The Urban Omnivore

Our inauguration occurred on Thursday, June 7th at the Jamaica Plain Co-Housing pickup location. Now in the third week of our CSA with The Food Project, we’re gradually adjusting to eating locally and seasonally. My expectations were high and I was excited as we nervously pulled up in our car, double-checked the address, and headed into the courtyard. I was expecting to see lots of people handing out or picking through boxes overflowing with vegetables… Needless to say, I was disappointed that there was only a stack of boxes and a sign-up sheet available to greet us.

Still excited, we checked our names off with gusto, grabbed a choice looking box and headed back to the car. Being as impatient as I usually am when I get worked up, I had to take a peek at the “haul” before we left. My quick glance revealed lots of greens and some corn. Satisfied, we closed up the trunk and made the short trip home. Upon our arrival, we quickly opened the box, extracted the veggies, and took stock. We had a head of swiss chard, two heads of lettuce, a bunch of radishes, and dried corn.

I was personally a bit disappointed in the quantity but chalked it up to the fact that it was early in the season and our CSA was starting a full week or two ahead of my friends’ CSAs… And, hey, we’re in this for the quality not the quantity right? We easily finished up the greens and radishes before week two, but were a bit stumped by the corn. In the end, we decided to scrape off some of the kernels and pop them! We sat down with a somewhat chewy, but very “popcorny(?)” bowl and watched a highly appropriate, informative, and enjoyable movie, King Corn .

The next week’s box was similar, containing a few more heads of lettuce, some white radishes, and a zucchini. The real fun started this week when our box was plentiful and contained a few vegetables that we couldn’t identify. I bit into a small, stringy plant not really sure what to expect. I wound up with a taste explosion of garlic (garlic scapes actually)! The box also contained a bag of mixed salad, a huge head of red leaf lettuce, more radishes, a summer squash, a head of colorful swiss chard, and two heads of mystery green. After checking my email for our newsletter, we found out that the mystery green was actually small bok choy… we’ve eaten plenty of bok choy in our time, but have never seen one at this stage of growth.

Now that we’ve experienced a bountiful box, our spirits are higher than ever with regards to the CSA choice that we made. I suspect that the quantities will vary over the season and we’re ready to embrace the suspense. Not surprisingly , its quite satisfying (borderline thrilling) to pick up our share each week without knowing what’s going to be in it… Its like opening a present every week.

Check out this article in the New York Times about a variation on raised bed gardening. I think its a great idea to make lighter, mobile gardens.  I see two problems with the method though. First, you need to worry about stability.  Raising a light garden like that up on a stand (and a mobile stand at that) seems to make the garden a bit susceptible to clumsy children, adults and pets.  Second, you have to put in the extra effort to move the garden around.  You could leave it in one place, but then why bother with the wheels?

Those criticisms aside (and they’re really small criticisms anyway), I really like the concept.  Has anyone tried something like this?  You could always take the next step and combine this with the elegance and organization of the Square Foot Gardening method… then you might really be onto something!

In part one of this series I described how I built my SFG boxes and frames. In this post I’ll describe the soil that goes into those frames. The basic idea is to create your own soil mix using equal amounts of blended compost, peat moss, and coarse vermiculite. Many pre-packaged potting soils contain mixtures similar to this, however you wind up with much richer and more diverse soil if you mix your own (also, its much more gratifying to DIY). One particular reason to do the mixture yourself is that the compost available in pre-packaged potting soil mixtures is typically only from one source and doesn’t provide the diversity of nutrients necessary to grow strong, healthy vegetables.

Now for a brief word problem interlude…

I have two, 4×4 foot frames, each of which is 6 inches deep. How many cubic feet of soil will I need to fill the frames?

