Food Communities: Know Your Farm Supply Store

It's dark and the winds are howling out there, and I'm thinking about days to come that aren't dark and howling. That's right, I'm mapping out my veggie garden. Since I'll be getting most of my daily-eating veggies from my farm share, I'm focusing my own growing on plants that lend themselves to preservation. This means carrots, beets, and beans for pickling, basil and cilantro for pesto, and tomatoes for sauce and salsa. I will be supplementing my annual summertime jam-making with preserving of a more savory variety.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's only March, and it's garden-planning time. I've found that one of the best ways to start the process is by visiting the local farm and garden supply store. There are two in town that I really like: Urban Farm Store and Naomi's Organic Farm Supply. These are the kinds of places to go to if you want seeds, starts, and tools that are especially suitable for growing tasty things in Portland. The people who run these places are passionate about everything the urban homesteader might need to know, so they are a great resource when you're planning your garden. These are also the kinds of businesses where you can chat with the owner because they actually work in the store rather than in a corporate office. If you're looking for something in particular and they don't have it in stock, there's a good chance they'll be willing to order it for you. If you're wondering what the best tool for the job is, they can make a recommendation. If you have questions about which cucumber variety is best for pickles or what soil amendments to add to the raised bed, they can give you expert advice.

Early spring starts from Wildcat Mountain Farms, a grower of many
of the starts I've bought over the years.

One thing that makes these places stand out from larger nursery chains or garden centers is where they source their vegetable seeds. They carry seeds from local and regional growers, most of them organic. This is more important than most people think. Plant varieties that have thrived in the Pacific Northwest are much more likely to do well in your garden than ones that has been grown in the Midwest or Northeast. Our climate is very different from most of the country. We get farm more rain in the winter, which proves favorable to a number of fungal diseases. We also have a relatively short growing season (remember the cold and rain last June?), so heat-loving crops like tomatoes and peppers have trouble producing fruit before autumn arrives. Veggie varieties that have been grown in this climate by reputable seed companies tend to be resistant to fungal diseases and productive even in our short summers. What goes for seeds also goes for starts; you want veggies that were grown here in the valley, not shipped in from a greenhouse somewhere.

Both stores carry seed from several different growers, but Naomi's carries mostly seed from Uprising and Adaptive, and the Urban Farm Store carries mostly Uprising, Territorial, and Seed Savers Exchange. Of course you can order directly from any of these seed companies, but you can avoid shipping costs and support a local business buying in the store. Prices per seed packet are the same. Both stores re-order regularly and can add your special request to their order if you give them a few days advance notice.

Edible Horizons is another local grower that I recently discovered.
Don't those lettuces look delectable?

I'm sure I'll have more to say about both businesses next fall after I've spent more time perusing their shelves and pestering their staff for information, but for now I can say that both stores are good sources of information and supplies as you start your garden. The Urban Farm Store seems to have a more extensive selection of chicken-keeping supplies (including baby chicks....super cute); they've even published a book on chicken-keeping, which they use as a text book for their chicken keeping classes. They also had three store cats napping on bags of feed when I was there last.  Naomi is an expert when it comes to soils (she taught about it in an organic gardening certification class I took a couple of years ago), so I would recommend her shop if you're looking for soil amendments and fertilizers, especially if you want advice on how to use them. I also noticed she had a pretty dreamy display of garden tools when I was there last. Yes, I just described garden tools as “dreamy”.

Is there a good farm supply store in your neighborhood? What resources are you using to plan your garden?

Spring Cleanup: Fruit Tree Pruning

The last week has been very, shall we say, “entertaining” in the weather department. A week ago, we had snow. It was beautiful...but kind of ridiculous for mid March.

The irises were not amused.

Luckily it melted fairly quickly, and a few days later we are back to the business of springtime. Crocuses are up, trees are starting to bloom (firing up my pollen allergies, unfortunately), and it's time to get to those early spring garden tasks. One such task is prepping veggie beds for planting: pulling weeds, cutting back any perennials, tilling in cover crops, and raking aside mulch and tossing it in the compost bin. Cats like to think of this task as “preparing the giant litter box”. Depending on the cat population in your yard, you might consider putting down some chicken wire over the top of the newly-prepped soil. I'll be talking about more veggie garden tasks soon!

Forsythia, in all its garish glory, heralding the end of winter.

