Spring: Scarcity in the Edible Garden
March 27, 2012
Heirloom Lettuces for Spring salads!
Spring is a challenging time of year for edible gardens at our latitude. the late Winter harvests are over, the soil is breathing between crops, and little is coming out of the garden other than leftover Winter fare: beets, leafy greens, herbs, wild salad greens, weeds abound.
A few citrus remain and berries won’t be in for a couple of months in Northern California. If you’re lucky you might find avocados grown on the Central and Southern California Coasts. But if you abide by the 150-mile radius local eating philosophy, times are tough.
The Ohlone people, a very diverse group of tribes native to the San Francisco Bay Area, referred to April as the “Hungry Moon,” which should remind us that even in the uncultivated world, food is scarce for humans this time of year. Sitting exactly opposite in seasons from the Harvest Moon of October, the seasonal palate must be patient. For now…
For seasonal culinary inspiration in the San Francisco Bay Area, visit: http://cuesa.org/page/seasonality-chart-vegetables.
Happy Spring!
Grow Your Lunch at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show
March 16, 2012Come say hello next Wednesday through Sunday and grab a Grow Your Lunch organic T-shirt or Trucker Hat, hot off the press!
The display will include a 10x15ft edible school garden with plants from Country Flat Farm, Lowell High School, Morning Sun Herb Farm, Devil Mountain Nursery, Four Winds Growers, Love Apple Farm and many more.
Other edible designs will be offered by Sunset Magazine, Star Apple Gardens, Baia Nicchia Farm. If you are a into edible gardens, this is a must see exhibit!
Click here for more information.
Cultivating with Farmer Ben
March 12, 2012In an effort to better empower more budding gardeners out there, Grow Your Lunch is offering free “how to” gardening tutorial videos. Check out the first one here!
If you have ideas of other tutorial garden videos that you would like to see here, please don’t hesitate to let us know: info@growyourlunch.com.
Happy (almost) Spring!!
Everything is Bigger in Bakersfield!
January 05, 2012
It has been an immense privilege to design and advise on the construction of the Buena Vista Edible Schoolyard (BVESY) in Bakersfield, CA. Project founder and local philanthropist, Barbara Grimm, had the dream to build an edible garden, kitchen classroom, and accompanying food literacy curriculum to be modeled on the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, CA. Over the last year and six months, the Grimm Family Education Foundation has brought this dream to life by building a state of the art teaching kitchen and two-acre edible garden. The nine hundred plus students at Buena Vista Elementary School (across the street) are served by this project.
This is a bold and cutting edge project in the land of Bakersfield’s mega-farms. It’s heartening to see an interest in this kind of education given the cultural context of the area, especially for those of us who believe that an “edible education” is not a political issue. As Alice Waters says: “good food is a human right,” no matter who you are or where you come from. Educating
communities around Bakersfield is especially important given the ubiquity of fast food restaurants and expansive monoculture in the San Joaquin Valley. So far, it’s clear from the community’s significant interest in the project that I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Since the garden team (garden manager Dean Powell, Grimm-Marshall’s husband, Darcy, and I) first planted the garden last Spring (2011), we have harvested hundreds of pounds of produce. The kitchen teachers use the produce in daily cooking classes in the adjacent kitchen classroom, serving grades K-5.
For a small town, small farm, coastal California guy like me, working in Bakersfield has been an eye-opener. Everything is bigger. Literally: the fields, the farms, even the crops themselves (see 5lb. cauliflower above)!
High productivity rates mean that organic fertilizer has to be applied much more regularly than I am accustomed to. Whereas
normally I would amend with compost or decomposed manure between crops, the gardeners at BVESY have to be very conscious of how rapidly nutrients are used up by Bakersfield plants and amend the soil when needed (which is sometimes multiple times per crop). Fortunately, we had the foresight to balance the minerals in the soil and plant a diverse winter cover crop from the start in order to build the organic matter and dynamism of the soil.
