foodmuseumblog

Great Stuff from the Seed Front: Growing Libraries — Emerging Ideas — Utne Reader

Borrow books, borrow seeds--new attempts to keep seeds freely flowing, in spite of mighty Monsanto.

"Free vegetable seeds are now shelved at the public library in Richmond, California, where patrons can check out tomato and lettuce seeds alongside the latest Stieg Larsson novel. Come harvest time, participants are encouraged to practice the centuries-old art of saving seeds and return a few to the library’s shelves. It’s a naturally sustainable system because, explains Amanda Kimble-Evans in Organic Gardening(Sept.-Oct. 2011), as “each grower saves seeds from the most productive, healthiest plants, the varieties become more adapted to the specific bioregion with each generation.”   

Seed-lending programs have taken root in at least four other public libraries in California and Connecticut, writes Greg Landgraf in American Libraries (April 6, 2011). The bookworms also host seed-saving workshops for those of us who aren’t yet master gardeners."

Read more: http://www.utne.com/Environment/Seed-Lending-Programs-Public-Libraries.aspx#ixzz1Z6NLl0ye

 

 

 

 

Courtesy of Hudson Valley Seed Library / www.seedlibrary.org

via www.utne.com

Dumb Stuff from the Garden Front

"A disabled Ohio man has been ordered to stop selling vegetables from his front yard. Wesley Wood says the few dollars he earned selling tomatoes, broccoli, and peppers helped supplement his Social Security checks. But officials told him it’s illegal to sell produce from a private home, so Wood will now give his vegetables away. “I just don’t want to see the stuff go to waste,” said Wood. “And I have a lot of it.”

Via The Week

Foodie asks ---Is it illegal in Ohio? In, say,  Akron? In the USA? Where?  Terrible reporting.

LEGO Greenhouse at London Design Week 2011

"designboom published a preview article on the LEGO greenhouse by london-based designer sebastian bergne 
for which he was commissioned by LEGO UK to produce a large-scale public installation made entirely of LEGO bricks 
which also fully functions as a greenhouse. the structure has now been realized within the north east piazza in london's 
covent garden as part of london design week 2011. 

the overall form draws from the history of covent garden as london's original fruit and vegetable market, 
featuring a pitched roof that looks like an ordinary suburban glasshouse dropped into a new environment in daylight. 
at night it becomes a magical box glowing and lit, coming to life with the plants it contains. 

the world's first living LEGO greenhouse, the framework was built and installed by duncan titmarsh, 
the only LEGO certified professional in the UK and is home to living plants and vegetables.
'LEGO greenhouse' is on view until september 25th, 2011."

via www.designboom.com

About the Lego designer, Duncan Titmarsh    

 

Mightiest Onion Grown by Peter Glazebrook

Via The Lahore Times----"....yesterday British pensioner Peter Glazebrook set a new record for the heaviest onion in the world.

The monster vegetable tipped the scales at 17pounds 15 and half ounces – breaking the earlier world record of 16 pounds 8.37 ounces in the hands of John Sifford, the West Midlands, since 2005."

 

Urban Veggie Gardening on Historic 1907 Ellis Island Ferry

Boat dwellers Victoria and Richard MacKenzie-Childs are fully at home on the last of the Ellis Island ferries.

According to this piece via Inhabitat/NYC, "Victoria has also built a “Polka Dot Garden,” of various vegetables growing out of 104 old truck tires on the adjacent dock. The garden includes a complete irrigation system running along the pavement, and Victoria reported corn growing over 9 feet tall last year. The couple also raise their own chicken aboard the ferry."

( Photo by Navid Baraty.)

Squaring Up to Watermelons--Japan

It's that time again, and the melons are rolling out of the fields. The round ones, that is. The square ones need tiny implanted wheels...

See, back in the 1980's, the Japanese decided square was better. 

"According to a BBC news article published in June 2001, a Zentsuji farmer came up with the innovative idea for a space-saving square watermelon some twenty years earlier. Since then, the square fruit has been sold in various selected outlets across Japan, but they are prohibitively expensive to buy and their potential market is therefore quite limited. The BBC article noted:

Today the cuboid watermelons are hand-picked and shipped all over Japan.

But the fruit, on sale in a selection of department stores and upmarket supermarkets, appeals mainly to the wealthy and fashion-conscious of Tokyo and Osaka, Japan's two major cities.

