Savoring Kentucky » Land

Have You Seen Durham’s Public Herb Garden?

Rona — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:40:43 +0000

I have not seen the public herb garden in Durham, North Carolina. I had never heard of a public herb garden until I read the phrase in this beautiful story an alert loved one forwarded. The New York Times story describes the changes in what people in Durham eat since the farms near them converted from tobacco to vegetables. Watch the slide show, too.

Like our neighbors to the south, we are experiencing some of the same positive post-tobacco changes in how we eat and what we grow in Kentucky. I haven’t heard of a public herb garden in the Bluegrass yet. Given the amazing energy all around us here, and the productive pace Seedleaf, John Walker (Edible Garden Series and Urban Gleaning), and people energized at the recent Now What Lexington are setting, I’d lay odds someone in my city is collecting herbs or drawing plot designs right now.

We live in amazing times, and I live in a place of promise. You do too.

What’s a Win for Communities? Farmland or Developments?

Rona — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:20:32 +0000

We hosted a “one time book group” last week about Independence Days, a book by Sharon Astyk about why and how to store and preserve food. It’s the why that can be troubling. Astyk asserts the wisdom of storing a substantial supply of tasty preserved food and drinkable water, given the volatility and finite store of petroleum for food transport, the intensity of natural disasters, the fading abilities of rescue entities to move quickly when destruction is massive, as well as the scary possibilities of war, famine, and even long-term job loss.

The book can cause middle of the night musings. Most of us who met to talk about it confessed to skimming some parts or jumping frequently from the narrative of why we need to store food to the recipes and sunny descriptions of how we do it. In its mildest form, Independence Days makes a fine case for growing more of our own food in our own yards and in our communities.

One of the thoughtful people at the book group explained that comprehensive land use planning in the Bluegrass could get a lot more complex than it has been. The need to protect land so we can feed ourselves may become part of comprehensive planning considerations.

And then here comes the Wall Street Journal describing ongoing declines in the amount of land available for farming in the San Francisco Bay Area — from which direction trends and circumstances have a strong tendency to roll eastward. See what you think: Fewer Farms to Feed ‘Local’ Appetite: Small City Plots Foster a Sense of Agricultural Revival, but Fail to Make Up for the Steady Loss of Farmland in the Region

Wilt That Salad!

Rona — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:11:06 +0000

The things we did with eggs this weekend:

> Scramble with Stonecross Farm sausage.

> Make gougères – French cheese puffs, sort of. (Here’s a David Lebovitz recipe close to the one we used.)

> Make impromptu deconstructed deviled eggs “vinaigrette” with eggs originally intended to garnish fresh asparagus from our garden.

> Make wilted salad. Or “killed” or “kilt” salad, if you prefer.

This is about the salad. In the past, as noted here, moderately industrious families likely made this Kentucky mountain spring delicacy with their own homegrown and home-processed ingredients, needing only salt from an outside source.

At our house, a week or so before the first homegrown lettuce is big enough to qualify as micro-greens, our salad owed a lot to the local markets. From Lexington Farmers Market we got Blue Moon spring salad mix, Elmwood Stock Farm eggs, and Stone Cross Farm smoked bacon. Salt, cider vinegar, and maple syrup came from Good Foods Market. We snipped one sprig of our own green onion.

There’s not a lot of technique.

Boil eggs: Use eggs that are at least one week old. This prevents the inadvertent introduction of coarse language into your otherwise tranquil kitchen, since extremely fresh eggs hold onto their shells, making them maddening-to-impossible to peel smoothly. Cover your fresh-but-not-too-fresh eggs with cold water, and cover the pot with a lid. Bring gradually to a boil. Boil one minute. Cover and let set eight minutes. Drain hot water, and replace with cold water. Wait a few minutes. Crack the eggs all over. Peel. I used three eggs for two people.

Wash and rinse lettuce; put it in a heat-proof bowl. Use double the amount of your usual salads. This one is going to melt away to a much smaller version of itself.

