Dreaming of Spring Potatoes

As the snow around the greenhouse reaches the four foot mark and it seems all hope of growing anything is lost....an idea. OK, it was not my idea. Truthfully, I can not remember where I read the idea to try this. That being said, if whoever had the idea is one of the few but lucky who actually read this post, I will give you all the credit.

In our root cellar, some of our potatoes have begun to sprout. Some have 5 or 6 eyes and seem like they really are itching to be planted, so, I decided to plant them. Now I did not want to take up any of the limited but valuable greenhouse space for what would be months. Not to mention the other half of Hook Mountain Growers was determined to plant the rest of the lettuce seedlings in every available inch of space. So I decided to take on an experiment. As I said previously, I saw this written by someone, somewhere on some website.

I found two large buckets about 18 inches wide by 16 inches high. They were actually left over from a delivery of evergreens many years ago. So after scrounging around for some good soil to place in the buckets....not an easy task when the ground is frozen...I finally found enough to load both buckets up. After filling the buckets 2/3rds of the way to the top it was time to plant. I found what looked like the healthiest potatoes in the root cellar, cut them into pieces with at least two eyes on each and planted 3 in each bucket. If you have not grown potatoes before, the reason I only filled the buckets up 2/3rds of the way was so that I could hill, or basically put more soil covering the plant, after it reaches about 8-10 inches in height. Often the potato will grow many of its tubers in this hilled up area. Both buckets were then placed in a sunny area, doused with a nutrient drench and told I would like them to produce 12 pounds of potatoes each.

If they were listening, we should have beautiful Adirondack Red and Blue potatoes ready for eating in the late spring. We shall see.....

Update on Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 7:50AM by Pam

8 days later - we have potatoes popping up!  We'll keep you posted as the experiment goes on....

Daylight hours get longer: Lettuces Grow

It’s early February.  What’s the significance for a grower in the Northeast?  Stagnant overwintering plants begin to start the growing process again.  Daylight hours are getting long enough for plants to resume photosynthesis.  And now that the ladybugs have cleared the field of aphids, we were ready to transplant.

We seeded these lettuces in mid January, grew them in soil blocks with McEnroe’s organic potting soil, heating mats and indoor growing lights.  About 4 weeks later they were ready to be planted in the unheated greenhouse which can geothermally regulate itself and never get under 45 degrees even when it’s in the single digits outside.

Check out the nice root growth and easy tranplantation of soil blocks

I seeded a blend of mildew resistant varieties: Sulu, Baronet, Antago, Blackhawk, Defender, Garrison and Annapolis.  I also used a mix from Hudson Valley Seed Library that produces beautiful striking greens.  All seeds were innoculated with a mycorrhizal seed mix made especially for seed to help growth.

Rotation considerations: Lettuces can follow anything.  We had peppers growing in this bed in the summer and early fall.  We let it lay fallow for at least 4 weeks and added an aged animal manure  two weeks ago from Turkana Farms from Germantown, New York.

I expect this bed measuring 2.5‘ x 5’ to easily produce 10 lbs of lettuce by the time we rotate the next summer crop in.

 Look what we have to look forward to!

 

Nature's Infantry

Part of the process of trying to grow vegetables in the winter is dealing with limited sun, limited warmth and pretty much non-optimal growing conditions for almost everything you could possibly want to grow. That being said, we have become pretty expectant of some fresh Hook Mountain Growers lettuce whenever we want in the winter. The only problem is that with little plants that are not in the happiest growing conditions....they are more prone to pest infestation. Now don’t get me wrong, these little guys are being grown in a greenhouse that never drops below 46 degrees. They are not exactly Navy Seals trained to survive in the harshest conditions. They live quite a pampered life, however even their charmed existence is not enough to stave off the occasional mega-aphid infestation that occasionally occurs on naturally grown produce and is an always present nuisance for greenhouse-grown produce.

