Eating from the garden in the very early spring

Our spring garlic at the tailgate market this time last year

This time of year things are just on the cusp of full-on Spring in the garden. Perennials are pushing their miraculous first green shoots up through the April mud, crabapples and apple trees are coming into bloom, and the summer annual veggies are hard at work growing inside, waiting waiting for the moment that it's warm enough to plant them out.

It's a time of year that I find deeply satisfying as a kitchen gardener and garden stockpiler. Having put away food in every way imaginable in order to eat from the garden through the winter (and maybe going a bit overboard, I have to admit), I'm still pulling jars and baskets off the shelf and finding canned goods, dry beans and peas, cured winter squash and sweet potatoes and garlic, dried tomatoes, and the last of the (slightly spongy, at this point) fall potatoes. There is still pesto in the freezer and the last of the fall-planted carrots are lingering in the bottom of the crisper drawer.

I always start the winter out hoarding those preserved foods, rationing out tomato sauce, weighing sweet potatoes in my hand to measure out just the right quantity for dinner, and skimping on the garlic. As the Spring gardening season begins, a sense of impending abundance overtakes me, and those preserved foods start flying in the kitchen as I dive into the stockpiles with reckless abandon.

And just as the preserved foods have their last hurrah, the first few early Spring vegetables and herbs are beginning: spring garlic, sorrel, chives, and hearty biennials and perennials like celery, lovage, and parsley.

I still get a thrill being able to make a meal at this time of year, before spring and summer abundance begin, with foods almost exclusively harvested from our garden.

Here's tonight's homegrown soup:

• 2 cups dried soup peas (I used some of the Blauwschokkers we dried last Spring)
• 4-5 cups of water
• A couple/few bay leaves
• 3 good sized potatoes, thinly sliced
• A few carrots (I used some lovely little oxhearts from our fall garden), thinly sliced
• One large onion, chopped
• 4 or 5 spring garlics, greens and bulb, chopped
• A handful of lovage, parsley, celery, mustard greens, sorrel -- whatever combination of greens you can get your hands on, roughly chopped
• A generous Tbs or so of dried thyme leaves
• Salt to taste
• Butter and/or olive oil for sautéing
• Pinch of dry mustard
• Splash of red wine
• 1/4 or so of red wine vinegar

Gorgeous heirloom Blauwschokker peas as they looked on the vine last May

And the Blauwschokkers today after cooking all day on low heat

Lovage, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic....

1. Soak the peas overnight and cook on low heat all day with bay leaves in a crock pot or over a low wood fire
2. Sauté everything else in butter or olive oil with salt and thyme, adding the greens at the last minute so that they just get cooked to bright-green and tender
3. Pour a little of the pea broth over the veggies and let simmer for a few minutes until all of the flavors meld and the veggies are soft enough for soup.
4. Combine everything in the soup pot, and add wine, vinegar, and dry mustard. Add salt to taste.

Pea soup, yum. A perfect combination of fresh Spring garden goodness and the last of the winter kitchen stockpile. With a glass of red wine and a hunk of bread and a little cheese, this is a meal that makes me very happy.

On Splitting Atoms to Boil Water

Most of the time, we cook on a wood cookstove, which is also our only heat source.

The model we use is a modern Amish design called the "Baker's Choice" - it cranks out a ton of heat fast with a relatively small firebox and big oven. With a good woodstove, tight and well-insulated construction, and passive solar design, the temperature in our house is super comfy.

This year we will be hooking up our household hot water to the Baker's Choice too--it's designed so that you can heat or pre-heat your hot water by running it through pipes in the firebox, and send it back to your hot water heater for storage.

Our main fuel source for the stove is scrap wood from pallets that would otherwise be headed to the landfill.

We don't use a wood cookstove because of some romantic notion of picturesque old-fashioned homesteading. We do it because household appliances that create heat (namely hot water heaters, ovens, and ranges) are major consumers of energy.

Where we live, our electricity is produced mostly by burning coal and splitting atoms. (The mix for our household, according to the EPA, is about 40% nuclear and 50% coal, with renewables making up less than 3% of the remainder, of which most comes from massive hydroelectric projects involving dammed rivers). You can find out where your electricity comes from by entering your zip code here: http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/how-clean.html.

To get the bigger picture of how electricity is made, you can also see maps by state with sites of coal and nuclear power facilities here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/state/state-energy-profiles.cfm?sid=NC.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not out here on the farm huddled over a fire in the dark. I like my modern conveniences - refrigeration, lights that turn on with the flip of a switch, my trusty Toshiba laptop, and the occasionally-used kitchen appliance (I'm particularly fond of my hand blender). But I just can't justify splitting an atom or blowing up a mountain to boil water for my cup of tea in the morning.

Knowing that the lion's share of our electricity comes from Mountaintop Removal coal and dangerous and toxic nuclear power makes me highly motivated to cut our consumption as much as possible. Similar to knowing where your food comes from, knowing where your power comes from is a good first step.

