Mindful eating - revisited

I have struggled for a long time with my eating habits.

I have gone from whining in my head (and sometimes outloud) about 'how come other people can eat whatever they want?' to blaming western society in general for unrealistic body expectations, to saying, 'what the heck' and eating whatever I want, whenever I want, and then getting angry and belittling myself for not having the will power to eat less and exercise more. I've also found it maddening that I've been able to cut back consumption in other areas of my life, but not in the food area. I've blogged about that frustration before.

I've tried to be more 'mindful' while eating, and to not do anything other than eat when I'm eating. That worked for about five minutes and then I go back to doing what I've always done, which is chowing down while watching TV or reading. In short, nothing has worked (notice the disconnection here - it leaves me out of the equation entirely)...until now. Well, until about nine weeks ago. That's when (through the magic of facebook,) I noticed my sister doing an awesome job of losing weight, with the help of a website called myfitnesspal.com .

Don't worry, I'm not going to use my nice, non-commercial blog to talk up some product or service. In fact there is no product or service to talk up, really - it turns out it's all about that whole connection/disconnection thing again. By that I mean that I was completely disconnected from the facts about how many calories I was burning compared to how many I was taking in. And I was delusional in a sense, because I seemed to have the idea that just because I felt guilty about what I ate, and really wanted to exercise but was too [insert excuse here] to get up and move, that the laws of biology and physics would change for me and I would lose weight merely because I wished I could so badly. It was the calorie counting tools at MFP that stripped me of those delusions and reconnected me with the truth of "doing the math." There was no way I could balance my input of calories with my output of energy until I knew how much of each I was consuming/expending. And so now, nine weeks later, the number on the scale is heading nicely downwards. :) It's another example of joyful moderation that I am glad to incorporate into my life.

So, at last, I am at eating and moving mindfully. Not in the sense that I am doing only that and nothing else at the time, but with an over-arching yet basic awareness of the connection between what I eat and what I do. And I really think that it is this kind of fundamental awareness between consumption and its consequences that we as a species have to get connected with, and soon. I'm glad that I can do this myself in an everyday way now, and witness the results!

P.S. - If anyone is using MFP, my username is themyriadthings, and I'd be happy to be your MFP friend :)

Happy Midsummer!

Wow, I can't believe it is the Summer Solstice already - it seems I just planted the garden and now the days will start getting shorter again already. Lots going on around here, but I'm taking the time to get outside almost every day and enjoy some aspect of nature. Meditating outside has been a really nice practice to start, but the mosquitoes are starting to make that a bit more difficult these days. And putting on bug spray before going out to meditate seems a bit counter-intuitive, but maybe that's better than swatting at them the whole time!

The garden is coming along, but slowly. The weather has been better than last year so far, but there were some cool days that seemed to have put things back a week or two. And some cats have been using the garden as a place to dig, which has been annoying. They've taken out a couple rows of parsnip and fennel, for sure. But the carrots are up, the endive is thriving and the beans, peas, chard and kale have made brave appearances. I'm still waiting on the potatoes (planted two weeks later than everything else due to weather and poor planning on my part) and there is no sign of any fennel anywhere, which I had really wanted for the seeds. I'm keeping on top of the weeds at least, so far, and I'm trying to be less worried about the garden this year, given last year's ongoing frustrations.

Anyway, that's a bit of a ramble about how things are going here. How are things where you are?

(Gorgeous sun graphic courtesy Feeding Curiosity)

Super Sprouts!

I planted most of my veggie garden last weekend, and I think the record for fastest sprout ever has to go to......endive! I decided to plant these particular leafy greens this year because our guinea pigs just love them, and it is a type of green that we don't get from our CSA farm share. I popped out to the garden yesterday afternoon, not expecting to see anything, but there they were: three rows of adorable endive seedlings! Usually it is the beans that sprout first, but these little guys just couldn't wait!

We've been fortunate and had several days of rain last week, but it was also very cold (with even a frost warning last night) so I figured sprouting would be delayed for everything. The garden has new lessons to teach me all the time...

How are your gardens doing? How has your Spring weather been?

Sore back, Full heart

Today was my first work day this year at Sparrow's Nest Organics, our CSA farm. This is the third year we're participating in the CSA and it really feels comfortable and cozy when I go there now, which is really nice. I always like chatting with our farmers, Graham and Allison, and with the sharers that come for their work days. We talk about things like food security and eating locally and growing our own gardens and things like that. Today several of the people there had just watched "Food, Inc." on PBS and so vegetarianism and veganism were also discussed, while we were doing our assigned tasks. Even Graham and Allison's adorable son Ben (pictured right) gets in on the action, toting pails and taking charge of the garden hose!

