yearofplenty

August 10 is the Deadline for Spokane County Fair Entry Forms

For the last five years we have entered items in the Spokane County Fair. Mostly vegetables, last year we entered our chickens, this year I'll try some photographs. The deadline for getting in your entry forms is tomorrow, August 10.

Entry forms must be postmarked or received on or before August 10.  Staff will be available in Bay 4 at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on August 10 to assist exhibitors with completing their entry forms.  Please access the facility from the South Gate off of Havana Street for this special event.

Adult Photography must also submit their photos August 5 to 10. All remaining categories have their arrival date listed at the beginning of their department information.

Livestock Exhibitors: Entry fees must accompany the entry form in order to be accepted.

It's a wonderful experience for the kids. Maybe this year we'll get that 100 lb pumpkin we've been trying for. If you're not in Spokane look up your local county fair and get involved.

Anatomy of a Fourth of July Cookout

Mint.com has an interesting infographic about the likely sources of food at our 4th of July cookouts. Click on the picture to enlarge it and read the stats - odd are hamburgers from Texas, hot dogs from Iowa, baked beans from North Dakota, lettuce from California, tomatoes from Florida or California.

New Garden Discovery - Radish Greens

  Early season gardening can be a challenge on your palate. Yes, you can grow an abundance of radishes, but we've never been big fans of the tangy little balls of fire which is why we've never bothered to grow them. This  year, I planted parsnips early and it was recommended to plant radishes alongside to mark the rows. Radishes emerge from the soil quickly whereas parsnips take what seems like forever.

So for the first time I planted a bunch of radishes - as row markers with no real intentions of eating them.

Without anything else to eat from the garden these days we've been experimenting with the radishes and have been pleasantly surprised. The red round variety we planted is sweet and not overwhelmingly spicy. But the real discovery has been the mild, refreshing radish greens. We've been stir frying them, putting them in salads and just crunching on them raw. The have a complex but pleasant flavor with not a hint of the bitterness you find in kale. I was familiar with turnip greens but had not heard about the virtues of radish greens. They are probably very similar. (The white icicle radish variety is a little spicy for our taste, but its greens are also tasty.)

Next up on this year's garden experiments is our first crop of beets. I'm not a big fan of the beet roots but beet greens are also good to eat. They have the look of chard. We're discovering that the real stars of the early season garden are not so much the root crops that dominate the early season offerings, but the greens that top them off. Look for these tasty greens at your local farmers' market.

Foodista has a post up titled Turnip Redemption extolling the virtues of baby turnips. Maybe we'll try to get some turnips into the garden too.

How to Can Pickled Asparagus

Asparagus will start showing up in abundance at area farmers' markets in a few weeks. Below is the recipe for Canning Pickled Asparagus from the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Always use a trusted, scientifically based home canning recipe and never improvise the recipe. Feel free to add some foodie flair when you're ready to use the asparagus. Note that if you are just going to can asparagus in water you will need to use a pressure canner.

Go here for my series on home food preservation from the Master Food Preserver Class. I plan on adding to and updating the section on food preservation this summer.

Pickled Asparagus

For six wide-mouth pint jars
10 pounds asparagus 6 large garlic cloves 4½ cups water 4½ cups white distilled vinegar (5%) 6 small hot peppers (optional) ½ cup canning salt 3 teaspoons dill seed

For seven 12-ounce jars

7 pounds asparagus
7 large garlic cloves
3 cups water
3 cups white distilled vinegar (5%)
7 small hot peppers (optional)
1/3 cup canning salt 

2 teaspoons dill seed Please read Using Boiling Water Canners before beginning. If this is your first time canning, it is recommended that you read Principles of Home Canning.

Procedure:

	1.	Wash and rinse canning jars; keep hot until ready to use. Prepare lids according to manufacturer's directions.
	2.	Wash asparagus well, but gently, under running water. Cut stems from the bottom to leave spears with tips that fit into the canning jar with a little less than ½-inch headspace. Peel and wash garlic cloves. Place a garlic clove at the bottom of each jar, and tightly pack asparagus into jars with the blunt ends down.
	3.	In an 8-quart Dutch oven or saucepot, combine water, vinegar, hot peppers (optional), salt and dill seed. Bring to a boil. Place one hot pepper (if used) in each jar over asparagus spears. Pour boiling hot pickling brine over spears, leaving ½-inch headspace.
	4.	Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean paper towel; apply two-piece metal canning lids.
	5.	Process in a boiling water canner according to the recommendations in Table 1. Let cool, undisturbed, for 12 to 24 hours and check for seals.

