Beautiful. New spring colors for Kentucky, possibly. But can this be a good thing? Is this fantastic flowering of henbit showing us something about how the soil has been treated recently? Does henbit flourish where other plants succumb to no-till herbicides? Do real chickens eat henbit?

I don’t know. I do know that henbit seems more prolific than it used to be, even in my urban yard.

John Walker, energetic organizer of the Bluegrass chapter of Kitchen Gardeners International, says the next meeting will be on Wednesday, 4 April 2007 at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 3564 Clays Mill Road at 7 pm.

It’s a green agenda - John says, “We will be planting spring crops in raised beds and discussing construction of raised beds and pest prevention.”

How about the chapter’s snazzy new logo (above left)?

This is the day, Saturday, March 24, 2007, when we ate food from our own land for the first time since December, 2006. Our land is an urban lot in downtown Lexington, Kentucky. My man grows veggies in eight 4′ X 4′ beds, but those beds are not yet producing.

So I foraged. I dug out all the dandelion plants I could find — not bad for yard cleanup, either. Two weeks ago we were freezing during days in the 20s. Today I found a big colander full of young dandelion pants, tender tips of fresh French tarragon, a big handful of chives, and a few little tips from our great Wayne County mint, transplanted from my childhood home.

Read the rest of this entry »

The happy marriage of big vision and practical skills at the splendid Growing Kentucky II conference in mid-March inspired me. Listening, watching, tasting sustainably grown foods, I could see Kentucky renewed, reborn, re-rooted in a new level of attention to our land, water, air, and food.

The conference gave me new eyes for looking at two publications that arrived this week. First, the Kentucky School Boards Association’s publication, Kentucky School Advocate, described increased interest in agriculture courses in Kentucky’s public schools.

Second, the Lexington Herald-Leader published a special “Newspapers in Education” section devoted to agriculture that I cannot locate online. Kentucky Proud co-sponsored the section, so locally grown foods and farmers markets got a little bit of ink. Read the rest of this entry »

Accomplished farmers, visionary thinkers, inventive chefs, happy eaters, fine food writers and photographers, smart profs and researchers, committed policy makers, creative artists - a fine stew of hope, realism, and excitement about the present and future of Kentucky’s sustainable agriculture.

The first three people I saw at the Growing Kentucky II conference woke me up to the great time my man Steve and I were about to have. Susan Harkins, intrepid Bourbon County farmer and Kentucky’s “Bubba Sue” shrimp pioneer, Susan Masterman, visionary potter and restaurauteur (Portofino, Serafini), and Barbara Napier, irrepressible owner of Snug Hollow Bed and Breakfast, the blissful Estill County retreat where Barbara grows and serves certified organic produce.

Plenty of giant names in food, drink, agriculture, food politics, environmentalism, and restaurants filled the conference hall. What excited me most, though, as I sat happily through an intriguing afternoon of speakers and panels, is how the conference feels different from Growing Kentucky I.

Two years ago, the idea of Kentucky as a place where we can grow our own fantastic food, increase our food security, and care for our land, air and water seemed like a huge leap. Read the rest of this entry »