The sandy loam soil is a different beast from the clay hard-pan we toil with growing around the San Francisco Bay. It’s easy to till but water and nutrients run right through it (especially during the long hot days of Summer).
Again, I stick to my “organic matter mantra,” encouraging the Buena Vista Edible Schoolyard staff to mulch heavily with woodchips and straw. I also advocate regular cover-cropping in order to hold onto water, soil and nutrients. All organic waste is composted on site.
The group working on this project constantly comes up with new, creative ideas. For instance, pictured in this photo is a group vegetable washing station for 10 or so students to use, all at the same time. We developed the idea to accommodate potentially bigger classroom sizes of students working in the garden.
Can you imagine something more fun than taking gardening and cooking classes at the Buena Vista Edible Schoolyard? These are some fortunate kids.
Not every community will have the resources to begin in such an ambitious fashion. However, as the tide of public support continues to rise for edible and environmental education, programs like this may become less of an exception and more of a rule. As it turns out, programs like these have proven to be more beneficial to students in their overall education than spending more time in the classroom studying for standardized tests. As a result, students are healthier (http://cwh.berkeley.edu/node/1103) and therefore able to do better in school.
I believe that the achievement gap is also a food and nutrition access gap. If we truly care about the success of the children of this nation and future generations of Americans, teaching students about how to grow, cook and eat good food will become just as important as teaching them about math, English and science.
Congratulations to The Meher Schools for Winning 2011 Contra Costa County Award for Leadership in Sustainability!
October 31, 2011This beautiful 1/2 acre garden was constructed with a minimal budget and LOADS of community and family involvement. A retired parent of a graduated student took the lead on its design and construction, inspired greatly by principles of permaculture.
Weekly Sunday workdays and parent involvement have facilitated the development of the garden and a school-wide composting program. A very, very impressive first year.
How was Grow Your Lunch involved?
Grow Your Lunch founder, Benjamin Eichorn, worked with the teachers, parents and administration to facilitate the early stages of the project. He focused the energy and divided the group into commitee groups which had clear areas of responsibility and a system for ongoing feedback and communication. Benjamin also led sample garden classes with students in order to help teachers understand how to coordinate teaching and working in the garden with students. Grow Your Lunch also offered support in developing and choosing appropriate garden curriculum for K-8th grade.
Does your school need help in these areas? Consider Grow Your Lunch to help you get off to the right start!
The site, untouched – Summer 2010
Tractor work done, circles shaped, irrigation system constructed, manure spread and incorporated into the soil before sowing cover crop.
A creative, efficient and inexpensive “hot pile” composting system
Winter 2010-2011, cover crop and citrus tree in the foreground
Summer 2011, ahh diversity!
Grow Your Own Heirloom Grains!
September 23, 2011
I have been enchanted by the beauty and diversity of heirloom seeds for many seasons. The rich history that each variety embodies leads us back to our cultural roots and to the tales of our Middle Eastern, European, African, Asian, Indian and American agricultural forebears.
Many of our heirloom varieties are at risk of being lost entirely as they are less desirable for commercial production due to variation in color, size and shape. Ironically, many of these varieties thrive in small, diversified gardens and are especially pleasing to the palate! A crucial aspect of the “mainstreamification” of sustainable agriculture (if you will) lies in educating the masses about the pleasures involved in growing, cooking, eating and saving seeds from special varieties of food crops, including our staple crops such as grains and beans.
In California we grow just about any kind of food crop save the tropical fruits, coffee and cacao. Within the last 10 years, farmer’s markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms have quadrupled their markets. Left largely out of the picture in the local food conversation, however, have been the staple crops, which, according to Wes Jackson of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, comprise about 70% of the calories we consume.
Sadly, our precious, locally grown Little Gem lettuces, Chioggia beets and Kishu tangerines are not enough to fill our bellies year-round. We need seeds, every day, and a lot of them (unless you are on one of the hip, Paleolithic-type, low carb diets!). Consider for a moment where the flour comes from which supplies your local artisanal baker. In most cases, even if they sell at the farmer’s market, the grain is from the Midwestern US and we are back to the average food mile total of 1,500 miles per bite!