Allow pickled asparagus to sit in processed jars for 3 to 5 days before consumption for best flavor development.

Table 1. Recommended process time for Pickled Asparagus in a boiling-water canner.
		Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack	Jar Size	0 - 1,000 ft	1,001 - 6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Raw	12-ounce or Pints	10 min	15	20

Planning Your Garden Plot (Companion Planting, Rotation & Location)

If you've been following along here in prepping for this year's garden you have some seeds starting to pop up. If you were a little overeager you probably have some plants that are getting quite large and the roots are overgrowing their little cubicle.

If they are getting too big, and it's too early to plant them out (at least it is here in Spokane), you'll want to transplant them into a larger pot so they don't become root bound. Note that squash type plants (pumpkins, etc.) have sensitive roots so when/if you transplant them don't disrupt the roots. Most other starts you'll want to tussle up the roots a little before transplanting. (Note: If you come home on a sunny day and your starts are all droopy like a Salvador Dali painting, don't lose all hope. Often with generous watering they will resurrect themselves.)

If you haven't been able to get any seeds into the ground it's not too late to get them going but it's getting close to that point where you might want to just plan on buying plant starts from a local greenhouse. I recommend GEM Garden and Greenhouse, Northwest Seed & Pet and the Herb Garden & Greenhouse if you live in the Spokane area. Farmers' Markets are also a good place to get starts . Many of the large garden centers are coming around on sourcing from local greenhouses, but past history shows that many of their starts are from places like Texas.

If you haven't done so yet, it's time to draw up a picture of your garden plot and identify what you will plant and where. As I've said before, rotate crops to limit disease. For example tomato, potato, eggplant varieties should not be planted in the same place from one year to the next. Rotation is also important for not depleting the soil. You want to follow heavy to medium feeders that draw a lot of nutrients from the soil (tomatoes, corn, cabbage, peppers) with either light feeders (carrots, beets, onions) or heavy givers (beans, peas) that actually will fix nitrogen in the soil and enrich it. I like the methodology explained here that recommends a rotation of heavy feeders followed with heavy givers which are then followed by light feeders.

Another key consideration in plotting out your garden plan is what plants make good companions and like to be together and which plants are arch enemies and will fight each other all summer resulting in reduced yields.

You can go here for a run down on plants that are beneficial and antagonistic. I get kind of overwhelmed by all the information and different criteria for planting, so I have developed Craig's anecdotal, simplified companion planting plan.

Basil & Tomatoes: My first recommendation is interplant your tomatoes with basil, lots of basil. We discovered this two year's ago. We always had trouble with our basil going to seed because of the intense heat of summer, but when we interplanted them with the tomatoes the large tomato plants shaded the basil just enough to keep them in check. We had wonderful basil all summer and the tomatoes seem to really like it too.

Borage, Nasturtiums and Marigolds all around: These are my go to plants to intersperse in the veggie garden. Marigolds are legendary among organic gardeners for helping with aphids.

Fennel be banned: I've heard reports that Fennel doesn't get along well with much in the garden so I haven't been planting it of late.

I'll probably add to my companion planting list as I mature as a gardener but these are the three things that make sense to me at this point. Let me know you're experiences and I'll add to the list.

One last consideration for you garden plan, make sure to plant you're tall shade producing plants on the north side of your plot so they don't block the sun from your shorter plants. Lettuce on the other hand is good to plant in the semi shade of sunflowers to keep it from going to seed too quickly.

Picture: Arrowleaf Balsamroot emerging from winter slumber.

100 Years of Eating in America in Four Handy Charts

The USDA's Economic Research Service now has a full century of data on food availability in America.

This one-of-a-kind data set measures which food commodities are available to eat at the national level and provides the foundation for estimating if the nutrients available support a healthy, well-nourished citizenry. The data date back to 1909, allowing researchers, marketers, and policymakers to examine historical consumption trends and shifts in food demand.

