Happy Imbolc!
Imbolc is an ancient holiday that falls half-way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. You may know it better as St Brigid’s Day, Groundhog’s Day or Candlemas. It is a fire festival of home and hearth that celebrates impending spring, lengthening days and the promise of fresh milk and new greens; a time to focus intentions and plan for the coming year.
February City Fruit Update
From our friends at City Fruit here’s the latest:
“Life is an orchard where the seasons stroll.” (unknown)
That is a fitting entree, since orchards have been on my mind. There are now 19 — yes, 19 – orchards in the greater Seattle area that are currently being created, rescued, rehabilitated, restored, and/or renovated by community volunteers. Four years ago there were five (that I know of). Over these past several years, volunteers have whacked away ivy and blackberries to liberate apple trees on the Burke Gilman Trail and Amy Yee Park. Seattle Parks crews have brought cherry pickers into Martha Washington and Bradner Gardens to lower decades-old trees. Hundreds of pounds of heritage apples have been harvested from the Holy Cross Orchard for the food bank. An I-5 right-of-way is becoming an orchard and so is a corner of the campus at South Seattle Community College. Besides all these projects, four more orchards are coming down the pike — on land owned by Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Public Utilities, and the Seattle Housing Authority.
I’m hoping we can find a way to document all this work: it has to be a unique community phenomenon. City Fruit is working with volunteers at ten of orchards– Amy Yee Tennis Center, Bradner Gardens, Burke Gilman Trail, Jose Rizal Park, Kirke Park, Martha Washington Park, Meadowbrook Community Center, Meridian Park, Picardo P Patch and Queen Pea P Patch. Here are the others I know about: Community Orchard of West Seattle (South Seattle Community College); Danny Woo Community Garden (International District); Freeway Orchard (Greenlake neighborhood); Good Shepherd Center (Wallingford); Holy Cross Orchard (south Bellevue); Linden Orchard (north Seattle); Pipers Orchard (Carkeek Park); Queen Anne P Patch orchard; and SonJu Community Garden and Orchard, (Des Moines).
Fruit tree tip of the month: This is the month for winter — or dormant — pruning. You can see the structure of your tree and identify the ‘bad’ (dead, damaged, diseased, and de-ranged) branches. Take those out. Remember, though, that pruning stimulates new growth — especially at this time of year. (And check out the many pruning classes and work parties, below.)
Classes and Events
This year City Fruit offers tree care classes in partnership with City People’s Garden Store (Madison Park) and Swanson’s Nursery (Greenwood). All the classes are free — and both City People’s and Swansons offer discounts on merchandise (including plants) to City Fruit members. Besides these classes, there are opportunities to practice hands on pruning with experts at two workparties. Get the details on our Events calendar.
Feb 5 Winter Pruning talk, City People’s Garden Store
Feb 11 Skills Fair, Sustainable NE Seattle
Feb 11 Pruning Work Party, Pipers Orchard at Carkeek Park
Feb 18 Orchard Mason Bee class, Bradner Garden
Feb 25 Pruning Work Party, Holy Cross, Bellevue
Feb 25 Dormant Pruning workshop, WSU, Mt Vernon
Feb 25 Cidermaker’s Dinner, NW Cider Association
Want to support all this great work? Join City Fruit Today
Take care,
Gail
Gearing Up to Grow Starts
picture from http://chiotsrun.com/
To really make use of our short growing season using starts is a great way to go. It’s easy to grow your own from seed. This weekend I am going to get out my supplies and plant some Dino kale and collards to put under cloches mid-March. Once those go in I will start squash and tomato seeds. (I always want to start tomatoes earlier but unless you have a lot of room, good grow lights and patience to repot, these plants can get really leggy.)
I use two mini greenhouses that I fill with newspaper pots planted with seeds. While you can use dirt from the garden I usually use sterile potting soil to cut down on mold and other organisms that can kill off young seedlings. Once everything is planted I water it, put the plastic cover on top and mist as needed until the seeds begin to sprout. Once this happens I take off the cover and put them in a west facing window. More…
Roasted Red Tomato Sauce
Do you ever have tomatoes that are kind of bland and not as flavorful as you hoped for? Here is a trick to bring out their flavor – roast them!
Select your tomatoes:
Put them in boiling water for about a minute then plunge them in cold water to make the skins easy to slip off.
Slice, then place in an oven on low heat to roast.
Once tomatoes are well roasted put through a food mill then spice according to taste.
Flax
Flax seeds add a nice nutritious nutty flavor to many dishes and the fibrous stalks can be spun into fiber. Growing this plant in the Northwest is so easy that it’s almost seen as a weed.
