by Graham Kerr
With all well and good, I began to pile in the waste—avoiding weeds with seeds, meat, and fat. This was a vegan heap!
I knew enough to understand that for the bacteria to work, the compost needed air and moisture. So I sprayed the heap each morning and plunged my spade through it on an almost daily basis. Still, after a time there didn’t seem to be signs of decomposition. I was getting anxious.
Scott Titus suggested I add some of his miraculous fertilizer, but it didn’t seem to do the trick either. At least I needed signs of it heating up.
It was time to rethink the pile-it-all-on process I’d adopted, so I had to find a way to mix the compost up and get the larger pieces much smaller. I eventually found a tree nursery that had a small chipper; I blended the whole pile with 2 yards of good topsoil—what a splendid sight.
To avoid having to rent a chipper in the future, I began to use an old kitchen blender set aside for this purpose to mix up kitchen scraps, tea bags, and so on. When the container looked fairly full, I simply added water, ran it on the mix setting for a couple of minutes, poured it onto the heap, and raked it into the compost.
Try building your compost in three layers. Scratch up the bare soil to allow the microorganisms an easy route to gain access to the party, then pile on kitchen waste, weeds, leaves, and other garden trash on top of a gallon of rotted manure. Try for a recipe based on 1 gallon of scraps to 1½ bushels (12 gallons) of leaves and grass clippings. Then add 1 cup of lime, 1 cup of bonemeal, and 2 shovelfuls of soil.
It helps if you shred harder organic matter like pruned twigs. This can be done by lowering a rotary lawn mower onto a pile of leaves (for example) and letting the machine eject the shreds against a hard upright surface or carton to be easily collected. Be sure to wear gloves, safety glasses, and long slacks.
As you put your compost together, be sure to spray each layer with water, as it needs to be damp throughout. It’s described as 50 percent moisture, but I don’t know how that can be measured other than being just ... damp!
There only remains the need for air. I recommend the use of a composting pole (for example, the compost aerator from www.territorialseed.com). It has a pair of folding hinged blades that drive easily into the heap and then open up on their way out to aerate.
12. Seasonal Replanting
Right from the get-go I was keen on getting fresh produce all year round, both to eat and to share. While there are certainly places in the continental United States where this is possible outdoors, it certainly isn’t so in the Pacific Northwest. But there are ways to extend the season by replanting crops and using a greenhouse.
To start, I marked my diary in bold words:
PLANT NOW FOR FALL/WINTER CROPS
Beware of procrastination ... plan ahead.
In our outside beds, once the peas and runner beans had been harvested, I replanted with a variety of salad greens: arugula, mesclun mix, and mâche (corn salad) as well as bok choy, mustard greens, New Zealand spinach, broccoli, and savoy cabbage. My early plantings of beets, carrots, and Swiss chard were all depleted, so I filled those spaces with lettuce and broccoli starts.
Since I had the advantage of the greenhouse to extend my growing season year round, I aimed for a greenhouse planting from seed to begin the first of September, when I could keep the greenhouse temperature from dropping below 40ºF.
Rather than simply use the greenhouse as a nursery for my seasonal planting, I set about to create grow beds inside, built with sturdy yellow pine sides. (I read up on woods that could be used in greenhouses and elsewhere in the garden and was extremely surprised to discover just how toxic some could be—leaching arsenic and chromium into the beds and plants.)
My selection included beets (various colors), broccoli, cantaloupe (on a high trellis), garlic, lettuce, green onions, parsley (Italian), New Zealand spinach (on a trellis), Swiss chard, garden cress, mâche, bok choy, and spring raab (also called broccoli rabe). I also decided to have a section for herbs, including basil, rosemary, dill, cilantro, marjoram, and mint.
I also chose a fair sprinkling of flowers to interact with the vegetables, as well as to entice Treena into the greenhouse to join me for a cup of tea on a blustery afternoon. I knew that she’d find joy in a few cold-tolerant flowers, such as pansies, sweetpeas, nasturtiums, snapdragons, marigolds, geraniums, chrysanthemums, primroses, and cyclamen. There are also some hardy bulbs that do well, like hyacinth, crocus, and snowdrops.
As it turned out, the winter crop was disappointing but a great learning experience. I now have a more modest plan for next winter, which includes spring raab and mâche plus a few flowers, and several vegetables for food bank donations, such as broccoli and Swiss chard. I’ve already added two citrus trees: a kefir lime and a Meyer lemon. These will go out in the summer and return in the fall in 16-inch-diameter containers. But afternoon teas with Treena remain firmly planted.
13. The Greenhouse
A while back we had invested heavily in one of those aboveground swimming pools (with a water pump) that sat on a concrete slab. It didn’t work for us.
Fortunately, we found a buyer who profited hugely by our mistake, and we were left with a grand slab of concrete (about 16×8 feet), a water and an electrical supply, and a small but gratefully received check.
Serendipity strikes again! The slab turned out to be just the size for a greenhouse and in exactly the right spot. A greenhouse, I thought, would help me make the most of a short growing season—and be a worthwhile investment.
