Gardening is Unnatural

This time of year I can't wait for spring; to get my hands into the dirt, plant some seeds and wait for them to grow. I love this connection with the outdoors, hearing the birds just returned from afar and my face getting nipped by the gentle chill of a spring breeze and feeling like i'm doing something productive. Isn’t this pretty much as close to nature as things can get?

But, really. Is it?

Growing food seems like it would be an act of nature. But would the plants survive and be productive on their own? For some of them, definitely not. Tomatoes, peppers, and beans perish in a frost. Others whose seeds may survive our winter, like squash and peas will not have the good sense to space themselves apart in neat, even rows for the fruits to be predictably harvested. The pole beans will not supply themselves with sticks so they can grow upward toward the sun. None of them can pick up a shovel to toss on some compost for needed nutrients throughout the season. And without compost or nutrients they will be stunted and unlikely to produce, shirking from a genetic disposition to be fruitful.

Growing vegetables first required clearing the land of what was here before. Here, was forest. Trees of all sizes sending their roots for long distances, traveling under or deep into sand and occasional pockets of clay. This sand and clay heavily encumbered with stones, rocks, boulders and even ledge. Trees had to be felled, stumps yanked, followed by years of degrees of tillage- because the ground is reluctant to make this change- and adding yards of organic matter. Not to mention frequent monitoring of soil ph and nutrients because these, too, are not the same as for the forest.

And if we turn our backs on this garden, on all of this work, forest will soon re-install itself. From acorns to seedlings to saplings the trees will grow and the ground will return to its original ph and its resistance to tillage. And the trees will then sustain themselves on their own, without us.

We process nature to make of it something it would not be. What other creature in the animal kingdom does this stuff?  What creature removes its original habitat and digs and weeds and cultivates beds of soil? I think we are alone in this.

Growing things in neat, even rows is not natural. Nor is isolating a plant to a row all to itself. In nature, plants mingle, seeming to thrive on diversity. A prairie is an example. There are grasses, wildflowers, clovers, and other plants all mixed together, roots entwined and stems supporting each other. We cannot eat prairie. And there’s little in the forest we can eat (pine nuts, for one thing are lovely for making pesto if we can find any left behind by the squirrels).

The garden must be tended. Planting, weeding, soil testing and adding nutrients, mulching, harvesting, cleaning up in fall, the work goes on. Is this nature? Isn't nature something that is self sustaining? Gardening is an invention of humans and an artifice. It’s unnatural.

I'll do it anyway. Because I love being outdoors, and feeling the good energy of hard work, and hearing the birds. I love the feel of the soil that's built up humus over the years and seeing new seedlings popping up through it. Spring is coming and I’m looking forward to gardening. We have our forest for its trees, and our tilled soil for our food supply. Unnatural as it seems, it’s the work we do to raise our food. -jmm

Vegan or Paleo or Something in Between?

The following is a post copied with permission from Shelley Burbank's "Outside the Box" blog. Her words make a case for growing your own food as much as possible and buying local organic pasture-fed meats. But, there seems to be a bigger topic that Shelley has eloquently highlighted: that we have forgotten how to eat. Read on: 