Today an abundance of potatoes were planted, and we got about five thousand of little onion seedlings out of their germination trays and tucked into the cultivator bins ready for tomorrow's crew to plant. We helped get the drip irrigation system set back up in the fields, and took down the ripped plastic sheeting and webbing off of the four big greenhouses.

Graham and Allison have constructed two cabins and are in the process of building a cookhouse/laundry/shower building for their international practicum students - they are studying at Olds College and have come from Mexico. They're also setting up a windmill, the power from which will be used to circulate the water in their irrigation dugout, to keep algae from getting out of hand. With the help of the practicum students, they will also be contructing platforms for raptor nesting, with a view to keeping the ground squirrels and rodents in check. The two cabins, cookhouse and harvest shed all have metal roofs, and Allison and Graham collect rainwater into a huge cistern, which is now full after our recent rain/snowfall - ready to water the raspberries and rhubarb!

So even though my back is a bit sore, my heart is full after a day of working with people who are committed to a healthy, safe, local and just food system for all!

Week of Wellness: Day 2

It passed, it passed! Unanimously even!

Hundreds of people came to Edmonton City Hall last night to show support for the municipal development plan that now includes amendments that ensures food security issues will be considered in any developments that would impact farmland.

Here is a summary of about 3 1/2 hours of meeting time by comprehensive local blogger, Mack Male. This picture is from his website as well, and I'm even in the picture (find the lady with the red hat, and then go left one person and down one person - I'm the one with the black coat and white hoody sticking out). There are more pictures at his website, and in one of them you can see I'm scribbling furiously in my little notebook. :) Counsillor Don Iveson posted his thoughts about the municipal development plan and his closing speech in support of it here.

It was an amazing experience! There were so many people there, of all ages - from babies to people probably in their '70s or maybe even '80s. What was so heartening was the range of all ages that were there - lots of school-aged kids, and many people in their 20's. Lots of young families, and multiple generations of families.

The GEA organizers had asked people to come for 6 pm, but all the presentations for and against the municipal development plan (MDP) had spoken in the afternoon session. But the GEA speakers all took the time to say their speeches again to the gathered crowd, before city councillors returned to resume the council session. The speeches were terrific, and were made by people including a three-generation potato farmer, and the 12 year old daughter of a new berry farmer, all of whom have farms on Class 1 farmland that was, until today, at risk of being paved over for new 'development.' The new berry farmer got a huge cheer when she revealed that she had turned down the offer of an "energy company" to buy her 9 acres of land last year.

One of the best lines of the night came from Monique Nutter, GEA organizer: "local food requires local land." That says it all, doesn't it? It's so obvious, yet so profound! She went on to say that this MDP recognizes that we have a "fundemental dependence on nature's bounty" and that in passing this document, the city has given a "gift to future generations."

After the speeches, we were encouraged to talk to someone there who we didn't yet know about why we came to the meeting. I spoke with a mother and daughter next to me who came because they saw the city's subdivisions encroaching on the natural and farming areas surrounding it, and worried about where we were going to be getting our food 20 years from now. The daughter talked about how depressing it was to talk with people of "older generations" and their focus on "development only." I was inspired talking to her, because I worry that the younger generation doesn't think about anyting other than video games or what new phone to buy: she proved me wrong, and I'm glad.

At about 7:15 pm council reconvened, and the nitty gritty debate continued. I was impressed overall with how committed the councillors seemed to be to crafting a document that incorporates environmental considerations into it, and which guides development towards sustainability on a number of levels, including more firm targets for in-fill development rather than urban sprawl, protecting the river valley from "resource extraction" - i.e., gravel pits, promoting public transportation, preserving wetland areas, and now, incorporating a food and agriculture strategy into all future 'development' considerations.

At about 8:30 pm one of the organizers said that we could leave if we wished, since council knew we were here and the presentations had been made. I stayed for another half hour or so, finally packing it in as the debate on various wording changes wore me down. I turns out I should have stayed another 20 minutes, because it looks like things sped up considerably after that and the MDP passed second reading unanimously! I found that out by searching twitter's #yegcc (Edmonton City Council) hashtag this morning.

