June 24, 2008 - Lakebay, WA

Guesses?

For some time Monsanto, creator of Roundup and many genetically-modified seed strains, has been in the news. Stories about farmers being sued for genetically-modified pollen drifting into their fields. Crops that are modified to resist being sprayed with Roundup, or that have disease resistance that can only be “unlocked” if you buy the right product from Monsanto. I’ve been dismayed at the implications of these products, and what it means for farmers and the environment.

The news I hadn’t heard is that Monsanto bought Seminis, a seed company that makes up a significant portion of the seeds available in dozens of seed catalogs. Many of Seminis’ varieties are bred to have excellent disease resistance, making them loved by organic gardeners. Varieties like the Cheddar cauliflower and Homemade Pickles cucumbers in my own garden.

The thing is, I’m finding this out at the very moment when I’m planning my winter seed order. I planned on ordering from Territorial - except now I know that Territorial buys from Seminis, owned by Monsanto. Apparently, so do Nichol’s Garden Seeds, R.H. Shumway and a number of my other favorite catalogs. I trust the people at Territorial to ask hard questions about the seeds they buy and sell to me. I like the fact that they have trial gardens in my region, and I know that whatever I buy from them should grow well here. I’m not sure I trust Monsanto, and I really don’t like the idea of adding more money to their coffers.

I have other favorite catalogs - like Seed Saver’s Exchange and Baker Creek Seeds - that don’t buy from Seminis. I already shy away from modern hybrids, partly because I hope to save my own seeds someday, but mostly because I love the idea of eating lettuce from seeds that someone’s great-great grandmother lovingly carried in her pocket from her old country to this one.

I hate that decisions like this are necessary. Stepping away from a good, local company like Territorial doesn’t feel quite right. Paying Monsanto for seeds doesn’t feel right, either. In the end, I think I’ll be happiest with seeds I don’t need to wonder about. I guess I better revise that order.

It’s been so enjoyable to work in the garden this year. My veggies are thriving, the animals provide endless amusement, and we finally have a little warm weather. There is so much going on out there right now.

A few spring crops have bolted, leaving a number of empty spaces in the raised beds. This is good - I was wondering where in the world I was going to put any of the winter crops I need to plant. While I’m happy to leave in a mild climate that allows overwintering of a good number of veggies, it also means a lot of summer planting and careful watering to keep seedlings alive. I’m determined that this year I will have a winter garden, and I need to start soon.

We’re nearing the end of the current lettuce harvest - only one iceberg type head lettuce is still sweet and crisp. I started another round a few weeks ago, but it looks like the heat in the greenhouse fried them. I’m hoping I can at least get a batch of baby greens ready to harvest before the current lettuce runs out. While I can probably buy lettuce at the farmer’s market, I’d rather save my money for other things, like fruit and honey and other treats we aren’t growing ourselves this year.

The zucchini harvest appears to be ramping up. This week we had enough small squash to have them for dinner twice. I think I better come up with some new ways to eat them. Actually, I’m looking forward to a bumper crop, because I plan to try out several zucchini pickle/relish recipes, and I’d also like to freeze a bunch of squash for winter soups.

We have dozens of small green tomatoes, and I’m hoping a few will begin to ripen in the next couple weeks. We also have small pumpkins, peppers, and melons that look like they are doing well. The peas continue to struggle, but the beans are showing lots of promising blooms. Some of the corn waist-high already (or taller, even, if you’re short like I am).

I’ve been working on weeding the orchard, as well as planting strawberries in the rows under the trees. We have musk, alpine and regular strawberries elsewhere in the yard that are weighed down with lots of unripe fruit. I’ve also noticed elderberries, blueberries, white currants, plums and apples that appear to have set fruit. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the wild cherries, so I can pick them before the birds do. The kiwi is just about to bloom, and from the looks of things, we’ll have plenty.

Best of all, our friend Chris spent last weekend mowing, and we can actually see all this bounty, instead of tall grass and weeds.

This week’s meal wasn’t fancy, but it was special. It marks the first time this year that the garden produced enough volume and variety that we could build an entire meal around the day’s harvest.