Each melon sells for 10,000 yen, equivalent to about $83. It is almost double, or even triple, that of a normal watermelon.

"I can't buy it, it is too expensive," said a woman browsing at a department store in the southern city of Takamatsu. "

So today, we have no clue how much a square watermelon sells for in Japan. But, my spies tell me that squares are, or at least were introduced into these United States a couple years back, selling for about $75 per.

If that seems steep and you must have one, the clever persons at Instructables have info re growing your own.....next summer.......

 

Fearless City Gardener Plants Veggies Where Petunias (?) Once Flourished

Right out in the open--no guerilla-gardener he, Bill Koen, City Horticulturalist of Lakeland, Florida, is planting edibles on city land. Bravo, Bill!

Via The Ledger.com

"A petite crop of vegetables, fruits and grain is thriving at Heritage Park at Kentucky Avenue and Orange Street. Indian corn, okra, peppers, kumquats and eggplant provide an unexpected agricultural filigree to the slice of city property.

Towering corn stalks also ring the perimeter of a circular planter in the parking lot at Lakeland's main library, and an assortment of ornamental peppers can be seen near the entrance to the Lakeland Electric building on Lemon Street.

City horticulturist Bill Koen said he started installing food-bearing plants at Hollis Garden more than a decade ago, and in recent years he has expanded the approach into other city properties...

Koen, a city employee for 41 years, said he planted the crops at Heritage Park in the tradition of the "victory gardens" Americans tended in their yards and in public spaces during World War I and World War II."

( Thanks for okra photo to Bijlmakers.com)

Today's Gorgeous Haul from the Corrales Growers Market

 

Exultation, delectation, and delight! Early days at our local market in New Mexico. From left, clockwise: Mixed greens, speckled lettuce w/pale blue, brown and speckled eggs, spinach, broc tops, tat soi, and cherries, the best we've ever tasted.

Swiss Chard: Easy to Grow, Pluck

 

Surinam Cherries Eaten by Children? And By Foodie, Direct.

Whoa!  "The seeds are extremely resinous and should not be eaten." Read this now after plucking a few cherries from a bush on the block yesterday, and eating them, as do children apparently, according to the horticulture folks at Purdue University. A former neighbor of ours first gave me some to try off his tree---lush, sharpish, with an oddly petroleum-ish undertone, dubbed "resinous" by Purdue. It's an odd tasting critter, but I like this cherry.

Perhaps due to a genuine affinity for resin--love Retsina wine, as a matter of fact--I have lived through my adventure in spontaneity.

This plant, Eugenia uniflora,  sometimes called the Brazil cherry, though Surinam likely is its home, is thus an American native and has become a widely-planted hedge here in Florida. It's everywhere, and yet many people do not bother with its fruit. (!?) 

(Photo from nursery Organic Living for All, Clearwater, Florida. This place sounds like a powerhouse of organic growing fervor! )

Planting Spinach at the White House Garden; Pondering Sickly Zucchini

Gardeners are optimists, sowing seeds while visualizing the harvest to come.

And those who cultivate edibles are imagining tasty, life-giving meals on the table for their families and friends.

This is the third spring planting of the current White House garden, set in motion by Michelle Obama. It comes at a time of particular upheaval in the world, both nature and person-made, doesn't it?

Another massive earthquake and resulting tsunami, the one that hit Lisbon in 1755, resulting in the deaths of over 70,000 people,  inspired Voltaire to write his epic satire, "Candide." ( There were those who proclaimed that the sins of the hapless citizens of Lisbon had resulted in their demise...)  Voltaire's hero returns home from his calamity-strewn travels and famously states that one must cultivate one's garden--as in, the world is a mess, fraught with hypocrites, tyrants, and natural disasters, but at least we can grow something, close to home.

So why did my zucchini plants collapse? (Pallid and thin, in a bin?) Can we blame Florida?

If It's Saturday Morning in March, It's the Market!

   

The St Pete Saturday Morning Market was hopping today, with spicy red lentils from the Ethiopian stand. The Market features food eateries more than vendors of fresh veg and products to take home, but no one is complaining. (This topsy turvey growing season takes some getting used to--as St Pete winds down, our home growers market in New Mexico is just one month old.)

Sylvia from Liege, Belgium, was making and selling the real deal--superb eggy, vanilla-infused light waffles.