Another early spring task is planting and pruning fruit trees. On Saturday I attended one of the Portland Fruit Tree Project's workshops. This one was on selection, planting, pruning, and care of young fruit trees, led by Rick Shory (really knowledgeable...contact Rick if you want someone to whip your fruit trees into shape), and it was a great refresher for me, as well as a reminder to give some attention to my own plum and apple trees. When I arrived home from work today, the lingering sunshine beckoned me out to the yard, and I spent the next three hours climbing around in the plum tree and getting it cleaned up. I made an unfortunate discovery in the process. The tree is suffering from a serious case of bacterial canker. Big bummer. If you see signs of this disease in your plum, cherry, or peach trees, make sure to address it right away before it spreads and becomes systemic.  This is what one of the symptoms looks like: oozing wounds on the branches. If you catch it early, it's treatable.

Do you have fruit trees in your yard? Are you thinking of pruning them yourself? If so, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. With the exception of removing dead, damaged, or diseased branches, trees don't “need” pruning. Usually tree pruning is done for our benefit, not for the benefit of the tree. The “right way” to prune a tree will depend on what you want from it.
2. Trees may not need pruning, but they will respond to it in fairly predictable ways. Some of these responses may be counter-intuitive to folks who don't know much about trees. For example, hacking back a tree canopy will encourage it to put on a burst of new growth, not very helpful if you pruned it because you thought it was too big. (If you plant a tree that wants to be too big for your landscape, you are setting yourself up for a lot of work and potential frustration. Planting a smaller tree species is much wiser than planning to control a tree's size through pruning.)
3. For fruit trees, pruning is usually used to influence the shape/size of the tree for easier harvesting, or to influence the size/quantity of the fruit to your preference.  For young fruit trees, pruning in the first few years can be used to establish the overall structure of the tree.  Those first little branches will become the limbs that support the whole canopy down the road.
4. In our wet climate, fungal and bacterial diseases tend to be a problem, and one way to combat them is to encourage air circulation through the canopy. Thinning out some of the branches in the interior of the canopy can accomplish this goal, and it also serves to bring sunlight into the canopy so that fruit can develop there. Bonus!
5. Tree branches that grow horizontally tend to produce more fruit than those that grow vertically, so pruning out vertical branches or bending them into a more horizontal position can give you a more fruitful tree.
6. When trees produce fruit, their goal is to make seeds to reproduce, so they will tend to produce lots of small fruits. If you snip out about a third of the immature fruits while they are still small, then the tree will put all of its reproductive energy into the ones you leave behind, resulting in larger fruit.
7. If you do remove a branch, whether because it is diseased, crowding the interior of the canopy, or too vertical, make sure to cut it back to a vigorous bud or an intersecting branch. Leaving a stub will impede the tree's ability to grow over the cut and heal completely.
8. If you're cutting out a large branch, chop off part of it first to get it out of the way, then go back and do the final cut close to the trunk or intersecting branch. The weight of a large branch can cause it to break as you saw it off, and you don't want that to happen on your final cut. The final cut should be at the “branch collar”, or the thickened bark ridge at the base of the branch. There's a good illustration here.

Here's an example of how I applied some of the aforementioned principles to my plum tree. See the big branch shooting straight up in the middle of the canopy? I wanted to remove this one to bring sunlight and air circulation into the tree.

That vertical branch only produces fruit at the top of the canopy where I can't reach it.  Boo.

I started with a first cut to get most of the branch out of the way, and I didn't have to be careful that it was nice an tidy. I just chopped it off.

I had to climb the tree to do this cut, which made it extra exciting.  I live an action-packed
life of danger and adventure, people.

Next I went back in and cut off the stub neatly. Looks like it was never there!

But you know it was there, because you saw the evidence.  You'll notice I removed quite a
 few of the smaller branches since the first picture, too.

Hopefully we'll get more fruit inside the canopy now, and the shade under the tree will be more dappled, allowing for a healthier lawn underneath. For this pruning session, I was lucky to have a supervisor on hand to oversee the process:

She runs a tight ship, this kitty.

Have you done any pruning of fruit trees?  If so, how did it go?  Is there a specific type of fruit tree that you would like to know more about pruning?

Veggie Garden Crash Course

It has been a wild week of snow and cold, but the sun has come out today, spring is in the air, and I'm excited to announce the new service I'm offering to all of you would-be gardeners out there.  Below are the details:

You've had enough of winter and are ready to grow carrots, right?