I stopped by at Charley’s Greenhouses and picked up a catalog. At first I simply looked for one that would fit my ready-made foundation, but there were so many options, it was impossible to choose without—yes, you’ve guessed it—local knowledge!
Charley and Carol Yaw have been selling greenhouses and their apparatus for over 32 years. They have a devoted following of avid gardeners who want to get a head start on the short Pacific Northwest growing season and to have flowers and food for the longer winter months.
I met with Charley to discuss the site and what might best meet our needs. We settled on a 16x8-foot Traditional model. Charley explained that almost everyone eventually wound up wanting more space, but he felt this would meet our needs for our own table, to share with our neighbors, and to donate a small but regular supply to the food bank.
We live about 500 feet above the Skagit Valley, with Puget Sound and the Peninsular Mountains in the far distance and the San Juan Islands off to our right. It’s a grand view, and I wanted to be able to look at it through plain glass, which isn’t the best insulation or price, but I had it firmly in my mind that we could take afternoon tea and the occasional breakfast at one end, amid the warmth, color, and sweet aroma of our verdant winter garden.
Charley helped us plan it out, and we equipped it with three long wooden benches and several overhead wire racks. We found an English potting tray and, again with local knowledge, added the following:■ Automatic overhead ventilation panels (the heat expands oil in a cylinder that cranks open the panels; when the air cools, they close). I should warn you here to get equally automatic spring stops in case the wind blows up, as ours did and blew the otherwise robust fittings clean off the roof!
■ A waterproof heat pad to slip under the seedlings, with a ceramic probe that craftily takes the soil temperature and lets you adjust it to awaken the seeds’ ambition to become a future dinner.
■ Trays upon trays of little black pots that nested into black trays, some that drain and others that don’t. (Apparently some seedling plants benefit from the more humid environment of the nondraining bottom tray. Also, they are less messy.)
■ Black Gold potting mix and a sack or two of Coco-Coir from Scott Titus, along with his Intrepid organic fertilizer.
“Do you want to build it yourself?” asked Charley. “You’ve got to be kidding!” I replied, and I told him of a recent debacle with a filing cabinet I’d ordered from a catalog that promised “some easy assembly needed.”
A three-man crew arrived on site, and within 6 hours the greenhouse was up and ready to grow. Had I chosen to build it, I just may have gotten it up ... but I am not confident that essentials such as doors opening and closing would have been achieved.
For those of you with a more robust self-confidence (and more experience), the do-it-yourself kit will cost you about two-thirds of my 6-hour wonder (although you’ll probably have the expense of the foundation, which I already had in place from the former pool).
But the greenhouse kit itself is only part of the investment. Creating this “unnatural” natural environment also demanded looking at issues of heat and light.
While it crossed my mind to get very ambitious and try my hand at cultivating the likes
of bananas and pineapple, I quickly dispensed with that notion, given the cost of heating even my modest-size greenhouse to tropical levels. It isn’t worth it unless you are growing vanilla as a cash crop!
So we settled for cool, but not below 40ºF.
The standard low-cost domestic indoor heaters are not designed or built for these adverse conditions. Charley had a robust fan-driven heater that was controlled by a good thermostat and designed to be used in damp greenhouse conditions.
Taking due regard for what I choose to call minimal electronics, I had our electrician install three power sources: one overhead for lighting and two at waist height for bench operations, with ground fault interrupters (GFIs) all round for safety. Now I had a place for the radio/CD player, a boiling kettle, a toaster, a romantic Tiffany-style overhead light ... oh yeah—and outlets for the plants, too!
Of course, one assumes that living in a glass house will mean plenty of light, but that’s relative when it comes to seeding, germinating, and growing.
I quickly discovered that my vegetables needed somewhere between 700 and 1,000 foot-candles (a measure of illuminance). And that was where the simplicity ended! Nowhere in all my diggings and siftings have I encountered such complexity—so many choices and such apparent cost differentials.
The whole business of light may be very important for commercial growers, but really, I asked myself, do I need an HID bulb or an MH or the latest fluorescent ... or simply move into the new neutron 16 that uses microwave technology?
Time again for local knowledge and my pal Charley because I knew this was another choice I couldn’t make on my own!
We finally settled on a six-light fixture, 4 feet long and 18 inches wide. The fluorescent tubes are T5 daylight (6,400K), which is very close to natural sunlight (5,000 lumens per lamp equals 30,000 lumens). This still doesn’t mean much to me, but if you copy the description and take it to a greenhouse supplier, the people there will nod wisely and sell you the exact same unit.
If the garden were just for our private use, it would be easy to look forward to cleaning out the beds, testing the soil, adding nutrients and compost, doing other chores, and then having a well-deserved rest. However, if one has committed 50 percent of the crop to neighbors and food banks, those folk don’t stop eating when the season begins to slow down. It was because of this special use (very dear to my heart from the get-go) that I did some detailed homework on how to use my small greenhouse to the max—not just to get a head start on the short growing season but also to learn how to extend the season through the fall and into the winter.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cooking Methods for Maximum Flavor and Nutrition
Thanks to the Internet, recipes are a dime a dozen, but their availability doesn’t mean they will teach you how to cook. That’s because cooking is more about method than about measured ingredients. When you know how to cook, the ingredients you choose become a matter of personal taste—and seasonal availability.