The four charts below from the linked article are great ways to absorb the data and see the trends in what foods are available per/capita. I'll take a stab at giving the charts names.

The "Have You Ever Noticed that Half the Items
on a Restaurant Menu Have Chicken" Chart

The Cheesehead Century Chart

The "Sweet Potatoes, We Barely Knew Ya" Chart

The "I Wonder What Foods the Government is Subsidizing
and Throwing the Whole System Out of Whack" Chart

Feel free to offer you're own "lame attempts at humor" chart names if you like.

Wendell Berry: A Cows Contentment Flavors the Steak

Berry's comments from the Art of the Commonplace, are helpful in describing the benefits of growing your own vegetables and knowing the origins of the meat we eat.

The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and known that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater.

The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think this bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes.

I hear people getting into debates about whether organic vegetables are, from the perspective of chemistry, more nutritious. Others debate the financial advantage of growing your own vegetables. Some take a pragmatic view of the politics and say things like, "the corporate agriculture industry would like nothing better than to see us spend all of our free time in our gardens and not in political dissent." And of course we love to debate the mathematics of carbon footprints.

While these perspectives are all important and need to be debated and discussed, none are quite as compelling to me as the one Berry makes in the quote above. Instead of breaking things down to their component parts, which is what our scientific approaches do, Berry is putting the food we eat in context, using words like beauty, memory and contentment. He says that simply knowing the source and conditions of the land and animals that provide our food makes the food taste better (and I would add, in many cases worse.) I can't prove it with a scientific study but I know it to be true from my experience.

Millwood Community Garden Organizational Meeting, Thursday March 11

Plans are quickly coming together for a community garden on the southeast corner of Argonne and Maringo just across the street from Inland Empire Paper Mill. Go here for background information.

We will be holding an organizational meeting on Thursday, March 11 at 7pm at the Crossing Youth Center in Millwood, for anyone interested in learning more and possibly participating in this project. The preliminary plan is to have three uses on this corner lot; individual raised beds that people can sign up to use to grow your own veggies and plants, a large set of row crops to be grown and given to Second Harvest Food Bank, and wildflowers and native plants to serve as a buffer and border between the road and the garden. The circles pictured above would be pumpkin patches in honor of the fact that this piece of land has been known as the pumpkin patch from it's long time use previous to the death of the farmer who tended the land five years ago.

The Paper Mill, which owns the land, will provide a basic amount of water. I'm working with Dew Drop Sprinklers to put together a drip irrigation system. The greatest need is a core group of people in the community who want to help shepherd the project and get it started. We're also looking for partner businesses who want to help. There will be a nice sign for the 30,0000 plus cars to read as they go by every day and we're planning on including sponsors on the signage.

Go to Download Millwood Community Garden Proposal to read the initial proposal.

Email me at goody2230 (at) gmail (dot) com with questions or input.

The Goodwin Garden Seed Starting Schedule

I made my annual trip to Northwest Seed and Pet today to get my gardening game face on. It's officially time to start rattling around the greenhouse and get some early season crops started. Here in the Spokane area May 15 is the traditional last freeze date, so short of using a hoop house over the soil you want to plan your seed starting around that date. I recommend Irish Eyes Seeds, a locally owned seed company in Ellensberg, WA. They source a lot of their organic seeds from the Inland Northwest. Just like most commodities veggie seeds regardless of brand are likely from the same source of "who knows where." I like the local connection and local sourcing efforts of Irish Eyes. I noticed Seeds of Change Seeds at NW Seed for the first time. They are also a good choice.

Below is my game plan for the garden. I have a greenhouse which make managing larger plants easier. You might want to push it back 2 weeks if you're putting them by a south facing window.

March 1 - 11 weeks ahead of last freeze date

• Clean up greenhouse and get heater set up
• Map out this year's garden plan
• • rotate crops to limit disease (for example tomato, potato, eggplant varieties should not be planted in the same place from one year to the next.)
  • Be aware of plants that like each other and plants that don't. Go here or here for an overview.
• Start seeds for peppers, eggplant and onions.
• Plant parsnip seeds in the garden

March 15 - 9 weeks ahead of last freeze date

• Start seeds for tomatoes, perennials and some flowers (I'm experimenting with wildflower seeds I collected last year so I'll probably plant some trays of those for the fun of it.)
• I'll either start pea plants in the greenhouse or more likely just plant the seeds in the garden. It's so mild this year you could probably get away with it.
• Six weeks is probably more than adequate for starting most tomatoes but I like to make the most of the greenhouse. The bigger they are the more fun it is to give them to friends and neighbors.