The live music today right before Fat Tuesday? Zydeco. Wiki tells us the term is a corruption of the French les haricots, the beans. Everything is food, right?

One small CSA stand sets up here for its customers, and sells extra lettuces to the crowd. But the bulk of the organic veggies and fruits are sold by Worden Farm, based in Punta Gorda, FL, an 85 acre operation, also a CSA, that may be one of the few farms anywhere owned and run by PhD's, the Wordens. The good doctors'  expertise is in Crop Science and Ecosystem Management.

Open from October through the end of May, the Market may be unique in that it closes one Saturday in March each season for the running of a major road race, the Honda Grand Prix of St Pete. ( IndyCar series? Ask me about chard, please.) Powerful automobiles roar around the actual streets of St Pete, much as in Monaco only flatter, generating noise and depleting the world's oil reservoirs. Presumably the drivers, the crews and visitors eat and drink nicely between spins, while the rest of us gloomily wander supermarket aisles searching for greens we can relate to.

 

 

 

 

Food Heritage, USA: Pomegranate Hall, Sparta, GA

Built in the Green Revival style in 1830, Pomegranate Hall was the home of an attorney and judge originally from New Jersey, Nathan Sayre. Scholars today note this was the place where Sayre and his free woman-of-color partner, Susan Hunt, raised three children, possibly behind false walls.

Pomegranate Hall originally was situated on several acres, where Sayre had vineyards and pomegranate trees planted, and apparently (with slave help, no doubt) made his own wine. While relatively exotic to the natives of Sparta, Georgia, the pomegranate, a native of Persia, would have been highly familiar to the natives of Sparta, Greece and environs.

Burned in recent years, Pom Hall is in need of repair and restoration. A website devoted to that task is here.

FYI   If you fancy native American-made Southwest "squash blossom" necklaces, be warned. The blossoms are actually modeled after those of pomegranates, a popular motif on Spanish buttons...

( There is a Pomegranate Council, based in Sonoma, CA, ready to answer all your pomegranatenacious inquiries.)

Scary Sweet Alarms Young Gardener Before Halloween

A student assisting First Lady Michelle Obama and others dig up root veggies at the White House Garden today recoiled from the alarming sight of a giant sweet potato, dirt still clinging to its nether parts.

The fate of the sub-terrestrial beastly batata is unknown.

Report on the White House Garden

Guerrilla Gardeners Unleashed

Years ago, as visitors to China, we noticed that food plants were growing everywhere--tucked into walls, jammed amidst jumbled blocks of broken up cement, as well as in fields, plots,  pots and tin cans.

In recent years here, there and everywhere, guerrilla gardeners have been striking, planting hollyhock and sunflower seeds in iffy/ugly ground and waiting until the end of summer wild bloom to delight and amaze passersby. But these days the flowers increasingly have been augmented by or even supplanted by veggies.

This WaPo report from Britain focuses on the town of Todmorden, where edibles have been planted all over town, even in its cemetery. Resident Mary Clear started the effort which has now achieved legitimacy, and some funding, and operates under the name Incredible Edible Todmorden. (Obviously, this started as a determined lark, perpetuated by people with a sense of joy and abundant humor.)

The GG's have struck in Los Angeles, and Harrisonburg, VA, and countless other locales.

According to Web Ecoist, "In Cuba, guerrilla gardening has grown into a countrywide tradition. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the country experienced an economic crisis that led to food shortages. As a result, Cubans began growing food wherever they could, and what developed was a culture of organic urban agriculture. Today, up to 70% of Cuba’s fresh produce is grown in these urban gardens." 

BTW, FYI and NB  From the WaPo piece above:  " In June, Queen Elizabeth II ordered that part of her garden at Buckingham Palace be dug up for vegetables. (Royal officials emphasized at the time that the queen's patch was planned before first lady Michelle Obama launched one in the White House back yard.)"  Now, now...

( Pic tks to http://www.novinow.net/2009/05/18/into-the-fray-guerilleros/)

No Jelly Beans in This White House

 Gotta love it. A bowl of apples, a slice of bees, and a veggie garden at the Peoples' House. Vitality, thoughtfulness, and common sense prevailing on many levels.

              

America Awakes To, Duh, Veggies

On and on roll the foodish stories:

1--Michelle in the veggies, cutting lettuce
2--Seed company sales soar as more Americans "discover" veggie gardening
3--Urban dwellers grow food on their rooftops
4--Kids eating healthier foods at McD's??