It was a great experience! Democracy in action. Beautiful.

And now today I have a day at home, which I will enjoy immensely. I picked up a new book at the library yesterday, I will meditate, do some tai chi, do a few chores, make a healthy supper, and mostly just putter around. And that's beautiful too.

Week of Wellness: Day 1

Ahh....

Is there anything better than a week stretching out ahead, to be filled with good and relaxing things? I think not!

On today's 'agenda', so to speak, is to do some tai chi and meditation in the morning, look through my seed catalogue in the afternoon, and then head to Edmonton's City Hall for an evening city council meeting about food security and land use planning.

I'm actually skipping my tai chi class tonight in order to go to the meeting, but this is a one-time opportunity I don't want to miss. Organizers are hoping for as many as 750 people to come to this, the last of three city council meetings on the topic. At the last meeting in November, amendments were passed that set the stage for the protection of farmland in Edmonton. The next step is to have the entire municipal development plan passed, so that there is a "city wide food and agricultural strategy" to which future city development must adhere.

It seems silly, doesn't it, to have to debate this, rather than have it be self-evident. It should be a no-brainer to have arable land protected and spared from "development." The word "development" itself implies that the land is just empty and useless, sitting there doing nothing, lacking any buildings or roads or other such "improvments." Anyway, I will take some notes and blog about what happened at the meeting tomorrow! Hopefully I will have good news!

Picture courtesy Edmonton's City Farm

Something about February

There's just something about February that says Spring is on its way! Just the word "February" itself sounds much warmer and friendlier than January, wouldn't you say? Even though it has been cloudy outside much of the time and snowing now and then, I just feel better knowing it is February!

My Week of Wellness is now just a week away, and thanks to Claire at I Love Alberta Beets, I have already made significant headway into my budgeting goal, freeing up even more time for tea and reading - yay!

I'm considering adding one more thing to my list of wellness-related activities for the week: attending a public meeting at City Hall on Edmonton's food and agriculture strategy. After all, ensuring that our valueable farmland doesn't all get paved over for suburban development is a matter of wellness for everyone!

Things I've been doing when I'm not blogging...

So even though my energy level is at somewhat of an ebb these (many) days, I have managed to do a couple things. Today for example I finally collected seed from the snack pea and radish plants I've had drying on a laundry rack in the basement since September. I have a new appreciation for seed savers and collectors, because what you see in the picture here is the sum total of seed I collected from three radish plants, and about six pea plants. Now I know why good seeds seem 'expensive' and why you sometimes get what seems like a tiny amount in each seed packet.

I had also collected bean seeds from my 3' by 5' patch of Golden Rocky Beans in September, and I shelled those about a month ago. After setting aside the best of these gorgeous indigo blue beans for seed, I had enough left over to make one pot of soup. Again, a good realization of how much time, effort, and resources (human and earth-given) go into the making of one seed. The soup was delicious by the way - it was almost an entirely local soup with dried kale from the CSA farm, dried thyme from my herb garden, and potatoes from my garden as well.

I've also been corresponding with my local MP's office via email about my unhappiness with PM Harper's decision to prorogue parliament AGAIN! My MP, Brian Storseth, doesn't want to converse with me via email however -- his office staff says this is because email correspondence could be "altered" and then forwarded, and because they can't be sure I actually reside in the riding if I don't give a mailing address. Never mind that if they checked their files they would see that they already have my address because I've corresponded with them in the past. I was hoping for a bit more of a spontaneous and personal exchange with my elected representative this time, but I guess I will have to settle for another delayed regurgitation of Stephen Harper's talking points, AGAIN.

I've been reading a number of books as well - Gord and I signed up for library cards last summer, and we've been enjoying the benefits ever since. I've been soaking up all sorts of Buddhist books, some of which include: "Waking Up: A week in a Zen monastery," "Joyful Wisdom: Embracing change and finding wisdom", "Sit Down and Shut Up," "Finding the Still Point: A beginner's guide to meditation," and I've just started reading "Zen Mind, Beginners' Mind."

I've been getting better at working in a 10 minute meditation period into almost every day - it doesn't sound like much, but from what I've read, meditating for a short period every day is better than longer periods one or two times a week. Both my butt and my brain are slowly getting used to this meditation thing, which is like a whole lotta nothing and absolutely everything at the same time. Who knew that sitting still and breathing could be so profound?

