food museum blog

Spuds Are In At Summit Springs Farm

Reddale, Carola, Butte, Cranberry, Russian Banana Fingerling, and All-Blue--they are in!  Potatoes, of course. Glorious tubers orginating in the South American Andes and now growing worldwide.
Our intrepid farmers in Poland, Maine not only planted them in recent days but they've already harvested some local media coverage in Portland from a tv journalist who has joined SSFarm's CSA and wants to chronicle her experience there over the season. The details at 10!

( Sonya plants, in the trench dug by John.)

On Thirsty Bees, and Benevolent Bee Removal

For many days in a row I delightedly had noted at least three dozen honey bees buzzing around my fountain, many of them lined up in a row drinking from it like winged mini cows along a trough. Each morning I gently refilled the fountain to the top so that the insects would not have to struggle ( and likely drown) for their water.  I told a friend of mine in the neighborhood about it and she said she had no bees at all among her apple blossoms. It was " a puzzlement," to quote the King from The King and I.

Then, the other evening, my "everything-is-of-intense-interest" terrier, Lillian J. Russell, went into a major barkathon at the front door. The low key man standing there was asking if he could "borrow some power" from us so as to extract the bees from an impromptu hive on the foreclosed  property next door.

Well!  I went next door with him, dragging my extension cord, explaining about the major bee drinking marathons going on at my place. Mountain Bee Man, Dennis Parks,  said I had been keeping them well-irrigated during  an extremely dry period in Albuquerque.  And bees en masse, who knew, can drink as much water in a day as a large, hairy dog!  Apparently, I, Foodie, was an unlikely heroine to the inadvertent bees next door.

Feeling chuffed and halo-deserving,  I watched as Dennis and his apprentice began to set up the vaccuum-cleaner-like machine that would gently remove the bees from their dog house and into their new portable home. Their efforts to save these creatures and make them comfortable genuinely touched me, given the times we live in, or rather the violent news with which we are bombarded each day.  Credit, too, goes to the realty company or the bank people or someone who chose to hire a professional bee crew to relocate rather than eliminate this unlikely colony.  ( Bee Man expected the bees would be moved to either the east mountains of Albuquerque or to Corrales, a rural Spanish land grant community along the Rio Grande.)

My physical reward, not that I needed one, came a few hours later in the form of a plastic bear filled with honey from the Bee Man's honey farm. Readers, it was sublime.

( Since I did not take a pic of the bees drinking,  I am grateful to http://www.tonitoni.org/images/050422_beesdrinking.jpg for the shot above.)

Spring, Really?, Invades Summit Springs Farm, Maine

The greenhouse-from-Hell is up, fully up and running, and actually occupied by young seedlings as well as baby chicks.  What's not to like! For those of you who live near the Poland, Maine farm, there are still a few openings in the CSA program. ( Contact Sonya, summitspringsfarm@fairpoint.net)

Perhaps more importantly, the garlic ( above) is poking through its bed of seaweed, having finally tossed off the last (?) of the snow.  Don't know about you, but I prefer homegrown garlic, rather than the symmetrical, fully white, perfectly formed heads in wide distribution from our pals in China.

Glorious Grandiose Greenhouse Weathers Another Storm

The hard-working and frost-bitten farmers on Summit Springs Farm in Poland, Maine have reported in positively that the friggin' greenhouse they labored to erect last fall now is up and sporting  2 layers of plastic sheeting. The monstrous growing environment measures 100 by 30 feet.

Someday, maybe in July, plants will be thriving inside. Apparently it snowed for the umpteenth time just after the plastic was installed.

Food Bits and Bobs

As I mentioned on June 29, we recently had dinner with Joan Gussow, "eat local" pioneer and author of This Organic Life, a food issue expert we first met years ago in Washington, DC. As we all tucked into green lasagna, grilled chicken marinated in balsamic vinegar, beet, goat's cheese and arugula salad and more, at the home of Hudson River painter Frances Wells, I was certain that Joan felt no regrets at leaving behind the relentless winter fare of parsnips, spuds and carrots from her remarkable garden. ( Joan was the inspiration for Barbara Kingsolver's new book about her family's year of eating locally in Virginia, and certainly a muse to Michael Pollan on his latest, The Omnivore's Dilemma.)

The next morning we walked through Joan's garden overlooking the Hudson, noting her delight at finding the perfect rethought and reinvented tomato staking device, Green Tomato Ladders from Gardener's Supply, a few of which she had recently purchased. " I never buy anything for this garden, not even plants, but these I had to try," she said.

Six of the people at the table the night before were involved in gardening/farming--two of the elders are Bette ( Lacina) and Dale ( Haubrich) the proprietors and full time workers on their small but fabled organic farm in Sag Harbor,  in the Hamptons.

Two of the younger tribe of earthworkers, members of my family,  tra la, will be starting their own intensive organic growing operation in Poland, Maine next spring and are currently working full-time as apprentices  at Riverbank Farm in Roxbury, CT.  

We visited John, neophyte farmer, and Sonya, experienced, one afternoon in Connecticut , arriving in time to snap them in full worker gear, tired and dirty from the day.

After we toured the place we were treated to a recently picked and cooked meal in the apprentice's kitchen that redefined the meaning of the word "fresh."   A pea picked 10 minutes ago compared to a pea picked a week ago, packed up, cooled, and hauled across the county---that is the definition of luxury for most mortals.   