Cherokee Trail of Tears beans, O’odham Pink beans, Runner Cannellini beans, Hopi Blue Corn, Inca Rainbow Quinoa, and Hopi Red Amaranth are among my favorite heirloom crops. For many years now, heirloom tomatoes have received more attention than any other crop. I know of farms that are keeping hundreds of varieties of these spectacularly diverse and delicious fruit. In my opinion, however, it is the staple crops (beans and grains) that deserve more attention. For this reason and many others, I encourage every client I work with to cultivate a “Three Sisters” patch of corn, beans and squash. It is highly productive (calorically speaking), all three crops can store through the Winter, and it is an excellent lesson in Native American history and companion planting!
Last Fall, in steady pursuit of small scale, full caloric independence, I purchased 100 pounds of organic White Sonora wheat from a local farm here on the CA Central Coast and tried it out on my family farm (see: http://countryflatfarm.com/). According to Slow Food USA, White Sonora is one of the oldest wheat varieties in the United States.
(see: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/ark_product_detail/white_sonora_wheat/)
It is less productive per acre, but yields very fine wheat which is excellent for baking.
So I cultivated after our first big rain and broadcast the seed by hand out into the field. I always sow extra seed for the birds, as they will take it even if they are not invited! The seed germinated with the next rain and came up well throughout the Winter and Spring. In July, I cut it down and bundled it for in preparation for processing.
Having had little experience threshing and winnowing grains, I thought I could manage doing it by hand. Threshing involves separating the seed from the straw, and winnowing separating the seed from the chaff (seed husk). I tried a number of different hand-threshing and winnowing methods before I realized that I would be busy for weeks if I were to do it all by hand. So I gave my friends up at Pie Ranch in Pescadero a call. I originally purchased the grain from them and I knew they would have some alternative threshing and winnowing technologies.
As it turns out, they have a 1950′s vintage All Crop combine which attaches to a tractor and can process virtually any kind of seed crop. So I took my wheat up to Pie Ranch and passed it through the combine. Within 20 minutes the entire load was processed! Ah, the miracles of modern machinery! I had intended to not use any fossil fuels in the process, and was once again reminded of the convenience such energy-rich fuels offer us in agriculture.
I ended up with about 50 pounds of grain. My friend Jered from Pie Ranch then showed me how to winnow the seed until it was perfectly clean using a household fan:
Once the seed was completely clean, Jered showed me how to use the Austrian stone grinder that they have in their barn. As flour quickly goes rancid, it is best to mill, or grind, it in small batches. I ground up a couple of pounds to take home to my mom and my girlfriend for baking:
To be honest, it was a whole lot of work and I ended up with about as much grain as I started with. I lost a lot of seed as I harvested it. Hopefully, much of the seed that was dropped will sprout up again when the rains return this Fall and I won’t have to replant it. It is, however, very affirming to eat breads, cakes, muffins and cookies grown from your own land. I grew about a quarter of an acre and it will be enough flour for my family for the whole year. Even if you only have a small 5×8 foot bed, you will be surprised with how much actual grain you generate. It will certainly be enough to make a few delicious batches of home-grown cookies!
Seed Saving and the Preservation of Cultural Diversity
March 23, 2011The United States is the most culturally diverse country on the planet. This diversity offers a unique, global guise through which to view the food system and human stewardship of the natural world. Each culture represented here brings a food history, a way of eating from the country of origin. Whether you and your ancestors are from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe or Latin America, or Native American, you carry this food history with you whether you are aware of it or not.
In the last hundred years, we have seen a dramatic loss in the diversity of the foods we eat. Ask a grandparent in your family about what they ate as kids and you will learn about all kinds of interesting plant and animal foods that you have never tasted.