And I think I may have taken the first step out of my depressive funk today, after catching a few minutes of one of my all time favorite TV shows no less: Northern Exposure. In it, there was a scene where one character (Ed) is lying prone on a general store counter top lamenting the soon-to-be end of the world as we know it, and another character (Ruth Anne), the 'wise-woman' proprietor of the general store, tells Ed to just shoo, get out of her store and do something, anything: read a book, go for a walk, make a movie, anything. That advice makes sense: when you're mired in lamentation, just pick something and do it. And I know that of course. But the thing that struck me was how silly the character wailing and moping on the counter looked. That's been me. I've been moping and wailing. And it's time to stop.

So thanks Ruth Anne, I'll get off the counter now and get back to it.

Garden 2009: Summary of What Worked and What Didn't

One of the purposes of this blog is for me to keep track of the things I'm doing and learning about sustainability and food security and the like, through my own gardening efforts. I didn't post much about my garden (or anything else for that matter) this summer, but I thought I should at least make note of how some of the things I tried turned out.

I'll start with what went well:

1) Potatoes: Potatoes are plain-packaged miracles in my opinion. I was astounded again this year at how many potatoes will grow from just a quarter-potato planted in the Spring. I planted a section of Yukon Gold potatoes this year - the section was about 5 feet square. I probably planted the potatoes too close together, and I didn't hill them up as much I had intended, yet I got over 40 lbs of potatoes out of that little patch. Some of them were hands down gorgeous! Smooth, creamy, perfectly formed spuds. I have since made a whole lotta potato-leek soup and mashed spuds, which are now in my freezer for Winter. Not to mention the bounty of new potatoes and butter we had over the Summer itself.

2) Carrots: These grew and grew whether I thinned them or not, and tolerated quite the variation in temperature and moisture - I was so enthralled with them I wrote a little post all about it a couple weeks ago...

3) Perennial Herbs: I was so happy that my lavender plant made it through last Winter, despite the many nights of bitter cold we had (and by bitter cold I mean -45C at times, and often many nights in a row of -30C). Not only did it survive, but it thrived and produced lovely flowers that were loved by a lot of bees and bugs. By virtue of a late September trip to a lavender farm just outside of Victoria, BC, I found out that my particular variety of lavender was edible! So I harvested my lavender flowers (probably past their peak, but oh well) and made some delicious lavender scones, like you see in the picture above. I also made some lavender and sage tea with honey, which is also quite tasty. Which brings me to the sage - another plant that just grew like crazy this Summer. I have harvested a huge jar-full, enough to last me over the Winter, for certain. My thyme and rosemary also did well, and I fully expect to see them survive over this Winter, providing there is enough snow to insulate everything nicely, like there was last year.

4) Perennial Salad Greens: I grew three varieties of greens from seed: Salad Burnet, Burnet Saxifraga and French Sorrel. All of these sprouted well and grew quite profusely. Both Gord and I and our guinea pigs enjoyed these greens over the summer and into the late Fall (i.e., now). I am keeping my fingers crossed that they live through the winter - the odds are fairly good since they are quite well established now.

There were several things that didn't go well, some of which I've complained about already, and some which I haven't mentioned yet:

1) Cucumbers: I have absolutely no luck with these. Last year they were killed by frost and this year the seedlings were fried by a hot spell after a cool, dry spell. I had been trying to conserve water becasue of the dryness early in the Spring, and apparently I was a bit too stingy with the H2O.

2) Beans: These things were fried more than once, and were very slow to get going in the adverse conditions of cool dryness followed by hot dryness. Later in the summer they had a burst of growth that happened so fast the beans were past the fresh eating stage before I even noticed there were beans at all. They were even past the pickling stage, they were that big. Fortunately they were a dual purpose bean, in that the seeds themselves could be dried and used for soups. So I have a whole cupboard full of bean pods drying.

3) Tomatoes: Dead. Killed in a late frost (in June). I didn't have the motivation to try again.

4) Pumpkins: Dead. Seedlings eaten by some sort of garden pest, perhaps of the deer or pocket gopher variety.

5) Chard and Kale: started out good, but the above noted pocket gopher decided to invade that corner of the garden after our 'mole repellent' thingies chased them out of the yard. All that underground burrowing killed a good half of the chard and kale after that.