5--The healthy role model Prez buys burgers? Is that allowed?

And more.

But somehow all this breathless excitement over what many people and institutions have been encouraging for decades is irritating me.

You mean there's a link between what we eat , how much we weigh  and how we feel? No way.

There's a link between healthy eating and lower healthcare costs for all Americans?  Who knew?

Cooking veggies properly makes them appetizing to young and old alike? Amazing!

Front lawns are a waste of land, soil, time, wildlife, money, and they pollute as well? Wow.

If you don't ever introduce little kids to fast food joints, you have eliminated a major negative issue for all eternity?  You don't say...

Wildly Assorted Food ( and Drink) Notes

Hmmm.

•  I am glad the Obamas enjoy dining out at tasty places, worldwide, absolutely. Just thinking of the B's huddled within the WH walls, munching away, prisoners of Dubya's policies, puts me off my feed.

• Spam making a comeback in these troubled economic times is so nauseating that....you may recall there was a Spam Cam trained on an opened can of this junk a few years ago, waiting in vain for it to "go bad."   Lentils anyone? Cheap, healthy protein.

• Depressed? It could be a food allergy, in particular, gluten.

And now, the happy food news from my bin garden here in the American Southwest.

First of all, the spicy Asian micro greens have been superb.  My cukes are climbing up their helter-skelter trellises, the tomato plants are robust, their protective marigolds gleaming. The eggplants are looking healthy, and the zucchs, plus two unknown squashes, show great promise.  I seem to be too late for the carrot seeds I had on hand, I recently decided I was not a huge radish fan, so other than a basket of mesclun coming along nicely in the shade, more or less, that's it.

No chiles! Who knows why not...? I completely forgot about my love of banana chiles and pasta. Damn. Maybe the Home Despot still has some of those plants.

We do have basil, sage, chives, mint, and nasturtiums. And I may grow some radishes after all, so as to harvest the spicy flowers for use in salads.

Meanwhile, I am buying up two huge clusters of chard each weekend at the Farmers Market, while they last. And garlic, lettuces, cherries, and strawberries, honey,too, all local, of course. Did I mention blueberry turnovers from the Swiss baker there?

As for Drink----the joys of Brazil's national drink, caipirinha, were introduced to me recently at still terrific Zia Diner in Santa Fe. How I missed this when actually in the country of Brazil several years back is beyond me, other than that our little foodie family was on its way "around the world in 5 weeks" and not spending wildly on hooch.

In any event----yum.  Several pieces of crushed lime, sugar,  ice cubes, and cachaca, alcohol always described as rum-like rather than rum, perhaps because it is derived from fresh sugarcane juice, as compared to molasses, itself a by-product of sugarcane.

This simple beverage is so delicious and refreshing the woman I was dining with had to restrain herself from finishing my drink when I went to the loo. Now that's friendship, people.

Memorial Day

As Memorial Day waned, I pulled half a bag of whole wheat pizza dough from the fridge, discovered a few crimini mushrooms still on hand,  fired up the oven, opened the mozzarella, grabbed the last two garlic-stuffed olives from the jar, sliced up some onion, opened a small jar of capers, made a crushed garlic , olive oil, red chiles, black pepper and salt mix, plucked some basil leaves, and was ready to roll.

Meanwhile, the odor of dead animals grilling up and down the block began wafting over onto my plant, pots, baskets and potting-soil strewn patio. The only neighbors who ever venture outdoors were pleasantly hooting and carousing in the rear, my dog drooling near their fence over the meatish smells.

So it was then that I decided to make a run to one of the mass merchandisers of retail plants to finish up my gorging on materials for the garden. I had looked in three places for six-packs of blue salvia plants which do well here in the hot southwest, and even return in spring, if one's housesitter remembers to keep the dead-looking pots watered. ( Oh well.)

Empty roads, almost empty parking lots, and, finally, salvia. Triumph! Plus 2 cheap perennials for the arid section.

Back home, Old Glory flying, salvias watered, I made the pizza. Delectable. The dog got a raw chicken wing. Happiness all round, even recalling the death by mine of my spouse's best college friend, a lovely young architect, years ago, in Cambodia Vietnam.

( RIP   Lt. Dennis E. Heitner, US Army, killed June 13, 1970.)