Dear Reader:
One of my favorite bloggers–Shane at GroundtoGround.org–recently wrote about a “new” protein option: mealworms. Yes, mealworms. Of course, eating insects isn’t really a new concept at all. It is very, very ancient. And this leads me to a topic that I’ve been contemplating the past couple of weeks, human diet.
http://groundtoground.org/2013/01/30/how-prepare-eat-mealworms/
What is the optimal sustainable diet for human beings? Can diet cure disease, especially those pesky autoimmune diseases that seem to be arrowing through our populations with debilitating, even tragic, effect? Will a diet that includes plenty of animal product ultimately destroy the planet? Or, looking at this from another angle, will a diet that restricts meat in favor of water-and nutrient-sucking monocrops like grains destroy the planet? Is it wrong to eat something with a face? And how does all this relate to the goal of living locally?
Obviously, I can’t answer all these questions in a single blog post. Heck, I probably couldn’t even scratch the surface in a single book. Here is what I’ve been reading and watching and thinking and doing this January:
1. Started out by watching the film FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD at the local library. This is basically the story of a man who was overweight and suffering from an autoimmune skin disorder who healed himself on a juicing fast. Theory: concentrated nutrients in the juice plus cleansing allows the body to heal itself. http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/
2. Watched the film FORKS OVER KNIVES which explores the idea that diseases can be eliminated or controlled by rejecting processed foods and animal products. http://www.forksoverknives.com/
3. Watched the film FOOD MATTERS which attempts to show that our highly-processed, chemicalized diets are causing health problems and gives solutions for healing. http://foodmatters.tv/content/about-the-film
These three films pretty much advocated for a diet VERY strong in minimally-processed, plant-based foods. Diabetes, heart-disease, hypertension, cancer, inflammation, etc. were all cited as consequences of our unnatural diet. I have a pesky asthma problem that I’ve been trying to heal for years now. I was excited to watch these films, and thought…well, maybe. I knew I wouldn’t go to straight juicing, at least if I could help it. For one thing, I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a good juicer. For another, it just seemed a tad drastic. So I decided to give the vegan way of eating a try.
No. I have to go back even further.
A few years ago, I tried a macrobiotic diet which is almost vegan. It does recommend fish and shellfish products in moderation. While I liked the weight-loss that occurred and the energy I felt, my asthma did not seem to respond at all after seven months and my skin took on a rather sickly pale, yellowish tone. Soon I added meats back in my diet while continuing to eat a lot of veggies and fruits. I also began the process of trying to eat from local sources, including eggs, milk, and meat.
Cut to the present. So, vegan eating would be a challenge for me on a philosophical level. Rice isn’t grown in New England, right? But I went ahead and started cooking some of my old macro foods and tried some new vegan recipes. They were delicious, but no matter how much I ate, I couldn’t feel satisfied. This was different from the macro…because I was getting no seafood? Really? And as I continued to cook some local meats for my family, I noticed how those foods began to smell better and better to me as time went on.
Then, almost two weeks after giving up animal foods, I came down with a rip-roaring virus. I ached from the deepest part of my bones all the way out to my skin. As soon as I had some appetite back, what did I consume? Homemade chicken soup and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream! I either craved those animal foods because there was something nutritionally necessary in them or else I was still detoxing and craving what was bad for me. Which was it? As my grandfather used to say, damned if I know!
I thought I’d continue with the vegan diet for awhile, treating my body like my own little pet test rat. I sat down to watch an episode Peak Moment Television (check it out…very cool!) while eating a vegan lunch of mushroom/garlic/onion fried rice on a bed of arugula, and pow! A title caught my eye: The Vegetarian Myth. Wait a minute, I thought. Myth?
4. Scarfing down my rice and greens, I watched while the host of Peak Moment Television interviews Lierre Keith on her book, The Vegetarian Myth. Then I downloaded the book to my Kindle and have been reading it as voraciously as I had eaten that pint of Chunky Monkey ice-cream a few days before.
Talk about blowing the vegan theories out of the water! It wasn’t exactly all new to me, either, as I had read about Weston Price and his studies on traditional societies and their diets years ago. The skinny on the myth? Humans need meat. Oh, and civilization and agriculture are going to ruin the environment. Hmmmm. http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804
5. Because I just can’t leave well-enough along, I had to google “vegetarian myth debunked” and discovered a plethora of counter-arguments. Try it! Oh, the fun we could have arguing about diet, nutrition, sustainability, civilization, animal rights, and justice.
***************** long pause*************
What did I eat today? Steel-cut oats cooked in a slow-cooker with chopped dried apricots and dates and a banana. Coffee with soy milk. Baby spinach, leftover rice, and macrobiotic nashime veggies: onions, squash, carrots & kombu (a seaweed) cooked slowly on the stovetop with a couple inches of water (really, really delicious, I kid you not).
Oh, and a natural ground turkey burger that tasted heavenly.
Between all the information about fat-soluable vitamins only found in animal foods to endothelial cells that heal only in the absence of animal foods I am a mixed-up, don’t-know-which-way-to-look-for-my-food human being.
And then there is Shane with his mealworms. Sigh.
A quick poll of my social media friends yields practical advice. Eat in moderation. Every body is different. Do what works for you. We are designed to be omnivores. Put bacon on everything (Good one, Scott C!)
Finally, I have to also think about my localista endeavors. The most local diet I can get in Maine is going to have to include animal foods, plain and simple. My local area is rocky and hilly…suitable for grazing animals but not necessarily for raising a lot of rye and wheat. Definitely no brown rice. I also have come to understand (or believe) that a sustainable agriculture necessarily includes animals in order to create a closed-loop system. In other words, we need something to eat the grass we can’t digest, to turn that grass into food we can digest, and to provide nutrients in the form of manure back to the earth. On this point, I have to agree with Keith rather than the vegan-diet proponents.
Perhaps–in order to heal a chronic condition or to detox from a western-style diet high in processed foods and chemicals and too much meat and cheese from nasty feedlots and meat-processing facilities, antibiotic-pumped cows and debeaked chickens and pigs laying in their own filth–a juice fast and vegan approach is a way to reboot. Then, when health is restored, eat foods from local, sustainable, organic farms similar to Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm. Nix the processed stuff. Go extremely easy on the sugar. Eat lots of vegetables and local fruits. Meats and fats in moderation.
Like Michael Pollan concludes in his book In Defense of Food, perhaps the best prescription for a fairly healthy individual is “Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants.”
Perhaps.
What do you think?
--------
The Weston Price source mentioned above is: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, published by the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, 2008, written by Weston A. Price, D.D.S. This book is important for understanding not only how foods affect us, but also why there are so many health challenges in modern society. 