Top: Meal on the Hudson; Top right: Joan in her garden; Left: John and Sonya; Right: The meaning of fresh

   

Triumph in the Tubs, Glee in the Garden

Uncork the champers! Raise the roof! I, Foodie, recently harvested, admired, and ate a sweet, glowing, 5 inch long Ichiban eggplant, the first fruit of my brand new veggies- in- pots growing attempt.  ( Well-- I had done some cherry tomatoes in the past, natch--and earlier this spring, some radishes that were woody and dry, alas, but they do not count. Nor do herbs.)

I am the kind of gardener who spends some time every day obsessively peering at my plants, seeking  signs of fruition--as in the teeny tiny cukes I espied this morning in one of my bins. Hubba hubba! Now I am patiently waiting for the female flowers of my zucchinis to appear--the guys have been flowering for days--but Google assures me the females start to come in later, after they've finished shopping or whatever.  Eggplant, tomatoes, cukes and peppers are my starter crops on this grand experiment. All either tucked into bins or the grass green tubs from Israel I stumbled across.

Part of the fun with Ichiban was coming upon the fruit unaware--I had been clucking over the tiny e.plants emerging from flowers, utterly overlooking the shiny purple offering right in front of my nose, and ready to pick. Is there a life lesson here?

Bliss.

Happy Tercentenary Birthday, Carl!

Carl Linneaus, the Swedish botanist and medical doctor who codified the naming of plants and animals, is celebrating his 300th birthday today, May 23. Well, the rest of the world is.

According to an informative website from the University of California Museum of Paleontology, Linneaus is not only credited with establishing a set and simplified pattern of binomial naming--a Latin name for the genus, and a type of shorthand name for the species--but he was also a gifted teacher. One of his most famous students during his time at the University of Uppsala was Daniel Solander who sailed with Captain James Cook on his first voyage around the world, bringing back to Europe the first plant specimens from the South Pacific and Australia.

Linneaus' farm at Hamarby near Uppsala is a food heritage site one can visit today, as is the first botanical garden established in Sweden in 1655.  1300 species grow here, all familiar to Linneaus. The garden has been restored to a design dictated by him in 1745.

Linneaus was a controversial figure in his lifetime, accused of being too sexually explicit in his system.  And he started out calling humans  Homo diurnis , or "(hu)man of the day," but later settled on the more flattering, Homo sapiens, "wise human."  Hoping to boost Sweden's economy, he tried and failed to grow coffee, rice, bananas and cacao, plants that were decidedly inappropriate for his country's chilly climates.

Dr. Jude Philp of the University of Sydney sums up Linneaus this way: "Linneaus was an extraordinary man. He was a doctor who wrote on everything from the evils of coffee and tobacco, to syphilis and healthy eating. He was an astute political person with royal contacts and connections with the Dutch East India Company. He was a teacher, gardener, traveller and a magnificent self-promoter."

( Portrait of Linneaus thanks to the Swedish Museum of Natural History,  http://linnaeus.nrm.se/botany/fbo/welcome.html.en)

Barging into Veggies

As I launch my own green revolution here in the high desert--growing veggies in large pots and bins, in order to conserve water--I read with great delight about the Science Barge  moored at Pier 84 in New York City's Hudson River. It's growing veggies with recirculated water and no pesticides and is intended as a model, along with green rooftop growing, for sustainable urban agriculture.

Designed by the New York Sun Works Center for Sustainable Engineering, the Science Barge operates this way, according to a report on CNET news:

"Powered by a combination of solar energy from photovoltaic panels, five wind turbines and a generator that runs on biodiesel and waste vegetable oil (commonly known as "french fry grease"), the Science Barge generates zero carbon dioxide emissions.

An on-board greenhouse uses hydroponic technologies to grow vegetables using a quarter of the water that traditional agriculture would. Inside the greenhouse, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, herbs and lettuce are germinated in "rock wool" made from basaltic rock spun into cotton candy-like fibers. They're grown using recirculated water, and a mix of coconut husks and rice hulls--waste products that otherwise would be sent to landfills--in lieu of soil."

( Barge pic from http://nysunworks.org/science_barge/about_the_barge.html)

Bye, Bye, Bees--II

Alert reader Cloudzilla sent us a link to a report in The Independent that points the finger at mobile phones as possible culprits in the rapidly disappearing bee colony mystery.

According to the article, some scientists theorize that" radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up."

Mobile use may be sickening humans as well, as the article goes on to note. I am hopeful that dark chocolate will prove to be the antidote for that ails us telephonically as well.

More Than A Tree Grows There: Garden-Wise Greening in Brooklyn at the BBG

Urban foodie gardeners take note: One of our favorite people, Joan Dye Gussow, is the keynoter at this year's 25th annual Making Brooklyn Bloom all day  event at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this coming Saturday, March 10. Her topic is : "Global Reflections on Eating From Home." Explore the day's offerings here.

I would definitely get my hands dirty at the workshop titled Brewing Compost Tea, as long as I could also partake of Best Heirloom Vegetables for Brooklyn.  And also, Growing Organic Food in Containers , a technique I have decided to try this spring here in the high desert of New Mexico, as containing the water is such a daunting challenge.

If you are visiting the NYC metro area, do visit the glories of the BBG. Here's what's blooming in March.  On line take a look at this rich section of the BBG website about Kitchen Gardening

(Pictured: At left, the BBG's Home Composting Exhibit. At right, the Herb Garden.)