Summer Flowers

The main theme of this blog has been and still is about growing the fruit and veggie crops that add amazing flavors and nutrients to our food supply. Raising food plants has been at the core of our gardening focus, but there’s more to the garden; there are the flowers.

Flowers are food for the soul; what would life be without them? Through the summer I capture digital images of the blooms for no other reason than that they are there and colorful and interesting. And not just photogenic, but they are ideal subjects for photography. They don’t act camera shy nor do they stick out their tongues at that critical nano second before the shutter clicks. The most that happens is a bee crawling out of the middle of a flower as the picture is being taken.

What is not caught in the click of the camera, or in bytes, however you want to think of it, never shows up in the picture and is left to the imagination. There are the aromatics, the scents- most notably those that of the roses. And there is often the shy slither of garden snake hidden in the vinca, the melodic voices of birds, and the loud and constant buzzing of bees. As you squat down to get a better angle on a bloom you see that Mr. toad is wiggling his behind into the dirt, and you find that a garden spider has been busy because your hair is getting full of sticky strands of web. And you hear the indistinguishable whir of hummingbird zooming by. There’s lots going on there, and the mere image of a bloom is far from the whole picture.

I like to look at the flower photos in the middle of the chilly season. I can see how beautiful the flowers were, and more than that, the images spark memories of the constant hum of activity all around them. I can almost smell the roses. -jmm

Jens Munk rose

Hosta

Siberian iris

Iris

Maidens Blush rose

3 kinds of roses

Stone pathway

Snowball bush

Weigela

The Yellow Rose of Texas

Heather and an ancient tree stump

Alba Alba roses

Apothecary rose and Feverfew

Bearded iris

Bellflower and roses

Goatsbeard

A groundcover mix

Food & Water Watch

Food & Water Watch is a national non-profit based in Washington D.C., dedicated to ensuring that we all have clean water and safe food. I became familiar with them when I started researching GMO's (genetically modified organisms) and companies like the Monsanto Corporation.

Recently, a local branch of Food & Water Watch hosted a potluck dinner for interested people to get together and catch up on local Watch activities. This was held at the home of Mark, his wife, and their rescued greyhounds in East Waterboro.

We talked about a range of topics including local control of aquifers, damage to water sources by fracking, organic gardening, labeling of GMO's and even the recent declaration that pizza in school lunches is a vegetable because it contains a little tomato paste.

Though our conversations covered many themes, a couple of our topics are close to my heart. By growing most of our food, we are able to avoid chemicals and GMO's that are prevalent in much of the commercial foodstuffs on the market. And, though we have safe, chemical free water here, this is not the case for much of the world's people. It's not enough for us to merely homestead to care for ourselves. Consumers are often not aware of sources of their food and of the dangers of the additives in many things they eat. Water in many places is becoming privatized and placed in the hands of corporations more concerned with profits than public safety. Since the corporations that control such a large percentage of food are not willing to voluntarily label products that contain GMO's, we are for legislation that requires them to. We support indigenous people in Bolivia and India that are trying to take back local control of their water rights.

GMO's are in many grocery store products, especially in processed foods. Problem is, there is no requirement to let consumers know that they are in so many foods. The multi-national corporations that produce the majority of packaged and processed foods send their lobbyists (with boat loads of contributions) to convince politicians that the public doesn't need to know what is in the food they produce and market.

As consumers, we want and need to know what is in the food we eat. Only then can we make educated choices about what ends up in our shopping carts and on our dinner tables.

There is legislation to require clear labeling of food products to let us know when genetically modified ingredients are in them. The GE Food Right to Know Act, sponsored by Dennis Kucinich, has been introduced in the House of Representatives. This act MUST be passed. Contact your representatives in Congress to support this legislation. Here in Maine, our House Representative is Chellie Pingree who has experience with organic farming. Thank you, Dennis and Chellie.

