crispy when raw in salads, and tasty cooked and pureed into a soup, mashed, or sauteed. If you like the taste, they are a great addition to your edible landscape. And as a bonus, Jerusalem Artichokes have pretty clusters of sunflowers and make lots of tubers to harvest in the fall.

Sauteed Sunchokes: Simple and Delicious
We recently dug up a couple of the tubers and tried them sauteed in olive oil with chopped garlic and loved the creamy texture and earthy flavor:

Scrub the soil off of the tubers, if you have trouble cleaning between the bumpy parts just break them up. You can peel some of the thin skin off but don't worry about getting it all. Slice the tubers about 1/4 inch thick. Warm up some olive oil in a skillet. Add the Sunchoke slices and cook on medium heat so that they don't burn- stir occasionally; it will take 5-10 minutes. Some chopped garlic is nice; add it at the same time as the Sunchokes and cook together. If the garlic begins to get too brown, remove it and add it back when the Sunchokes are done, or discard (the garlic will still add flavor to the oil).

Serve warm with some chopped parsley and a sprinkle of kosher salt, if you have some. This makes a great accompaniment to other cooked vegetables, and I can imagine adding it to pasta with sauteed mushrooms. Now we're exited about trying out more recipes this fall and winter.

Plant the tubers in full sun in the Spring for August flowers and fall harvest

Growing Sunchokes
We planted a couple of the tubers last Spring on the side of our house where we had sheet composted to build up the soil over the winter. Sunchokes are a fall season vegetable so we had bought some at a local Whole Foods Market (check your farmer's market too) and kept them in a pot with potting soil over the winter. When Spring came I began watering the pot until the plants emerged, then planted them into the ground about an inch deep in a sunny spot.

A few tubers will divide into lots of edible tubers in one season

Ours grew a surprising 12 feet high and flowered in August. They are very prolific so be careful where you plant them, although they're easy to dig up, and you'll enjoy having a good supply to eat!

Taking a Walk for Global Hunger Relief on 9/11

2011-09-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,
Urban Artichoke will be joining the SF Bay Area community of Buddhists on a walk to raise money to feed the hungry on Sunday, the anniversary of 9/11.

This charity event is organized by Buddhist Global Relief, an organization founded by Bhikkhu Bodhi. I first became inspired by Bhikkhu Bodhi, after listening to an audio recording of a talk he gave at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City on living with chronic illness and pain. His personal path with suffering led him into action to work to relieve the suffering of others.

To sponsor me on the walk please use the "firstgiving" icon on the left of this page; my personal goal is $1000; I've donated the first $100...

Here is an excerpt from the Buddhist Global Relief web site:

"In 2007 the American Buddhist scholar-monk, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, was invited to write an editorial essay for the Buddhist magazine Buddhadharma. In his essay, he called attention to the narrowly inward focus of American Buddhism, which has been pursued to the neglect of the active dimension of Buddhist compassion expressed through programs of social engagement. Several of Ven. Bodhi’s students who read the essay felt a desire to follow up on his suggestions. After a few rounds of discussions, they resolved to form a Buddhist relief organization dedicated to alleviating the suffering of the poor and disadvantaged in the developing world..."read more

Thank you for reading Urban Artichoke and supporting efforts to relieve the suffering of the hungry and those in need.

Is Gardening for Girly Girls?

2011-08-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

Women's gardening tools: not for sissies

I'm pleased to give a shout out to the blog Garden Rant and the response they posted to an article by Peg Aloi in the Huffington Post that linked their web site. The Huff Post writer is apparently of the opinion that gardening is a "pastime of yesteryear".
I had fun with this one, read it at Ecolocalizer and see what you think.

Here's an excerpt:

"The edgy, axe wielding, shovel toting ladies over at Garden Rant blog have a lot to rant about, namely, an article by Peg Aloi published in the Huffington Post last week."

"Aloi’s article laments that women have deserted feminist principles as evidenced by their blog subjects, and cited Garden Rant as an example."

"Bad move Peg. You should have known better than to pick on the Ranters."

Using a Soil Blocker: Start Your Fall Garden

2011-08-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

A Soil Blocker is a great gadget for setting up your seedlings in flats

When August arrives it's time to get our cool season veggies started for fall. This year I'm getting a head start on planting seeds by using a soil blocker. The soil blocker is an easy to use and eco-friendly way to set up seedlings for your garden projects, any time of year.

August typically sneaks up too soon while I'm still distracted watching my tomatoes and peppers ripen, but this year I'm determined to give my fall garden crops a head start before the first frost hits. I was jolted into action after reading Becky Striepe's blog Eat Drink Better, on starting her seeds for fall planting.

Newspaper is a gardener' best friend!

Luckily, I'm prepared to be a seed-sowing-machine thanks to my niece and awesome food blogger, Janina Larenas. She gave me a soil blocker, a clever device that will extrude blocks of moist potting soil ready for planting seeds; make as many as you need, when you need them. My soil blocker forms four blocks at a time, with small dimples on the top for placing the seed.

There is no need for plastic six-packs or other individual containers. I used some old flats I got free from my local nursery to set up the soil blocks and used damp newspaper to line the flats and help keep the soil moist.

Read the full post..

Heirloom Bean Project: August Update

2011-08-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

Clockwise from left: Hidatsa Shield Figure, Good Mother Stallard, Hutterite Soup, Tiger's Eye

It's early August and the heirloom beans I planted in May and June have been flowering and forming pods. A few of the pods are starting to mature and dry so that I can have a peek at the bean seeds. Some of the beans are really beautiful colors, and it's been exciting to see how the seeds transform from tender green beans that look very much the same, into spectacularly colorful seeds. But more on seeds next month when it's harvest time.

Sheet, or "sandwich composting" was a great way to prepare the soil for my bean trial

The side of our house was a perfect place to plant several types as a test to see how they do in our region (see sandwich composting post, "Soil Magic..."). I plan to choose a few to do a larger planting next summer, perhaps with the more rare bean types (such as Tiger's Eye and the Hidatsa Shield Figure).

Italian Butter Beans have abundant white flowers

The Italian Butter Bean is a runner bean, as I discovered, and has large, showy white flowers. They were beautiful on a trellis in my front yard garden, and attracted a lot of admiration on our Edible Landscaping Tour. As you can see, the carpenter bees love them too!

Italian Butter Beans pods are large and fibrous

I bought the dry Italian Butter Beans at our farmer's market from Iacopi Farms. They produce typical runner bean pods: large and fibrous. I can't wait to see the dry seeds- they should be a soft white, similar to the Cannelini Runner that I bought from Rancho Gordo.

Good Mother Stallard grew well and have plentiful pods that will be beginning to dry soon. I hope to have enough to save seeds and have some for cooking! The dry beans are very pretty: maroon with white swirls (see photo at top).