6) Aspen tree "cloning:" Our property is full of trembling aspen trees, but there is one large gap in the treeline from what I assume was some over-zealous grading when the house was built. I want to fill in that gap with the same kind of trees, and when I saw this rooter pot device at Lee Valley tools, I thought it was the answer. I had visions of free trees in my head, and I enthusiastically made my way out into our woodlot to choose some prime cloning fodder. I followed the directions closely and soon had ten aspen saplings fitted out with attached rootpots. I don't know if it was a problem with the rooting hormone washing off of the exposed "wound" inside the rootpots, or my not keeping the soil evenly moist. (Watering these things was a tad more complex than the little instruction book led me to believe.) So instead of planting ten new trees, I killed ten trees instead. Not good.

Despite the disappointments I did learn a lot, and there were some things that did go well even in the tough conditions. I guess that's the most important lesson of all: when the going gets tough, I just need to channel my inner potato. And then maybe have some lavender scones with tea. :)

Squash Quandary

Last week was our last delivery of veggies from our organic CSA farm. One of the things we got was the adorable pumpkin on the right.

The week previously, we received the two squash further to the left. At first I thought the orange one was also a pumpkin, but it is kinda different from the thing we got last week, which I know for sure is a pumpkin. And the zeppelin squash has thrown me off completely! Does anyone know what these two could be? Are they edible or just decorative?

Carrot Bounty

I just had to post about my bonanza of carrots. I left them in the ground while we were away on holidays in late September/early October. And then we got a really hard frost, and some snow even. And then more frost.

But the carrots survived, and look just beautiful. We will be eating them at our family Thanksgiving dinner this weekend.

I got four ice cream pails full of carrots from my small patch - about 15 lbs maybe? Enough to keep some share some.

Frost!

Darn! One day before I was to harvest everything, we had frost. The chard leaves were frozen solid this morning before I went to work, as were the bean leaves, the carrot tops, etc. I got home after dark tonight, so I didn't see the extent of the damage, but I have a feeling it will be a sad sight when I go out there tomorrow. Well, at least the root veggies are ok, and I think the kholrabi and kale should make it. This year's first frost was two weeks later than last year, and it still caught me off guard. Rats!

Lessons from a Neglected Garden

Over the past month or so I have really neglected the garden. We've had a little rain, so I haven't had to water it every day, but I have had to turn on the sprinkler once a week anyway, to keep things from drying out. The weeds are enormous - truly huge! I have never let the weeding get away from me like I did this year, and when I once entertained the idea of doing something about it, the weeds were already so large it would have disturbed the root systems of everything else to yank them out. So there are 3 and 4 foot weeds in there, seriously.

One of the few bonuses of the weeds is that they have certainly shaded the soil well, and kept the rain that does fall from evaporating immediately. It has kept the soil surface cooler as well, which some of the plants have liked a lot (in particular the beans and carrots).

Because of the extent of my neglect, I may be able to collect more seed than I otherwise would have. Many of my radishes went to seed, and the flowers they put out were really quite lovely. And now there are a zillion seed pods ready for picking. My two varieties of bean plants produced much later than last year, so much so that I didn't think they were going to produce at all. But they did, seemingly all of a sudden, and now I have huge bean pods that are probably way past eating as green beans. Fortunately, one of the varieties I grew was dual purpose anyway (the Golden Rocky bean), and so I will just harvest them as dry beans for over the winter (and seed for next year). The other variety (Tanya's Pink Pod) was interesting to look at and very pretty, but I don't think I will grow many of them next year. I will still save some seed though.

I managed to thin the carrots out once in early Summer, but otherwise they are really growing way too close together. Despite this, they have grown quite big and fairly straight, and since I haven't been grazing on them all summer long, there are actually a lot of them left to harvest and store for the Winter.

My neglect also resulted in my harvesting very few new potatoes. The plants have all yellowed and wilted now, and have been that way for a couple weeks, which means the skins will have hardened and they will be better suited to long term storage. That works well for me, since we had new potatoes almost all summer from our CSA farm share (and probably will have many more weeks of these yet).

So, while I wish I was more on the ball this year with my garden, I have been pleasantly surprised at what will grow anyway, despite the weeds and the overall carelessness and inattention. I'm hoping next year will be a bit of a middle path between my gung-ho hypervigilance last year, and my distracted neglect this year.

Now, if the first frost will just hold off for a few more days, I will dig, pick, dry and otherwise harvest my little heart out this weekend!

Radish pod picture courtesy this foraging blog.

Solar Oven to the Rescue!?

