GroHappy

Eating on the wild side

As rains and warming temperatures bring new growth to wanted plants, our unwanted plants “weeds” seem to always outpace those more desirable cultivars. But one must remember that a weed is just a plant that you don’t want in a particular place. So with that in mind I thought about changing a few heads at my recent horticultural therapy class at Ann’s Place about the “weeds” that might be all too common to their yards and gardens. And even quite yummy.

With all the talk of eating veg raised nearby I thought the most local way that you could eat would be from your own back yard. Time to forage. This was an easy class to prep for as my yard is replete with weeds as I use no herbicides or fertilizers on my lawn or ground-cover areas. So when I went out for a quick search for eatable plants. They were easy to find. I found burdock, chives, clover, dandelion, garlic mustard, mints, plantain, Queen Anne's lace, sheep sorrel, sweet woodruff, violets, wild garlic, wild onion and wild thyme.

At this time of year the dominant weeds are garlic mustard and dandelion, though red and white clovers are beginning to make a good push through the Earth to cover the bald spots on my lawn. And I have to admit that I picked some sweet woodruff a week ago, dried it and then mixed it with strawberries to make May wine to serve to my students.

As I laid out my different samples I was a bit shocked on the diversity of plants I had. It was a mix of sweet and tangy greens and different herbs that could dress up any salad we made or freshen up a dish with a unfamiliar flavor. After taking my clients out for a walk, they came back ready to dig in somewhat amazed at what you could do with the different plants.

“This first one, burdock, is a delicacy in Asia. The tap root is cooked. But the small leaves can be used in a salad while the larger ones sautéed,” I said. “Historically this has been used as a diuretic as well as a remedy for skin problems.”

I offered clients a taste and the group was very divided with half deciding to take a chance while the other half demurring politely. Perhaps I should not have told them first that poison hemlock (used to kill Socrates) looks just like Queen Anne’s lace though it is easy to tell them apart (QAL has hairy stems, hemlock does not; the root of QAL smells like a carrot; the disturbed leaves of hemlock smell as would a rodent.) But I did need to warn them about foraging in the wild as there are a variety of very poisonous plants out in the yard, as well described in Amy Steward’s excellent book Wicked Plants.

“If you are not very, very sure of what you are ingesting, don’t take a chance. Also don’t harvest food from areas that have been sprayed; on the other hand if the areas had been sprayed, the weeds would likely be dead.”

That said, all were very interested in at least the smells of the different plants: no harm in smelling. I was able to clip a mint from our property that my mother-in-law had smuggled in from Guatemala many years ago. It has a very strong minty scent with a bright purple stalk. “It is really best used for chicken soup,” said my wife Juana who attended the session along with my granddaughter Charlotte. Each client took a sample to start at home.

“Sorrell is a great addition to salads if you want a bit of a kick,” I said. “Another name for it is lemon leaf because of the flavor and it is a favorite with kids.” And then almost on cue Charlotte reached over to stuff one in her mouth. She chomped on it with a big smile.

After I finished with the plants I got out the May wine, a traditional German drink to celebrate May Day as well as the coming of Spring. As I opened the carafe I let each client smell the mixing of the herbs, fruits and wine. “This is amazing,” said one. All were smiling in anticipation of that first sip.

“Now be careful when you drink this as it does have a reputation as an aphrodisiac,” I said. They all smiled at me and took their first sip. No one was displeased.

Charlotte salads

We are in the midst of near record heat, which is making all of us want to shed our down vests like a snake sheds its skin. Charlotte, my granddaughter, has spring fever as bad as any of us and doesn’t want to stay inside but rather wobble outdoors and experience nature. For her, that still means putting nearly everything in her mouth ranging from small rocks (to perfect her speech like Demosthenes) to large sticks (to clean her teeth after a meal of grass.) But I figured it was time to get her up in the garden to show her what we could eat from the outdoors this time of year.