If your answer was 16 cubic feet, you get a gold star! Here’s how you figure it out: Each frame requires 8 cubic feet of mix to fill it (4feet * 4feet * 1/2foot = 8feet). With two frames, that’s a total of 16 cubic feet of soil. Since I have three ingredients, that technically works out to be about 2 and 2/3 cubic feet of each. I didn’t want to use a measuring cup to get the exact amounts so instead I chose to do “approximately equal” amounts and just put an emphasis on the compost. For the two frames I made sure to have 4 to 5 cubic feet each of vermiculite and peat moss and then the remaining amount would be compost.

Here’s what you’ll need to fill one Square Foot Garden with soil.

Tools:

• 1 large tarp
• 1 shovel
• 1 connected hose

Soil and frame ingredients (for each box… all measurements are approximate):

• 4 x 4 foot landscape fabric or thick black plastic
• 2.5 cubic feet of peat moss
• 2.5 cubic feet of coarse vermiculite
• 3 cubic feet of mixed compost

For ground covering and weed protection, I line all my gardens with thick black plastic available at all garden centers or as contractor garbage bags from hardware stores. You can also use landscape fabric as long as it is approved for use in a vegetable garden. I had originally purchased Pro Landscape Fabric by Dupont to use for this purpose. However, the Dupont name didn’t inspire confidence in me for my organic garden so I sent them an email inquiring about the safety of the fabric and my intended use. I received a response about a week later that read “The Dupont Landscape Fabric is not approved to be used in a vegetable garden.” Needless to say, I didn’t use it in my garden… I did use contractor garbage bags.

I got my compost and peat moss at Allandale Farm in Brookline, MA. They highly recommended Intervale Compost Complete Compost and I thought it would be a good base for my mix. The Complete Compost is made up of “leaves, sawdust, horse, chicken, and cow manure, food scraps, and melted ice cream” which definitely met my diversity requirements. For true “completeness” though, I felt it was necessary to add a few more items into the mix. To that end, I purchased some Coast of Maine Lobster Compost and Composted Manure.

The coarse vermiculite is the only difficult ingredient to acquire. Allandale Farm only carried small, 8 quart bags of vermiculite for about $8 each. That would’ve been far too expensive ($30 per cubic foot) so I called around to see if I could find larger bags. Home Depot doesn’t carry vermiculite because of concerns that it has asbestos in it. This simply isn’t the case in most commercial products today (although it certainly was in the past). In truth, there was a vermiculite mine in Montana that also happened to have asbestos in it and the vermiculite got contaminated with it. The mine closed in 1990 and vermiculite that you purchase now should not be contaminated. If you’re still concerned or paranoid about it, you can wear a dust mask while working with it (Katie and I did but mostly because all of the materials above are dusty and we didn’t want to be sneezing). I purchased Hoffman Vermiculite and did some asbestos related research on it to verify that it was safe. Hoffman Vermiculite was one of the products that had measurable amounts of asbestos in it when the EPA tested over eight years ago but Hoffman has since been working with only mines that do not contain asbestos. I still wore a mask just in case though.

Since Home Depot didn’t carry it at all, and Lowe’s only carried the smaller bags, I was getting pretty frustrated and was resigned to purchasing online, paying the shipping fees, and worst of all, waiting. Luckily, someone mentioned that Needham Garden Center wasn’t too far away and they carried 2 cubic foot bags that were only $14 each (a significant savings.) My advice to you is to check out your local farms, garden centers, and hardware stores… if they don’t have it, they might be kind enough to suggest someone who does. If all else fails, buy online.

After acquiring all of the ingredients, we need to thoroughly mix them before adding the soil to the gardens. To get a good mix, follow the steps below:

1. Place your frame where you want your garden to be
2. Line the bottom of the frame with the landscape fabric or plastic (make sure none of it is sticking out from underneath)
3. Find a large, flat area near your gardens and lay out your tarp
4. Add the different varieties of compost that you bought
5. Mix the compost with your shovel (you can get a really good mix by folding the tarp over itself a few times in different directions)
6. Add an equal amount of vermiculite to the compost (NOTE that you may want to wear your dust mask at this point). Lightly wet the vermiculite with the hose to keep the dust down. Mix thoroughly
7. Add an equal amount of peat moss to the vermiculite and compost, lightly wet, and mix thoroughly
8. Transfer your soil to your garden boxes, secure your grids, and start planting!