On the menu:
Sautéed zucchini, broccoli raab and green onion.
Pork chops braised in milk, which made a simple sauce that was thickened and finished with fresh dill.
Salad of lettuce, swiss chard, pea shoots, golden snow peas, green onions, radishes and chive blossoms.
2006 Snoqualmie Winemaker’s Select Reisling.

The pork and milk came from local farms, and everything else was from our own land. A little salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil aided in cooking, as well as in making a balsamic vinaigrette for the salad.

Last night’s dinner was immensely satisfying to me - it was beautiful, it involved a new cooking technique, it was local, and most of all, it was tasty.

I made the Paté de Campagne from Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, an amazing book for anyone interested in preserving their own meat. I used a pork roast from the freezer, which I then ground and seasoned with onions and garlic from the farmer’s market, some sweet spices from the cupboard, eggs from our hens, a dash from the end of a bottle of port, and cream skimmed from last week’s raw milk. The mixture was placed in a mold lined with swiss chard, also from the market, and cooked in a water bath before being weighted down and chilled for 24 hours.

The paté was served with locally-baked baguettes, onion marmalade from the sweet yellow onions I picked up at the market, and a big salad of lettuce from the garden. The combination was rich and satisfying, and made an easy, no-cook weeknight dinner, not to mention lunch-time leftovers.

The topic of local eating has really been hitting me hard this week. The first week of One Local Summer had me thinking more about what went on our plates. I’ve finally started reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which also has me thinking. And then my BIL brought home some big, thick, pale, and oddly-flavorless steaks for dinner one night. The combination has really helped cement my own feelings and the family’s determination to learn to eat what is around us, in season and local.

As many of you know, we’ve been trying to get a sewing workshop built for Denise in which to run Romantic Recollections - which, for the time being will focus on custom-made, historically inspired, and finished, reenactors’ garments from the Renaissance through the 1920s, with an emphasis on the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

This all began after Denise graduated from Seattle Central Community College’s Apparel Design program in 2006. We’ve gone through so many delays, from contractors not coming out to bid on the project, to never sending the quote, to quoting the project, but never starting the work. When we finally got a contractor willing to do the job, and had the building shipped (it was panelized - which we thought would save time and money), we started running into a new series of delays, from lack of personnel from the contractor to do the work, to problems with the engineering of the building, disagreement between the manufacturer and the contractor, persnickety inspectors, arguments with the contractor about the finishing details (who was going to paint the doors and windows and the insides, etc.) and on and on.

As we were coming into the final stretch of planning for the wedding, the contractor basically stopped coming to work on the studio. After the wedding, we couldn’t get in touch with him. So, there it sat, the cute little studio, abandoned at about 60% completion.

My parents came up with a brilliant idea about a month ago - send up my older brother, Roy III, to finish work on the studio. He comes to us from the family tree farm in Brookings, OR, on loan from both his wife and their adorable King Charles Cavalier puppies. Roy has been putting in 10-12 hour days, 7 days in a row. It’s amazing to see the progress happen so rapidly. He’s already overcome the most challenging obstacle - modifying trusses and installing the 6″x18″x24′ beam to support the roof - to fulfill Denise’s design objective to have cathedral ceilings in her workspace.

From this:

To this:

AMAZING!!!

And, look at how cute the outside of the building is now, with the door & windows installed and painted, along with the trim and gutters. Soon, it will be the same color as the house, when we apply the solid stain to the cedar exterior.

But, do you want to know the best part of having Roy III here? The time spent with him! You would not believe the stories he regales us with at dinner. What a hoot. It’s awesome to be able to spend time, learning from the original hippie Minister of the Woods, a.k.a. our officiant for the wedding, everything about bear grease (which makes the best pastry, apparently), to canning, gardening, raising animals, and more. We’ve learned a lot from having Roy here and are thankful to my parents for making it happen.

Our One Local Summer meal came late in the week this time. We came close on several other nights, but inevitably something I pulled from the pantry would be non-local. Luckily, on Saturday we were up in the Seattle area, so made a trip to a bigger farmer’s market and to Beecher’s Handmade Cheese. At the market, we bought some pretty salad onions, garlic, cilantro, chard and dried beans. At Beecher’s we picked up a little pepper jack type cheese and some Rogue Creamery Oregon Blue. A few items will star in meals later in the week, but most were destined for this week’s OLS dinner.