The lack of snow and cold permitted many of my greens to winter-over nicely. The Swiss chard was coming back as well as the spinach I planted last September. Amazingly some of the slow-bolt leaf lettuce is growing along with the pak choy. The best crops are the heart-shaped miner’s lettuce and mache (Vit). They are a tasty snack and very sweet this time of year. We have a surfeit of crunchy little leaves; ideal for a small, fairly toothless mouth. My raised beds are the perfect height for her to grab and play with the soil. She plays, moving her hands across the black warming soil in a circular motion. After a bit,  she wants a little snack so I feed her leaf after leaf that she sucks down using her little pink tongue.

The garden is a new experience for her and she can’t decide how to react. What should she put in her mouth versus what should she just grab? Sometimes I think it is too much for her to handle. I often think about what she will remember of her crazy grandpa and his obsession with gardening. Is he just too weird or wonderful? Perhaps someday I will find out. Regardless spring is coming and I will just keep feeding Charlotte from the garden letting her well within reach of the lettuce but blocking out sight of the foxglove that has established itself. You can never be too careful with those you love.

Timberrr!!!!!!

As I have mentioned in a prior post, one of the large challenges my vegetable garden faces is its exposure or its lack of one. Though its raised beds are situated on a greenhouse foundation, the combination of northern exposure and tree cover, which wasn’t there when the greenhouse was built, makes for light light (particularly in the Spring and Fall.) But last year my neighbor, Donna, agreed to let me have the trees taken down in the space between our properties so that the greenhouse (and my garden) would get the sun my vegetables actively crave.

This area between our properties has been a no-man’s-land of opportunity as maple, locust, cherry, hickory, oak and ash have fought for dominance by spreading their branches and leaders in every direction save straight up. Besides their leaves, these trees were clothed with a spreading dress of grape vine and poison ivy. 

The consecutive storms of the late summer and fall took down some trees and crushed much of the undergrowth. A  locust came through my fence landing in the small 10 foot space between the corner of my greenhouse and that of the garage. Another leaned on a cherry that had its top broken off. Other trees also had broken and hanging branches. So it seemed that now was the time for a clear cut as there were few trees that were not either damaged, leaning too close to my house or somehow damaged by the storms.

Unfortunately after all the trees were removed neither my wife nor neighbor (and me to some degree) were ready for the stark barrenness of the newly denuded landscape. It is perhaps made worse by the fact that no refurbishment or plantings can be attempted for at least two and a half months. Instead of an overgrown patch we had mountains of wood chips and crummy looking undergrowth. I spent the better part of two days trying to clean up and make the area look a bit better. 

As I cut back the broken, overgrown and deformed undergrowth of grape and poison ivy vines I started to discover some real gems: a rhododendron that had been overgrown with grape vine and forsythia, beaten down heirloom roses and tangled masses of raspberries. A pile of vines revealed a fledgling three foot fir that was attempting to make a go of it.

The chips proffered a more muscular exercise with a large and extended pile that was shot across the back area. However, I was able to fill in some very large depressions in the property and grade the area for a nice set of spring plantings. Its consistent and light patina contrasted with the darker leaf litter surrounding it. In a year, however, all would appear the same. And now that I can see what is already there and what can planted in a few months, I’m looking forward to the spring.

Solstice salad

Going out for the newspaper a few mornings ago, I was greeted by a warm 50 degree breeze and sunny skies. Normally, such weather is more appropriate for the Spring Equinox than the Winter Solstice. But this has been a year of unusual weather so I shrugged off the morning breeze as yet another aberration in a year full of such occurrences. Splitting wood a few weeks ago, I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes and gnats. I continue to pull ticks off the cats when they come into the house from the outside. Buds on the bushes look as if they are about to burst into bloom. It doesn’t seem as if we are in Connecticut anymore.

On of the happy byproducts of this mildness are the salads we have been able to harvest every other day from the cold frame. Depending upon what is more up we have combinations of space spinach; sylvetta arugula; winterbor kale; romaine, red-tinged winter, and slow-bolt lettuce; claytonia; tatsoi; mache and parsley. Given the mild weather it has been easy to harvest continuously though one evening when the temperature was down to 26 degrees I made the mistake of trying to get a few leafs for a sandwich I was making. Upon opening the frame I noticed that the glass was glazed with frozen mist dripping with ice. Each leaf was preserved solid and cracked as I broke a leaf off a few stems. I made the mistake of trying to defrost my greens in cold water, which transformed icy greens to brown mush.