I’ll have one more post on an Introduction To Square Foot Gardening that will discuss the plants that we are growing this season and the trellis that we built. Throughout the growing season, I’ll post some updates on the progress of our garden and any interesting techniques or problems that arise. If you want to get started before the next post (now is the time New Englanders!) you can follow an easy rule of thumb by putting one plant per square foot (variations discussed later).

Happy gardening!

A great way to improve your sustainable living is to grow your own food. Since most of us don’t have our own acres of land to farm on, we turn to gardening. For those of us who are “rurally challenged” (i.e. city dwellers), or just have land in short supply, there is a great method of gardening that produces high vegetable yields in a small amount of space. And for those of us who are “motivationally challenged” (i.e. we put the lazy in lazy Sunday), it takes a surprisingly small amount of effort to gain tremendous satisfaction. The method is called Square Foot Gardening (SFG).

Of course, there is some degree of sweat equity that needs to be built up at the beginning. That being said, the materials are relatively cheap and the construction is easy. Plus you get to use everyone’s favorite tool… the cordless power drill!

In part one of “Introduction To Square Foot Gardening”, I’ll detail how I constructed my SFG boxes.

Tools:

• Power drill and drill bits
• Screwdriver (optional if you have a screwdriver bit for your drill)
• Measuring tape
• Pencil or pen

Materials (for each box… I built two boxes):

• 4 UNTREATED 2×6 boards cut into 4 foot pieces. Treated wood contains chemicals that are harmful to plants and animals (that means you!)… Buy untreated wood. At my local hardware store, I purchased two 8 foot, pine 2×6 boards. The store cut them each in half for free. I was hoping to find cedar as it would hold up to the elements better but no one in the area carried it.
• 9 wood lath boards cut into 4 foot pieces - or similarly thin pieces of wood (moulding would work)
• 12 coarse-thread deck screws (outdoor use) - 3.5 to 4 inches long
• 13 smaller screws (outdoor use) - long enough to go all the way through two of your grid pieces (wood lath or moulding). I used 5/8 inch screws.

Construction:

1. Attach two 2×6 boards end-to-end; drill three holes evenly spaced through one board into the other; drill the deck screws into the pre-drilled holes

2. Complete the frame by attaching the other two boards in the form of a square. Make sure you rotate the corners for stability and to guarantee that you have a square when you’re finished

3. Lay out your nine wood laths in a grid on top of the frame. Start by locating the center of the frame (it should be 25 inches from the outside edge) and marking it with your pen or pencil. Then split each half (at 12.5 inches) and mark again. There is no need to weave the laths into each other since you will be holding them all together with the smaller screws.

4. Once the laths are arranged, secure them at their connections using the smaller screws. Pre-drill the holes at first to prevent splitting. You may find that you can drill the screws directly in without pre-drilling.
5. You can attach the grid to the frame by screwing in the center pieces.

That’s it! You now have a secure and interesting looking frame to begin your Square Foot Garden. Part two of this series (coming soon) will discuss weed protection and soil.

… and it hurts worse than we expected. After returning home from a great visit with our family in Pittsburgh, PA we were too tired and lazy to visit our usual Co-op but we desperately needed to stock our fridge for the coming week. We hopped (or rather slid) into our car and headed to our old victual haunting ground, Roche Brothers in West Roxbury. As we walked in through the automatic doors we were greeted with a sign reading that the supermarket now carries 78 varieties of organic products. My spirits were somewhat lifted. The first item on the list, “salad stuff”, turned out to be the hardest item on the list. While browsing the glistening and colorful vegetable displays, I was squinting and moving labels to find the organics. At first, I failed. Now this failure wasn’t entirely Roche Brothers fault, I can take some blame. Actually I can take a lot of the blame. You see, as I’ve mentioned before, I have grown to hate shopping at supermarkets. And not for the reasons you might think. Unless of course you think that its because I get flustered, lost, and most of all, stressed out by all the shoppers jockeying for a place to leave their cart while they graze the aisles. So, having resigned myself to failure I picked out some great looking conventional vegetables and headed back to the cart (it bears mentioning here that Katie is actually masterful at navigating a supermarket… I think it comes from being a native Boston driver). It just so happens that she had serendipitously left our cart right next to the “organic vegetable” section. Of course! They would have those in their own section… how silly of me. Back went the conventionals and in went the pre-washed, pre-mixed, plastic bin of organic salad greens and boston lettuce.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. We managed to find a number of useful organic products (not all 78 I guess) and check out in decent time.