Edible Landscaping in Silicon Valley: Reviving the Valley of Heart's Delight

2011-08-02T21:42:00.000-07:00

Technology companies, sprawl and suburbia may have replaced the fields of prune, apricot, cherry and walnut tree orchards that once graced what is now my neighborhood, but local food production is beginning to slowly return to our region.

Silicon Valley may again one day be referred to as the "Valley of Heart’s Delight”, its former nickname from back when the area's local landscape was dominated by rich, diverse food production and stunning natural beauty.

Edible Landscaping by Example

Last weekend Common Ground's 5th Annual Edible Landscaping Tour featured 10 beautiful and creative home gardens from Menlo Park to Mountain View on the SF Peninsula, all with an emphasis on organically grown vegetables and fruit.

This popular event continues to attract a growing number of eager attendees ready to learn how to transform their suburban gardens and grow their own food.

Chez TJ's Chef Joey Elenterio and Louise Christy, gardener

Read the full post

Useful Tips for Avoiding Jail Time while Vegetable Gardening in Your Front Yard

2011-07-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

Grow flowers among your veggies

One of the Important Media blogs, Eat Drink Better, just wrote about a Michigan family who is being threatened with financial penalties and jail time for simply growing vegetables in their own front yard.

I am very much in favor of working to change such local laws that are misguided and often outdated; but in the meantime, the following tips may help keep you out of handcuffs.

So before you get caught picking cucumbers in your front yard, are slapped with a fine, and charged with a misdemeanor, here are some strategies you can try to disguise your subversive gardening acts. You can always resort to planting edible flowers and herbs among the veggies in your front yard, and Big Brother will be none the wiser.

Grow Edibles that Double as Ornamental Plants

I have Scarlet Runner Beans growing up an attractive trellis in my front yard. The showy scarlet flowers with lush green foliage attract attention and people are shocked to learn that, yes, they are also an edible heirloom bean.

Edible flowers: Calendula and Borage with salad greens

Plant Edible Flowers and Herbs

I love flowers so I plant them among my vegetables. There are many attractive edible flowers, including several that are grown strictly as ornamental plants: calendula, the violet family (including Johnny jump-ups, violas and pansies), roses, chrysanthemums, and nasturtiums, to name a few. Edible flowers make colorful additions to salads and desserts, and rose petals have many uses. For starters, you can make rosewater, sugared rose petals, and rose petal jam...

Read the full post on Ecolocalizer

Lima Beans- Not Your Ordinary Phaseolus vulgaris

2011-07-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

The beautiful and unusual Christmas Lima

Which would you rather eat, a dish made with lima beans or butter beans? Most people would agree that “butter bean” has a delicious ring to it, and that lima beans are notoriously yucky. In fact for many people lima beans conjure up an image of pasty, horrible beans that were part of a frozen vegetable medley served in school cafeterias, or worse yet came from a can.

And you may have guessed what I’m going to tell you next: butter beans are lima beans. Unless you are from the southern USA, this may surprise you. And in case you think beans are all alike and interchangeable, lima beans, or P lunatus, are a separate species from the common bean, P. vulgaris, and were named after the capital of Peru, Lima. They have their origins in the New World as common beans do, but they were domesticated far earlier. Similar to common beans, limas were also cultivated by Native Americans before the colonists arrived and were eventually introduced into Europe...

Springtime Brings Fava Beans

2011-06-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

Fava beans are a fantastic cool weather cover crop used to improve soils by many gardeners and farmers. But in my garden we grow them every year to eat them as a spring delicacy. We can hardly wait as we watch the pods getting bigger and bigger as the weather gets warmer. The tender beans are wonderfully buttery - try them boiled for a few minutes, drain them and add a bit of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and perhaps some lemon juice. My favorite way to eat them is to make a simple but delicious warm salad by adding fresh chopped tarragon from the garden, diced red onion and cooked baby potatoes.

Pureed favas with seared scallops and fava leek soup

Fava Bean Recipes

That said, our fava crop inspired my husband and I to come up with some tasty but simple ways to enjoy and celebrate our beans.
Scroll down past the "how to grow" below to see the recipes form our “fava bean challenge”!

Growing Fava Beans

Fava plants like cool weather and they do well grown over the winter in our temperate California climate, and they tolerate frost. I plant them in October for edible beans beginning in April. In California they are also planted in early spring for a crop in the summer. The pods are large and the beans swell quickly to eating size after they appear. After harvesting the beans as they mature in waves over a few weeks (about 4-5 weeks), we cut down the stalks and add them to our compost pile for valuable green manure. But we also let a few pods dry on the stalk to use for the next season’s planting.

Fava Beans as a Cover Crop

Fava beans are members of the legume family, which are known as “nitrogen fixing” plants, and they don’t require nitrogen fertilizers, in fact they return nitrogen to the soil if you turn the plants under when they flower (the nitrogen is fixed in the nodules developed at the roots). The tall plants can reach 6 feet high and are elegant with white flowers like giant pea flowers with black spots. The flowers are edible, and taste like raw peas (try a few in your salad). Since the plants grow tall and bushy, they provide a lot of biomass to recycle back into your garden through composting. They also attract many types of bees.

Fava bean pods ready for picking in my suburban garden

The UC Davis Small Farm Program has some great information on fava beans:

“Fava beans are also called Horse, Broad, Windsor, English Dwarf Bean, Tick, Pigeon, Bell, Haba, Feve and Silkworm beans. It is similar in size to the lima bean and is native to the Mediterranean region, especially Italy and Iran. It is one of the oldest cultivated plants known, with its culture extending back to prehistoric times.”

“In addition to the organic matter benefit, the leguminous nature of fava beans can provide large amounts of nitrogen to the soil benefiting existing perennial crops such as orchards or subsequent high nitrogen consuming annual crops.”

Fava Bean Recipes:

The amounts in our recipes are approximate; use them as rough guidelines. To cook the fresh beans, add them to the pot when the water begins to boil (just use enough water so they are just covered) and let them simmer for just a few minutes (3 to 5 minutes should fine), then drain them.You are then ready to make any or all of the following dishes below.

Note: If the beans are tender I don't bother peeling the skin off of them; if you have large beans that are tough, you may want to spend the time to peel the skin off after cooking them.

Fava bean crostini with whole wheat walnut bread

Fava Crostini

1 cup coarsely chopped cooked favas

1 tablespoon diced red onion

A sprig of fresh tarragon, chopped, or other fresh herb that you like (basil, cilantro)

1 clove garlic, grated into a couple tablespoons of olive oil

Kosher salt

Olive oil

4 thin slices of good rustic bread, this is delicious on a hearty bread like Acme's Whole Wheat Walnut.