Few believed that I could produce greens almost year round but this year my efforts let us grow greens between mid April to the end of December. Next year I hope to extend that time even further; I’m beginning to figure out how to crack this. But a few days ago, as I looked at my greens, I could tell that my harvesting days were coming to an end. This is the season of harvesting, not of growth as the days are cold and the nights dark and long. I have, perhaps, only a few more harvests left so I cut most of the greens this Thursday so Juana and I could enjoy a large salad still from my garden. It was delicious, an early Christmas gift.

Recalling a blackout and October snow

Writing by candlelight and fire evokes images of Abe Lincoln or Ben Franklin recording their thoughts at the end of a long day. But there is little else I was able to do after days without power finding myself alone tending a fire to keep the house warm and the pets fed. This trip back to an off- (or non-existent) grid New England was caused by a freak October snow storm that dumped nearly 18 inches of snow on my back yard. Only now, have I had the chance to post after more than a week of cleaning and catching up.

Initially pretty with large fluffy flecks covering the ground and plants, the snow became more and more menacing as the trees and bushes started to groan and sag against the weight of the snow. By 4:30 in the afternoon nearly 10 inches had dropped in a little over 4 hours and with it many a branch. The progression was fairly consistent: a slow and constant drop of a limb until it stopped moving downward. Nothing save more snow. It then became a waiting game. Could or would the tree be able to hold its own against the snow? Would the snow stop soon? How much would break or crack off?

Sometimes the branch released its cargo with a whoosh and thump like flour from a bag. It then shot upward to catch more snow and start its slow, downward movement again. Other times the snow was liberated only after a branch snapped with a large crack followed by a thud. This spectacle was repeated all evening until the morning when all was white and silent. Everything was broken and we were without power for nearly an entire week.

The butterfly bushes were crushed and laid over on their sides. The hydrangea snapped into pieces with their dried flowers smashed and spread all over. The Montauk daisies were crushed. The ornamentals fared the worse, particularly the Japanese maples.

All of the maples save one lost large chunks of their upper canopies. Like so many toothpicks the branches were scattered with jagged edges some hanging by a thin sliver of bark or wood. One of the trees split into three parts; one for each main leader that rose near the ground from a common base. It was splayed helpless among the pachysandra resting between a concrete Buddha and a crescent of azaleas. It seemed hopeless.

But the next week brought rapidly melting snow (though there is still a small pile in my yard) and progress. The damage forced me to cut back bushes and trees much sooner than I would have. Remarkably I was able to cable the trisected maple together with the base fitting neatly and cleanly together.  I started to split wood every day as I burned through 1/3rd a cord in just a week. With each exhausting day came repair and the a view that this natural pruning process was not as bad as it could have been.

 

One surprise was how well my fall greens held up. Covered with Agribon and glass, my cold frames withheld the weight of the snow and saved the lettuces as well as the Swiss chard. My carrots emerged from the snow with tops still green and looking well. Even the herb garden suffered little damage save a few burnt leaves.

Last week I harvested a salad to have with my dinner. It was delicious.

Fungus among us

While July was hot and dry, June was not and set the seeds (or spores) of one of our current activities at Green Chimneys: trimming diseased branches and leaves off the tomato plants. Tomatoes are one of the favored fruits of summer as there is nothing quite so tasty as a fresh tomato that has ripened on the vine. Unfortunately, for the last three years we have had a constant battle with Septoria leaf spot and every year I have endeavored with my charges to control the problem.

A few weeks ago I told a group of young boys that we would be cutting the leaves off the tomato plants. Initially they seemed uninterested until I asked them if they liked salsa.

“Yeah! That’s one of the best things about the summer garden. Will we be getting salsa soon?” said Bob.

“Well I hope so,” I replied. “But only if all of these green tomatoes are able to turn red. And they won’t turn red unless the tomato plant that is holding them lives for at least a month more.”

I then showed them a diseased leaf. It was brown on the edges and had little dots all over.