The nuclear disaster in Fukushima has brought all of this to the forefront of my mind, so I thought I would post a little something about energy here. Not that I expect everyone in the United States to install a wood cookstove, or that even if something that ridiculous happened that it would solve our energy problems.

But I stoke the fire in our stove as a small prayer for sane and simple solutions to our energy needs, solutions that work with the planet's natural forces - air, water, sunlight, tides - rather than destroying the earth and leaving toxic waste behind for future generations. It's a tiny act of resistance to the ridiculously complicated and irresponsible energy systems that humans have created.

My hope is that we learn from the tragedy at Fukushima - that the contamination of air, soil, water, and food in Japan and the low-level radiation dispersing around the planet are finally enough to teach us the lesson we need to learn about nuclear power: it's not worth the risk. Even without accidents, it's not worth the burden of the waste. (Here's an article I read recently that sums up the opportunity for learning and changing our behavior: The Lessons of Fukushima).

More broadly, my hope is that we begin to understand the foolishness of the philosophy that leads us to engage in acts like Mountaintop Removal and the creation of nuclear energy. The idea that the goal of science is "to attain a gradually greater and greater control of nature" as Oppenheimer famously put it, is arrogant and naive. The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident in Japan have shown us nothing if not that the idea that we can control nature is delusional. I want us to look back at Fukushima as a turning point: the moment when we stopped trying to control nature and started working with and for the natural systems of the planet, understanding that we are part of the community of life on the planet and dependent upon those systems for our survival.

Rant complete. Now off to check on my nuclear-fueled tomato seedlings.

Dances With Goats

With the unexpected addition of a Nubian mama and 10-day old doeling to our goat herd, our goat total is up to SEVEN!

Friends and family have reassured me that I am not an animal hoarder.

There is a whole lot of frolicking going on around here these days, with the young Nubians and the new baby, and we have been getting our first milk - yay!

Goats are such curious, friendly, and playful creatures - we are loving having them around! Here's how the little doeling spends her days:

Homegrown Foods in the Wintertime

Canned foods and bottled meads and ciders ready for action...

The path from gardening to food preservation is a short and well-traveled one. In the ongoing quest to eat from our garden year-round, I've gone further and further down that path over the past few years. It's been a sweaty journey (standing over steaming pots in August) but a satisfying one.

I loved this recent story on NPR about the home canning renaissance - it made me feel a little less odd, or at least not alone in my oddity, as I perused my shelves and cabinets full of homegrown items.

Christopher finally had to build more shelves for food storage this year, as my jars of canned goods had begun to creep across the floor and down the hallway and our clothes were being squeezed out of the closet by winter squash and sweet potatoes.

We have finally reached the point this year where we really can eat homegrown foods every day in the winter, and where a large part of our winter diet comes from foods we preserved from the garden.

A few heroic vegetables like winter squash, sweet potatoes, garlic, dry beans, and potatoes make it easy - no canning, freezing, fermenting, or packing in oil required.

Greek Sweet Red squash

Cured sweet potatoes in storage.

Of course there are also a few unbelievably hardy vegetables like this chard harvested in mid-January, thanks to floating row cover, make a nice fresh addition to all of the roots and relishes too.

One day we'll get in the rhythm of hoophouse greens in the winter -- all of our lettuces and winter greens growing under cover in the hoophouse now are too tiny to harvest, since we planted them a bit too late.

Bruchetta with local bread (made with NC-grown wheat!) topped with a bunch of preserved spreads -- frozen mole paste and frozen pesto, and canned sweet pepper hash andgreen tomato marmalade.

There is something magical about eating those precious preserved foods in the wintertime - it seems like such a special treat.

I always feel like I'm opening a little gift from myself when I pop open a jar of tomatoes or peppers or dilly beans.

Cherry tomatoes, basil, and pearl onions preserved in salt and oil (recipe and details here) - I sauteed them in olive oil and added fresh greens, garlic, and garbanzos for a hearty winter stew.

Sweet peppers roasted and packed in oil.

Homegrown dry black beans with garlic and preserved sweet peppers, pesto from last summer's basil, and homegrown German Butterball potato "bruchettas" with various homegrown/homemade toppings, including creamy sweet potatoes.

Dilly beans, pickled green cherry tomatoes, and various other preserved things.

And then there is the occasional special winter food gift - Chinese chestnuts from Ali in this case.

Goats!

I don't have time to write much, but thought I'd post a few photos of the new farm residents. . .more to come!

Goat Field Trip

Today we visited Three Graces Dairy to pick out our dairy goats. Three Graces is a beautiful farm in the Shelton Laurel community in Madison County that produces super-delicious cheeses made from goat, sheep, and cow's milks.

Roberta, the matriarch of the farm family, and Romalio, who works with the goats, showed us around. They have over 100 milking goats - Saanens, Nubians, and Nigerian Dwarves - as well as sheep and Guernsey cows. Big time, by our standards!