Toast the thin slices of your bread in an oven or toaster. We used our local Acme’s whole wheat walnut bread which was delicious with the favas. After it’s toasted brush with the olive oil and garlic mixture. Put the chopped fava beans, diced onion, and tarragon in a small bowl and drizzle with some olive oil and mix it gently with a spoon. Spoon it onto the bread slices and enjoy! A couple of slices per person makes a great appetizer.

Fava bean and leek soup with croutons

Fava Bean and Leek Soup with Acme Whole Wheat Walnut Croutons

Small amount of vegetable broth or water to thin the soup

2 cups each of thinly sliced leeks and cooked favas

Acme’s whole wheat walnut bread or other rustic bread

Chives and crème fraiche optional for garnish

Saute the thinly sliced leeks on low heat With olive oil for several minutes until they are very soft, then add the cooked fava beans and sauté for two more minutes. Add about half a cup of vegetable broth or water and use a stick blender to purée the soup. Add more liquid if you would like a thinner soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To make the croutons chop thick slices of the bread into squares about an inch across. Posts of these in the oven on a cookie sheet. When you take them out of the up and brushed with olive oil with crushed garlic if you wish.

Ladle your soup into bowls, add a few croutons and a dollop of crème fraîche and chopped chives if you like.

Fava puree with seared sea scallops

Fava Puree with Seared Scallops

1 - 2 cups of cooked fava beans

Olive oil

Kosher salt

Large sea scallops, 2-3 per person

Puree cooked favas in a hand-cranked food-mill (this is a quick way to remove the skins on the beans). Season with olive oil and salt.

Sear the scallops in a hot pan on both sides until almost cooked through. Put a pool of your fava puree on a plate and put the scallops on top. Grilled or sautéed asparagus goes nicely with this and is also a spring vegetable in season!

Fresh Fava Beans: Enjoy Them While They Last

Try planting a few fava bean seeds for a cool weather crop or find them at your local farmer’s market now and relish this special spring delicacy.

Photos: Urban Artichoke

Growing Not So Common Beans

2011-06-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

You are probably familiar with pinto, navy, and kidney beans, but there are also scores of amazing unique bean varieties that you may have never heard of. Unless you specifically sought them out, you wouldn't be familiar with the not-so-common beans as you won't find them on your grocery store shelf. These special beans are heirlooms that have been preserved and passed down from generation to generation.

Heirloom seeds are often grown in very small quantities, and the seeds are then saved and exchanged with friends and neighbors. There are a few specialty suppliers from which you could order a handful of select heirloom bean seed packets for propagation; but these are not usually sold in quantities large enough to make a meal. Most large scale corporate farms do not cultivate heirloom legume varieties, intentionally favoring just a very few cultivars; this is why we should grow and save heirlooms seeds, and not let the beautiful plants become extinct.

Phaseolus vulgaris
Botanically speaking, common beans are classified as Phaseolus vulgaris, and are native to the Americas. One of these legumes, the Hidatsa Shield Figure bean has been passed down to us through the Hidatsa people of North Dakota, one of the Plains Indian tribes. This bean was grown in the “three sisters” tradition together with corn and squash; the cornstalk provided the pole for this climbing bean, and the squash provided ground cover.

The integrated cultivation is described in the book Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, an historical journal detailing life in the Hidatsa tribe, as told to the anthropologist Gilbert Wilson by Maxi'diwiac, or Buffalo Bird Woman, in the early 1900s...

....the choices we have for what we eat are vast and far outnumber what is commonly offered in the supermarket.
See the full post at Ecolocalizer

Soil Magic with Sandwich Composting

2011-06-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

It might seem highly improbable that just a pile of cardboard, newspaper and grass clippings will magically turn into beautiful rich soil, but that is indeed what actually happens. I saw it with my very own eyes. In our quest to find more space to plant vegetables in our ever expanding garden, we did a trial sandwich composting project on the sunny, but weedy side of our house last October.
Now in spring, our simple compost sandwich has really turned out beautifully. This low-labor compost making method appealed to me instantly. I used Chris McLaughlin's system as a guide:

• You don't have to pull up the weeds or other foliage first or dig the soil in anyway, just knock down any plants and leave them in place.
• Next you will add layers of flattened cardboard (about 2 inches thick), then
• Sheets of newspaper printed with soy-based ink (about 10 sheets thick)
• Add green materials such as grass clippings, plant material, or kitchen vegetable waste (about 4 inches worth, 2 inches if using grass clippings)
• Finish by covering with topsoil or compost

It is very important to sprinkle everything with water between layers, and adding topsoil or compost between layers helps speed up the process. Then leave it alone for a few months and let the de-composers go to work.

Read the full post

Runner Beans: the Original Magic Bean Stalk

2011-06-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

Pink and black mottled Scarlet Runner Bean seeds

The Scarlet Runner bean has won a very special place in my heart. It is lovely as a trailing ornamental garden plant, and also provides delicious edible pods and beans. Another wonderful quality of runner beans is that they are also a perennial vine, meaning beans will grow all year round in mild climates, and do not have to be resown. In our area (hardiness zone 9) the beans die back with the first frosts of winter, then reemerge in the spring.

These legumes are able to do this because runner beans, P. coccineus, are a different species than the so-called common bean, P. vulgaris (cranberry bean, pinto bean, etc.). Runner beans develop large starchy underground tubers and common beans don’t. Another big difference is that runner beans like cool weather and they won’t set pods in hot climates, but you will have the attractive vines and flowers. To get pods they should be grown as a cool weather crop.

Scarlet Runner flowers - these are growing in a pot in my backyard

There are other varieties of runner beans besides the popular Scarlet Runner: purple, black and white runner beans are also available (the color refers to the seeds, not the flowers, unlike the Scarlet Runner). Runner beans in Nahuatl is “ayocotl” or in Spanish “ayocote“. The Ayocote Morado is the purple runner bean and the Alubia Criollo is the White Runner Bean.

Beans originated in the Americas, an were then introduced into Europe from the New World, where other cultivars were developed, such as the Italian Cannellini Runner and the Greek Gigante (both runner species).

Try this test to find out if you have runner beans: sprout the bean in some soil. When a common bean germinates, the cotyledon emerges above the ground (these are embryonic leaves which are the halves of the seed) and the true leaves develop afterward. If it’s a runner bean the cotyledon will stay in the ground and the true leaves rise up directly out of the soil.

A bean seedling with the cotyledon

So what are the implications to the gardener? You can plant runner beans in a permanent spot in your garden where they will trellis up 10-12 feet as beautiful lush vines with pretty flowers that attract hummingbirds and bees. If you live in an area where the ground freezes in winter, you might try digging up the tubers and storing them somewhere where they won’t freeze, then replant them in early spring.