The point of this post is not to speak poorly of Roche Brothers. In fact, as far as supermarkets go, I think its one of the best. The point of this post is that its just not for us anymore. The realization hit home right about when we did. Unloading the groceries, I mentioned that I was surprised at how guilty I felt. Something similar to eating too much pizza but not as enjoyable, or not exercising for a week or more. As happens more often as the years go on, Katie claimed that she just had the exact same thought (except with ice cream instead of pizza!)

So now what? Luckily the answer to this question is easy. Its back on the wagon and hopefully with a renewed effort. I’m sure we’ll be back in supermarkets many times in the future, and probably this year, but at least we know that our trips there are going to be the exception and not the rule.

Community Supported Agriculture is a model of agriculture that enables a community of individuals (read consumers) to take on some of the risks, typically financial, associated with local agriculture. The individuals, usually referred to as “members” or “share-holders”, make an upfront payment to cover the materials, grower’s salary, etc. needed to run a farm for a season. In return, members receive a portion of the farmer’s crop. This portion typically comes in the form of a weekly drop-off of a box filled with a variety of vegetables, flowers, eggs, meat, or whatever else the farmer produces. As each farm is different, so are the requirements and benefits of each CSA. There are some CSAs that require members to spend a certain amount of time over the season at the farm planting, tending, or harvesting. Often these CSAs allow members to opt-out (if they’re not inclined to their hands dirty) of the time at the farm in return for extra money to hire workers who will fill in.

Finding and choosing a CSA can be as simple or as time-consuming as you make it. A great place to start is Local Harvest where you can search within a specified radius of your zip code for local farms, stores, restaurants, and markets that participate in a local, sustainable food chain. Look at the descriptions of the local farms to see what sort of CSA they offer and how you can find more information. Some farms have websites, most have email addresses, and all of them have phone numbers listed. If you’re like me, the web is your comfort zone and you’ll be drawn to CSAs with websites or at least email addresses. However, I strongly encourage you to pick up the phone and call farms that offer deliveries in your area or specialty services that you’re interested in. You’ll find that the farmers are extremely friendly and very informative. I recently spent 30 minutes on the phone with a local farmer who answered all of my questions about his farm’s growing practices, philosophies, etc.

Another great site for information on CSAs (and other sustainable food services) in your area is the Eat Well Guide. I found that Local Harvest was better for specifically finding CSAs while the Eat Well Guide had more farms and services listed (not all farms have CSAs).

This season, Katie and I have chosen two CSAs to participate in: The Food Project and Stillman’s at the Turkey Farm. We chose two because we’ll be getting weekly boxes of vegetables from The Food Project and monthly boxes of meats from Stillman’s at the Turkey Farm.

While researching CSAs, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that were so many in the Boston area. Of course, with more variety there was also more anxiety over choosing “the right one” for our first year when all of them looked so good. In the end, we chose The Food Project because of their mission statement. The Food Project not only runs a farm in Lincoln, MA but also has many urban sites in Boston. They have reclaimed/remediated a good amount of land in Boston, transforming it from abandoned lots, littered with broken down cars and construction debris into clean plots of land that can support healthy, organic agriculture. The Food Project also provides youth leadership training to a diverse community of children in the area who spend time working the lands, learning about food and agriculture, and interacting with each other.