Our lettuces were not spared this insult. The infestation was complete. The options were discussed. Consider the plants lost. A trial of Neem organic spray. Prayer. Anger. Cursing. After considering all options, we decided a trial of Natures infantry to suppress these little aphid intruders. Aphids on our Deer Tongue lettuce leaves

The shipment arrived last Thursday from Hirt's Garden Supply. Upon opening the box, the warrior’s looked ready. Angry, aggressive and roaring to eat. OK, they were just ladybugs. Not the most dangerous of names but definitely voracious eaters of garden pests. We ordered 1500 ladybugs for about 9 dollars. We released them during the evening hours to minimize stress to the the ladybug, as we were instructed. Some were poured over the lettuces, some were left in the open container and some were sprinkled around the periphery to ensure border control and prevent the aphids from escaping or sending for reinforcements.

I can tell you the results would please the most demanding of Generals. Complete enemy annihilation. Survivors were spared no mercy. Our lettuces our safe.

OK, enough war jargon. This has been an eye-opening experiment. For less than the cost of an organic spray, we have provided a most natural solution to our problem. Not only do we now have ladybugs in the greenhouse which will continue to eliminate insects, we have rid ourselves of the aphids without the hassle of little dead aphid corpses to deal with when we wash the lettuces. Seems almost ridiculous to try any other method. But so does most of what conventional big agriculture does anyway....

Nature's infantry rolling and patrolling
SO, with just a little thought...problem solved. Off to eat fresh lettuces in February...

Charlie, Wheel Barrel Operator

Nutrient Density Growing: The Declaration of Seeds

Last week I saw a long-time patient, pregnant with her 2nd child, coming in for follow-up of her blood work.  A working mom, socially conscious, and well-educated on eating locally, sustainably and organically, she was perplexed as to how she could be deficient in magnesium.  In addition to having a CSA share and shopping regularly at a Brooklyn food co-op, she thought she had access to the best foods available.  I’m not arguing that she didn’t - many people have different absorption rates for vitamins and minerals and some have greater or lesser biological needs - but this brought up the point that a carrot is not a carrot.  And my explanation of nutrient dense growing, a ongoing topic in past journal entries, came as a complete shock to this young woman.  “You mean if I eat brussels sprouts that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m getting all the nutrients it’s supposed to have?”

In The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, nutrient density growing is briefly addressed.   Pollan outlines the assumption people make when they buy a vegetable - that a carrot is a carrot, but in fact, it just depends.

“Back in the fifties, when the USDA routinely compared the nutritional quality of produce from region to region, it found striking differences: carrots grown in the deep soils of Michigan, for example, commonly had more vitamins than carrots grown in the thin, sandy soils of Florida.  Naturally this information discomforted the carrot growers of Florida, which probably explains why the USDA no longer conducts this sort of research.  Nowadays US agricultural policy, like the Declaration of Independence, is founded on the principle that all carrots are created equal, even though there’s good reason to believe this isn’t really true.  But in an agricultural system dedicated to quantity rather than quality, the fiction that all foods are created equal is essential.”

This is exactly the premise for why and how we grow food here at our micro-farm.  Is it organically grown? Of course it is, but our approach of truly addressing soil fertility is 10 steps ahead of organically certified foods - what people understand as the pinnacle of healthy eating.

Now in the winter season, our efforts are focused towards figuring out what we want to grow this season, crop rotation (a laborious endeavor on a small bio-intensive farm,) and re-evaluation of varieties we liked, disliked and new ones we want to try.  Colorful seed catalogs in hand contrast the white and gray landscape outside bringing back the anticipation of growing again as we’ve physically recovered from the prior year’s strenuous work.  When the day length time in mid February starts to awaken the lettuces and spinach in the high tunnel, we will be in full force again.  For now, it’s all about the seeds.

At our last Nutrient Density lecture, Dan Kittredge focused on the seed as the starting point for producing the most optimally productive and healthiest plant.  The size of the seed can correlate to the best genetic plans for the plant.  This makes a lot of biological sense.  Oftentimes, the runt of the litter, is the sickliest and usually the one the mother rejects by not choosing to feed.  Her Darwinian instincts know that this runt has the least capability of surviving when grown and that this runt, bearing the weakest of her genes,  should not be one to reproduce.  From a human standpoint in infertility treatments, the largest and healthiest looking eggs (or follicles) are selected for intrauterine insemination or in-vitro fertilization.  The male contribution is also important; the sperm that is the healthiest is usually the most motile and the fastest one to the egg wins (how interestingly male!)  Naturally, a combination of the best follicle and sperm will most likely produce the healthiest embryos.  All this logic applies to vegetables seeds as well.  For those that have grown from seed, your packet contains a variety of different seed sizes.  Some are small and some large, some are lighter in weight and some are more dense.  Planting the larger, denser ones will give you better vitality, yield and growth potential.  This is all about getting it right from the beginning.