“This leaf is infected with a fungus that will kill the tomato plant unless we stop it. Look at some of the wilted leafs at the bottom of that tomato plant,” I said pointed downward.

They all looked and saw a bunch of desiccated brown leafs hanging off the metal cage. There were also small shriveled branches hanging off the bottom of the plant.

“Does that look healthy?” I asked. They all shook their heads no.

So I told them that we needed to cut off all the sickly looking branches as well as collect the dead leaves on the ground and instead of putting them into the compost heap, we needed to throw them out. When I asked them why did we need to do that Bill spoke up,” Because if you put them in with the compost you will just be planting them again next year.” Smart kid.

I gave each of them a set of pruners and they quickly set off to do the work. I said that our goal was to finish a single row of tomatoes and they set off quickly to do their job. Unlike other weeding exercises, this time the boys worked quickly and carefully. Perhaps the prospect of not getting salsa was motivating them to work hard; perhaps my promise of carrots and early tomatoes if they did a good job was a more immediate incentive.

In their enthusiasm a few healthy branches were cut, but as they were not bearing any fruit, I told them that it didn’t really matter that they were cut. After each plant was tended to, I wiped down each of their tools with alcohol to remove any spores that lingered on the blades. After 30 minutes of work, the row was nearly done.

“Gentlemen you have done a great job and probably saved this row so we will be able to make salsa in a month or so. Give yourselves a pat on the back,” I said. “Look at the difference.”  For the few plants that had not been trimmed, the dead, shrunken leafs were a bleak counterpart to the thinned out albeit airy bottoms of the plants that had been cut. The boys seemed pleased.

“OK now it is time to shop. Carrots first or tomatoes?” The boys had big smiles on their faces and decided to go for the tomatoes first.  

Cutting flowers, exposing memories

Part of the practice of horticultural therapy is to help clients work through or at least realize their challenges. Before you can begin to do that, particularly for emotional or social issues, you must first gain the trust of your client. In working with the children at Green Chimneys I have found that one of the easiest ways to do that is to tap the skills from my former profession as a consultant and be a good listener. And one way to do that is by striking up conversations during quiet, intimate tasks.

That happened last week as the chives had bloomed and the flowers needed to be cut to preserve the bulb. As one of my charges said the day was, “cloudless but windy but very comfortable.” So we had ideal conditions to just kneel down and snip the heads off the flowers. It didn’t matter how much of the chive flowers we cut but to make it more challenging and precise I had all the students snip them toward the top of the stem where the flower sat. This would force them to concentrate and consider the job rather than just flail away indiscriminately.

While many of the puff-ball-like flower heads were starting to go to seed, others were still fresh and attracting bees. But after I told my charges that they need not worry about the bees they ignored them and went along their business. After a short time, the onion-like smell of the stalks and flowers coated our hands so our aroma had changed for the day. It was pungent though pleasant and (to me at least) soothing.

One student Bob started speaking about his summer and the trips he would be going on with his mother and step-father. He then started to speak about his grandfather. “I don’t ever want to meet my grandfather. He’s a bad man.” He then started to talk about how his grandfather (as well as his father) was an alcoholic and would beat his father.  “My mom doesn’t drink.”

While Bob was talking about his family he spoke in a calm and matter-of-fact tone. He clipped the flowers carefully, dropping them into a tote and continued to tell me his story. “They could have stopped drinking if they wanted to. It’s all their fault. They are bad.”

“Bob, alcoholism is a disease that never leaves you, even if you stop drinking. Yes, perhaps they could stop drinking but it is not easy and a constant battle. I’m sorry that their actions hurt you.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” said Bob. “They are not part of me or my Mom’s life.” Bob didn’t seem to want to talk any more so we silently finished removing the flowers from the clump of chives we were in front. Bob did such a good job I let him harvest the first of the strawberries as a treat as well as a few gooseberries. “This was a good day,” he said as I took him back to class.

Judy, my next student, had a different reaction around the chives. She was working along side other students in a group that I was managing and became very possessive about cutting a certain number of flowers. “These are mine!,” she said. So I gave her a wide berth and let her cut the flowers. She did a good job sometimes lingering and looking at the individual blooms while delicately holding them in her hand.