Tonight we had black beans cooked, tossed with a some (fairly) local, organic salsa and topped with shredded pepper jack. A pork roast from the freezer was braised with garlic and spiced, then sliced thin and served alongside, with cilantro and sliced radishes for garnish.

It’s been interesting, and harder than I thought, to plan out a fully local meal. In the end, I feel good about our choices and I’m very glad we’re walking down this path.

It would figure that after some unseasonably warm weather we’d head back into cold, wet, rainy days.  It would also figure that I set out most of my peppers and eggplants just before it happened.   The first day I debated setting up a cloche, but decided that they could use the rain.  With no sun on the schedule for the next few days, I decided I better rethink that decision.

Just as I got the last bit of plastic secured, I felt a few raindrops.  By the time I got to the greenhouse to drop off my gloves, it was pouring.  It was nice to spend an hour inside the cozy greenhouse, listening to the rain, and taking care of a few tasks that I’d been neglecting.    I added a second trellis along the north wall, and transplanted my last 4 melons into big pots set underneath.   That makes 8 melons inside the greenhouse and 4 outside, and a few are already showing blossoms and tiny fruit.   I moved around pots, cleaned up the weeds that have been invading, trimmed the suckers off the figs, and discovered a couple volunteer tomatoes from the fruit that dropped last summer.   I ran out of little tasks just as the rain let up enough to risk a dash back to the house.

Overall, I’ve been really pleased with how the garden is growing.  We currently have a steady supply of small zucchini and lettuce, with a few radishes, mixed greens, and other veggies for variety.  I picked and ate the first of the musk strawberries.  The beans are starting to blossom, some of the corn is almost to my waist, and the tomatoes have grown another foot. Despite all the cold, rainy weather this spring I am still ahead of schedule for our region.  Which is good, because it’s June, and that means it’s time to starting thinking about seeds for our fall and winter garden…

Before the rain descended upon us this week, I caught a few pictures of our garden.

Garden View

In the foreground, 18 ft bed of corn, pumpkins, bush beans & squash. Then, three rows of three 4′x4′ raised beds “Square Foot Gardening” style, with trellises on the north end for tomatoes and melons. Next, adjacent to the raised beds, three 18 ft beds with tomatillos, ground cherries, corn, climbing peas, bush beans, radishes, carrots, dill, parsnips, zucchini, peppers, eggplants, and peanuts. The orchard is on the left (all those posts are for training the trees to espalier), and the potato beds are on the right.

Bloody Butcher Corn, Pumpkins & Bush Beans

All these plants started in the Green House in January & February and were transplanted into the garden, under a heat tunnel, in March. There they continued to thrive in the warmth and are well ahead of all our other plants for the season; good thing, too, since the Bloody Butcher dent corn takes 110 days! The corn currently stands at about 2.5ft tall.

Lettuce & Bush Beans

Lettuce & Tomato Bed
Guarded by Shiva (The Garden Wonder Kitty)

Tomatoes & Lettuce

Tomatoes and lettuce varieties were started in the green house in January & February… our sure fire method for growing great crops in the Pacific Northwest.

Red Celery

Potato Beds

There are four different varieties of potatoes planted here. The potatoes will mature in the straw, as the plants grow up, and we continue adding new straw. We expect about 60# of potatoes from this bed.

Musk & Alpine Strawberries

Green House

This past week saw the fading of the lilacs and the awakening of that fragrant fuschia rose normally in bloom in time for my birthday. Here’s a peak at what’s showing off in our yard this week.

Lilacs

Fragrant Rose

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Apple

“Wild” Blackberry

Borage

Chives

Comfrey

Nasturtiums

Oregano

Rosemary

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Clematis

Columbine

Forget Me Nots

Foxglove

Iris

Poppies

Roses

Psst… this is the 100+ year old rose.

Salal

Snowball

= = =

An award goes to whomever can identify this plant:

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Appearing next week: