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By deepening our connection to the food system, we  can further connect with each other and the world around us.

Spring Seed Starting

3/3/2021

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Our spring growing season has officially begun! We started our first round of seeds in the greenhouse this past weekend, and some seedlings are already poking their heads up through the soil. Ever since Kevin and I started the seeds for my first garden years ago, the process has always struck me as magical. It still inspires me to watch a tiny seed, fed with the simple ingredients of moisture, heat, and nutritious soil, become a plant that can feed us all season. It is thrilling to see new signs of germination in a different crop each day, and noticeable growth from yesterday’s tiny seedlings. Time flies, and I know it won’t be long before we’re transplanting these babies out into the great big world, and then not much longer until we’re enjoying their bounty!

If you’re planning to start a garden for the first time this year, there are lots of books and other publications out there (sometimes to the point of overwhelm!). Ron and Jennifer Kujawski’s Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook and The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields by John Jeavons and Carol Cox may be good places to start. If you’re looking to dive into more resources (whether this is your first growing season or your tenth—there is always more to learn!), I compiled a list of some that have been useful to us in this blog entry last year. We love learning and exchanging knowledge, and would love to hear about your go-to gardening resources, too!
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This sweet little bee ventured out on a warm day into the high tunnel. Don't get ahead of yourself, my friend!
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Turmeric is here!

11/9/2020

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Turmeric, a relative of ginger, is a key seasoning in Indian and other Asian cuisines, adding bright golden color and warm, earthy flavor to curries and more.  In recent years, turmeric has been touted as a “superfood” with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and other purported health benefits (take it with black pepper to maximize absorption).

Turmeric is a tropical plant with a long growing season, so we harvest it when it is still young, before it has to face much winter weather. As with baby ginger, baby turmeric is more tender than the mature rhizome and lacks most of the outer cuticle, making it easy to use in a multitude of ways!

You’ve likely encountered turmeric mostly in its powdered form, but fresh baby turmeric is a treat! Fresh turmeric is a great addition to smoothies and juices. It’s an essential  component of Thai curries, like the yellow curry in the recipe below. It is excellent pureed into soups, or even cut into pieces and added to a stir-fry. And you can use it pretty much anywhere you’d use powdered turmeric—substitute a tablespoon of grated fresh turmeric (about 1 inch of rhizome) for 1 teaspoon of powder. However you use it, be mindful that its vibrant color—sometimes used as a dye—readily turns hands, dish towels, cutting boards, and anything else into gold!

Store fresh turmeric wrapped in a towel in a bag in the fridge. You can also freeze it for long-term storage (to use, grate directly off of the frozen piece; it can turn mushy when thawed).

We’re enjoying playing with fresh turmeric, and we’d love to hear what you make with yours!
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Turmeric plants
Thai Yellow Curry
This classic Thai curry is redolent with the flavors of turmeric, ginger, lemongrass, and chiles. Serves about 4. Recipe by Chef Kevin Archer.
  • 1 ¼ pounds mixed vegetables (Squash, cabbage, green beans, carrots, cauliflower, peas, etc. You can also include some diced tempeh or pressed firm tofu if you’d like.), cut into bite-sized pieces
  • ½ tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 cup coconut milk
  • 1 ½ tablespoon Yellow Curry Paste (see recipe below)
  • 1 ½ kaffir lime leaves
  • 1 teaspoon brown sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 ½ tablespoon chiles, minced (optional, depending on heat preference)
  • 1 ½ tablespoon fresh cilantro or fresh basil, minced
  1. Heat coconut oil in heavy pan or wok. Add vegetables and lightly brown. Do not cook fully at this point.
  2. Add coconut milk, paste, lime leaves, brown sugar, and salt.
  3. Bring quickly to boil then reduce heat. Simmer until vegetables are done and sauce has thickened.
  4. Add chiles and cilantro and serve over basmati rice.

Thai Yellow Curry Paste
This flavor-packed paste freezes well, so we like to make a big batch and freeze it in individual 1 ½ tablespoon portions for many meals to come.  Recipe by Chef Kevin Archer. Yield: 1 1/2 cup
 
1 oz fresh turmeric, skinned and chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 oz ginger, chopped
1 oz coriander roots, chopped (optional)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3/4 oz lemongrass, chopped
1/2 oz red chiles, chopped
3 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1. Place turmeric, onion, ginger, coriander roots, garlic, and lemongrass in blender. Also add chiles and lime juice.
2. Blend to a puree.
3. Add ground coriander, ground cumin, peppercorns, and sea salt. Blend again.
4. Heat peanut oil in heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Add mixture from blender.
5. Fry paste for 5 minutes or until fragrant.
6. Cool and place in a well-sealed jar. Keep in the refrigerator or freezer until needed.
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Yellow Curry Paste
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Three Cheers for the Little Guys!