We chose Stillman’s at the Turkey Farm because of the friendliness of the farmers, Kate and Aidan. Aidan is the farmer who spent so much time on the phone with me answering questions while Kate has been extremely responsive over email. We also had the pleasure of meeting both of them at a recent Slow Food event where we got to taste one of their pigs (prepared by the chefs at The Garden of Eden Cafe).

Boxes should start arriving in a few months and I’ll be sure to post lots of pictures and reviews.

Looking to diversify our dinner table and add a new source of whole grain and fiber to our diets, we decided it was time to buy a bag of bulgur wheat and see what we could do with it. A brief search through our cookbooks revealed a recipe that combined legumes, dairy, whole wheat, and veggies into an attractive looking meal we like to call “The Moroccan Miracle”. Bonus points for being a one-dish meal.

The following recipe is based on “Moroccan-Spiced Sweet Potato Medley” from the Vegetarian Meals - Good Housekeeping’s Favorite Recipes cookbook.

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced or crushed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (vary this for heat; 1/4 teaspoon is perfect for us because its hot enough for me and not too hot for Katie…sometimes I add some crushed red peppers to my own serving to increase the heat)
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bit sized pieces
• 1 can(14 1/2 ounces) stewed tomatoes
• 1 cup bulgur
• 2 1/4 cups water
• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup dark seedless raisins (you can increase this if you want to add more of the “sweet” taste)
• 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (you can use dried if necessary)
• plain low-fat yogurt or raita (recipe below)

Instructions:

1. Heat oil in a 12-inch (or larger) skillet. Add onion and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until tender and golden. Add garlic, coriander, cumin, salt, and cayenne pepper and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
2. Add the potatoes, tomatoes, bulgur, and water; heat to boiling over medium/medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low/low; cover and simmer until you can easily stick your fork into the potatoes (about 20 minutes) and the water has been fully absorbed. Stir in beans, raisins and cilantro; heat through and serve with yogurt/raita.

We like to make a simple cucumber and tomato based raita to serve over the top…

Ingredients:

• 2 cups plain, low-fat yogurt
• 1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 1 large tomato, peeled and chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• salt to taste

Instructions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Last weekend Katie and I went out to Hardwick MA to visit Misty Brook Farm. I had been in email contact with Katia Clemmer, one of the owners, with a number of inquiries about their products and the purchasing process and she encouraged me to visit the farm and have a look for myself. So Katie and I hopped in the car, cranked up the tunes, and drove an hour-and-a-half out to central MA with the intention of picking up some naturally raised meats and eggs, getting our feet muddy in the farm, petting some animals and chatting with the owners. We succeeded in all but the last. Unfortunately I had misinterpreted my email conversation with Katia in which she said that they would be on the farm until 11AM. I took that as “We’re busy until 11AM” instead of “If you want to see us, come before 11AM”. Next time we’ll get there earlier. I also made one other, minor, error during the day… I forgot to bring a cooler along and didnt’ realize until we were well on our way. Fortunately there were plenty of stores in the area that carried smaller coolers for us to add to our growing collection (yes, this has happened before).

We arrived at the farm, cooler and all, around 12:30 PM. We walked up to the rustic building with a sign that read “Misty Brook Farm Shop”. Inside were two freezers, a refrigerator, an a small table containing a jar of change money and a calculator. The freezers were stocked with various meats, mostly pork and veal. There was a good selection of ground pork, pork chops, country-style ribs, pork shoulders, various cuts of veal, a few beef bottom rounds, assorted bones for stocks, etc. The refrigerator had eggs, milk, and cream.

After settling on some ground pork, ribs, chops, a beef roast, and a dozen eggs it was time for us to add up our totals and leave our money in the jar. Although I had made sure to bring plenty of cash, the thought of leaving $100 in a jar, in an unlocked room, on the side of the road made me a bit uncomfortable. Rationally, I know it would have been fine but emotionally I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Out came the checkbook and one messy signature later we had made our purchase.

