Foraging for dinner

So, I had already begun to regress from a full consumer economy member to an active participant in agriculture. That is, of course, the whole point of this blog, these days. Now, it is safe to say, that I have further devolved into a hunter/gatherer (well, a gatherer). I have foraged for my first meal.

Last week, I heard a story on NPR about urban foraging. This compelled me to think of some of my weeds in a different light. One of the biggest problems I have faced with my raised beds is that the system that I used to smother the grass has failed to kill the Wild Garlic (and violets). Wild Garlic, aka Allium vineale, had become the bane of my existence. Sure it looks like harmless little chives, but damn that shit is resilient! Well, instead of hating it, I decided to try to eat it. That was the right choice.

First off, the only way to get rid of wild garlic is to pull it out by the bulbs. (This will not completely get rid of it, but is better than mowing it down.) Since the bulbs need to come out, I thought, perhaps I should just eat it. I consulted another blog about the possibility of eating the stuff - whether it is poisonous, tastes bad, that sort of thing. I decided to give it a try. I made a pasta con aglia e olio (pasta with garlic and oil). It was delicious. Here is the procedure I used.

1. Harvest the weed. This involves digging the bulb structure with a trowel. Wild garlic reproduces in two ways: a. using flowers (not common in urban yards, as it usually gets mowed before flowering), and b. laterally by creating little neighboring bulbs. Consequently, the bulb cluster has a huge variety of size.

2. Clean the plants. I started with about a 2" diameter clump of bulbs and dirt, shook off as much as I could, and brought the remaining plants inside. To clean them, I ran them under the faucet for a few minutes (being sure not to let any stones go down the drain), then I filled the sing with water and soaked the entire plants for a few minutes. The cleaning process was very time consuming. Most of the bulbs (and corresponding chive-like leaves) are too small to use. These I discarded. I wound up keeping about 15 bulb-chive plants. The bulbs were about a cm in diameter, the leaves were about 8" long (give or take).

3. Prepare the food. I boiled 1/2 a box of pasta (I used fancy-shmancy gourmet market pasts. I'm an Epicurean, so sue me!). While that was cooking, I separated the bulbs from the leaves and roughly chopped the tiny bulbs. Once the pasta was cooked and drained, I returned it to the pot, added EVOO (or olio) and butter, then added the garlic. I put both the chopped bulbs and the leaves in. The latter were prepared using kitchen scissors, cutting them directly into to the pot. I did not want to overcook the garlic, but I wanted to temper the volatile flavor a bit (as I would do with normal onions or garlic). Meanwhile, I sliced grape tomatoes in half (useful hint: use two round, plastic container lids, put them together with the tomatoes inside, run knife between the two lids - no fuss, perfectly sliced tiny tomatoes!). I tossed the tomatoes with the pasta, threw in some crushed red pepper (aka birdseed), and topped it all with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and freshly graded Parmaggiano Reggiano.

It was delicious. It was also super cool to turn a nasty headache of a weed (and the bane of my organic gardening existence) into a delicious meal. Yay killing two birds with one stone by turning weeding into lunch! Yay foraging!

Trees = planted

In the past 48 hours, I have planted or transplanted a total of 13 trees. Cool, huh? Step one was to transplant the crabapple tree from the back of our property to the front. This was the most difficult job, as the tree is about 7' tall. It's a nice tree, but the previous owners of our home had planted it right where it would eventually shade out the garden. I couldn't have that, so I moved it to the north end of the property. Assuming I did not kill it, problem solved!

The other 12 trees (well, 10 trees and 2 shrubs) were all obtained from the Arbor Day Foundation. Yeah, that's right. I donated money to the Arbor Day foundation. What did I get out of it? 1. A tax write off (woo, $25 bucks). 2. 10 trees and 2 shrubs. They came in the mail this week. Let me repeat this. I received 10 trees and 2 shrubs IN THE MAIL. That either means that I have brought abuse upon our femail man, or the trees were tiny. That's right. Tiny trees. Twigs with roots.

The two shrubs are Lilac bushes (well, twigs) that I planted between our fruit trees (that are flowering nicely). The 10 trees consist of 2 White Flowering Dogwoods (both planted at our house - one in front, one in back), 2 American Redbud (both, now, at my sister's house), 2 Golden Raintree trees (one at Dea's, one at Katie's 'rents' house), 2 Washington Hawthornes (both at Katie's 'rents'), and 2 crabapples (one at Katie's 'rents' and one back beyond our back fence). I am proud of myself, but I am tired of digging for a while.