Nubian doe

The farmstead cheese that Three Graces produces is incredible - it was served to the Obamas at the Grove Park Inn as part of a showcase of local foods from the NC mountains, and is highly acclaimed by farmers market customers. We loved trading produce for Three Graces cheese at the tailgate market this season and Christopher is rarin' to get our own milk operation going.

Saanen and Nubian

We decided on four young does--three Nubians and a Saanen--and a Nubian buck to get them knocked up. I'm still holding out for a Nigerian Dwarf, but we decided to wait until next year instead of trying to manage the breeding logistics that would have been involved with adding a Nigerian buck to our little herdlet.

We're very excited about welcoming these new residents to Red Wing Farm...and the babies that will be born in the Spring! Yay goats!

Young Nubians snuggling

Stay tuned for goat updates....the new arrivals should be appearing on the farm sometime around Christmas. And you can be sure that I will post photos!

The Saanen doe we're adopting

And up close....

Nubians

Saanen

Nubian and Nigerian Dwarf

Nigerian doe

Those ears! That smile!

A lovely Nubian girl

Amaranth

Ornamental "Love Lies Bleeding" Amaranth and edible "Golden Giant" Amaranth in the garden.

Amaranth is one of those crops that starry-eyed and sunlight-deprived gardeners perusing seed catalogs in the dead of winter eagerly tack on to their seed orders, enticed by beautiful photos, alluring descriptions of edible leaves and seeds, references to ancient food traditions, and the novelty of growing grains in the garden. At least that's my experience as one of those starry-eyed gardeners.

I admit I am susceptible to seed catalog propaganda. I can't help it. I get caught up in the excitement: the possibility of growing artichokes, saffron from crocuses, and garbanzos -- I just have to try it and see if it's possible! The benefit of this eternal gardening optimism is that sometimes the long shot, novelty crop pans out. With these experimental, impulse-buy crops, I've found that cautious optimism is the way to go: investing a little attention and energy, and experimenting with small batches before going whole hog. This year, one of those experiments exceeded expectations: amaranth.

A jar of dried amaranth after threshing.

I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that amaranth grows well here - its wild cousin, pigweed, is a common weed in these parts. Still, it was amazing to me how productive amaranth was in our Western North Carolina garden. We grew a couple of small patches this year and tried several different edible varieties. The ones that did best were Golden Giant and Burgundy, both from Seed Savers Exchange. Golden Giant was particularly productive, a towering presence in the garden, true to its name.

I've grown amaranth before, but lacked the commitment and follow-through to use it for anything other than a gorgeous and dramatic ornamental in the garden. This year, though, we harvested some of the huge and seed-laden flower heads to dry and thresh for grain. We didn't harvest it all (too much else going on), but we cut enough heads to experiment with drying and threshing.

I'm excited about the possibilities of amaranth as a grain crop on a larger scale on our farm -- it's a nutritious, gluten-free "supergrain" that is high in protein and contains essential amino acids, calcium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, and vitamins A and C. Amaranth is high in fiber -- its fiber content is three times higher than wheat. More on the health benefits of amaranth here. Like all grains, it's well suited to storage, which makes it a great crop for year-round homegrown food.

Amaranth is an ancient, traditional crop from South America, and I've eaten it in the past in breads, cereals, and as a cooked whole grain - it's nutty and hearty and slightly sweet. It's great as a breakfast cereal with butter and honey or as a grain for pilafs or serving with legumes, fish, or veggies at dinner time. You can pop it, sprout it, or grind it. In other words, its a great all-purpose grain.

Amaranth is easy to grow -- just give it good soil and water and plenty of sun.

Harvesting is easy too. Just lop off the heads when they start to go to seed (and before the birds start feasting on them) and put them in a warm, dry place with good air circulation.

We laid the seed heads out under our porch roof on an old window screen on sawhorses with a sheet underneath and let it dry for about a month.

Seed heads drying

As they dried, seeds fell through the screen and collected in the sheet below. When the seed heads were totally dry, we scuffed them around on top of the screen to knock more seeds out, and then stripped the chaff and remaining seeds from the stems. It was a breezy day, so we rubbed the chaffy fronds of seeds between our hands and let them fall from a few feet above the screen, letting the wind carry off some of the chaff.

Then we just sifted the seeds a few times through a fine-mesh strainer into jars and viola! Grain on the shelf for the winter! Very exciting.

Sifting.

I put the seeds through this strainer three times, each time removing a bit more stem and chaff. I'm sure there is a more efficient way to do this on a large scale, but this fine-mesh kitchen strainer and a canning funnel work fine on a small scale.

Amaranth ready for storage!

Hurrah for experimentation -- next year, we'll bump up amaranth production and sock away more grain for the winter! And maybe I'll finally harvest an artichoke or some garbanzos from my garden after repeated failed attempts. But I'm not holding my breath.