8/17/2020

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One of the great joys of the garden is watching all of the small life that inhabits that world and helps the plants thrive. The wide array of bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and flies busily pollinating. The ladybugs, lacewings, and praying mantises helping keep pests at bay. The earthworms, beetles, and other invertebrates turning vegetable matter into healthy soil. Here at Dandelion Ridge Farm, we do what we can to support all of this vibrant life, including avoiding toxic chemicals, using integrated pest management techniques, planting flowers that support pollinators, and allowing for areas of wild space as wildlife habitat.  We have been astounded by the number and diversity of bees and butterflies we’re seeing this summer, including a number of monarch butterflies using the milkweed we have planted as a host for their offspring. The sunflowers that line the garden are teeming with more species of pollinators than we can count! We are in awe of the array of small creatures who keep us all fed through their tireless work.
We are particularly grateful for the hum of insect activity because native bees and other pollinators essential to food production are facing enormous threats from pesticide use, climate change, habitat loss, and even competition from non-native honeybees (here’s a great short film on the topic). In fact, insect populations worldwide are rapidly declining—40% in the last 10 years—and up to 40% of the world’s insect species are at risk of extinction, according to a 2019 study. While insects are often framed as nuisances to human society (and it’s true, there are definitely some species I don’t appreciate so much…), it’s impossible to underestimate the importance of insects in ecosystems across the globe, and the worldwide ripple effect of these population losses.

But there are concrete ways we can each support beneficial native insects and other invertebrates. One of our favorite resources is the Xerces Society, “an international nonprofit organization that protects the natural world through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats.” Their website contains a vast array of publications, videos, and other materials about these vital species and how to protect them and conserve the ecosystems they are a part of. They are hosting an ongoing webinar series on topics ranging from beneficial predatory insects to the affects of pesticides on pollinators to conservation guides specific to different species and regions of the country. Past webinars are also available online if you missed one. The Xerces Society has an enormous wealth of information, with many access points, including education, community science, habitat support, and advocacy. We urge you to support their work and get involved!
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If you don’t have a garden to watch the mesmerizing dances of butterflies, bees, and others at home, we’ll share our pollinator plot with you. We like to watch this video on a loop as a bedtime meditation—we hope you enjoy it, too!
Now I’ll leave you with a celebration of the humble bumblebee by poet and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The Humble-Bee
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Burly dozing humblebee!
Where thou art is clime for me.
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek,
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid zone!
Zig-zag steerer, desert-cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines,
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.
Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion!
Sailor of the atmosphere,
Swimmer through the waves of air,
Voyager of light and noon,
Epicurean of June,
Wait I prithee, till I come
Within ear-shot of thy hum,--
All without is martyrdom.
When the south wind, in May days,
With a net of shining haze,
Silvers the horizon wall,
And, with softness touching all,
Tints the human countenance
With a color of romance,
And, infusing subtle heats,
Turns the sod to violets,
Thou in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace,
With thy mellow breezy bass.
Hot midsummer’s petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tune,
Telling of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers,
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found,
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer and bird-like pleasure.
Aught unsavory or unclean,
Hath my insect never seen,
But violets and bilberry bells,
Maple sap and daffodels,
Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern, and agrimony,
Clover, catch fly, adders-tongue,
And brier-roses dwelt among;
All beside was unknown waste,
All was picture as he passed.
Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breeched philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
Thou dost mock at fate and care,
Leave the chaff and take the wheat,
When the fierce north-western blast
Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep,--
Woe and want thou canst out-sleep,--
Want and woe which torture us,
Thy sleep makes ridiculous.
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The Earth Knows My Name

7/23/2020

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If you’re looking for a good book to read on days when it’s too hot to be out in the garden, might I recommend Patricia Klindienst’s The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans? I just finished this engaging, but gentle, almost meditative book.  The author visits farmers and gardeners all over the United States whose gardens both feed their bodies and nourish their cultural connections, whether their homeland is Cambodia, Italy, or India, or their ancestors have farmed the same land since long before European settlement. Klindienst provides space for the farmers to speak for themselves, revealing the stories of their gardens as ways of telling their personal and cultural histories.

I was struck by the diversity of experience within growing food, which is done all over the world, in very different situations and environments, growing very different crops. Yet there is a deep commonality to this practice: an intense connection to the place, the land, and the particulars of climate and ecosystem, as well as the attention paid, care given, skills perfected, and community built. For the people in the book who had left their homeland to forge a new life in the United States, their gardens—their traditional practices and techniques, as well as the crops they grow—serve as a way to ground them in their new homes and tangibly connect them back to the places and people they had left behind. For people such as the Gullah farmers of South Carolina and the Native American farmers of New Mexico, growing food is an embodiment of their heritage, a continuous line from the past through the present to the future.
For all of the growers in the book, their gardens are deeply healing places, and their relationships with their gardens seem akin to familial bonds, or even extensions of themselves. “The earth is the actual ground of our lives—we grow out of the soil too. If it dies, we die. If it lives, we eat and live. You know this when you grow your own food,” Klindienst reminds us.