New beds 5/5/11

Here, at long last is a photo of my recent work. Of greatest prominence are the two new raised beds. Hopefully, I will find the time to get down to get down to Com-Til, this week. The new beds need LOTS of soil fill. The older beds need a bit (that is mainly my own leaf litter that you see). Notice that the back fence is not as monotonous as it once was. Over Spring Break, I transplanted all of those boxwood bushes from the front of the house. Hopefully, they will thrive, here. We received a Forsythia bush as a present over the weekend. I plan to plant it to the left of the boxwoods.


Finally, I would like to give a shout-out to my father. He turns 70, today. I look forward to how his genes will play out for me, as, apart from being semi-retired, he could easily pass for someone 20 years younger (Actually, this is true for both of my parents. I won the genetic lottery, bitches!).

Arbor Day

So, I donated some money to the Arbor Day foundation. In return, I received ten (that's right, TEN) saplings to plant. I received them in the mail, today. I have two Sargent Crabapples (Malus sargentii), two Eastern Redbuds (Cercis Canadensis), two Washington Hawthorns (Crateygus phaenopyrum), two White Flowering Dogwoods (Cornus florida), and two Goldenraintrees (Koelreuteria paniculata). As a special gift, I also received two Fragrant Lilacs (Syringa vulgaris). I plan to plant the two lilacs, two dogwoods, and one of the redbuds, here. Speaking to my fiancé's mom, yesterday, they have a bunch of dead space in their yards. I think I can plant the others at their house. I really like the idea of planting trees. It feels empowering.

Productive

Holy shit, I was productive, today. Katie and I planned a party (in the future), we finished our taxes, and we completed the other half of the raised bed system I spoke of earlier. We accomplished this all the while finding time to spend with Katie's family, as her grandfather passed away early this morning. RIP, Huck. He would have approved of the gardening.

Anywho, the second bed is complete. The two recent beds are both 3' deep. The longer of the two is 16' wide, with a divider in the center. The shorter is just over 10' long, with one bay being about 3'-6" and the other about 7.' By having separate cells, I can better regulate soil content for specific crops. Also, the dividers provide extra structural reinforcement. Between each of my beds I have left 3' paths. This is wide enough to get the lawn mower through. 3' is wide enough that I can pivot the wheel barrow 90 degrees. The 12" height of the sides of the beds is a perfect fit for the wheel barrow. I can upend the barrow with the lep fully over the wall. I have several inches to spare. It is wonderful being able to DUMP compost into the beds (from a 3' wide path). Yay, MATH!

The growing medium composition is a work in process. Just like the 6" beds from last fall, I smothered the grass with newspapers (3-5 pages thick) that were then hosed down. The smothered grass composts in the ground. Atop the newspapers I put a layer of composted leaf litter, a layer of composted manure, and another layer of leaf litter. The compost comes from several bags I hadleft in the garage since last year. Yes, I know that they've lost much of their goodness. I am mainly thinking of filler, at this point. I am reluctant to use the soil from my tomato pots from last year. I had some blight, and I don't want to risk it being transferred to the new beds. Most of the soil (which will be deposited on top of the leaf litter layers in all beds) will come from Comtil. I have never used Comtil, before. I am REALLY hoping that the soil is delivered in bags. If not, I might have to look elsewhere.

I should have photos for you tomorrow.

New Raised Bed

I added another raised bed, today. I had planned to complete an entire row of beds, but I ran out of 1" screws (and then ran out of washers). Oh well. As you may have observed, my first row of beds is made of 2x6 boards of untreated pine, held together by corner braces and reinforcing braces. This row will be ideal for leafy greens that do not require a deep system of roots (lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and the like). The second row will consist of two 3' by approximately 15' beds constructed using 2x12 boards of untreated pine. Yes, I know I will need to replace the boards in a few years, but the untreated wood will not leak chemicals into the soil. Growing up, we had beds made of bricks and railroad ties. The ties leak creosote. That's bad. The bricks were just too thick. I did not want to waste that much space on the walls. 1.75' is enough, thank you.

The second tier of beds will be ideal for deeply rooted veggies that do not grow particularly tall (root veggies such as beets and turnips, low chili peppers, herbs). I am taking into consideration that some plants I intend to grow - sunflowers, corn, hops, tomatoes, etc. - could potentially block the sunlight of plants planted to the North of them. My southernmost plants will grow close to the ground. My tallest plants will be sown in the northernmost begs. Today's bed is of the middle ground.

Photos to follow.