PORTLAND VEGGIE GARDEN CRASH COURSE

For first-time gardeners (or busy folks that just want a helping hand with all those logistics)

Provides guidance through one full season of growing veggies on a 4x8-foot plot, featuring veggies that lend themselves to both fresh cooking and processing:

• tomatoes
• beets
• carrots
• green beans
• onions
• cilantro
• basil
• garlic *(if you're planning to roll over into next season)

The program will start (soon, in early April!) with all the seeds you need, plus instructions for building a raised bed (and where to go if you'd like one built for you) and tips on how to prepare the soil for planting. Harvests will begin around June 1^st and should continue through September and beyond. I will deliver tomato starts in June, when it's warm enough to plant them out. If you opt for rolling over into next season, I will deliver garlic in September.

This is an email-based service, so computer access is essential. You will get an email once a week throughout the growing season (April through October) outlining the garden task or tasks for that week. Once harvests are in full swing, emails will feature recipes to help you enjoy the fruits of your labor. You can contact me at any time via email to answer questions or troubleshoot problems. The course also includes one free half-hour visit to your garden during the season. I can help you choose a site for the garden, answer any questions you might have, or just take a look at how the garden is progressing and give you my thoughts. I would also be happy to make additional site visits at my regular rate of $50/hour, with free travel within the Portland metro area.

A few things you can expect to learn:

• how to maintain soil fertility organically
• how to time your planting so you can harvest a little bit each week
• how to build a trellis for beans and tomatoes to climb

• how to thin, train, and prune plants to maximize productivity and keep them under control
• how to know when veggies are ready for harvest
• what to do with all those fresh veggies
• how to use a cover crop to prepare for the next season
  

In late summer I plan to arrange a potluck gathering for all of you to meet each other, share your challenges and victories as rookie gardeners, and feast on the fruits of your labors. We have a great community of garden-lovers, and we would like to welcome you all into it!

Since this is my inaugural season, I will be offering the course at a discounted price of $170, which includes seeds and starts. In exchange for this discounted price, I will be asking for your feedback to help me shape future seasons of the course, so please share your thoughts and suggestions. My goal is to make this as useful and rewarding a service as possible to you and to my future clients. I want you all to end the season having enjoyed the process and feeling confident that you can do it again on your own!

*If you live outside of the Portland metro area and would like to participate, I offer a course that provides everything listed above minus the site visit and the starts. You will receive the seeds in the mail, and when the time comes to plant tomatoes, I will recommend what starts to buy and where to find them. The Remote Veggie Garden Crash Course costs $140, with the option of adding a site visit for the $50/hr travel fee.

Email me at courtney(dot)skybak(at)gmail(dot)com to sign up! Feel free to contact me through Facebook, too.  Registration deadline: April 4

Garlic scapes: you could have some of these delightful little curlicues in your garden!

In the Kitchen: Fridge/Pantry Staples

I mentioned in the last post that I get most of my veggies from a CSA, but that I keep other items handy in my kitchen so that I can easily adapt my meals to whatever arrives in my weekly share. Here are a few of them, in no particular order:

EGGS: Just about any pile of cooked veggies is better with a fried egg on top, and hard-boiled eggs are a great addition to salads. Eggs are my primary source of protein, nutritious (don't believe the stories about their high cholesterol being unhealthy) and cheaper than meat and fish. If you can get them from a local farm (or raise your own), then you will be guaranteed really tasty, high-quality eggs.

One of the joys of having a mixed flock of hens is that I get eggs in a fun
variety of colors and sizes.  At this time of year, they sometimes come with
a little extra mud, which luckily washes off easily.

AVOCADO: Great in salads, cubed on top of chili or spicy tomato soup, and also delicious on scrambled or fried eggs. Avocado is a great source of healthy fat, essential for brain development and many bodily processes. It's even good spread on toast. A dash of salt really brings out its flavor.

CHEESE: usually keep a good Parmesan and some tasty feta in the fridge. Both have a strong flavor, so a little bit goes a long way. Since you'll be using it in small quantities, you can afford to get the good stuff. I like

Trader Joe's for cheese, but there are plenty of other good sources. And it's important to buy organic! There are local dairies making some great cheeses, like this one, this one, and this one. Either of these cheeses can work miracles when finishing a dish, adding just the right touch of savory saltiness. I especially like using feta in salads together with pickled beets, avocado, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

BEANS (canned/dried): I usually keep garbanzos and black beans in stock. Both are good added to soups, and garbanzos are tasty in salads too. They can add a bit of extra substance to cooked greens. They can also both be made into creamy spreads like hummus, which make great additions to sandwiches and are much healthier for dipping carrots and other raw veggies in than ranch dressing or the like. I'll share my recipe for hummus (and a black bean translation) in a future post.