I later took her aside and asked why she had become so possessive. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to have my own space and do it on my own.”

One of the my last students, Josh, was making quick work of the job. He cut the heads closely and quickly. He discovered that flowers that had mostly gone to seed were easy to pull off the stalks. “Is it ok if I pull them rather than cut them?”

I replied yes but he had to make sure that the flower was past. I demonstrated to him the difficulty in trying to pull off a live flower verses the relative ease in removing a seed pod. He nodded and then said, “These smell like stink bugs.”  I didn’t know the type of bug he was referring to so I asked him to describe one to me. He then started to look bothered and said that he didn’t want to. I asked why.

“They live in the country where I was born. It’s not a nice place. I don’t want to remember anything about it.”

“Would you like to talk about this?”

“No because if I do I won’t be able to stop and I want to forget about ever coming from there.”

Josh was now agitated. I needed to change the topic. “Josh, how would you like some strawberries?” His face immediately brightened. “Is there any asparagus left?”

“Yes I think so and there may be some gooseberries for you also.”

His face brightened with a big smile so we picked up our pruners, knee pads and tote of chive flowers and walked toward the shed to put them away. “Do you think I could have two strawberries, Mr. Keller?”

“Sure, Josh,” I replied. “If you can find two ripe ones.” He ran off toward the strawberry patch in front of me, forgetting the chives and thinking about the strawberries that he hoped to find.

Food for harvest

 

Things are looking up at Green Chimneys. The greenhouse should be reopened soon and first harvest is upon us. At home, we have been harvesting nine different greens (mizuna, romaine, VIT, miner's lettuce, dandelions, red leaf, spinach, arugula, sorrel) for salads every day. Most of these greens were planted last fall and somehow survived the tough winter. The same can be said of the mustard greens we planted in the Row for the Hungry last fall. We put a small hoop house over the row and it held off the snows of last season. We we peeled off the Agribon last month, the greens had just come out of their dormancy. Now a month later, they have started to bolt.

Jeff and I started to remove the leaves from the stems so Tracy could deliver them to the food pantry later today. Jeff was attentive though a bit melancholy. His uncle had died yesterday and he spent much of the time talking about all the things he and his father had found in the house. "He has a 2002 Chevy that we are going to take home," he said. "We are going to store it in the back yard and I will be getting kit when I turn 18." Jeff is all but 11 today.

Jeff carefully picked each leaf off and asked how the leaves were used to make mustard, which he favors on hot dogs. I told him that the leaves are used for salads while the seeds are ground into mustard. "See the little yellow flower. That will form a seed, which can then be made into mustard."

In the place of the greens we will plant some rows of lettuce and perhaps radishes if we have room. The other plants we had put in three weeks ago are doing well some of which will be ready for harvest in a couple of weeks.

Jeff slowly and methodically pulled the leaves from the stems. “Can I eat one,” he asks. No problem, I reply. As he bites into the leaf he makes a face and spits out the leaf. Too bitter.  He goes back to the harvest. We collect a large pile of mustard greens that weighs two pounds and put it in the refrigerator so it can be delivered later to the food pantry in Brewster.

Going home to New Jersey

Working at Green Chimneys is full of paradoxes. One of the biggest ones that I don’t understand is the rationale behind the rule that staff are not allowed to discuss the entire life cycle of animals, particularly when they die. On a farm, life and death is common. Animals get sick and die, chickens that lose the ability to lay eggs productively become tomorrow’s dinner, cows and pigs once they reach a certain age or weight are taken off to slaughter. 

But such realities are not to be reflected in our teachings. I once made the mistake in discussing with a GC staff member a scene in the Michael Moore movie, “Roger & Me,” where a poor resident of Flint, MI, was selling rabbits for “Pets or Meat.” A child nearby overheard our discussion and went into a massive crying fit. We eventually calmed down the child and I felt guilty about upsetting the boy. While many of the animals we have at Green Chimneys are viewed as pets and part of therapy, the other more final use is the true reason for the existence of most farms.