If you want to save the seeds simply let the pods dry on the vine then shell them and store in a cool dry place. Runner beans tend to cross pollinate easily with other runners, so to save seed that will be true to the type you originally planted, you’ll have to cover them with a protective mesh before the flowers open to keep out pollinators, and then hand pollinate. But if you grow them from the tubers, this will not be an issue.

Next in this series: “Common beans” that are not so common

Reclaiming Our Heritage: Growing Heirloom Plants and Saving Seed

2011-05-23T15:59:00.000-07:00

Heirloom beans I'm growing this year, clockwise from left: Hidatsa Shield Figure, Good Mother Stallard, Hutterite, and Tiger's Eye

The popularity of heirloom fruits and vegetables is much deserved; their flavor, variety, and beauty are clearly superior. But there are also other compelling reasons to preserve heirloom edibles, and they have serious implications for our future.

Organizations such as Seed Savers Exchange are dedicated to actively preserving the legacy of heirloom plants by operating a seed bank and a heritage farm for propagation. Most important, however, is their large grassroots membership of local gardeners and farmers that continue to grow and save seeds of heirloom edible fruits and vegetables:

"The genetic diversity of the world's food crops is eroding at an unprecedented and accelerating rate. The vegetables and fruits currently being lost are the result of thousands of years of adaptation and selection in diverse ecological niches around the world.
Each variety is genetically unique and has developed resistance to the diseases and pests with which it evolved. Plant breeders use the old varieties to breed resistance into modern crops that are constantly being attacked by rapidly evolving diseases and pests. Without these infusions of genetic diversity, food production is at risk from epidemics and infestations.”

Read the full post

Gardeners Help End Hunger in Their Communities

2011-05-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

It's planting time - this season plant a little extra to donate to your local food bank. In my city of Mountain View, CA go to the Community Services Agency with your home grown fresh produce, including herbs. You'll make a lot of people happy and healthy!

Growing food is a fundamental human activity and part of our social legacy that leads naturally to sharing the abundance with our neighbors. Planting extra edibles and donating the surplus for those in need is not only a simple way for gardeners to contribute to alleviating hunger, but it's also a way to feel a real connection to your community.

If you have any space at all to grow vegetables or fruit, you can have a significant impact on not only reducing hunger, but also on promoting better nutrition. Fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive when you are struggling to make ends meet and feed your family, but they are essential for better health and proper nutrition. All that is required is that you grow a little extra and donate what you don't need to your local food bank.

As our economy continues to flounder, and the number of people who go hungry increases each day, local produce grown from your backyard garden can make a big difference in the lives of others. Food banks, public service agencies, and charities are reaching out to the public to get donations of fresh produce to distribute to the hungry, and the home gardener plays a key role. In addition to suburban gardens, community and school gardens and even company gardens can make produce donation a special part of their gardening programs.

How to Share Your Harvest

Programs such as "Plant a Row for the Hungry", started by the Garden Writers Association (GWA) as a public service project, highlight that there are over 84 million households in the USA that have yards or gardens, and if each of them planted just one extra row of vegetables and donated the produce to their local food bank or other service agency, significant progress would be made towards reducing hunger.

The GWA provides guidance and support on how start a program at the local level. There are now numerous local Plant a Row for the Hungry projects throughout the country, and to date over 14 million pounds of produce has been donated by gardeners.

At the Community Services Agency (CSA) in Mountain View California, on average over 200 people a day shop at the agency’s Food and Nutrition Center for food to supplement what they and their families have to eat. The most popular items are fresh fruit and vegetables, and often there are not enough of these to distribute. Even donations of fresh herbs are welcome, and most gardeners have an abundance of prolific herbs (oregano, thyme, mint, basil, etc.).

We recently brought a big box of Meyer lemons from our large tree and bundles of freshly cut organic herbs to the Community Services Agency in Silicon Valley. As we laid our donations out several people immediately began taking handfuls of fragrant herbs and seemed most delighted to have them. It was very obvious that fresh produce is very much in need and appreciated.

The Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties also requests donations of produce, which they distribute to other food distribution agencies:

"By sharing fresh fruits and vegetables lovingly grown in the backyard, the community can help nourish their neighbors in need."

They have also partnered with Village Harvest, an organization of volunteers that will come to your house and harvest surplus fruit from your trees for donation to food banks.

Transforming Ecosystems and Local Communities

Gardeners not only have the power to transform their local urban and suburban ecosystems into thriving habitats while growing food, we also have the power for transformative social good. Most gardeners would be happy to contribute their surplus garden produce to feed the hungry, but the challenge is raising awareness about this simple but critical act of caring for the poor that makes an enormous difference in the health and nutrition in our local communities.

Find your local food bank today and get the most out of growing your own food – share it with others!

This post was published on Ecolocalizer

Inspiration for Designing Edible Gardens

2011-04-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

In our area we are fortunate to have the annual Edible Landscaping Tour, put on by Common Ground Garden Supply and Education Center in Palo Alto, California. Now in its fifth year, this popular tour of ten home gardens, plus the Common Ground demonstration garden, will be held on Saturday July 23. Visiting different suburban vegetable and fruit gardens is a fantastic way to get inspired with great ideas; it is also a wonderful opportunity to see a variety of gardens, from no budget DIY to those that have been professionally designed.

Gardening with Edibles is a Lifestyle

But beware, growing your own vegetables is the “gateway drug” to a more sustainable lifestyle. Households that grow food usually do so organically, to better protect the health of their families and the environment. They begin composting in order to feed their gardening habit, then go on to add efficient watering systems, (recycling gray water, drip irrigation, collecting rainwater). Next come worm bins, chickens and perhaps a backyard beehive. Soon a suburban micro farm is thriving where you would not have expected it, as rows of leafy lettuce and succulent fava beans replace what was formerly a perfectly manicured front lawn....

Read the full post at Ecolocalizer

The Greening of the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show

2011-03-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

The changing aesthetic in designs for suburban gardens was clearly reflected in the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show this past weekend, March 23-27th at the San Mateo Event Center.

Lush purple and green cabbages in a bed designed by Star Apple Edible Gardens of Oakland CA

Now in its 26th year, the show emphasized green lifestyles as expressed through gardening with edible and native plants. Besides featuring edibles in many of the twenty design display gardens, the show included a separate 6000 square-foot edible garden designed by Oakland-based Star Apple Edible Gardens.....

Read the entire post (more pictures!) at: Ecolocalizer

How Suburban Gardens and Local Action Heal the Planet

2011-03-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

Grow food not lawns

There is a growing grassroots movement in suburban and urban areas where the local action of growing food is beginning to profoundly transform our neighborhoods and our world. It begins first with a simple attitude shift, when we start thinking of our lawns and backyard gardens as opportunities for sustainably growing food. As we each start to plant a seed, we are healing not only ourselves, but the planet as well.