Beans!  Pretty little things, aren't they?

MILK: I like to drink tea, and occasionally eat oatmeal or cereal for breakfast, and I like to prepare both of these with milk. My milk of choice is cow's milk, but there are lots of great alternatives like goat milk or almond milk. I grew up drinking skim, but lately I've switched to the higher-fat versions, since the richer milks are more satisfying and can be enjoyed in smaller quantities. I recently learned that Oregon is actually one of the nation's leaders in organic milk production. Who knew?

BUTTER/OLIVE OIL/COCONUT OIL: Most meals I cook start with a hot pan with a little bit of healthy fat in it. When I'm frying eggs, I usually start with butter. Most veggie sautes start with olive oil. And if I'm searing fish over high heat, then coconut oil is the way to go. Butter is also great for baked goods (yummy, yummy flavor), and olive oil is indispensable in vinaigrette dressing. These are both great added to any cooked vegetables right before serving for a little richness.

YOGURT: I prefer the whole-milk European- or Greek-style yogurts. Again, this is something you'll be eating in small quantities, so get the good stuff, and make sure it's organic. I always buy plain so that I can sweeten and flavor it to my own taste with honey or jam. That way I can also use it as a condiment with savory dishes like curry or chili. (And yogurt mixed with pesto? My new favorite condiment for sandwiches and burgers.) It's great with granola for breakfast, too. Or stir in some lemon curd and you have a decadent dessert.

FRUIT: My CSA share doesn't provide much fruit, and I don't generally eat that much of it anyway, but it's nice to have a little bit of healthy sweetness around the house. This time of year, that means a bowl of clementines or a couple of grapefruit. In summer I usually pick berries and peaches at some of the local farms, most of which gets transformed into jam. My jam cupboard (yes, I have a dedicated cupboard) keeps me supplied with tasty sweetness and gifts for friends even when my favorite fruits are out of season.

I love clementines, and when they are in season (winter!) I consume them
by the handful.

DARK CHOCOLATE: Don't think I need to explain what this is for. Yum.

With the above items in my kitchen most of the time, it's pretty easy to come up with something tasty no matter what arrives in the farm share.

What are the staples in your kitchen?

Food communities – Know Your Farmer

I mentioned food communities in a previous post; if you know your grocer, maybe you'll get better groceries, or at the very least you'll have a better time doing your shopping. I'd like to suggest taking it a step further: know your farmer. Now there are a number of ways to do this. One is to go to the farmers market and chat up the folks at the various booths. You can meet some interesting people this way, and if you ask the right questions you can learn a lot about what grows well around here, what's especially tasty at a given time of year, and what it's like to farm for the local community.

Another way to get to know your farmer is to participate in a CSA. For those of you unfamiliar with the acronym, “CSA” stands for “community-supported agriculture”, and it's basically another name for a subscription farm share. I'm just finishing up my second season of participating in a farm share. I've shared a large family-size share with my close friend/neighbor and her husband. This was something I had intended to do for some time, and once I did it, it completely exceeded my expectations. I can honestly say it has completely transformed the way that I cook.

It took me a while to bite the bullet and join a CSA because I was daunted by the price. Most farms require paying up front for all or a significant portion of the season. That means writing a check for several hundred dollars, a bit much to ask for someone on a tight budget. But then I sat down and did the math. The big check was intimidating, but if I calculated the cost per week for a bag full of produce, it turns out I would be getting a great deal. As long as I cooked everything that I got, rather than letting things shrivel up in the crisper drawer, the farm share would be an incredible bargain. That means that a farm share only makes sense if you cook regularly...and it also helps motivate you to cook regularly to avoid wasting the tasty veggies that will soon be joined with another bag of tasty veggies next week.

These are the contents of my latest share (minus the butternut squash that I
roasted and devoured last night): beets, potatoes, squash, leeks, celeriac,
spinach, rapini, and mizuna greens.  Grown a few miles away, the greens all
picked a few hours before I picked them up.  Doesn't get much better than this.

There are three main things that I love about my farm share. One is getting to know the person who grows my veggies. The farm we belong to, Big Leaf Farm, is run by farmer Chris with the part-time help of his wife. Chris is an incredibly smart, thoughtful, and hard-working farmer. He's still pretty new to this CSA gig, but he seems to have a natural talent for it, and really cares about growing fantastic food for the dozens of families that have shares. He writes a great newsletter every week with updates on what's happening on the farm, recipes for what's in the share, and his thoughts on food politics and other issues pertinent to growing veggies.