Another book we refer to often is Nourishing Traditions, Revised Second Edition, New Trends Publishing, 2001, by Sally Fallon. This is a book of recipes and lots of information telling how to eat to be healthy including the science of how foods affect us. -jmm  

It's Catalog Time

Catalogs have been showing up in the mailbox. Why is it that, snowed over as the land is, the catalogs arrive now? The Farmer’s Almanac sets May 2nd as the last frost date for this coming spring. Give or take a few days or even several weeks depending on what the weather actually does, there’s about four months from now until planting time.

There’s a reason for it. And of course there is; do they not plan these mailings? Now, when we cannot experience tilled, arable soil warmed by the sun, we can still dream. And as we look at the pictures and read the descriptions (are they telling us better than it is?) we begin to make long lists. We choose three varieties when only one is needed. We imagine that a pictured flower will look happier than its real counterpart. And, in the end we’ll have picked enough seeds to fill a dozen times the garden space we have. Yes, indeed it is the perfect time for these catalogs to arrive.

We do look forward to them this time of year. We read them cover to cover, and then read them again with highlighter in hand to brighten the selection, followed by dog-earring the corner of the page. We want to be sure to not miss any of our choices when the final order is entered into the internet form.

Have we gone purple pole beans? Or delicata squashes? Or nuts? Nah. It’s just the flavor of this time of the year. Whether you are equally nuts as us or not, we wanted to share with you our selection of catalogs. Here are the three main ones that we use every year.

FEDCO Seeds. 151 pages, illustrated with drawings, printed on newsprint paper. Helpful and fun-to-read seed descriptions. Selection of certified organic seeds. Seeds are sold by weight in multiples of weights (2oz., 8oz., 1lb., 5lb., etc.). A separate catalog for trees, fruits, shrubs arrives if you request the seed catalog. www.fedcoseeds.com

Pinetree Garden Seeds and Accessories. 130 pages, color photos on newsprint paper. "We spend the majority of our time in trials evaluating vegetable seed varieties," they say. Seeds are tested for germination rates. There is a notable focus on heirloom varieties. Planting and harvesting tips are offered in handy sidebars. Seeds are sold by number of seeds, for home gardens. www.superseeds.com

Johnny’s Selected Seeds. 112 pages, large color photos on glossy paper. Includes information for farm and market growing, and info for growing each seed type. Organic and heirloom varieties are offered. Small packets for home growing are sold by number of seeds, larger quantities are by weight or number of seeds. In business since 1973, Johnny’s is now 100% employee owned. www.johnnyseeds.com

-jmm

How I'm Building a Stone Wall

In the previous post, click here, I talked about the stone wall I’ve been working on. In this post I’ll try to explain my process. It took some time to figure out how to get things to work. The challenge of dry stacking a stone wall is that, essentially, it’s gravity that holds it all together. There’s no mortar or concrete. Here’s some of what I figured out.

First, there are a few precautions regarding safety if you are considering building a stone wall. Do all lifting with bent knees, and don’t pick up rocks that you cannot safely maneuver. Learn to gauge your strength, and only do what you feel physically capable of.  

Wear gloves that protect your hands. On days that stones that are wet or damp I wear rubber-coated ones. Leather works well for dry stones. Fleece-lined leather ones are needed for working in chilly weather. Gloves are to protect your hands from rough surfaces, not from falling stones.

Never set a rock or stone in place. Instead, drop them in place. As the rock is falling downward, as a precaution your hands should be moving upward. Dropping a stone often creates a loud and sharp sound, so wear ear protection.

Avoid any temptation to influence the rock's landing. After it lands, and only then, feel free to grab onto it and twist, turn, or even roll it until it settles in. If a stone or rock misses the wall, jump backward quickly. Did I say 'wear work boots?' They are a good idea and steel toes may be helpful, but it's still a good practice to never let a stone or rock land anywhere on you.