Referring to her garden, Italian-American Maska Pelligrini tells Klindienst, “It’s our life, you know.” Klindienst reflects that “Maska’s all-embracing phrase, ‘It’s our life,’ included the whole garden—soil, plants, worms, birds, insects, water, sun, wind, and her. In her marvelous, encompassing, humble phrase, ‘our life’ extended to include ‘their lives.’ Her garden was an interdependent community, a democracy.”[1]


[1] Klindienst, 241.
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Prak Kom, Khmer Growers, Amherst, MA, from pklindienst.com
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Ralph Middleton, St. Helena Island, SC. Photo courtesy of Stephen Morton, from pklindienst.com
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Growing Resources

4/26/2020

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In the midst of the current crisis, lots of folks are starting their own vegetable gardens for the first time or digging into existing gardens with a greater sense of purpose. There can never be too many vegetable gardens, as far as we’re concerned, and growing some of what you eat, even if it’s just a few herbs or a potted tomato plant on your deck, is such an empowering way of connecting with your food. I will never forget the thrill of growing our first garden eight years ago--the magic of sprouting seeds and the intense satisfaction of eating our first harvest.

It’s inspiring to see so many of our neighbors and friends turning over ground to start their own coronavirus victory gardens for food security and for the joy of watching plants thrive under loving care. In a time with so much unknown, when many are feeling disconnected from the world we’re used to, it can be profoundly grounding and empowering to put your hands in the dirt and to know in the deepest way where our nourishment comes from.

Growing food is a continual learning experience (part of what keeps it interesting!), but here are a few online resources we have found really useful in our ongoing garden education:
  • Southern Exposure Seed Exchange’s Growing Guides are a great place to start. They are very thorough, covering everything from seed starting and growing for biodiversity to crop-specific guides for just about any vegetable you’d want to grow.
  • Seed Saver’s Exchange also has a very good library of articles on all aspects of the vegetable garden, including site planning, crop-specific growing guides, and seed saving information.
  • Your county extension office is an incredible resource (shout out to our amazing horticulture agent, Faye Kuosman!). They can help you with soil testing (a key step to garden success!), troubleshooting, and connecting you with all the resources you need. The UK Extension Office’s guide to Home Vegetable Gardening in Kentucky is a useful reference, as well.
  • Johnny’s Selected Seeds’ Growing Center has excellent charts, calculators, and other planning guides, as well as an “Ask a Grower” feature.
  • The Organic Grower’s School has a wealth of resources for home gardeners, farmers, and consumers on their website, including some specific to growing during the COVID-19 pandemic, an excellent Gardener’s Library, and materials from their annual conferences.
  • We haven’t used Territorial Seed’s Garden Planner App yet, but it looks like a user-friendly way to keep track of all of your garden planning information in one place (rather than our approach of massive spreadsheets!). I want to give it a try in the future.
  • The Bionutrient Food Association has a vast library of documents, videos, and book recommendations available online. They tend to be more advanced, for experienced growers wanting to increase nutrient content in their crops by creating a super healthy soil food web.
  • The University of Kentucky’s Center for Crop Diversification is geared toward professional growers growing on a large scale, but its crop profiles and maps contain a lot of good information.
  • I really enjoy listening to the Farmer to Farmer Podcast, in which host and experienced organic farmer Chris Blanchard has down to earth conversations with other farmers about their operations and experiences. Unfortunately, Chris Blanchard passed away in 2018, but there is a hefty archive of past episodes to listen to while you work.

And some of our favorite gardening books include:
  • John Jeavons’ books How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine and The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields, which is essentially a condensed and very accessible version of How to Grow More Vegetable. Both books are helpful with creating a solid garden plan.
  • Eliot Coleman’s The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener and Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long are bibles in the organic growing realm. Coleman grows year-round in Maine, so he has the art of the four-season harvest down!
  • Will Bonsall's Essential Guide to Radical Self-Reliant Gardening is another treasure. Bonsall, also a Maine farmer and homesteader, has a strong personality and sense of humor that come though his writing along with his passion and hard-earned knowledge.
  • The Seed Garden: The Art and Practice of Seed Saving, put out by Seed Savers Exchange and edited by by Lee Buttala and Shanyn Siegel and Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners by Suzanne Ashworth are excellent resources if you want to save your own seeds.

We learn so much every growing season, from publications, from other farmers, and from the garden itself. It is so exciting to see many others jumping enthusiastically into growing food. Please let us know if we can share our experiences to help you get started!

Many seed companies have been inundated with orders this spring and many are sold out or are suspending orders to catch up. We have some little plants ready to go into your garden, ranging from cilantro and basil to okra and peppers from our own saved seeds and heirloom tomatoes. We also have a set of edible flower plants to make your harvest as beautiful as it is delicious!

Happy Growing!
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