This morning, for the second time in about a week, the power went off. The last time it happened it was off for about 90 minutes. That day, I had been up already and had had my morning cup of tea, but Gord hadn't: he wanted tea and couldn't have it. So this morning when the power went off again, it was one of the first things he said: "We could boil water for tea in your Sun Oven." I agreed this was a great idea, and so I went downstairs to put water in the black enamel pot and set up the solar oven outside.

It was a clear and sunny day, so everything was looking good. The oven was already up to 150F before I had even put the pot inside of it. Once I had the reflectors up and the glass door latched shut, I puttered around for a bit in the yard, picking and eating the odd saskatoon berry while gathering some greens from the garden for the guinea pigs. When I went back inside the house, the power was already back on! Considering the power company had told me that a substation had gone down, this was a bit surprising, and almost disappointing! I left the water in the solar oven anyway, just in case the power went off again. And because I wanted to see if it would really boil water.

It ended up taking quite a while (i.e., 60+ minutes) for the water to boil, probably because I put way more water in the pot than I needed for two cups of tea, and because the early morning sun is not very intense, particularly this time of year. The water wasn't boiling anymore by the time I got it in the house, but I made some red raspberry leaf tea with the still-very-hot water, and it was just fine. (Gord made his with the electric kettle while I was still outside - cheater!)

A few hours later, it dawned on me that today would be a good day to make a pot of potato-leek soup in the Sun Oven, and if I hurried I could still get take advantage of some of the good solar cooking hours (10 am - 2 pm). I used the rest of the still-warm tea water to make (instant) soup stock, and within a half hour had a pot of soup ingredients ready to simmer in the solar oven. The oven got up to 300F this time (I have only used it once before, since it arrived in the mail about two weeks ago), which seemed like perfect soup-simmering temperature. Unfortunately I had missed most of the good cooking hours, but even so, by 6 pm we were eating some darn good soup!

Some things about the solar oven I really like are: that I don't have to stir the soup, and I don't have to worry about it burning. Later, washing up was really easy, because nothing was stuck to the sides or bottom of the pan. And the flavors of the soup seemed a lot richer, having been slow cooked - more like home made soup usually tastes the next day.

I do hope the oven reaches some hotter temperatures at some point - I will have to make sure I'm ready by 10 am next time, so I can give it a fair test. Even if it doesn't reach the 400F that the info on the box claims it will, I do think the Sun Oven will be a useful cooking option, regardless of whether there is a power outage or not. So far I have roasted veggies in it, boiled water and made soup: my next goal is to find a biscuit or cookie recipe that is suitable for moderate baking temperatures.

There's nothing like cooking with free energy! Thank you sun!

Thanks to The New Resilient

Thanks to Ryan and the folks over at The New Resilient, who have kindly published a couple of my gardening-related articles this Summer. It is an honor to have some of my ponderings included with the very informative and practical (not to mention tasty!) materials there. If you haven't already checked out The New Resilient blog, please do! It is chock full of good information on what people can do and are doing to work towards "post-collapse prosperity." And it's from a Western Canadian perspective, which is pretty cool too!

What's For Dinner? Edible Weeds

Recently while doing a little investigating into the types of weeds I was pulling from my veggie garden, I found that at least one of them was edible. Lambsquarters, pictured to the right, are apparently very much like mild chard or spinach in flavor, and can be cooked much as one would cook those greens. I plucked off a leaf or two and popped them in my mouth, and lo and behold, it did taste very much like spinach. The next step was to pick a whole bunch of these leaves and cook them up in my favorite way: sauteed with nutmeg.

I ended up picking a relatively small amount of the leaves, because I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. It didn't take long, since I have an abundance of these weeds in and around my garden.

After washing the leaves I put them in my cast iron skillet

on lowish heat, along with some margarine and nutmeg. I covered the pan with a lid, the way I normally do when I cook

chard, kale or spinach this way. After just a few minutes, the

leaves were tender and looked ready to eat. They cooked much

more quickly than kale, chard or spinach, maybe because the leaves do not have a very thick stem.

And then, time for the taste test. It was extremely good! Milder than kale, but with more flavor than spinach. Probably closest to chard or collard greens, or even beet tops. Once they were cooked up it was easy to forget that they were weeds in my garden just a few minutes ago. What a difference it makes when I look at these plants now and see a food source, rather than a pesky weed!