10 Ways Sustainable Gardening Practices will Positively Transform Your Neighborhood:

1. Turn “Waste” into Soil
Practices such as composting household waste builds healthy soil and reduces landfill: food scraps and other kitchen waste, paper and cardboard, and garden trimmings are recycled back into the soil. Productive gardens start with healthy soil...

This post was published on Ecolocalizer- read more

Growing Urban Artichokes

2011-01-27T22:51:00.000-08:00

Artichokes are a hardy perennial plant that can be simple to grow, as well as being a stunningly beautiful addition to your edible landscape. There are many varieties available to cultivate in your own backyard garden; though the Green Globe is by far the most popular in the United States. You might even say we have a monoculture of them.

Artichokes and Agriculture: Background
In the United States the reason new varieties of the green globe were developed was because commercially, an artichoke was needed that could tolerate a broader range of temperatures. Artichokes thrive best when temperatures are fairly mild, 55° F at night, with an average of daytime temperatures of 75° F. When the plants are young they require vernalization or chilling, at temperatures below 50° for as much as 90 hours to 240 hours in order to produce the edible buds.

Green Globe artichokes produce a crop twice yearly

Beyond Green Globe Artichokes

There are several different varieties of the Green Globe on the market, but there are also many types of purple and violet artichokes that you can grow. Many Italian families have historically raised an incredible diversity of heirloom artichokes, from Violetta di Chioggia and Purple of Romagna, to Romanesco Italian Purple. But if you want to eat some of these more unusual cultivars, you may just have to grow them yourself.

I became enamored with incredibly beautiful varieties of violet artichokes that I haven’t seen in my area; I’ve begun growing them myself, and am enjoying keeping the legacy of their diversity alive.

I found a violet artichoke plant at my favorite garden store, and I’m growing seedlings of Purple of Romagna with seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. You can find other organic seed suppliers that offer heirloom seeds for many different types of violet artichokes.

Key tips for Growing Artichokes

Artichokes have proven to be fairly easy to grow in our home garden. This is not so surprising, as we live a few miles north of Castroville, the self-described "artichoke capital of the world". If you don’t live in the coastal regions of north central California or the Pacific Northwest, your best bet is to do a little research to find a variety of artichoke that is best suited to your region, but here are some basics:

1. Artichokes propagate well from divisions taken from an established plant. If you plant them early in the year, you should get a fall crop. Seedlings planted in the spring will produce, as long as they have had the necessary amount of chill time.

2. Artichokes do well in fertile soil with good drainage, however they are known to be adaptable to different soil conditions. My plants have done well in soil amended with compost and chicken manure.

Artichoke plants have lush, showy, silvery leaves

4. In hot weather artichokes need frequent watering — if you notice the leaves drooping, make sure you give the plant a deep soaking.

5. Overhead watering is not recommended. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. Overhead watering seems to attract aphids; the plants did much better with slow deep drip irrigation at their base.

6. In order to control aphids plant nasturtiums a few feet away from the artichoke plants; these flowers will lure the aphids away from the artichokes. The yellow nasturtiums are supposed to be especially effective, but I have had success with a mix of colors. Spraying with any chemical pesticides is not necessary and not recommended.

7. To harvest your artichokes, watch the buds develop and as soon as you see any sign of the leaves beginning to open, they should be harvested. If it is a globe variety, the edible bud should have very tightly packed leaves. The elongated types of artichokes may have bud leaves that slightly open. You can also harvest the budding chokes when they are very small, for baby artichokes that are sometimes called for in certain recipes.

Slice fresh young artichokes thinly and saute in olive oil

8. The plants need plenty of room — mine are about 4 feet high by 6 feet wide. The large leaves are fragile and can break easily — be careful not to drag the hose over them.

9. When the leaves wilt and get yellow, just trim them off to keep the plant from getting too raggedy. The late fall is a good time to trim all the stalks way back to twelve inches or so.

10. In the SF Bay Area artichokes do fine over the winter and enjoy the rain; by January my plants have already grown back beautifully lush.

Artichokes will not tolerate temperatures below 25° F without protection. My farmer friend in Oregon grows them and he says they winter well insulated under the snow. So make sure that you mulch the plants to protect them through the cold seasons, and they may survive to grow again in the spring.

Artichokes are beautiful showy plants with elegant silvery serrated leaves. You can display them in your front yard and occasionally let some of the buds open into spectacular flowers. As a child, I grew up eating them often, and they continue to be one of my very favorite foods.

Photos: Urban Artichoke

This post was also pubished @ Ecolocalizer

Teen Gardener's Passion: Save the Planet

2010-12-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

My Aunt first introduced me to gardening when she showed me her vegetable garden. After helping her, my passion about plants and the health of the planet grew. I was inspired to create my own garden; first a vegetable garden, and then of California native plants. I'm starting a tradition for my family of growing native plants, and of following in the Native American's footsteps. I am helping to keep their knowledge of medicinal plants alive by sharing it with others, by collecting seeds, and by giving seeds to my friend Zach to sow. I introduced Zach in 3^rd grade to gardening. Even though he moved away in 4^th grade, he took his passion with him. We both don't know anyone but each other who garden like we do. Last month I let the flowers on my native plants dry, then collected the seeds, and sent them in the mail to him. Now we both have native plant gardens...

Sophia's Lavender Bee Balm

Continue reading Sophia's story at our new "MV Green Gardener's" web site

A Call for Edible Gardens in Mountain View CA

2010-10-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

Residents of Mountain View CA, I need your help! I have been given the challenge of finding gardens with edible landscaping in Mountain View, for next year's Edible Landscaping Tour, 2011:

This year I volunteered with Common Ground as a tour organizer (see my previous blogs). This year's tour was a great success and a lot of fun, however, as a resident of Mountain View I was disappointed that we did not have homes on the tour in my city. The homes in this year's tour which took place on July 24, 2010, were mostly in Palo Alto with one home in Menlo Park. The previous year, 2009, there were a couple of homes on the tour in Mountain View, including my own. So for next year's tour in 2011 I'm determined to have Mountain View participants. My colleagues on the tour team said it was difficult to find homes with edibles in the front and backyards south of Palo Alto- I would love to prove them wrong!

Photo: 2010 Edible Landscaping Tour: a recently remodeled backyard in Palo Alto; the photo above was taken in the Spring, the photo below is of the same bed taken during the tour in July.