First grow the flax:
Picture from: www.flaxandhemp.bangor.ac.uk/
Once it has matured and the seed pods are fully formed, harvest it and let it dry in a dark place. Once the seed heads are dry lay them on a cloth and crush the seed heads to release the small seeds.
Next winnow it to separate the grains from the chaff.
Here is the final product; lovely golden flax seeds.
To learn more about how to process the stalks into fiber visit here.
Kimchee!
What’s crunchy, spicy hot and really good for you? Kimchee! Here’s how to make your own. It’s much easier than you would think.
The first step is to chop your veggies and spices:
Next mix the spices together:
Mix in the veggies:
Once all is well mixed put in a jar and let sit until it’s fermented:
Once your kimchee is ready invite friends over and eat!
Here’s a recipe with more detailed instructions.
Shareable Food and the Law
From Shareable here’s a really comprehensive and interesting article on innovative ways that people are sharing food.
The Health Department didn’t show up when I made dinner for my neighbors last night. Fortunately, our health and safety laws don’t usually dictate how we prepare food in our personal and private realms. But humans have a natural tendency, an urge to feed each other, and the shareable food movement is taking that to new levels – levels that bring up some legal curiosities.
“The Underground Food Movement” has become a thing lately. It’s a foodie’s utopia in Oakland these days, where I’ve snuck off to meals at “underground restaurants” and sampled urban homesteaders’ goat cheeses and preserves.
But this movement goes deeper than its sheer yumminess. We thrive on food. When we share in efforts to grow, process, prepare, and serve food, we greatly enhance our abilities to eat well, provide for ourselves, and build livelihoods around food. Sharing food is particularly important during hard economic times and many small food projects develop out of unemployment.
The realm of shareable food is flourishing with community meal sharing, potlucks, gift-economy restaurants, community food growing projects, food swap events, pop-up stores, stone soup gatherings, food-buying cooperatives, goat-sharing, chicken cooperatives, events like The Big Lunch, and so on. Plus, restaurants step aside! A handful of start-up companies are creating peer-to-peer platforms to help people feed each other. Check out Grubly, Munchery, Gobble, and EatWithMe which connect chefs with foodies and/or catalyze community food events. More…
Beacon Food Forest Update
Food Foresters, Friends and Neighbors,
www.beaconfoodforest@weebly.com or http://www.facebook.com/beaconfoodforest
While we can’t offer Beacon Hill grown popcorn this year, it is on our list of plants to grow at the Food Forest. We’ll make due with other organically grown corn this year, and an assortment of beverages suitable to the season. There will be an opportunity to purchase some small stocking stuffers and support both organizations.
So, join us! Admission is free, but donations will be accepted at the door (as will items for the local food bank). Let’s make this the first of many movie nights.
Yours cooking it slow and nutritious,
Friends of the Beacon Food Forest
Portage Bay Grange welcomes urban farmers
Joshua and Annette make whole-grain waffles
Portage Bay Grange in Seattle’s University District recently welcomed The Urban Farm Handbook authors Annette Cottrell and Joshua McNichols to their first Open House on November 19. While we enjoyed fresh-pressed cider, Joshua and Annette described local grain sources, grain mills, and whipped up delicious spelt, sourdough, duck egg, and goat milk waffles.
Urban farming tastes great!
Portage Bay Grange hosts Seattle 4H at Open House
Portage Bay Grange sells small livestock, feed, and a variety of thoughtful urban homesteading mercantile including BPA-free Weck canning jars.
A great place to visit with young kids, the Portage Bay Grange Open House also showcased the very urban and active Cooped-Up in Seattle 4H Club.
This white paper from the Center for Health Design summarizes well the current issues with our food system and why it results in poor health.
Over the last century, we have radically altered the way we produce and distribute food. This transformation of our food and agricultural system has fundamentally affected the health of our planet and its inhabitants. We are already experiencing significant impacts in the form of increased antibiotic-resistant bacteria, poisoned air and water, food-borne pathogens, and collapsing rural communities. We are at the brink of inability to provide future generations with fresh air, water, and food.
The current obesity crisis is receiving attention, yet lacks the context of food production and ecologic impacts. Poor nutrition is a risk factor for four of the six leading causes of death in the United States: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Our current food system favors the production of animal products and highly refined, calorie-dense foods, rather than the fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and other high-fiber foods important in prevention of these diseases. Hidden behind these nutritional imbalances is a food system reliant on and supported by methods of production and distribution that hurt our environment and us. Perversely, it is the obesity crisis that is providing the opportunity to re-examine our twenty-first century food and agriculture practices through a new health-conscious lens.
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