The second thing I love about my CSA is that it has completely changed my process of deciding what to cook (and eat) each day. Instead of planning a menu for the week or a meal for the evening based on what I might be in the mood for (or what comes to mind as I rack my brain for ideas), I plan my meals based on what fresh veggies I received in my weekly share. And I use the term 'plan' loosely. This usually involves me standing with the fridge open, scanning the collection of roots, leaves, stems, and fruits that crowd the lower shelves. Then I pull a few out that seem like they might go well together and build a meal around them. This is the sort of thing that gets easier with practice, and it also works better if you can be open-minded about flavors and atypical combinations. Occasionally a meal might turn out a little unorthodox, but sometimes there are pleasant surprises to be found. You'll learn pretty quickly what flavor combinations you like. As you get some practice at this process, you'll also learn what other items to keep handy in your pantry and fridge for adding to your veggies. This will depend on what you and your family enjoy eating, but if you'd like some ideas, I'll discuss a few of my staples and how I use them in my next post.

The third thing that I love about my CSA is that the food is simply delicious. Really, I knew that the tomatoes would be head and shoulders above supermarket pseudo-tomatoes, but the carrots? I had no idea they could be this sweet flavorful. And don't get me started on the leeks, beets, squash, and kale. I could go on and on (and certainly will in the future). Oh, man, is it dinner time yet?

Do any of you have experience with a CSA? How have you liked it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And this is the time of year when farms are accepting new subscriptions; find one in your neck of the woods here.

In the Kitchen: Veggie Burgers

Earlier this week I went through a process in the kitchen that is one of my favorites: adapting a recipe to fit what I happen to have in the kitchen. The recipe was for black bean burgers, one I'd come across on one of the blogs I read regularly called Angry Chicken. I've made these black bean burgers successfully several times; they are bound with oatmeal and feature the flavors of fresh cilantro, garlic, and cumin. They are great served with avocado, jack cheese, lettuce, and tomato. I wanted to make them again, but I didn't have any black beans in my cupboard (and didn't have time to soak and cook dried beans). However, I did have a can of garbanzo beans. I could have made the recipe as written, just swapping the beans since the flavor wouldn't be that different, but I thought it might be more interesting if instead I tried adapting it to a food tradition that contains garbanzos...a Mediterranean food tradition in contrast to the original Mexican flavoring. I decided to go with Italian. Here's what the original recipe contained:

black beans

rolled oats

grated carrots

cilantro

canned tomatoes

garlic

green onions

salt, cumin, and chili powder

So the first swap was garbanzos for the the black beans. The oats could stay, since they waere just a starch to hold everything together and didn't contribute to the flavor. I figured the carrots could stay too, since I had one in the fridge and wanted some veggies in there. The cilantro had to go, and the perfect Italian substitute would be basil. I didn't have any fresh, but I did have some little cubes of basil in the freezer. Next, the tomatoes. Those definitely would stay. Same with garlic. I didn't have any green onions, but wanted something oniony, so decided to use the leek languishing in my crisper drawer (is that Italian? Not sure, but close enough). Salt definitely had to stay, but the other spices didn't seem appropriate. However, these burgers were going to be a little bland if I didn't find something to take the place of the spices. I looked to my spice rack for ideas, and didn't see anything appealing, but then I remembered the little block of really good Parmesan in my fridge. As I dug that our, my eye landed on the little bag of pine nuts. Perfect! Both would add a little richness and enhance the flavor in a very Mediterranean way. I grated a nice little pile of cheese and threw in a small handful of nuts.

The burgers turned out to be a great success! The cheese made them smell like pizza as they baked, which was heavenly. The basil cubes had unfortunately lost nearly all of their flavor since they'd been in my freezer for who knows how long, so next time I will definitely use fresh or add some basil pesto. These burgers (both versions) have a very nice firm texture; the oats do an amazing job of binding everything together as they bake. They freeze really well, and then they can be reheated in the toaster with no risk of falling apart or oozing all over the place. My only complaint is that their proportion of starch is a little much for my taste. I'd like to incorporate more green veggies (maybe kale - can't go wrong with kale) and more protein and healthy fats, probably in the form of nuts. I would probably add pepitas, or pumpkin seeds, to the black bean version, and more pinenuts to the garbanzo version. And maybe I could do a Greek version with oregano and feta? Or an Indian version with lentils and curry? The possibilities are endless. What do you think? What other translations could be made of this recipe? Is there an item in your fridge that could offer inspirations?

I'd love to hear your ideas!