gardening

Practicing An Honorable Harvest

Happy Harvest Moon! It’s also Friday the 13th, which, if you’re so inclined, could potentially make for a spooky night. What I think is even more interesting, however, is its relation to the autumnal equinox and its cultural tradition (I absolutely love learning new things).

According to Almanac.com, the full moon that occurs closest to the autumnal equinox (September 22-23) is the Harvest Moon. This means a Harvest Moon could occur in either September or October, depending on its lunar timing. During these shortening of days the moon rises just moments after the sun sets and gives us a sense of brighter evenings. In times past, farmers appreciated this extra light for harvesting their crops; thus the name Harvest Moon.

Isn’t the harvest season a most glorious time of year? Besides the beauty of autumn, there is just that—the harvest. All around us is the culmination of summer’s sunshine and rain, the miracle of growth, and, of course, the hard work of our hands.

The Harvest is Truly a Blessing

Author Robin Wall Kimmerer spoke of this blessing in her awesome book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. As a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation, she strives for a life of gratitude. Whether it’s the ramps she foraged from a woods in spring or the tomatoes I pick from my garden this fall, everything we consume, everything that allows us to live, is the gift of another life.

Honorable Harvest

Kimmerer wrote of the Honorable Harvest, a canon of ancient principles that govern our taking from the earth. As she lists its guidelines, I’m thinking they could well apply to sustainable living.  
  1. Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
  2. Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
  3. Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
  4. Never take the first. Never take the last.
  5. Take only what you need.
  6. Take only that which is given.
  7. Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
  8. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
  9. Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
  10. Share.
  11. Give thanks for what you have been given.
  12. Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
  13. Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.
Obviously, the Honorable Harvest isn’t a guideline just for our own taking. It’s also for our giving. In biblical times God instructed his people to leave corners of the field unharvested for the poor to glean, a practice my Latino friends say is common in their home countries still today. Here in the U.S, CSA farms add creative ways of gleaning to their calendars and community farms are dedicated to providing to food pantries. Goodness, simply sharing our garden produce with family and friends is an honorable harvest!

The Honorable Harvest is something we can apply to all areas of our lives. Wouldn’t it be cool if it was as much an autumn celebration as, say, commercial holiday-ism in our stores?

Putting Value on Our Food

Last weekend I harvested my winter wheat. I felt all Winslow Homer Reaper-ish while using an antique scythe I found hanging in our barn.

My wheat field—call it what you will—was a 20 x 20 ft. patch of amber waves of grain within my vegetable garden. I broadcast-planted it last fall using Turkey Red seed from Anarchy Acres and was ecstatic when this spring it came up as lush as any of the neighboring fields. My reasoning for this cover crop experiment is to put nutrients back into the soil during the summer and then come winter—when the north wind doth blow—I can cozy up with wheat weaving and a slice of homegrown bread. Oh, how hygge of me, eh?

Larry Newberg family tree collection

Well, surprise, surprise, harvesting this little patch turned out to be a lot of work—scything the stalks, gathering them into sheaves, hanging them to dry, threshing grains from the head—seriously, what was I thinking? When I see pictures of my Swedish ancestors working large fields completely by hand, I’m in awe.

Today, even as mechanized as farming has become, there are still segments that require laboring by hand just as a they did a century ago. Interestingly, these are the segments that most directly feed humans, especially those that feed us healthy, organic food.

The True Value of Food

In the spring issue of Yes!, the Journalism for People Building a Better World, an industrious food composter, Kevin Holtham, said “I believe food should be free, and actually it can be free.” I see where he’s coming from, how growing one’s own food enables us to, in a sense, eat for free.

However, “free” is a highly contingent word. Sure, growing your own food saves you from having to buy it from a store. But it’s certainly not free if you apply value to the time, labor and resources necessary to get out there and do the growing. Let’s be real, there’s a lot more to producing that tasty tomato than meets the Instagram eye.

As an organic farmer making her living from the land, Casey O’ Leary of Earthly Delights Farm & Snake River Seed Cooperative agrees.

“’Food should be free’ is dangerously close to ‘food should be cheap,’ and both completely undervalue the work of food production and the humans doing it,” commented O’ Leary so eloquently in the next issue of Yes! “Access to healthy food should be a human right? Absolutely. Food should be free? Nope. It smacks of the kind of romanticism of farming only possessed by those who have never tried to make a living doing it, and it undermines our efforts to advocate for a living wage for farmers and farmworkers.”

O’ Leary hits a sensitive nerve. When it comes to food, generally speaking, we Americans are a demanding lot. We want our food—an abundant selection, at that— but, heaven forbid, not only do we not want to do the work to produce it, we also don’t want to pay much for others to do it for us. In truth, Americans pay far less of their income for food than other people of the world, yet our health care spending is so much more. Obviously, the food we’re buying isn’t as healthy as it should be. And obviously, cheap (processed) food doesn’t pay.