It turns out I have more than one edible weed in my yard. Fireweed leaves can be eaten raw when they are small and tender, and the buds can be used in stir fries. You can make jelly out of the flower petals, much like rose petal jelly I expect. Even the roots are edible. It seems like almost every part of this flowering weed can be consumed at some point in its growing cycle. Once the plants get big and the stem covering has toughened up, it's no longer edible but can be used instead to make twine. I always loved the look of the purple fireweed plants as Summer turns to Fall, but I never knew they were so useful! It's too late in the season for me to try eating the leaves and stems, but I might just try stripping off the fibrous part when Fall arrives, and see what I can fashion out of that....

Of course we have plenty of dandelion leaves in our yard, and those are edible too. I have tossed a few dandelion leaves into my salads on occasion, but mostly I pick dandelion greens for our two guinea pigs, Scooter and Sophie, who really love the more bitter taste.

Even more exciting was the discovery this Spring that plantain leaves are edible, and that they purportedly have some anti-cancer properties. I have nibbled on this leaf as well, but so far have been feeding it to Scooter for the most part, because he has a cancerous lump on his front leg. I am not sure if it is helping, but he loves to eat the plantain leaves, in any event. And it can't hurt. Chewing the leaf into a pulp makes a good plaster to apply to mosquito or bee/wasp stings too. In addition, the long seed stalks can be used like millet, to feed the birds.

Very tasty is the tiny chickweed plant. It is particularly good in salad, and has fresh and crunchy taste and texture. The small white flowers make it very pretty too, and this year I haven't even bothered separating it out from the lettuce I'm growing -- I just pick it all together and make salad. Of course the guinea pigs love the chickweed too, even though its taste is more mild than either the dandelion or the plantain.

Last year I discovered yarrow and bergemot growing in our yard. While I haven't eaten these plants outright, I have made delicious tea from them. A few leaves of each, along with some honey, and I have a wonderful, free, herbal tea! I didn't pick enough to last me over the Winter last year, but I plan to remedy that this year, for sure.

Once I started looking, it was quite astounding to see what there was to eat in my yard! What useful weeds do you have growing where you live?

A few garden pictures

So tomorrow is July 1st, Canada Day. Comparing pictures of my garden this year from about the same time last year, you can see just how far behind the growing season is. I have managed to harvest a few small greens for our guinea pigs though - they love the tender lettuce, kale and chickweed.

We have been having some mole problems too. So we ordered some mole-repellers that use a chattering sound and vibrations to convince the mole to move away, because there's another mole in town. The man at the hardware store told us we could generate the same effect using pinwheels, so we are trying some of those as well. Nicely patriotic for Canada Day, even! We're not sure if these are working yet, but there don't seem to be any new mole hills/holes, so far.

My perennial herb garden is doing fairly well. All three of my salad greens are growing nicely, albeit slowly. This plantain plant to the right of the Salad Burnet is a volunteer - but once I found out about its extensive medicinal properties, I have just let it grow. The guinea pigs like to eat these two plants as well - plain lettuce from the grocery store just doesn't cut it anymore!
In my rock path to the garden I have transplanted some thyme, and put up this little barrier to keep people from walking on it while it gets established. Eventually I would like thyme and other ground cover all amonst the rocks - it's just a matter of 'thyme' I guess! Hee!
Here is an overall picture of the garden. You can see that the potatoes on the left are doing really well, and so are the peas on the right. The beans, carrots, kale, chard and radishes are just tiny still, and I have pretty much given up on the cucumbers and the pumpkin. I may dig up the cucumber plot (the last plot on the right) and plant kohl rabi instead. Apparently it is a good candidate for kim chi, so I would like to try it, if it's not too late.
So that's a quick update on the state of the 2009 Garden. I hope everyone else's gardens are coming along as well, and that you are getting more rain than we are. Already two nearby municipal counties have declared droughts, and ours could be next. But I hope not.

Hope in the Garden

This morning I went out early to water the garden before the onset of the heat of the day, and was greeted with the sight of many new sprouts. It is amazing what sufficient water will do! (Too bad it is from the hose and not from rain.)

There were some strawberry blossoms, so maybe I might have some strawberries in August or so. Some of the plants didn't survive the winter, but most have at least a few leaves.

There were also some radish sprouts, after nearly a

month. I'm assuming they just didn't get enough water to sprout, since last year they were up in just a week or so. There are some chard sprouts too - very tiny, but they are there.

My one cucumber

out has been toasted, I don't think it will live. And so far there have been no more cucumber sprouts coming up. Maybe now it is too wet for them?