These are pea seeds. On top, the ones you should plant and below, the ones you should discard

The problem is that seed companies don’t offer you this option.  Mostly because no one is asking for it.  However, Dan Kittredge of The Real Food Campaign, has been interviewing seed companies to try and see if there is a way growers can pay more for the larger size seeds as this will lead to increased yields.  The company that was most open to the idea is one that we often use - High Mowing Seed Company in Vermont.  Johnny’s Seeds and Baker Creek were also open to the idea.  What we all need to do is simply ask for it.  Hopefully en masse.  When there is a demand there will be a supply and if enough of us call and ask, companies will eventually oblige.

Tomato seeds. The larger top seeds are the ones that promise to produce the strongest and most vigorous plants

SEED SAVING

This is another way to guarantee you have the best access to the best seeds.  Growing high brix crops, aka nutritionally dense plants in optimum soils will produce the strongest plants and thus the healthiest seeds which you can pick and choose from.  Given that 96 percent of the commercial vegetable varieties grown in 1903 are no longer available, seed saving is important for a variety of other reasons.  A great movie that discusses this is Food of the Future by Deborah Koons Garcia.  [See it HERE for free.]  If you’re just starting to save seed like we are, start simple and small with the easiest vegetables to save seed from.  Peas, beans, tomatoes and lettuce are on the beginners list.

Here, the Vigna Caracalla or Corkscrew Vine, a plant that produces a stunningly gorgeous and fragrant flower obtained from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello produced one seed pod last fall which I saved.  Which seeds do you think I’m going to use to grow my next plants?

Click HERE to tell High Mowing Seed Company that you'll pay more for larger denser seeds.

Click HERE to email Johnny's Seed Company that you'll pay more for larger denser seeds.

Click HERE to email Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds that you'll pay more for larger denser seeds.

Ther are many seed companies out there, you can make a difference by calling or emailing the company and make a request for the option to purchase larger seed szies. 

Update on Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 3:47PM by Pam

Real Food Campaign working with the Organic Seed Alliance: an update on seed size and density. Read the latest newsletter HERE.

Winter's Sweet Frosty Kiss: The Transformation of Kale

A few weeks ago I gave a lecture to some physicians and acupuncturists about the integration of food and farming in medicine.  My first slides were pictures of certain vegetables in their entirety (roots, stems and leaves) and I started the talk with a game: Let’s identify that vegetable!  The first was this series of pictures:

No one was able to identify this as kohlrabi.  An under appreciated vegetable here in this country, it is usually sold as a round light green bulb.  Rarely do people see the growing form which looks not dissimilar to a UFO.  I fell in love with this shade-tolerating vegetable after I made my first meal of kohlrabi pancakes with minted yogurt.

The second vegetable in the game:




More easily identifiable, but with a little hesitation.  Everyone knows what broccoli looks like, of course, but I was stunned this summer when my brother stood at the end of a raised bed filled with broccoli and could not identify the vegetable - it was in its growing form that confused him.  The head which we eat is surrounded by multiple big waxy leaves and that’s what threw him off.

My whole point with the above lessons was that we have become so dissociated with what we eat. Such that it is to the point that items like plastic-wrapped yams are conveniently pre-wrapped so they can be easily be put in the microwave and further separate the consumer from the actual vegetable. Another disheartening example is a packaged steak which appears as nothing more than a soft red wet mass of muscle; no thought is paid that it came from anything resembling an animal and even less thought to how it was raised, fed and slaughtered.

I then showed a video of a new product called “Fruit 2 Day” a fruit containing beverage the advertiser touted as a “new way to eat fruit”. The video begins with a young girl looking disgusted at a bunch of moldy strawberries she finds in her fridge. 