Leaving the farm stand, we ran into another couple (walking in with a well worn cooler!) who were buying milk. We asked them as many questions as we could about their familiarity with the farm. What we gathered from them was that most people pre-ordered whole or half animals and that what was in the freezer was what was leftover. I’m not sure that this is totally right so I’m going to follow up with Katia through email, phone, and/or visit. Perhaps there is a way to pre-order certain cuts rather than only being able to do a fraction of an animal?

We unloaded our arms, now freezing after holding onto frozen meat and standing in the cold during our conversation, into our new cooler and headed back to the farm to get a good look around. First we saw a number of cows across the dirt road “ruminating” on some hay. Even though we weren’t sure that they were Misty Brook Cows, it was still comforting to see some cows, lazily munching hay, giving us sidelong bovine glances, and belching.

Around the corner was a peep of chickens skipping around the snow, hay and mud along with a few ducks and a friendly and excited Jack Russell Terrier. Seeing the terrier running around, insisting that we throw or kick his bouncy ball, gave an even more personal touch to the farm.

Each of two young calves had his own private “cow house” that he could wander a few yards from before their length of chain ran out.

There was also a small barn with a number of cows moseying around another medium sized barn where the milk cows were kept. Katie was brave enough to pet some of the cows while I snapped some pictures.

We finally had enough so we scraped as much mud (and other) off our shoes, slipped into the car and spent some of the ride home discussing the various meals we’d cook with our farm-raised meat. Sunday night we enjoyed a dinner of slow-cooked beef roast, mashed up potatoes and sweet potatoes, and sauteed carrots, raisins and walnuts.

Michael Pollan and John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, discussed this topic at UC Berkeley. Eat Local Challenge has posted links to a series of letters that the two have written each other. Watch the webcast if you’re interested.

There are plenty of places to buy groceries in a city. In Boston, most of us know about Super Stop & Shop, Star Market, Shaw’s Supermarket, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, etc. With the exception of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, all of these places have huge selections of conventional foods and varying degrees of organic foods. Whole Foods is an exception because they sell all organic foods and Trader Joe’s has much less conventional foods. Recently we discovered another place to shop, The Harvest Co-op Markets, in Jamaica Plain and Cambridge.

The Harvest Co-op Markets are unique in that consumers can become owners of the store as well as patrons (a la “I’m not just the president. I’m also a client!” only not as hokie). Membership/ownership benefits include discounts on certain days, annual refunds (proportional to how much you spend), and participating in the management of the company (voting for board members, etc). Shopping at the Co-op means that you’re supporting a local business, helping stimulate the local economy, getting access to a wide variety of local and organic foods, and if you’re so inclined… making a political statement.

The Co-op in Jamaica Plain has basically what you’d expect out of any grocery including: a great produce section, a limited but satisfactory meats (beef, pork, fish, chicken) section, prepared foods, non-perishables, etc.

What I didn’t expect (but should have) was the extensive bulk section that included rices, pastas, beans, granola, nuts, and coffee. There was also a great selection cheeses and, most suprisingly, a selection of local and organic wines and beers.

The best part of the whole shopping experience at the Co-op for me was that I didn’t hate it. Over the years, I’ve grown to hate going to the supermarket, playing demolition derby with my shopping cart, battling hundreds of other shoppers jostling for a clear pass around slower movers, and annoying music piped over the loud speakers. Even on a nice Sunday afternoon, the Co-op wasn’t overly crowded even though there were plenty of people there. Actually, reflecting on that last statement, it was somewhat crowded… it just didn’t “feel” as crowded. Maybe it was the distinct lack of sensory overload that I typically associate with shopping for groceries.

In any case, we’ll certainly be frequenting the store in Jamaica Plain more often and hopefully transition to making most of purchases there. After some more evaluation when the “honeymoon” period is over, we might even become members/owners.

Maybe there is a co-op near you? Check out the Organic Consumers Association or Cooperative Grocer and find out. No co-ops? How about shopping at smaller, local groceries? And of course in the summer and fall, you can visit farmer’s markets and/or join a CSA (more on CSAs to follow).