Our water, also, must be kept out of the hands of corporations that want to extract and put it into plastic bottles that end up in land fills. Clean drinking water is becoming scarce world wide. Climate change and population growth, among other things, are affecting its supply. Future wars will be waged over water, or its lack. We're fortunate here in Maine to have adequate water supplies and we need to make sure that this continues. Local communities are working to ensure that control of water stays local. Communities like Shapleigh- two towns over- have prevented multi-national corporations from extracting their water.

We can't allow politicians, who are often bought and paid for by these corporations, to give away this precious resource. We need to act now, while we still have an adequate water supply, to be sure we always do. Our Maine politicians need to know that our drinking water must remain a public resource.

For our part, we need to be educated about factors involving food and water, share this knowledge with others and let politicians know that the 99% of us are paying attention, speaking up and voting for those that share our values. Getting involved with organizations like Food & Water Watch may take a little bit of our time, but can go a long ways in helping to protect our access to healthy food and water. -G.H.

Making Tallow

I'd heard about rendering beef fat (rendered fat is called tallow) to use for cooking. Every year we stock the freezer with a organic, grass-fed beef, and last year we decided to ask for the suet. Suet is thick, solid fat that surrounds the liver and kidneys of the animal. The suet stayed in the freezer for almost a year until I got brave enough to figure out what to do with it.

I don’t know why I waited so long to do this. Tallow is great for frying potatoes, for deep frying, and, my favorite use, pie crust. 

The problem was, I had no one to ask how to do it. The person to ask would have been Grandma, but she has been gone for many years. She had to have known how to render fat way before she ever went to the store for a can of crisco. So I googled.

The search landed on a question, among other entries. “What the heck is suet?”, someone asked. I already knew what suet was having bought little cages of it to feed wild birds. But the question led me to think about how knowledge of real food has tumbled off some cliff in favor of brand named packaged stuff. Anyway, the search turned up two methods of rendering suet. One consists of boiling it in water, then separating the water from the fat. Is this an older method designed for wood stoves with erratic heat? The second one said to heat it for considerable time on very low heat.

I chose the low heat version. Here’s how it went.

First, I get the brown paper bag of suet out of the freezer and let it sit for awhile to thaw. A few hours later I tear open the bag and find two big, solid slabs of whitish stuff.

I decide to do one slab today and tackle the other tomorrow, giving me a second chance to get it right if things don't go well the first time. Only one of the slabs will fit in the kettle anyway.

After finding in my google search that the stuff gums up food processors and meat grinders, two little facts I would have guessed anyway since it is solid, greasy fat, I opt for a chefs knife. As it turns out, suet cuts up very easily. I cut the slab into one- to two-inch cubes, and at the same time trimming away anything that is a color other than white.

Acting on advice to use a heavy pot, I choose a cast iron dutch oven. I set the burner on very, very low heat, exactly at the point where a speck lower is no heat at all, and then went off to do other things. 

When I return to check on progress, not expecting any due to the low heat setting, I’m surprised to find the heat has worked magic- under the cubes I see that liquid has started to seep out.

As I keep returning to check on it, I find the chunks becoming smaller. Eventually liquid predominates. Somewhat later the chunks seem to be gradually turning brownish. My research says these are cracklins. The cracklins continue to brown as I keep checking on the pot.

Warning! Do not be tempted at any point to raise the heat. I tried this just to let you know it should not be done. I thought that maybe turning up the heat would darken the cracklins sooner. Well, they didn’t get much browner but the entire pot of fat started smoking. That, you know is a sign of danger. Never let your fat smoke. With no further ado I slide the kettle onto an unheated burner and slap the lid on. And open windows and put on fans. It takes a long time to stop smoking. Hairy scary.

The second slab rendered the next day entirely on very, very low heat. This worked perfectly with no smoke. None. As things turn out it was a good idea to do this in two batches; a-a-ah, learning curves...!