Therefore, I need your help in finding homes with eligible gardens that are willing to participate in the tour scheduled for July 2011. I enjoyed participating so much in 2009 that I became a volunteer with Common Ground. If you enjoy gardening with vegetables and fruit around your home, and enjoy talking to others about edible gardening then you will love this tour. The people who sign up to visit the homes are very appreciative to have the opportunity to visit home gardens to gather ideas for their own landscaping projects, and to learn from other gardeners. We have received enthusiastic feedback about the tour, and it has become a very popular annual event and fundraiser for Common Ground.

Photo: A home in Palo Alto with friendly chickens; several homes had chickens, and one had bees (below).

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact me by posting in the comments field on this blog. I would be very happy to visit your garden if you would like feedback on whether it is appropriate for the tour. Features we look for are:

Edibles preferably in the front and side or backyard
Organic and/or sustainable practices (for example: composting, wise use of water, and other resources, etc)
A willingness to share your enthusiasm for gardening with edibles with visitors to your garden (the tour is one day only in late July, 11am to 4pm)

Photo: A backyard in Palo Alto CA: artichokes, fruit trees and vegetable beds, with a chicken coop in the background.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you and meeting other gardeners in my community!

Our Summer's Bounty in Pictures!

2010-09-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

It's September, and I'm posting some end-of-season pictures of our edible garden. The new beds we installed in the front yard are thriving. I'm simply amazed at how they filled out so quickly, even with our cool Bay Area summer weather:

The "Stella Blue" Hokkaido squash in the foreground grew so big it's growing over our hedge in the front yard out to the sidewalk! And the bed on the other side of our front yard is just as lush with vegetables and flowers:

Out front we grew winter and summer squashes, Emerite string beans (bean teepee), Cranberry and Scarlet Runner beans for shell beans, basil, tomatoes, strawberries, Japanese eggplants (two types), Corni di Toro peppers, and lemon cucumbers- all in the beds you see here. Here's a pretty picture of a typical harvest for dinner (okay, I cheated- the carrots and Poblano peppers are from the backyard!):

I have to show a picture of the squash "escaping" from our front yard and out towards the street:

And here's a close up of the beautiful, blue-green, almost mature squash:

The Stella Blue Hokkaido is a kabocha (Japanese) squash- I've never seen this type in the grocery store. You can bet I'll try saving some seeds!

I hope this convinces you that edible landscaping in the front yard can be attractive, as well as a provider of abundant, healthy food for your family and neighbors. Besides sharing with my neighbors, I've been taking the extra bounty over to the Community Services Agency in Mountain View, which provides food for the needy in our area. I will definitely be planting extra from now on to share!

Gardens are naturally giving: in beauty, healthful living, and in healing the planet.
The more gardens the better!

Our Edible Neighborhood and the Edible Landscaping Tour

2010-06-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

The highlight of our gardening efforts was the summer of 2009 Common Ground's Edible Landscaping Tour, (see my first blog post: Transform your garden, transform your life) which inspired us to new heights in embracing our home as a microfarm. We participated by volunteering to show our garden, and so did our friend and neighbor, James. I highly recommend it! It's a one day event and benefits Common Ground, which deserves our support for the many positive benefits they provide to our community. (Full disclosure: as a result of the fun I had on last year's tour, I'm a volunteer on this year's tour team).

Photo: Enjoying the edible garden with tea time under the grape arbor.

The tour is now in its fourth year, and features ten homes in Palo Alto and surrounding cities (we live in Mountain View). It takes place on Saturday, July 24 this summer. Last year, we went on a pre-tour so that we could see the other participating gardens and I was simply amazed at the creativity and variety of of the gardens. It was a lot of fun to talk to the gardeners about their experiences and vision, and to gather ideas. Many homes also kept chickens, and some had beehives. All used organic practices and composting. Additionally, some had systems to recycle gray water for the garden. I was thrilled that all of this was going own in our area, and the tour is a fantastic way to discover and connect with this community. I also really enjoyed showing our garden to visitors and telling them how our ideas evolved, and the special challenges we tried to design around (we have two large dogs).

Our friend James inspired us into action to grow fruit and vegetables when we began to plan our garden remodel. His method was subtle but high impact. My husband and I are foodies, and James began leaving a variety of freshly picked goodies from his garden on our doorstep: bunches of fragrant basil, lovely ripe tomatoes and tender summer squash. We had originally planned to redo our front and back yards with native plants and plants that thrive in our Mediterranean climate. But James woke us up to the obvious- why didn't we include spaces for vegetables and fruit?

Photo: James and Claudine devote their front yard to growing fruit and vegetables for their family of five in Mountain View, California.

Photo: compost bins in the front yard provide fertilizer and soil amendment conveniently located near the vegetable garden.

I admired James and Claudine for their unapologetic approach to microfarming in our suburban neighborhood, where at least 90% of the homes have traditional landscaping with lawns and ornamental plants. I admit I was hesitant at first to turn our front yard into a vegetable patch. We would have to install beds for planting, since the area our lawn once occupied is covered by a dense network of roots from our fifty year old magnolia tree. James successfully turned his yard into a lush cornucopia of edibles, but could we? I also hoped to promote creative solutions for landscaping without lawns by example, so we took time to plan the design around features, such as flagstone walkways and the planting beds as a solution. I'm rewarded by the many compliments I get from passersby while I'm puttering around out front.

I'm now very excited about the changing aesthetic in suburban landscaping, which has to do with wise water use, reducing waste that goes to the landfill, and creating connectivity to what we eat. And did I mention I love gardens?

Photo: Our front yard with a planter for vegetables built with "green bricks"(Integrity Blocks).

The right side of our front yard (below) with new planting beds installed in June, and already yielding veggies in late July. A variety of culinary herbs and flowers have been planted around the flagstone path.

In our own neighborhood in Mountain View there are increasingly more homes moving towards edible landscaping. I've posted some examples of front yards below that are within a few blocks of our home:

One of the Furuichi brothers (the brothers are co-owners of the Los Altos Nursery) has planted citrus, cherry and avocado trees, plus squash and tomatoes in his front yard.

This detail view of a side yard on the corner of our block has a mini-orchard with citrus, apple and a pear tree espalier.

Another corner house side yard devoted to vegetables and fruit. This one has planting beds.

As James once explained: his primary motivation for growing vegetables was an "evil plot" to trick his three young children into eating more vegetables (it worked). So if you are intrigued and or seduced by the thought of growing your own, go on and give it a whirl. Be the James on your block. You just may end up transforming your life and your neighborhood.

Our Flowering Native Californians

2010-05-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest joys of our garden transformation is the diversity and abundance of wildlife it has attracted to our home. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we are fortunate to be surrounded by beautiful hills and low mountains with lots of preserved open space. The wildlife trickles down into the urban and suburban areas, especially where the right habitat exists. Growing plants native to our area is a sure invitation to the local fauna: different types of wild bees (plus honey bees), butterflies, many species of birds, lizards, and even salamanders. One of my special joys is the nesting pair of California Thrashers that moved in after we took out the lawn in the backyard. Bay Area residents all seem have their favorite stories about close encounters with raccoons, opossums, skunks. and deer (like the time we had a large fluffy raccoon walk into our house, and the possum living in our garage....).