The enjoyment of food is, of course, a sensual pleasure that I’ve spelled out for years using the acronym TACT: taste, aroma, color, and texture. It’s true that all plants have those attributes in their raw state, and most can be relished just as they are or in combination with others.
The entire purpose of cooking means you submit raw foods to heat, either dry, such as roasting, or moist, as in steaming. Heat releases different flavors and aromas and changes the food’s color and texture. And over the past 50 years, I have made it my business to study and compare these dry and moist cooking methods, seeking out those that provide the most balanced results. Note that I didn’t say most enjoyable.
The biggest challenges in cooking come with what we add to raw ingredients, either by way of the cooking method (see “Deep-Fry” on page 56) or by flavor enhancers. Unfortunately, in too many cases the results can be detrimental to our efforts to retain as much nutritional value as possible.
The senses are so easily seduced by adding, for example, salt, fats, sugars, alcohol, and well-textured wrappings made from refined starch. The results can be pleasing enough to become addictive and, if consumed frequently in unwise quantities, can turn a treat into an eventual threat. Note that only the letter H separates the words treat and threat—and both end in eat. For me, this H factor is the harm done by high volume and high repetition.
When dealing with grown foods, the imbalance comes largely from the added fats from butter, cheese, cream, bacon, and, to a lesser extent, oils. This does not mean that any of these should be eliminated (unless you’re a vegan and eschew animal products). However, it does mean that each of us needs to have a very firm idea of how much to add and when.
To some degree, the how much will be determined by your individual risk factors. However, it has been well proven for decades that it is unwise to exceed 10 percent of our daily calories from saturated fat, or 200 calories out of an average 2,000-calorie daily diet. In fact, we may see this recommendation move to less than 7 percent of calories from saturated fat (this recommendation is being considered for the upcoming U.S. Dietary Guidelines to be posted late in 2010).
Given that there are 9 calories in every gram of fat, the 200-calorie limit on saturated fat per day translates to about 20 grams (or less) each day. Not all fatty foods are pure fat (only oil is 100 percent fat), so compare the following “fat-rich enhancers,” which are often added to vegetables to boost their flavor:
Source: Bowes & Church’s Food Values of Portions Commonly Used, 18th Edition, copyright © 2005 by Jean T. A. Pennington; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, MD
As you can see in the table, these fat sources quickly add up. Butter is commonly used in cooking and just 3 tablespoons can put you over your maximum goal of 20 grams or less each day! Cream can add up, too. Cheese adds a lot of flavor and with so many delicious varieties, when used sparingly, may be a very good use of your saturated fat grams.
One simple way of getting a “somewhat” butter flavor is to use the small I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray bottle to spritz vegetables just before serving.
Over the years, I have added more than my share of saturated fat—and other potentially negative flavor additions, such as salt and sugar—almost by habit and always for the pleasure that they unquestionably bring. But they have reduced to some extent the benefits provided by grown food. However, when these additions are reduced in volume—again, not eliminated—they do their part in contributing to our enjoyment in the way that a good perfume applied carefully does its enhancement.
Seasonings of any kind need to support and enhance the flavor of the food itself and never become an overwhelming presence.
Now ... let’s take a look at cooking methods before we get into the recipes.
Blanch (Parboil)
Blanching is a method that can be used as part of the preparation before actual cooking to reduce the cooking time needed for another method. In some cases, it helps retain the color of the vegetable, especially for green beans and peas.
Blanching is the very swift process of dunking the vegetables—all at once—into plenty of boiling water for about 1 minute and then turning them directly into ice cold water.
While blanching will reduce both the water-soluble and heat
-sensitive vitamins in the food, the loss is certainly not likely to cause any serious deficiency.
In my judgment, the ease and the color and texture enhancement gained by blanching help raise the volume of vegetables served and reverse the traditional proportions, making the meat/protein the garnish for a change.
Boil
When foods undergo a complete immersion in boiling water or stock, there is definitely a leaching of soluble vitamins, but there are textural and flavor (stocks) benefits as well as simplicity!
I infinitely prefer steaming (discussed next), which avoids the loss of nutrients and involves about the same amount of time; steaming also seems to provide a more even result. There are, however, a couple of exceptions: boiled new potatoes and green peas. New potatoes can be boiled for about 10 minutes and drained, then covered with a towel (pressed down onto the potatoes) and left on a low heat for about 5 minutes to draw off the surplus water. This method avoids that waterlogged texture that often accompanies straightforward boiling.
And a favorite of mine: peas tightly covered and boiled in ¼ cup of water with a few leaves of fresh mint and just a touch of sugar.
In addition to the obvious flavor benefits, there is also the water itself, which now contains some of the leached vitamins. This I always add to my ever-present stockpot of trimmings so that I don’t lose those nutrients (see the Vegetable Stock recipe on page 288).