After some reflection, I started to feel sorry for all the children as they were being shielded from the reality of the human use of animals for food. After all its not tofu nuggets, mushroom burgers and veggyloaf that gets fed to the children in the cafeteria. And everyone loves cheese. Green Chimneys is far from a meat-free zone. Often, the more meat, the better.

The absurdity of this was revisited last week as I was having lunch with some colleagues. “”We don’t have room for all of them in the barn,” said one farm worker.

“I’m not sure what we will do with the carcass,” said another.

I quickly discovered that something killed one of the sheep the prior evening. There were no visible footprints or scat but the consensus was either a large dog or coyote of which there are many in the area, killed the sheep. Now that this predator knows that there are easy pickings, we needed to protect the flock. So instead of leaving them out in the fields, they will be brought in every evening to be protected.

“So how did the kids take it?” I asked.  I was given a sharp look and told that the children never will know.

“We tell them that it [the sheep] went home to a farm in New Jersey,”  said one of the farm hands. “That’s our standard line.”

“But the kids are getting smart,” said another. “They have figured out that anytime someone ‘goes home to New Jersey’ it means that they have died.”

This was really weird. Images of Jimmy Hoffa next to some dead ungulates sprang to mind. “OK horsey, if you won’t talk, it’s a concrete feed bag for you.”

But the biggest missed opportunity was our inability to create a positive and impactful lesson from this nasty event. Instead we are having to hide everything.

As I left the cafeteria, I started to think of Charlton Heston and Edger G. Robinson in the movie “Soylent Green.”  It’s a old science-fiction movie about a 2022 Earth that is overpopulated and barely able to feed itself. Soylent Green is one of the main food stuffs of the era and purportedly is made from plankton. Robinson, tired of life leaves a note for Heston stating that he is “going home,” a euphemism for assisted suicide.  Heston follows the body of his old friend through a processing sequence discovering the dark secret that “Soylent Green is people!”

I felt like following that train of thought by screaming, “Mutton is sheep!.” But I didn’t and went back to the garden less worried about the mixed message we send out to our children and more worried about covering up some tender vegetable seedlings as we were expecting a very cold evening.

Jack and the beanstalk

When I work with children, I am often amazed at the creativity they can display. This happened recently with one of my charges, Jack, whom was perusing different seed catalogs looking for interesting things to plant in the months to come. We happened upon the beans and saw a couple of interesting types: yin-yang, purple podded pole and winged. Jack wondered if we could plant some of those next month. I told him sure but perhaps we could use the beans to create a story about him, Jack and the beanstalk.

"I hate that. Fairy tales are stupid."

"Why are you so upset Jack?

"Because fairy tails are for babies and I am not a baby!"

"That's not true Jack. You said that you liked mythology from the Greeks and Romans: many fairy tales are not that different from classic mythology."

"I don't care. I don't want to make up a story for babies about giants and castles."

"You don't have to make up a story for babies. You can make up any story you like as long as it includes a boy named Jack and a beanstalk. It is only limited by your imagination. How about we work on it together?” Jack shrugged but said he would try.

He started out the story as we started out the lesson. "As Jack was looking in a seed catalog for ideas of what to plant in the spring he discovered . . ."

When I came in I elaborated, "when we received the beans in the mail, we discovered that the seeds we received were not the seeds we picked. They looked magical as they were striped with seven different colors and glowed in the dark. Jack was disappointed that the wrong beans were sent to us but interested in the new beans and how they would grow."

Jack continued, "So Jack decided to plant them in the garden. Now it usually takes beans a few days to emerge from the soil but when Mr. Keller and Jack went by the garden the next day, there was an eight-foot high beanstalk with big fat bean pods on the plant. . . .

We continued for about 5 minutes. The plant never stopped bearing fruit, it had beautiful flowers that changed color, the beans smelled like your favorite dessert, etc. With just a simple prompting, Jack was making up a wonderful story. He didn't need my help to keep it going.

"That is great Jack, but we have to stop now and get you back to class."

"OK Mr. Keller. That was a lot of fun. Thanks."

"No problem Jack, I think we should plant some beans soon for the summer."

"That would be great. Especially if they glow in the dark."