Now that you’ve got all the warning stuff, here’s my take on the actual building of a stone wall.

The largest rocks form the bottom of the wall.

The biggest rocks go on the bottom. These are rocks that are too big to be picked up, but can be rolled. I transported some of these by rolling them across the field. Others were brought in the tractor bucket, by far the easiest way to do it.

The biggest ones are set along the property line. I line them up along the string I ran earlier to get the wall exactly straight. Running a string is really the only way to make a perfectly aligned wall. I simply tied a string onto one property marker, ran it to the next one, pulled the string tight and tied a knot. These stones should be set, if at all possible, so they end up with a flat top. It’s easier to build upward if the surface is somewhat level. 

The string used to line up the rocks is at the top of the photo, and there is a row of rocks for the back, and one for the front of the wall. 

A second row of rocks is then lined up along the front of the wall. I don't use a string to mark the front. This is eyeballed and based on experience.  I've learned that a certain width is too narrow to withstand the layers of stones that I want to add later. This is one reason I've pulled apart sections of wall to restack them as mentioned in the earlier post. The base of the wall must be of a width that will accommodate the layers of stones that will make up the height. The wall naturally tapers inward as layers are added.

After lining up the front stones I then fill in between them with small stones. These are called rubble. Rubble consists of all of those smaller stones that are too small to use for stacking.

After the center is filled in, the wall is ready for stacking. Everything from here on up will rely on your stacking abilities. Here are some things I've learned about this.

Each rock stacked onto the wall should be stable as it is set, or it should lean slightly inward toward the center of the wall. Rocks shaped long and narrow help to stabilize the wall if they are set to run toward the center rather than lengthwise. Sections can be done by fitting smaller stones together and then capping them with a large flat one.

I often scrounge for pebbles and small stones to fill cracks and gaps on the top of the wall. I rarely chink stones into the sides of a wall- they tend to fall out and are not needed for the structure of it.

Looking downward: stones are fitted together to create a layer. Note the narrow stones that are set to run toward the center. 

The very top of the wall is best finished with large, flat stones covering as many openings as possible. Squirrels will shuck pine cones on your wall, and leaves will fall on it, and this stuff turns into woodland compost and eventually trees will begin to grow out of the top of your wall. Because of this I try to seal it as well as possible.

An important thing to forget about when building a rock wall is time. Never mind the amount of time it takes and just get out there and move rocks when the weather and bugs allow. It’s finished when it is. -jmm

I'm Working on my Stone Wall

I've always admired stone walls. They configure the countryside around here, outlining fields and roads and often determining property lines. They are especially nice in those farmyards where someone took pains to neatly stack stones into picturesque walls. Others are more rustic looking, having served the purpose of getting a field cleared of rocks.

Our fieldstones are many different shapes. There are rounded ones, broken ones that might have a flat side, triangular or wedge-like ones, and all too few slab-like ones. Some of my favorites are rare to find; thin, wide saucerlike pieces that got broken off of ledge. Occasionally you find one that is shaped like a shallow bowl and could be used to make a birdbath. Fieldstone sizes vary from pebbles to stones, and to rocks that are too big to move. None of these are shapes that easily fit together.

When this piece of land came along, a stone wall was the only thing lacking. Over the years I’ve started garden beds and various landscaping projects. Piles of stones and rocks accumulated, so eventually I got the idea to try building a stone wall. I hadn’t a clue about building with rocks. I lined them up, and then proceeded to stack them. Most of this early work has since been taken apart and done over. You learn by doing.

The wall I’m working on is 237 feet long, and most of it has been rebuilt at least once. This fall I’ve been rebuilding sections of it for a second or third time, and hopefully for the last time. I’m determined to get it right. After starting this wall I have begun work on several more stone walls, just as lengthy. It will be a few years, but I’m determined to have stone walls.

Somewhere along the way I did some research. I found that one should begin with a trench and fill it with rubble or pour in concrete. I do not find that practical nor apparently did New England farmers who stacked their walls on the surface of the ground alongside their fields. The filled trench is to prevent frost heaves, but if any frost heave happens to topple a section of wall, I’ll simply rebuild it. Not a biggie. I know how.

In my research a question emerged asking why some walls are low, and whether they could have sunk. So I wondered whether my walls will sink into the soil. This land is not tilled soil, but is the same forest ground that has been here since the last glacier, so I figure probably not. Yes, rocks would sink into tilled soil. It’s full of air spaces. I wonder, instead, if many years of leaves being caught beside the walls caused trees to root into the leaf mulch and thereby the ground level rose. This is what happens if you try to make compost in the forest. It becomes fodder for roots.