But for the gardener, there are sound arguments for nurturing a diverse garden, instead of a monoculture of lawns (assumes no harmful sprays or other such chemical measures are used). In our garden we are still in the process of bringing more natives in. The flowers are often spectacular, as shown below (our Matilija poppy shoots flowers skyward ten feet high!) and many of them require very little water or special care, so those attributes are a big incentive.

One of my new favorites we planted last year is a Fremontia bush, from the Los Altos Nursery. Here it is revving up with a profusion of lemon yellow blooms that last into the summer. The bumble and carpenter bees go nuts!

The growing instructions are music to a Californian's ears: don't give extra water in the summer- you'll kill it. Of course for this young bush we gave some additional water last summer, we'll back off this summer. Another newcomer is the ceanothus, "Dark Star", from the Yerba Buena Nursery in Woodside (they sell only native California plants). Here it is covered with blue flowers- a favorite of bees of different types.

Our beautiful California poppies are a "must have". They seem to find their way into the garden on their own and they will reseed, but this year I bought some seeds to encourage them to spread.

This photo shows our classic gold poppies from my backyard, but in my front yard I have yellow and red variants coming in, (sown from seed, below) truly lovely in the sunlight! I saw a pink variety in a garden recently for the first time; I'd love to get some of those.

These wonderful reddish types have really taken to our front yard, much to my delight!

We also have two California Buckeye trees, one in the front yard and one in the backyard. Here is our biggest one bursting into flower in the front yard:

The showy white flowers in spikes have a wonderful perfume. These trees bud out in February, and by late April-early May burst with flowers. They lose their leaves early in the fall, and have beautifully graceful silvery branches for fall and winter.

As I mentioned, one of the best sources for California natives is the Yerba Buena Nursery. You can't beat the variety and sheer number of selections, and they have a knowledgeable staff to help. It's a bit of an excursion to get there as they are up on Skyline Blvd. in Woodside, but it makes for a nice outing. When we go up we often stop for breakfast or lunch at the cozy and quirky Alice's Restaurant, right up top where Woodside Road meets Skyline:

The food is good, it's surrounded by redwood trees and it's a mecca for the weekend biker crowd- a must!

The nursery is south of the restaurant, so you take Skyline Blvd. south about a mile or more and look for their sign on the right. Then it's a good mile or two down the narrow road to reach the nursery.

Besides the nursery offerings, they have a garden shop with lots of great books, items for the garden and gifts. They also have a tea shop and host "Farmhouse Teas"on selected dates.

Above: Yerba Buena's extensive selection of California native plants.

Another big plus is the extensive demonstration garden- here you can see the natives in action. They have different areas of established plantings that showcase different habitat types. Check out the beautiful large manzinitas on the hillside (I wonder how old they are?). There is also a pretty pond near a patch of irises. We bought a couple of these to put in our front yard. I was surprised at the many colors to choose from. I am often pleasantly surprised that there are perfectly gorgeous alternatives to non-native plants for the garden! Although gardening with non-natives is not a terrible thing as long as they are not invasive (spread to wild areas via wind or birds) and water hungry, by gardening with species native to our area we provide much needed habitat and nourishment for local wildlife, and for

Pacific Coast Hybrid Iris

A patch of shade-loving Trillum.

that we are repaid a thousand-fold by being enriched by their presence around our homes, and by creating balance in the garden ecosystem. The garden then becomes truly alive and thriving!

Spring Starts

2010-04-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

This year I tried starting my plants from seed. I've done that a bit in the past, but only with the really easy stuff- like string beans. I don't know why I thought it would be so difficult- surprise! It's not hard to do, for most of the plants I've tried so far. I have spent a lot of money buying seedlings in my lifetime so I thought it would be smart to save some money, plus I love growing things: I find it very satisfying and extremely addicting. Even though I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where the winters are pretty mild, we still get night temperatures into the 30's and maybe 20's, with frost. So that means even though we have a very long growing season and an early spring, most edibles are best started indoors if the night time temperatures are not reliably into the 50's (I just learned this). Since I don't have a green house or cold frame (do we really need these in our area you might ask?), I tried it out in the bay window of our dining room. As you can see in the picture, this is not very many plants, but it's a start- I ran out of room quickly! I used potting mix and an assortment of left over six-pack and other small containers saved from my purchases. The real secret to success is to keep the starts moist, and don't let them dry out (Renee's Garden web site has some tips with photos).

I started two kinds of sunflowers in February (too early I think), and these can be transferred outside soon. "Lemon Queen" is one I loved last year. It is a multi-branching type that gets lots of flowers about 5 to 6 inches across. They have pollen, so the bees love them too, in fact it is a highly recommended plant for attracting bees to the garden by the Great Sunflower Project (this is a volunteer participatory effort to gather data on bees). It makes a stunning addition to the summer garden. I'm trying "Chocolate Cherry" also, which has maroon flowers of the same multi-branching type, but sadly, no pollen. I've also started some Roman chamomile, the herbal kind, not the ornamental ground cover. I bought a small plant last fall and I love the wonderful apple-like scent of the foliage, and it produces a profusion of flowers to harvest for tea. The seeds sprouted easily indoors in plain potting mix.

I recently bought some seed packets at my favorite garden supply store, Common Ground. The seeds are from Renee's Garden. She has wonderful special varieties of flowers, herbs and vegetables, so I bought a bunch. This is Renee Shepherd, who also writes articles for gardening magazines and has a great web site. I was so inspired by her article on growing zinnias that I bought some of her zinnia varieties, and the couple I tried so far (Persian Carpet and Apricot Blush) have started just fine. She also notes how to collect and store the seeds for the next season's planting. The article is in a special edition magazine Starting from Seed published by Fine Gardening Magazine. It has lots of tips and how-to on seed collection and starting plants from seeds.

Other seeds I tried were her "Baby Mesculin Salad- Paris Market Mix". We are salad fiends in my family, and my goal is to keep a supply of salad greens in the garden all year round. (I was amazed to find that lettuce and other greens are not damaged by frost, at least where I live.) I sowed these directly outside in a barrel planter (covered with mesh to protect it from our bird neighbors).

The seedlings have already come up. This barrel has been great for some added space to grow lettuce and other greens that prefer cool temperatures. It sits under our silk tree, so it has some shade on hot summer days, and sun in the winter when the tree drops it's leaves.