Very good news is that the carrots have finally sprouted as

well. I had a chance to take a look at my sister-in-law's garden this weekend, and once I was reminded what carrot sprouts looked like, I could finally identify a few in my own garden. The potatoes are also doing quite well - they seem to be coming up earlier than last year, believe it or not.

More and more peas are emerging as well. Some more beans continue to fight upwards too, but I think the plants that were killed off earlier were the strongest ones, so I may still have quite a reduced bean crop. I may have a few bean seeds left: maybe I will replace some of the dead sprouts and see what happens. Perhaps we will be fortunate and have a warm Fall - I can hope for one, anyway.

The garden seems to be one of the best places to find hope, actually.

Gardening gets tough in Spring '09

In almost every way, this Spring is turning out to be a completely different gardening experience than last year.

In Spring '08, it seemed like the seeds I planted all sprouted nicely, grew steadily, fended off pests and even the odd hailstorm. Rain fell from the sky in reasonably-timed doses, and by early July I had a lush garden from which I had already harvested most of my nearly perfect radishes.

I guess it was time for me to learn a few different things in Spring '09. So far, the marigolds I planted to help keep the deer away were frost killed the day after I planted them. On June 1st. Yes, frost in June. The cherry tomato plant I bought from the local nursery at the same time suffered the same fate. And that wasn't the last day of frost either - about two nights ago we had another frost.

My little bean plants, which valiantly weathered the multiple frosts, have since succumbed to a combination of no rain and full sun. I had been watering the garden regularly, but not regularly enough, apparently. Yesterday morning when I went out to water it again, all the bean plants were dead, and the one pumpkin sprout was completely gone. No doubt it had been nibbled by the critter whose footprints were in the (as yet sproutless) carrot patch.

Peering at the scalded and crispy bean plants I knew they were beyond re-hydration. The garden that looked so full of promise just a week earlier was bleakly barren, with only a couple tiny, struggling kale sprouts poking through the dirt. Not even the radishes had sprouted, and it's been almost three weeks since I seeded them. The weeds of course, are doing fine. For a while there I was despondent. Devastated even. Swearing. Tears. Not fun.

The only thing left to do was to pick up the watering can again, and keep the seeds still waiting to sprout moist enough. Not all the bean plants had sprouted, at least half were still to come. And there were still peas, carrots, potatoes and cucumbers waiting in the soil for their turn.

Later that evening, I went back to the garden to water again, and there was some hope still: several pea plants had come up, and one potato was sprouting. And sure enough, one or two more beans were pushing through the soil. No more pumpkin sprouts, but there's still time yet. I got out the sprinkler and set it up again, deciding that these new plants would not die of drought, at least not while I still have enough water in the cistern to water them.

So, ok, I lost a few beans and a pumpkin. Imagine what it must be like for a farmer who looks out onto his/her fields and sees an entire frost- or drought-killed crop. I know when I looked at those withered beans I was sure glad there was still the grocery store and a CSA share to depend on, at least for now. I'm thankful I have the luxury of time to make some mistakes and learn from them. I'm also thankful I am growing a garden myself, because this Spring '09 weather is surely affecting my CSA farmers and other Alberta farmers and gardeners. We no longer have the luxury of putting all of our agricultural eggs in one basket: it's time for everyone to start growing a garden, even if its just a small one.

So, what are you planting, and how is it doing?

Image of this very determined potato courtesy Warm Fuzzies

'Big Garden' 2009

I think this year I may have managed to get the best of both worlds: raised beds without having to build any actual raised bed structures. For this idea I have to thank Steve Solomon and his book, Gardening When it Counts.

Last year when we first put in the 'big garden' I had yearned for nicely enclosed raised beds. That didn't happen (we had mistakenly bought treated lumber instead of untreated) and it turned out just fine. But I so loved the neat orderliness of the raised beds. Then, over the Winter, I started reading Solomon's book, and thought it sounded like a good idea when he suggested shovelling the dirt out of what I wanted to be pathways (for ease of weeding and watering) and onto the adjacent part of the garden patch. So I shoveled out a central path, and then three cross-paths and lo and behold, I had eight nicely raised beds. Plus I didn't 'waste' the dirt in the pathways by just tromping down on it - it was moved over to where it could do the most good - i.e., nourishing my veggies. What with this and my new rock pathway to the garden itself, I am one contented gardener!