Tag Vegetables

Support Your Local Garden

Michael Leave a comment

Locavores are not people who eat their neighbors. But they are people who eat their neighbors’ meat and produce. It’s not a new idea, it’s not a new term, it’s not a new fad. It’s as old as backyard gardens and farmers’ markets and the term was first used in 2005. It reached a milestone in 2013 when AqSuared released an iPhone app just in case you didn’t know what was in season around your home.

If you’re a food junkie and you spend some time watching TV or surfing the net in search of articles and shows built with foodies in mind, catch phrases are growing faster than zucchini during a hot summer. Locavore and Farm to Table are two of the hottest right now.  (Farm to Table is another not new idea going back to 2003 as a recognized “movement.”) Why are they so hot? Probably because it’s hot right now.

Everything tastes better in the summer. It should. That’s the peak growing and harvesting season for almost everything we eat that comes from the earth. It’s when farmer’s markets pop up in parking lots every week, when local coops are wholesaling produce to the local supermarkets and purveyors, and when a salad bar at the neighborhood restaurant isn’t such a bad thing after all. It makes you glad that somebody in the early 2000s was thinking we should eat local.

Wait a minute! In the early 2000s? How about in the early 1900s, 1800, 1700s even. I can’t speak personally of any of those but I can reach back to mid-twentieth century when my father and every other father in our little neighborhood turned most of their backyards into vegetable gardens. The dads would come home from work some spring day and plan the “patch.” That weekend, shovels, rakes, and hoes turned and prepared soil for seeds and seedlings. Daily watering and weeding was added to kids’ lists of chores from then through the summer months. Moms started planning for summer sides for those veggies put to immediate use and for canning, freezing, and otherwise preserving those grown in quantity for use during the fall and winter months.

Locavores claim “locally produced” means within 100 miles. Those old gardeners did it within 100 feet! Oh there is nothing like eating a tomato or an ear of corn that you picked up at a local farmers’ market from a real local farmer. But even they pale to the ones that grow outside your back door. Now that’s local!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

To see a previous post on Farmers’ Markets, click here.

Don’t Keep Them Down on the Farm

Michael 1 Comment

Around our part of the world May heralds the beginning of Farmers’ Market Season. The weather is breaking into a comfortable spring/summer pattern and the local growers are breaking out what they’ve been working on all winter.

Farmers’ markets get the buyer as close to buying local as one can get. When dealing with fresh foods, buying local is never bad.  And at our markets, fresh food doesn’t just equal produce.  Here we’ll also have farmers who prepare their own sausages, jellies, pickles, and even baked goods. A trip to the farmers’ market is like a trip to the market.

Now let’s take it yet an extra step.  At our markets we also have entertainment.  At one market in the city’s downtown, there will be a concert presented by the local opera company every week.  It will also showcase featured vendors every week.  And to round off prepared food choices, food trucks will offer their special provisions.

It wasn’t always like this.  Ten years ago the markets were apples, corn, greens, tomatoes, peppers, squashes in chip baskets stacked neatly in the backs of pick-up trucks.  Somewhere along the way they morphed into events people planned their weeks around becoming social occasions as much as opportunities to experience fresh food items.  Still the center of attention is the produce.  Now it has a full supporting cast.

Are we getting a little nutty over something as simple as local harvest?  Perhaps we are.  City dwellers and near suburbanites look forward to opening of the farmers’ markets as much as they do the opening of baseball season, swimming pools, and spring clearance centers. For months the only fresh ingredients we’ve had for our dinner recipes have been the herbs grown in small pots scattered about the kitchen.

A handful of fresh strawberries scattered over fresh greens with a fruity vinaigrette drizzled over it may not seem like much but after a few months of bagged salads it can be the crowning glory of the evening meal.  In a few weeks one will be able to assemble an entire royal feast.  And that includes the flowers on the table.

You can’t get any fresher than that.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

 

Things That Make You Go Yum

Michael Leave a comment

Ah, the signs of spring are with us.  Thunderstorms, hail, sudden downpours.  Actually, these are good things.  They all get the land prepped and ready for the real signs of spring – gardens!  We (that’s She and He) have different approaches to our gardens.  Where She has a green thumb and can make rocks bloom, He has rocks for thumbs and can hardly grow dandelions.   But somehow throughout the summer, there is bounty to be had at both households.

We began our spring ritual last weekend.  That’s where we sit on our respective decks and think out loud of what we’re going to be planting.  We usually begin with the pretty stuff; hanging pots, flower baskets, blooming plants based on time, duration, and color of the good stuff.  That segues into the veggies.  Tomatoes, beans, spinach, onions, zucchini. Cabbages, lettuces, peppers, and potatoes. And don’t forget the herbs.

That’s a lot of stuff for a couple of yards just barely outside the city limits. How do we do it? She starts out with a few things in pots and various other containers on her deck. But then, since She has that green thumb, she also takes a more diverse path. Who’s to say the front yard can’t be a vegetable garden also. Think of some of your veggies. Lush greens, colorful blooms, all the things you want in a showpiece. And show she does. It’s not unusual for neighbors to stop by her driveway and catch her as She climbs her front steps, lavish her with planting praise, and ask for help in selecting flora for their front yards.

He keeps his gardening to pots hanging around on the deck. Some of them literally hanging, suspended from posts and rails. Small tomatoes on small plants in small pots yield big harvests of big flavors. Towers of terra cotta pots hold a variety of herbs. Beans climb up trellises mounted to the rims of planters. All very compact and all providing veggies through the summer.

So why are we telling you this anyway? Because it’s spring! It’s time to start working with the world around us and harvest the best stuff on earth, the fruits (or veggies) of our own labors.

If your goals are bigger than little flower and vegetable plants, tomorrow is Arbor Day. Don’t just sit there. Go plant a tree!

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

(Did we ever tell you of the time we took a tree home in the front seat of the little convertible?)