To finish the process I take out the cracklings with a fine strainer. After the liquid cools down a little I pour it into jars. There was plenty of google advice saying to use wide mouth jars, so I did't mess with it and chose wide mouth canning jars. Both batches got me about three quarts. They say it lasts a year in the fridge. 

Tallow is solid, especially if you store it in the fridge. When you need some stick a butter knife into it and crack off a chunk. If you need a quantity for deep frying, take it out of the fridge a few hours ahead of time.

As for the the trimmings and the greasy cracklins, I scrapped those way back in the woods. -jmm

Fried Tortilla Tacos

Marsha doesn’t like tortillas heated in a dry skillet. She says they taste "raw." So I tried frying them in our homemade beef tallow, and she loved them! Here’s how I fried tortillas to make delicious crispy taco shells.

Place a cast iron pan on the stove, and with the burner set on medium add chunks of tallow to the pan. Keep adding until there is a half inch of melted fat. When the fat is hot, place a tortilla in the pan and fold it in half. Using tongs, turn it a few times until it just begins to get crisp. Remove it from the pan and place it on a paper towel to absorb excess fat. Add another tortilla to the pan and repeat.

Before frying the taco shells, I made a filling and salsa. For the filling I cooked some ground organic range fed beef, onions, green pepper, garlic and a Habanero pepper.

For the salsa, I diced a tomato, and chopped an onion and some garlic and fresh cilantro and placed them into a saucepan with a little cumin. After this simmered for about 15 minutes I chopped a dried Jalepeno and added it. Another 5 minutes of simmering and then I let it cool.

To assemble your taco put some filling in the shell, and sprinkle on some chopped lettuce and some grated cheese. Add a spoonful of salsa and enjoy! -G.H.

Gardening in Wet Soil

Soil conditions that involve too much or too little water present issues for many gardeners. In some areas a short rainy season provides some water while the rest of the year is dry. Various ways of retaining rain water and using it judiciously come into play. Rain barrels, drip irrigation, swales, and thick mulches are some of those.

Here, in the past several years we have experienced unusual and copious rainfalls that dump a lot of water in a short amount of time. One of these was a devastating hail storm that cut a narrow swath through Southern Maine. The hail entirely stripped young fruits from trees and shrubs, and completely leveled the garden turning plants into soggy heaps of collapsed tissue. Onslaughts like these send brooks through the woods where there were none before. This is catastrophic water, and we’ve deepened ditches to prepare for future incidents.

Constant water is another matter. This comes to mind because Roman, who is renovating a home on Chebeaque Island, wrote to me that this may be a consideration around his house. His description reminds me of gardening where I once lived. This was a 1900 farmhouse with a spacious backyard abutting a large hayfield. In talking to neighbors at the time, I learned that the hayfield had been tiled by the Army Corp of Engineers. It was an aquifer. The engineers redirected  water into a brook running down the center of the field.

But tiling it didn’t stop the field from being an aquifer. My backyard, at the edge of it, consisted of soggy soil heavily populated with a tenacious crop of weeds. My visions of rows and rows of veggies bounded by perennial flower borders turned into an enormous amount of work.

In the end I resolved the problem of waterlogged soil, and wonderful crops were able to grow. The soil there was deep, unlike the thin forest topping we have here. It would have felt  tragic to not use it!

Having no book of instructions I acted on instincts, the first of which was to dig soil out of pathways and pile it into rows. This, I believe was the single most important thing that could have been done. The raised beds gave the plants a dry-enough place, while the roots could reach down and find moisture. In the center of the garden I piled a mound of dirt several feet high and planted sage, oregano, thyme, and other herbs. These grew beautifully also. An area was planted in rhubarb, which thrived. I have a photo of my teenage son holding a rhubarb leaf ... it was almost as big as him!

And I did a couple more things. The garden pathways were gradually filled in with leaves, grass clippings, and weather-worn hundred-year-old cedar shingles from the side of the barn. Pathways running along the outsides of the garden were filled in with trucked-in small stones. The stones made an ideal path that was always dry to walk on. Off to one side I planted a Wisconsin Weeping Willow tree. Driving by recently, I saw that the little twig that was originally planted has grown really big! A full grown willow can soak up an enormous quantity of water.