March 29 - 7 weeks ahead of last freeze date

• Start seeds for squash, lettuce, kohl rabi and other "cole" crops like cabbage. I might start the cole crops earlier. Every year I swear off growing cabbage, kale etc. because we don't eat them. But the chickens sure do like it.
• I'll probably start a another tragic saga of the giant pumpkin somewhere in here too.

April 26 - 3 weeks ahead of last freeze date

• Go cry on the shoulder of Bruce Metzger from GEM Garden and Greenhouse and ask him why my plants are dying.
• Start seeds for cucumbers.
• Buy some of his starts from his greenhouse and put them in my greenhouse and feel a lot better about the green in my greenhouse.
• Plant pea and lettuce starts being sure to cover them at night if it freezes.

May 15 - historic last freeze date

• Empty the greenhouse and get it all planted except the tomatoes and peppers that really like it warm. June 1 is the usual date to plant out tomatoes and peppers around these parts.
• Beans really do best by direct seeding them into the garden so now is the time to do that. I don't bother with corn anymore. It takes up a lot of space, hogs water and fertilizer and generally disappoints come harvest time.

May 22 - one week before I told everyone on the blog to plant out their tomatoes and peppers

• Plant out tomatoes and peppers because I just can't stand taking care of them in the greenhouse anymore.

The best way to learn is to try and try again.

My new policy on the blog this year is that regular commenters get dibs on some plant starts from the Goodwin greenhouse (if your interested). Prolific Twitter retweeterers will also get serious consideration. Nancy has made me promise to not crowd the garden so much this year so I'm going to have to do something with all the starts. Let me know what you're interested in.

Time to Sign Up for Your Spokane Area CSA (Veggie Subscription)

CSA's are a wonderful innovation in local food but it's likely you have no idea what a CSA is. They are basically subscriptions for a weekly supply of fresh local fruits, veggies and meats. Go here for previous posts that will help bring you up to speed and go here for a first hand account of someone's experience with a CSA. CSA's are a win-win for farmers who need steady reliable cash flow and consumers who are often too busy to hunt down local sources for food.

There are several CSA's available in the Spokane area but Rocky Ridge Ranch is my favorite. Go here for Gary's Ranch Ramblings blog where he says the following about his CSA;

We sent out a CSA Newsletter earlier this week to alert folks to sign up early to make sure they have a subscription share available again this season. We already have ten Members signed up. This year we also plan to offer a CSA for a variety of beef, pork, poultry, and misc meat portions. It will offer the advantage of fresh local healthy meat for a price more economical than retail. It'll be delivered in portions weekly so storage space in most refrigerators should be able to handle it. Both programs will offer a half-share for those with small families. If you haven't been a member before just send me an e-mail requesting to go on the Standby List.

Gary's web site is here and his facebook page is here. (Someone needs to make a T-shirt that says, "My Farmer Has a Facebook Page".)

If you're not in the Spokane area go here to find a CSA near where you live.

This paragraph from Gary's blog grabbed my attention;

"SO"(Gary's wife) plans to plant the first hoop house with cool weather veggies next week and after that she'll start on the indoor potted plant starts. The seed catalogs have started to arrive along with the poultry catalogs for baby chicks. Somebody else must be thinking the same as me. "SO" has been enjoying watching her Korean TV programs all Winter.

They have a small farms documentary everyday that is one of her favorites. She's been getting all kinds of ideas to keep me busy helping her in the garden setting up new things. I've watched some of the programs and hoop houses are real hi-tech over there.

The project I like best is a set up to grow strawberries out of holes in vertical tubes set up in the hoop house. Promises to deliver more berries for a longer season. If it works for us I won't have to feel so guilty when I eat the Lion's share of our berries every week.

Just like our farmers are getting ready for the new season, it's time for us home gardeners to start planning in earnest for the new growing season.

Later in the week I'll post a seed starting schedule for those who are wondering about when to start seeds and plant.