Many of the foods that our grandparents and great-grandparents ate are on the verge of complete extinction. People and plants adapt in tandem over millennia. Plants adapt to the environmental and cultural context in which they are grown and tended. People, along with all animals, are healthiest when they consume as wide an array of foods as possible. It is our responsibility to our predecessors and the generations to come to preserve the genetic diversity that still exists within our food system.
Instead of rattling off all of the reasons this loss of food knowledge has taken place, I’d like to paint a picture for reviving the traditions, the beauty, the vitality, the connectedness that re-learning can bring.
As gardeners and people who love food, we have limitless options for bringing the traditional foods of our forebears back to the table.
Here are some suggestions:
Start by learning about how to save seeds. Learn which plants cross-pollinate in the garden and how to preserve the genetic integrity of the seeds we hold dear and plan to pass on to our grandchildren (some tips for seed saving can be founds below)
Dig up old recipes from your family and get as many generations involved in the kitchen as possible.
Eat together as a family at least once a week and share stories about food and family.
Learn the recipes of neighbors and friends who have different cultural backgrounds than you do.
Help to develop gardening and cooking programs in our schools where our children can learn to love and appreciate history through understanding where all of the food crops we hold so dear have originated. When a kid learns that carrots come from Afganistan, all of a sudden what was a foreign and war-torn place becomes relevant to what he or she is eating for lunch!
Easy Seeds to Save:
the umbelliferae are the easiest (cilantro/coriander, parsley).
Beans are also easy and are not likely to cross-pollinate; they come in many shapes, colors and sizes, are native to the Americas and all have a story to tell.
The basic idea with saving seeds is to let the plant live out its full life cycle instead of pulling it out when it looks overgrown and, dare I say, ugly. For more tips on saving vegetable seed, check out Suzanne Ashworth’s “Seed to Seed.”
Happy Gardening!
A Diverse Winter Cover Crop
February 04, 2011Most organic gardeners have heard of “cover crops.” The basic idea of cover-cropping is to sow seed over ground that would otherwise be bare in the garden or on the farm. Cover crops are often grown throughout the winter in temperate latitudes, however there are appropriate seed mixes for any time of year.
Why sow seed on bare soil when it is not in use? Among the myriad reasons for cover cropping, erosion control, nitrogen fixation, and the development of organic matter are the most widely recognized. Cover crops also inhibit the growth of weeds, attract pollinators and predatory insects, and many can be saved for seed or used as feed for animals.
Even weeds can serve as effective cover crops! The most relevant aspect to managing weeds as over crops is understanding their reproductive cycle. If the weed in question is a perennial and can spread without the production of seeds, special caution must be taken when using it as a cover crop. For most annual weeds, however, merely ensuring that they are tilled in, harvested, composted or used as mulch before they produce mature seed is enough in the way of management. A diverse and weedy winter garden ensures a diverse and abundant soil food web and healthier and more vigorous fruits and vegetables in the coming seasons!
My favorite cover crop mixes are improvised. The basic mixture of grains and legumes just doesn’t do it for me. Grains have complex root systems, which provide erosion control, and legumes fix atmospheric Nitrogen in the soil with the help of Mycorrhizal bacteria. Together they are a good base but they are not sufficient. Try throwing all your old seed into your mix and see what comes up! In many cases you can begin to grow your weeds of choice. My favorite intended weed is arugula. Even this late in the Winter growing season in the San Francisco Bay Area, I will sow arugula, radishes, flax, cilantro and parsley and low-growing native wildflowers around my Winter lettuces, broccoli, fennel bulb, celery, chard, kale, chard, onions and garlic. I’ll even sprinkle in some Cupani sweet peas and see where they come up. In my opinion, reckless and spontaneous growth are the most beautiful.
Sowing cover crops in and around your vegetables is also never a bad idea. Masanobu Fukuoka, Japanese pioneer in sustainable agriculture, demonstrated the art of “no-till” farming. He managed large production vegetable fields without tillage by sowing, and harvesting all year round. By balling up a mixture of his seeds in clay and tossing these balls into the field at the proper time of year, he ensured both a diverse habitat for wildlife and minimal intrusion into the fragile soil.