I guess the moral of the story is that with some adaptation even soggy soil can be turned into a beautiful garden. -jmm

One with the Land

Autumn Cabbage

Having spent most of my life nomadically moving from place to place, I'm beginning to feel one with the land. I grew up in Southern California, observing acre after acre of field and forest and farm and orchard being converted into tracts of little pink houses. I was not, nor could not be connected to the earth in that scenario. I was drawn to places like Big Sur, Joshua Tree and farm communities like Gilroy, California, the garlic capital of the world. But I was there as a voyeur, a visitor. I was looking for connection but I was just passing through. Later I lived in Washington D.C. and spent weekends canoeing up the Potomac. Living even later near Boston I hiked with my dog in Thoreau's stomping ground. Though these places were inspirational and even therapeutic, I was still passing through.

Winter Forest

American Indians felt a mystical oneness with the land. Who they were was intertwined with the land they inhabited. They were not separate from the earth, but spiritually connected to the land, the flora and fauna. There was no differentiation between the people and the land. The land was the people and the people were the land.

While I have not reached the level of the early Americans and their mystical connection to the earth, I have touched their spirit. Our twelve acres are becoming part of me and myself a part of the trees, the stream, the chipmunks and even the swamp. My hands have been in the dirt in which we plant the squash and the lettuce. When I'm away I think about our twelve acres, I talk about our cabbage and our garlic and our peppers. I no longer think about "getting away", but of getting back to the land I am attached to. While I don't know the technical names of all the plants and trees around me, I do know many by acquaintance. The big oak tree that marks the path toward the stream is the "Three Sisters" because the trunk branches off into three directions. I recognize this majestic tree and pay my regards whenever I pass by. There are unique outcroppings of ledge that have their own personalities. I talk to the frogs in the stream in the summer. I know where the garden snakes hang out. The land is not only familiar but is becoming a part of my consciousness. 

Where once my inspiration was with Jack Kerouac's "On The Road", now it's Scott and Helen Nearing's "The Good Life". Instead of hitchhiking to the Grand Canyon, I'm thinking of what can grow in our garden to end up on our dinner table. I take hikes in our woods with the dog. These twelve acres are becoming a part of me and I a part of them. I'm becoming connected. I am the land and the land is me. -G.H.

Apple Cranberry Jewish Cake

This is my take on a Jewish apple cake that I’ve been making for many years. The  recipe is adjusted for whole wheat flour, and recently I tried adding cranberries- and found they add a nice bit of zest! No need to put frosting on it, but a dollop of whipped cream is a welcome addition. A great cake for coffee brunch, four-o‘clock tea, or for dessert.

4 cups of thickly sliced apples (approximately 4 - 5)

1 cup of fresh or frozen-thawed cranberries

1 lemon

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup of raw sugar, divided

2 eggs

1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)

3/4 cup of water

1-1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

1-1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp sea salt

Core the apples and slice them into a large bowl. Juice the lemon, add the juice to the apple slices and toss. Add the cranberries, cinnamon, and 1/4 cup of the raw sugar. Mix to evenly distribute the ingredients. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter and flour a small (6-cup) tube pan.

In another bowl, cream the butter. Add the remaining raw sugar and work it into the butter until evenly incorporated. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and toss with a fork to blend. Add the flour mixture alternately with the water, mixing well after each addition.

Pour 1/2 of the batter into the buttered and floured tube pan. Layer with 1/2 of the apple mixture. Pour the remaining batter over the apple layer, then top with the remaining apple mixture. If there is liquid at the bottom of the apple bowl, pour it over the top. Bake for one hour until firm and slightly coming away from the sides of the pan. Invert the tube pan and transfer the cake to a plate after it has cooled slightly. -jmm