Maybe that old scythe is a reminder.

Food author Michael Pollan instructs us to eat like our great-great-great grandmothers ate. To be sure, these lovely ladies didn’t open plastic packaging to get at their food. Neither should we. Remember, the foods that are the healthiest for us to eat often require the greatest effort to produce.

https://farmersmarketcoalition.org/national-farmers-market-week/

Next week, August 4-10, is National Farmers Market Week. Here’s a chance for Americans to show that, yes, we do value good food and we support the farmers who work hard to grow it.

Looking for a farmers market near you? Check out this national farmers market directory. It’s where you can find food in its purest, healthiest form; unprocessed and produced by human hands.

Go for it!

Lots of Summer Ramblings: Strawberry Moon to Strawberry Festivals

Several years ago the bulb in our yard light burned out. It was one of those dawn-to-dusk lights set high on a line pole and even though my husband’s job is to regularly climb such poles, he just never got around to climbing ours.

At first, I’d go out at night and it seemed unnervingly dark. We don’t have immediate neighbors so nothing but the celestial sky lit our yard. Oh, but let me tell you, there’s no going back. The event of that burned-out bulb has totally heightened my appreciation of the night sky and I’m now a moon-gazing habitué.

Given that, here’s to a happy Strawberry Moon (Tuesday night) and upcoming Summer Solstice (Friday night). I love them both. With the full days of summer ahead, it’s a wonderful time of festivity and adventure.

Speaking of Strawberries…

They’re finally here! We live on a windy hill and it seems my patch is always a bit behind. But they’re here now and as delicious as ever. Just look at how red and juicy they are, unlike those so-called “strawberries” you find in the grocery store.

Hey folks, shop your local farmers! Eat real food!

Strawberry Festivals and More

One of my tastiest childhood memories is of a strawberry festival we attended while camping in northern Michigan. If I recall, it was a community church serving shortcake piled mile-high with strawberries and cream. Oh, so good!

Quite often such festivals are benefits for a specific cause (like these upcoming festivals here and here). Joining the celebration not only creates fun memories but also supports grassroots working together at its finest.

Food festivals have become one of the fastest growing forms of tourism and there’s a good reason why. They offer a sensory overload of the landscape, ethnicities, history, and food cultures of their given community.

Food lovers love food festivals; ask me how I know!

Which Leads Me To…

When it comes to festivals, I’m proud to help promote two Wisconsin biggies: The Soil Sisters in August and Fermentation Fest in October. These are annual celebrations that each draw thousands of people and have great social and economic impacts on their rural communities. Needless to say, a lot of organizing and marketing goes into these events.

Do you know of a festival looking to grow in its success? I’d love to help. Let’s talk about what makes a good festival and how to get the word out to all those fun-loving, destination travelers!

Transitioning from Summer to Autumn

Eat Local Month and Fermentation FestIt’s two weeks into September and my mind is finally beginning to let go of summer. It’s been a slow transition but as autumn reveals its golden glories I can’t help getting excited. And here are two happenings that make autumn great!

September is Eat Local Month

Harvests everywhere are at their peak and whether you glean from gardens, food co-ops, farmers markets or CSAs, the abundance of local food is a celebration in itself. These days, while elbow-deep in canning tomatoes, I’ve been listing to podcasts of Deep Roots Radio, with host Sylvia Burgos Toftness. Sylvia makes a great point when she says “every single food dollar we spend either protects or degrades the environment, produces foods with high nutrition or empty calories, and either helps pay a fair wage or keeps farm workers among the working poor.”

So yes, this September eat local. Hey, eat local all year long!

Fermentation Fest is in October

On that note, if you’re interested in learning to preserve this local food, plan ahead for next month’s Fermentation Fest. The Fermentation Fest team and I recently put out a beautiful event guide and you can now find it in Madison and Milwaukee area coffee shops and food co-ops. It details more than 60 classes and the great food and art events happening in Reedsburg.

Happy autumn everyone!

National Ag Day 2017

National Ag Day 2017

It’s National Ag Week and my thanks to the men and women who provide our food and clothing. Being from the Midwest, it used to be when I thought of farmers, Holstein cows naturally came to mind. Or million-dollar implements on acreage as vast as the eye could see. While I certainly appreciate these entities, I now realize there is so much more to American agriculture—CSAs, market farmers, even little ol’ gardeners like me. I appreciate so much those who boldly take a stand for organic, ethical and sustainable agriculture. You have my love and admiration!