Cook the bacon. Allow about two pieces per person. Use your good bacon protocol: Cast iron or heavy skillet, cold, low-medium heat, turning as often as needed to produce crispiness all around. When the bacon is done, lift it to a cutting board. Cut it in small pieces while still warm. Cutting while warm keeps the bacon from flying into Aunt Hattie’s eye as she sits near you, watching you cook.

While the bacon cooks, slice or crumble the eggs. If you have one of these strange egg slicing tools — much loved by one of our sons as a young person — your egg slices will be beautifully even.

Until you start eating your salad, of course. Crumbling your boiled eggs with fingers or fork will work just as well as slicing. Use your keen imagination to decide what egg texture and look suit you. Put the eggs on a cutting board or in a dish. Do not add them to the salad yet.

Chop a green onion (or more, or less than a whole one, to taste) in small pieces and put on top of the salad greens. I use only the green stems, but my mother (and very likely her mother) added the chopped, “hotter” white parts of fresh spring onions for this salad, and so should you, if you like that biting, fresh hot new onion taste.

Once the bacon is lifted from its hot oil, leave the heat on, and add about 1 Tablespoon good raw cider vinegar to the skillet. It will steam and hiss and splatter – and it may make you cough, so try not to breathe in the steam just at first. If you like a sweet-sour-salty combo, add 1 – 2 Tablespoons maple syrup or brown sugar as well, and stir, stir, stir with a wooden spoon or heat-proof whisk. (Classic wilted salad in Kentucky is completely savory. No added sweetener of any kind.)

Add a pinch of salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper. When all is sizzling and boiling away, carefully pick up the entire skillet, and pour the mixture over the salad greens. Put the skillet in a safe location, and toss the greens as they wilt and shrink.

Top the salad with the sliced eggs and chopped bacon. Serve. Oooh and aaaah, just like our great-grandparents did — I’m pretty sure.

The Flowering

Rona — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:49:17 +0000

Add to the abundance of edibles already appearing this spring a generous flowering of events about food, food systems, farming and agriculture of the sort intended to sustain Kentuckians from now on.

Two food summits will take place soon in neighboring cities. These may be the first Kentucky food summits. Certainly the idea of a food summit is new to me, and promising.

Community Farm Alliance invites us to “Everybody Eats!” From the Ground Up: First Annual Louisville Food Summit this Saturday, April 11 —- well, perhaps not. Their event is sold out. Good for them!

Berea College kicks off its April 16-17 Food Summit with the irrepressible, inimitable Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm leading a convocation and speaking at a local foods dinner. Meet Joel in 97 seconds here, or spend eight minutes with him here as talks about forgiveness as a farming principle. Several of the Food Summit events are open to the public.

Next week in Lexington, the Gaines Center for the Humanities at the University of Kentucky brings Will Allen to a public forum at the Central Library, 140 East Main Street, Monday night, April 13, 6:00 PM. Allen founded Growing Power in Milwaukee, and received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2008.

I am eager for a different type of event that takes place this Saturday, April 11: the first day outdoors in 2009 for the Lexington Farmers Market. This year the outdoor Market moves to a new location on the west side of the old Fayette County Courthouse along Cheapside Park, between Main and Short Streets, and along Short as well. Opening day outside means a lot more growers come to the Market. They will bring with them new green things to eat (green garlic for sure, thanks to Blue Moon) and other tasty bits I can hardly imagine!

Plant Our (Edible) Future

Rona — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:29:50 +0000

On Saturday, March 21, volunteers (with experienced guides) will plant nearly 70 fruit- and nut-bearing trees (baby trees, I mean) in four locations in downtown Lexington. If you want to be part of this urban orchard experience, come to the London Ferrell Community Garden at 250 East Third Street, (in the large field next to Lexington’s main fire station) at 9:00 AM — that’s a civilized hour on Saturday, no? — with a workable shovel. You’ll know what to wear.