The piece de resistance was in the subtle last statement of the commercial: “find it in the produce section.”  Our perceptions of what is healthy, fresh and what is REAL food is persistently and indolently being manipulated by media and advertising.  Sadly, most of us don’t know what real food is anymore and when we’re given it, we’re not sure what to do with it.  Case in point: Kale.

One physician told me that she disliked getting so much kale in her CSA basket.  How many times can you blanch and saute it with garlic and onions?  Not only was it a non-versatile vegetable for her, she couldn’t get her husband to eat it and forget about even presenting it to the kids.  I challenged that assumption and could because I was once in her shoes standing there among the abundant kale in my farm not sure how to make it interesting enough to serve it with any frequency.  But I persevered, scouring through cookbooks, recipe websites and pinning down every vegetarian I knew, asking them - “what is your favorite thing to do with kale?”  Now I am a kale convert and the last recipe I made with kale and quinoa was so simple and the kale so sweet from the frost that my better half emphatically jumped up declaring his new found love of kale.  No, not anything like Tom Cruise on Oprah’s couch, but hey, for a carnivore loving man to express delight over one of the most healthiest things you could possible eat, that made all my kale research and experimentation worthwhile.  Now he can proudly wear his “Eat More Kale” T-shirt with newfound pride. He looks hot in it as well. 

There are advantages to living in colder climates (not many for every type of food grower, I admit) and that is frost’s effects on certain vegetables, not to mention forcing us to experiment with growing cold tolerant vegetables we might otherwise avoid.   Certain things get sweeter when exposed to frost: carrots, turnips, parsnips, brussels sprouts and kale.  In an effort to survive the colder temperatures, the plant begins to convert its starches to sugars because sugar has a lower freezing point.  Carrots become like candy and kale becomes king.  That’s one thing California and Florida can’t top! 

So you’re still waiting for those kale recipes, I know.  Some of my favorites are the above-mentioned “One Pot Kale and Quinoa Pilaf” on my new favorite foodie blog Food 52.  Trust me, you can force down a lot of kale this way and people won’t even know it.  Then there’s the now ubiquitous kale chips with its infinite variations. I give credit to the first person who fed these to me, Dan Barber, in this recipe.  Kids won’t know the difference between their other starchy crunchies and these healthy bad boys.  My nephew Max, pickiest eater in the universe, can attest to that.  After Thanksgiving, using the turkey carcass, I made Alice Water’s Turkey Soup with Kale (and doubled the amount of kale).  Kale can be thrown in with many other brothy soups as well to give it a  balancing vegetable component.  But the most interesting recent recipe was recently published by the New York Times: Grilled Coconut Kale by Vij’s in Vancouver, British Columbia - one of the best Indian food meals I’ve ever had.  I served it along side curried chickpeas and basmati rice.  Heavenly. 

My hopes to you for the holiday season: find a way to get this important vegetable on your table and enjoy the way nature has changed it for you, just in time when most of our produce is no longer locally grown, so you can continue fresh local greens throughout the chill and support our local food movement.


RECIPE: GRILLED COCONUT KALE

3 bunches kale
3 cans coconut milk
1 Tbs kosher salt
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp mild paprika
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Wash the kale thoroughly and cut out the stalks. Cut the wide leaves into strips the width of the small leaves.
2. In a large pot set over a low flame, heat the coconut milk until it is thoroughly mixed and just lukewarm. Transfer to a large, nonreactive bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Stir in the kale, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

I used a large roasting pan to accommodate all the kale

3. Preheat a grill or a cast-iron grill pan over high heat. Remove the kale from the refrigerator and stir to make sure the leaves are well covered in marinade. Using metal tongs, place the kale on the grill in a single layer. Cook for 45 to 60 seconds, or until the leaves are sizzling, then turn over and grill the other side for another 45 to 60 seconds, or until the leaves have visibly softened. Serve immediately. Serves 6.
Adapted from Vij’s Restaurant, Vancouver, British Columbia.

The slightly burned edges made the dish

Cheers to the one thing we can’t live without: Good Health

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from HOOK MOUNTAIN GROWERS!