If you don’t have a chance to cover crop this Winter, try sowing a diverse cover in a plot that is lying fallow or one that has been opened but won’t be planted for a few weeks in the late Spring or early Summer. Even letting a cover crop flush for 6-8 weeks can be enough to substantially increase the organic matter. Additionally, consider sowing a low growing mix under your Summer vegetables in order to control weeds and encourage the productivity of a more diverse ecological community.
Happy Gardening!
Farmer Ben
Start a Garden in the Fall?
December 03, 2010That’s right. Fall and Winter gardening is vital to building the soil for the Spring and Summer months. Also, in the San Francisco Bay area we can grow food all year round!
So how does Fall gardening work?
Basically, the harvest months of October and November are the beginning of the great dying in the world of annual plants in our hemisphere. Every living thing passes its genes before dying and so the harvest months lead abruptly into the rapid accumulation of organic matter on the soil surface after our first cold spell (this year it began a few days before Thanksgiving in Northern California).
Maximizing the usage of this organic matter involves one very simple theme: creating an optimal environment for decomposition. The leaves that fall from our deciduous trees and the residues from our harvested vegetable gardens provide an optimal food for microorganisms to feed on through the winter — if prepared properly.
Whether you opt to compost your plant waste and layer it with animal manures or choose to till the plant matter in your fields or garden beds directly into the soil and sow nitrogen and carbon fixing “cover crops”, the same three principles apply:
1.) Addition of air (microbes need to breath too!)
2.) Maximizing sites for microorganisms to populate (chopping material up as small as possible)
3.) “Inoculating” with beneficial bacteria and fungi using balanced compost or animal manures (unless these beneficials already exist in your soils).
Now, if this sounds a little nerdy, you’re right. It’s also very simple. The planet Earth is a closed system with respect to matter. When we extract organic matter from our gardens (in the form of food) and send our plant waste away in our garden waste bins, it’s a loose – loose for the soil. By creating as close to a closed-loop system of plant matter recycling at your site as possible, you dramatically decrease the amount of mineral and organic amendment needed to maintain fertility for the seasons ahead.
Happy gardening! Don’t forget to throw on a scarf – it’s cold out there!
Grow Your Lunch in Bay Area Schools!
November 08, 2010Over the last few months, Grow Your Lunch has been assisting numerous Bay Area schools develop their gardens. This month, the Meher School in Lafayette is being highlighted as a model for community involvement in the development a school garden. Here’s why:
In July of this year, Grow Your Lunch founder Benjamin Eichorn met with a self-selected group of teachers, parents and administrators to discuss the development of a garden at the school. We began with a few inspirational quotes from local gardening extraordinaire, Wendy Johnson, and Masanobu Fukuoka, author of the groundbreaking sustainable agriculture resource, “The One Straw Revolution.” After drawing additional inspiration from the PBS special “Nourish: Food and Community” this nuclear group of garden founders headed outside to the place where we would soon translate ideas into action.
Like other schools in the wider Bay Area, The Meher School is fortunate to have some open space where a garden can be constructed. One community member who has extensive gardening experience was present at the meeting and offered to design and build the garden along with other parent and community volunteers. Numerous parents and community members stepped forward to volunteer their time every weekend at community workdays. Four months after our initial meeting, the garden beds have been constructed and amended with manure and compost (see photos). They will be cover-cropped through the winter and will be ready for planting in the spring.
A school-wide composting effort has also been initiated. Every classroom has a compost container which students deposit on the large compost pile at the end of each day. This composting effort is being seen not only as a way to garner community-wide interest in the garden but also as an academic tool. Understanding compost means understanding that all matter on planer earth cycles through a “closed system.” This is one of the three primary tenets of ecology: Matter Cycles, Energy Flows, and Life Webs. These kids are well on their way to becoming our next generation of responsible land stewards!
The children at The Meher School also have “garden” as part of the science curriculum and they are studying nutrition and healthy food preparation. They are also raising worms and chickens!