In our recent 4.0 earthquake, I went out the next day to find that not a stone had dislodged from my stone wall in all of that shaking. Maybe it helped some of the stones to settle in better. Or maybe it’s a testament to my stacking abilities. Not at all sure, but it made my day to find the stones intact.

In a next post I’ll reveal a few things I’ve learned about dry stacking a stone wall. -jmm

Say it ain't so, Ben and Jerry

I'm disappointed that California voters didn't pass proposition 37, the bill that would require labeling of products containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's). Fear was the impetus behind companies spending 45 million dollars on misleading ads to defeat the bill. They are afraid to let consumers know what is happening to their food supply. The vote was close; 47% of California voters spoke in favor of wanting GMO labelling.

Here, courtesy of Wikipedia, is a concise definition of GMO’s (click here to read more of this article):

A genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. Organisms that have been genetically modified include micro-organisms such as bacteria and yeast, plants, fish, and mammals. GMOs are the source of genetically modified foods, and are also widely used in scientific research and to produce goods other than food. The term GMO is very close to the technical legal term, 'living modified organism' defined in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which regulates international trade in living GMOs (specifically, "any living organism that possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology").

The European Union requires labeling of genetically modified products. China, India, and 47 other countries also require labeling. Click here for the Green America list of countries requiring GMO labeling. Why not in the USA? Shouldn't we, too, have the right to know what is in the food we buy and eat?

Requiring labeling would reveal that much of the food on grocery store shelves are or contain genetically modified ingredients. Much of the corn grown in the U.S. comes from seeds that are modified (think high fructose corn syrup). Soy, canola and cotton crops are dominated by GMO plantings. Alfalfa is one of the latest crops under siege, and will be a staple in the diet of beef cattle. Sweet corn seems to be next.

I took a look at the list of companies that contributed to the "we don't want the public to know what we are putting in their food" advertising blitz. (Click here for the list of companies voting "no"). There are the usual suspects. Monsanto (who also gave us Agent Orange), Dupont, Pepsi-Cola, Kellog and Heinz. I was surprised to see some names of companies who make organic products. Further inquiry told me that some of these natural and organic companies are owned by conglomerates that are full fledged GMO users. Odwalla, Honest Tea and Simply Orange are owned by Coca Cola. Naked Juice is owned by Pepsi Cola. General Mills and Smucker also own companies using natural or organic labels. 

With these GMO-using companies hiding their contributions behind their more healthy-sounding subsidiaries, some of the public was duped into thinking that these companies were against the labeling of genetically modified products. I have to believe that the smaller companies would have supported Prop 37 if they had not been bought by the larger conglomerates.

There were some even bigger surprises on the list. (Click here for an Organic Consumers Association article on this). Kashi, who has products in health food stores, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, is on it (owned by Kellogg). Then there was the biggest surprise of all. Say it ain't so; Ben & Jerry's. I guess my boycott will have to include Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey. (Unilever, who contributed $467,000 is the parent company owning Ben & Jerry's).

So, what can I do as a citizen concerned about the contents of the food I shop for? First, I can buy organic products whenever possible. One of the requirements for foods to be certified as organic is that they are free of genetically modified ingredients. Second, I can boycott products made by companies that contributed to the 45 million dollar ad campaign.

And third, the best solution of all, is that I can grow as much of my own food as possible. I can use heirloom seeds, and save seeds from year to year, helping to preserve the genetics of these old varieties. -G.H.

Molasses Cranberry Squash Bread

This time of year, as the weather turns chilly, the warm, spicy scent of a seasonal nut bread baking in the oven is a welcome aroma. Anyone coming in from the outdoors is sure to ask, "M-m-m, what's baking?" And you can tell them, "Molasses Cranberry Squash Bread." Ah-h-h, the pleasures of harvest baking...!

Use fork-mashed squash, or non-stringy pumpkin. The cranberries and the nuts are optional; use either, both, or neither as you like. Raisins can be substituted for the cranberries. Suggestion: double the recipe to make a second loaf for the freezer.

Recipe makes one 9 x 5" loaf.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream until blended:

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup raw sugar

1/4 cup molasses

Stir in:

2 eggs, beaten

Sour cream and water combined to equal 1/3 cup

1 cup mashed cooked squash

Combine, then stir into the squash mixture and mix thoroughly:

1-1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Pinch of salt

(Optional) Stir in:

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1 cup dried cranberries or raisins

Pour mixture into a greased 9 x 5" loaf pan. Bake 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and the bread has shrunken slightly from the edges of the pan. Allow to cool, then remove from the pan. -jmm