Here are some things I’ve been following this week:

  1. Without immigrants, the snowball of repercussions is great. Is this what we really want?
  2. Women Who Farm: “Through saving seed, harvesting rainwater, and care taking the animals, these women are true heroes.”
  3. I loved Mas Masumoto’s keynote presentation at last month’s MOSES Conference.
  4. Also Liz Carlisle’s. Her book Lentil Underground is on my must-read list.
  5. Gather with women farmers, learn valuable farm and gardening tips, and sample locally-made products at this Soil Sisters event, April 6, in Middleton. See you there!
  6. Yes, immigrants do feed America. Award-winning Modern Farmer did this excellent piece: The High Cost of Cheap Labor. Worth reading for a better understanding of how food gets to your table.

Wednesday Webs: Things Keeping My Interest This Summer

Bees on their brood frame in Wisconsin

So this has been my summer of beekeeping. Since I know absolutely nada of these honeys, I’m learning things as I go. For example, I now know the cone shape in the center above is a queen cell and since I already have one queen, another could be problematic. I should get rid of this cell. Or not. The challenging aspect of Beekeeping 101 is that the old salts are notorious for their variety of preferential practices (kind of like our world of marketing, yes?). In any event, so far I’ve managed to not kill my bees, nor have they left me for a better keeper.

Besides beekeeping (and my usual gardening and raising baby chicks), here are other agricultural interests that have me humming this summer:

  • Speaking of bees, here’s an interview on what we can do to improve their future, by an unconventional Madison entrepreneur
  • Similarly, the Chicago Honey Co-op works to produce honey and promote the good work of bees
  • You’ve heard of CSAs. How about CSFs, (as in Alaskan fish)? Grassroots, out-of-the-box entrepreneurism at its best!
  • We Live On the Internet. We Die Alone. Are we living our lives online instead of living it for real? This isn’t a farming story, but its poignant intensity shows a season of life that applies to us all. This summer spend time digging in the dirt. Grow food and share it with people. Spend real time with real people!

Soil Sisters ad by Adunate Word & Design

  • I’m once again proud to be working with Soil Sisters, a fun-filled, culinary and ag event. Here’s the ad Adunate did for them, which appeared in the summer issue of Edible Madison magazine. Going to be in Wisconsin this summer? Come to Soil Sisters, Aug. 5-7.

Sponsor Sampler, by Adunate Word & Design

  • Later, in fall, Fermentation Fest will once again host its convergence of food, agriculture and art. Here’s a piece Adunate did as a sponsor sampler. Interested in sponsoring Fermentation Fest? Contact the Fermentation Fest team right away because they’re putting things together as we speak!

That’s all for now, folks. Hope you’re having a blessed summer!

 

Wednesday Webs: Changing Seasons

Giardiniera

Believe it or not, I’m still canning garden produce. This tasty Giardiniera has been fermenting for a few weeks and is now ready to be sealed in jars. It will be my last batch and as I pack away the kettles, I’ll say adiós and gracias for a bountiful year!

So, winter, bring it on! I’m ready and waiting!

Canning and Planning for the Upcoming Months

Homemade grape juiceIt’s Foodie Friday and we’ve been canning homemade grape juice. We use my mother’s recipe, hence every jar conjures up childhood memories of sweet, purple purity (unlike the artificial, high-fructose infiltrations we have today). I’ll share the recipe below, it’s super easy peasy. Anyway, we did 53 quarts and that means we can enjoy our little vineyard at least once a week for the next 12 months. That, my friends, is how I plan all my gardening and preservation.

I’ve also been planning ahead for Adunate. This is my 10th year in business and I want to do something equally sweet for my clients who’ve made ten years possible. I haven’t finalized my plans but I do know one thing, come this Christmas I’m not going to be rushing around at the last minute. With that in mind, this week I went to Ascentives‘ Customer Appreciation & Product Showcase. What fun! I came away with oodles of samples—gotta love those!—and some neat ideas.

Business owners, what are you doing for your clients this holiday season? Customers, what holiday gifts stand out as special to you? I’m brainstorming ideas, so please share!

In the meantime, here’s the juice recipe:

Homemade Grape Juice

This year we started using a refractometer to measure the brix (sugar content) of our grapes. It’s divine! This means I can take detailed record of brix levels and hopefully eliminate the uncertainty of how much sugar to add to the juice. Last weekend we picked our Concord grapes at 18 brix, Frontenac Gris at 22, and Marquette and Frontenac at 24. 

Per 1-quart jar:

  • 1-1/2 cups washed, de-stemmed grapes
  • 1/4 – 1/2 cups sugar (different grape varieties require different amounts, depending on their brix. I used 1/3 cup, plus or minus)
  • Boiling water

Fill each sanitized jar with grapes and sugar. Top off with boiling water. Skim off any floating whatevers (dried grapes, chaff and, yes, even a few tiny black bugs—this is homemade goodness, after all:-). Seal for canning and process 20 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

When it’s time to indulge, simply pour the juice through a strainer, discard the grapes, and enjoy your tasty nectar!