Groups involved in this wonderful step toward greater urban food self-sufficiency include Christ Church, Seedleaf, Inc., the Martin Luther King Neighborhood Association, Communality, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government’s Neighborhood Action Match Grant Program, Living Arts and Science Center, Florence Crittenton Home, Fayette and Woodford County Extension, Fayette County Master Gardeners, Down to Earth Garden Club, and more.

Rumor has it there will be refreshments mid-dig.

Gratitude, thanks, appreciation: We have been mentored and guided so kindly, generously, and extensively by many people, even before the first spade bites earth. We especially thank Reed Valley Orchard owner and fruit tree expert Dana Reed, UK Horticulture Professor John Strang, Woodford County Extension Agent for Horticulture and Master Gardener Patti Meads, David Wagoner of Three Springs Farm CSA.

One other note: One person’s work made this possible: Our generous, kind, wise, lovely and irrepressible leader (and master gardener) Sherry Maddock. She deserves her own edible urban forest – dedicated to future generations, of course.

Photo Credit: Slonov -Thank you!

In the London Ferrell Garden in November!

Rona — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:44:42 +0000

The Martin Luther King Neighborhood, Christ Church, and others partnered this year to launch a new urban community garden in downtown Lexington. Thanks to the patient, enlightened leadership of all the groups involved, and to the wonderful work of Seedleaf, Inc., we have had a beautiful start for this project.

I am learning how productive a garden can be late into the fall of the year. Here are photos I took three days ago.

[Show as slideshow]

Faith in fine, fresh, fair local foods

Rona — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:02:26 +0000

Three examples this week of faith-based work in support of sustainable food systems wake me up to how quickly faith congregations can change habits and help save the earth. (Some wonderful educational institutions are already leading toward sustainability, as are a few corporations. I’m less sure about government bodies.)

A beloved niece, entering the second of two years as president of her synagogue, tells me persuading the congregation to install and use composting systems is high on her agenda for this year.

Second, from someone dear to a beloved son, I learn about successful efforts to set up a CSA (farm subscription) at a synagogue in Chicago. A short story in a newsletter (PDF, 241K) from the synagogue tells about cooking with the good food from the farm, and includes an inspired recipe for cucumbers on page 2.

Third, while on vacation this week I read Matthew Sleeth’s Serve God Save the Planet, a polestar book for many of my beloved neighbors, members of a Christian-based faith community that takes on the world’s toughest issues, including homelessness, hunger, and saving our literal earth, air, and water.

When institutions lead, lots of people get exposed to new habits and new satisfactions quickly. In the words of the excellent Bill McKibben: Step it up!

Farm bill – a chance to make a policy difference

Rona — Sat, 26 May 2007 20:12:30 +0000

My fraternity — aka the National Peace Corps Association — is working for changes in the 2007 U.S. Farm Bill. One partner organization, Oxfam America, has developed a “Fairness in the Field” vision for the Farm Bill that includes these aims:

•Reduce funding for commodity subsidies that distort trade, and shift resources
to alternative investments in rural America.
•Shift taxpayer dollars to programs that help conserve land for future generations,
support a broad variety of farm products,and help poor and minority farmers.
• Shift taxpayer dollars to programs that can create markets for healthy foods in the
same regions where farmers live—in school cafeterias,farmers markets,local
grocery stores,hospitals,and nursing homes.
• Invest in roads,bridges,and broadband technology in rural America to generate
new jobs and strengthen small businesses.

Photo is of Sharon Stratton, Hoot Owl Holler Farm

Do hens eat henbit?

Rona — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 02:51:28 +0000

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.

Renewing, sustaining

Rona — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:46:48 +0000

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.

Sustainable growing, and the business and education involved in caring for our soil and food for future generations, did not show up in these publications in any prominent way. My father taught vocational agriculture and horticulture teacher, and I value that teaching as a powerful influence on the people who will care for our land going forward. I hope the University of Kentucky will continue to lead toward sustainability, and will find ways to encourage public schools’ agriculture and horticulture teachers and students to work toward sustainability as well.