To keep up the early spring spirit, I recently started some divisions of our beloved globe artichoke. It is in it's second year, and is actually made up of about 3 to 4 plants now. It produces twice a year, in spring and fall, and yields a surprising amount of artichokes, (which I tend to buy weekly when they are available). You can see my two starts in the picture below- one is for a friend, with whom we share plants and produce back and forth every year, and one is for my mother and sister's garden in Santa Cruz.

Speaking of sharing, another neighbor who lives down the street from us has a lovely place on the corner, and I always admired their gardens. They have a diversity of plants, minimal lawns, and a beautiful mini orchard on the side of the house (below). The picture shows how the young apple and citrus trees are leafing out. What a great use of front yard space! But they also have borage in the yard,

which I have been wanting to introduce into my own front yard. It attracts bees and it is said to be a beneficial companion plant, and may repel tomato worms (John Jeavons). The beautiful blue flowers are edible too. Since it self seeds easily, I didn't even want to spend money on a seed packet, so I asked our kind neighbors if I could take a small bunch from their garden. Of course they obliged right away, so I showed up with my spade and a bucket, and she grabbed a shovel and gave me a couple of big clumps (a liberty I was too shy to take in her garden!). Here is a picture of her borage in full bloom below, looking lovely amid the irises and California poppies. The borage is the plant with fuzzy looking stems and small star-like blue flowers. She told me that she had brought home another plant from her mother's garden, and the borage came as a tag-a-long and established itself in her garden. We got to chatting and she ended up giving me a dozen eggs from her family's ranch in Monterey, where her family has lived for 150 years. It was wonderful to share our love of plants and passion for gardening.

What a great start to spring...

Garden Features We Love Living With

2010-02-28T19:08:00.000-08:00

Two garden features we love are the pergola, which functions as an outdoor dining space, and the raised bed that we assembled from a kit for growing vegetables (dog-proof!).

Pergola (aka arbor):

The fellow who built a fence for us turned out to be the go–to-guy for building the pergola we envisioned (Peninsula Fence) :

Our ex-gardener (we no longer needed his services after we remodeled) laid the flagstone on sand, with some planting soil on top so we could plant wooly thyme in between (note: some types of sand are not compatible with planting).

We put a round tile-topped table with four chairs underneath the pergola. The roses were preserved to provide green “walls” with lovely flowers spring through fall, and grape vines quickly grew to start filling in the top. We’ve spent many a pleasant day since then having breakfast, lunch or dinner under the grape vines!

Modular Raised Bed Kit:

We needed a space safe from our lovely greyhounds for growing edibles. Maui and Zippo love to race around the backyard, which resulted in removal of the raggedy lawn we inherited with the house. They did us a favor and jump-started our backyard remodel, which included getting rid of water-wasting lawns, planting native and low water plants, and spaces for growing vegetables and herbs. We also added some young fruit trees and blueberry bushes.

We are not carpenters, and we both work during the week, so for us it was a great choice to order this kit from Gardens to Gro :

We liked that they are a mom 'n pop company, and that it would not have to ship too far (from San Diego to SF Bay Area). It came with wire mesh to lay down to foil gophers, and also with a watering system. It also has a cute gate, to keep out the pooches. We got the 20 inch high beds to minimize back strain while planting.

The beds have herbs planted around them, and they have provided fresh food year round. We are in our second winter with the beds, experimenting with what grows best and tolerates our frost, and we look forward to our third spring and summer coming up! By the way, we use no pesticides, and we are committed to keeping our yards free of that stuff- besides, we have found it's really not necessary. Common Ground, our local organic gardening center in Palo Alto, provided lots of inspiration and resources.

2010-02-21T14:13:00.001-08:00

Transform your garden, transform your life

2010-02-21T13:44:00.000-08:00

About a year and a half ago we finally started transforming our front and back yards from lawn dominant to low water, native and Mediterranean climate type of plants. Another focus was creating spaces for edible plants that were safe from our much loved greyhounds. Here are views of our lawnless front yard, which now has a planting bed for edibles and flowers (above) , and the other side of the front yard (below) is planted predominately with herbs and native plants.

We feel fortunate to live on the San Francisco Peninsula, where even though it's definitely urban, there is so much natural bounty to enjoy: backyard wildlife, gardens of various types, and easy access to locally produced food of an enormous variety. And the climate, of course, is fantastic for growing food, from vegetables and herbs, to fruit.

On these pages I'd like to share our experience turning our traditionally landscaped gardens into prolific kitchen gardens and as a bonus, creating habitat for the numerous birds, bees, lizards and other wildlife that naturally inhabits our area. I'll tell you about our favorite resources and lessons learned, and I hope to hear about yours in turn.

Here is our story as written when we participated in Common Ground's "Edible Gardens Tour" in the summer of 2009:

"When we bought our home in 2001, we inherited traditional ornamental landscaping in the front and backyards, including over 20 rose bushes. We have gradually redesigned the yards with fruit trees, vegetable and herb beds, and native and drought tolerant plants. We both grew up in households where cooking with fresh basic ingredients was the norm (Thierry immigrated from Belgium, and Patricia from Chile), and we enjoy growing a variety of vegetables and herbs organically for daily use year round. Our love of nature and a desire to maintain a thriving habitat for wildlife of all types, has also been a factor in our approach to landscaping, therefore we do not use chemical herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers.

Initially we consulted with two different landscape design firms, but ultimately decided to create our own plans. Our gardener and his crew worked with us to implement our vision by doing the preparation, drip systems, installing flagstone and crushed granite paths, and building the planter in the front yard. Thierry put his computer skills to use by drawing up the designs using Google Sketchup which provided detailed plans for the workers. We researched, acquired, and planted all of the plants, and we consider our gardens works in progress, as we make new discoveries on our favorite edibles.

The front yard features a large and very productive Meyer Lemon tree and a thriving ten year-old avocado tree nurtured from a sprouted pit from the compost pile. A planting bed constructed from “green” materials provides additional space for seasonal edibles, including a kumquat tree as a centerpiece. A spectacular stand of Matilija Poppy, and other natives have replaced a side lawn along the driveway.

We eliminated all of the lawn in the backyard (above) with the help of our two beloved greyhounds, and redesigned the yard so that it is compatible with four-legged family members while providing spaces for vegetable gardening, wildlife habitat, and an outdoor dining area under the pergola. A key feature is the raised bed planting unit we built from a ready made kit which includes a watering system, trellis, and a gate to keep the edibles safe from curious canines (below).

Young apple and pomegranate trees have been planted, as well as herbs for the kitchen. The pergola is framed by grapevines and is the perfect spot to enjoy the diversity of birds that share the garden. The shrubbery along the backyard fence was preserved as nesting habitat for them. An organically maintained rose garden supplies food for the soul (blueberry bushes have replaced some of the roses)."