DC Urban Gardeners

Pickling Like Mad

I have a confession to make about last year's pickles.

I don't think they were that great. We made quite a large quantity for my "food appreciation" classes at the private elementary school where I teach here in the District of Columbia. The kids were wild for them and we served them at the parents' night dinner. Some of the parents even requested jars to take home.

The pickles were okay. But they were missing a certain zip. This year, I'm pleased to announce, we've got the zip.

These are fermented pickles, meaning they cure in a salt brine and when finished resemble those "kosher dills" you remember being served with your pastrami sandwich at the Jewish deli. I may be halfway over the learning curve because I've become rather adept at stopping the fermentation process at just that point when the pickles have absorbed the garlic and dill flavors and still retain the bright fresh color and the crunchy cucumber snap.

Some people call these "half-sours."

If you let the cukes ferment much longer, they turn a deep, dark green and become somewhat softer--not completely flaccid, mind you, but somewhat beyond snappy--more like the standard dill pickles you find in a jar at the supermarket. These would be "full-sours."

Not fermented enough and the pickles are missing the proper flavor and aren't cured all the way through--they taste more like salad.

Somehow, August doesn't feel like pickling season and with the temperatures this high, the fermentation process moves right along, more quickly than it might in the fall when things are cooler. But this is when the cucumbers are ripe for picking. You can't let them sit around and go bad, so into the brine they go.

At current temperatures, the pickles seem to reach the proper flavor and consistency for my taste somewhere between five days and a week in the brine. At this point, they need to be refrigerated to stop the bacterial action and arrest the fermentation process until you are ready to eat them.

(Remember the formula for making these pickles? Dissolve six tablespoons pickling or fine sea salt in one gallon of water. Add peeled cloves from two heads of garlic, a couple of dill plant seed heads if you have them, a fistful of leafy dill sprigs, another fist full of oak leaves and maybe a half-teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Place all this and the cucumbers in a heavy-gauge plastic bucket. Cover with a ceramic plate that fits just inside the bucket and weigh this down with a plastic container filled with water to keep the cucumbers completely submerged in the brine. Place the bucket in a cool, dark spot and check on the pickles after a few days. Skim away any mold that might form and watch the pickles carefully so that you stop the fermentation when they reach your desired doneness.)

I've made several buckets of pickles recently and now I'm putting them away for storage. Even the cukes that had grown very large on the vine while we were on vacation pickled to a crispy, garlicky turn. I cut the cukes in half lengthwise, then cut these pieces in half and sliced them into spears to fit quart-sized plastic containers. Add a few garlic cloves, some dill stems and top off with brine. Then place the containers in the fridge.

I also saved a large container of brine, in case the pickles need to be topped off at some point in the future. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how long these pickles will keep in the refrigerator. I just don't have enough experience with them, and I'm not sure they won't be eaten well before they expire. But judging from the fermented sauerkraut I made last December, which remains delicious in the fridge to this day (note to self: eat more sauerkraut), these pickles should keep for a good long while.

I couldn't help munching on the pickles as I worked, they are that good. Pretty irresistible, in fact. I was pining for that pastami sandwich. I would have settled for tuna fish.

Some batches turned out better than others, meaning I just have to keep a closer eye on things next time. My cucumber plants are exhausted at this point. Fortunately, you can buy pickling cucumbers at the farmer's market or the Whole Foods and, unlike mine, they will be about the right size for canning, not the monsters I've been using. So I will be making some mean pickles with my "food appreciation" students this year.

Now, to find a recipe for that pastrami...

Posted by Ed Bruske

Volunteer Thai

Anyone who gardens will see volunteers cropping up in his plot from time to time. These are plants that were not planned, that were not deliberately seeded by the gardener, that germinated all on their own and from who knows where.

Volunteers can be vexing or a complete delight, depending on the gardener's mood and how finicky he is about his garden design. Tomatoes, for instance, produce seeds that are nearly impossible to kill. Often they find their way into the compost pile, which then gets spread around in the various garden beds. So you will see tomato plants sprouting everywhere and in the most unlikely places.

Sometimes I let these plants grow just to see what they will do. Last year one of my most productive tomato plants was a volunteer that popped up in a far corner the garden--I have no idea where it came from or what variety it was. Volunteer tomatoes are so thick at times you end up plucking them out like weeds.

This year it was cucumbers making unscheduled appearances. Once again, I didn't have the heart to remove them. If they are going to go to all the trouble of sprouting and surviving on their own, I figure they deserve a break. But vining cucumbers can be a nuisance once they are loose in the flower bed or twining among the edamame. Then they very often hide their fruits in the darkest places where you can't see them, so in the end you don't take any advantage from their being in the garden at all.

And just when I was complaining that we had no black-eyed Susans this year, a patch of them suddenly sprouted at the end of the cucumber bed. Really, I don't know how they made their way there. But I let them grow and spread their happy faces, even though they were completely out of place.

Recently I noticed another plant growing taller and taller among the beets. It was the only plant of its kind, spreading almost into a small bush, and I naturally assumed it was a weed. I only saw it from a distance and planned at some point to walk over and pull it out of the ground. Finally I did make my way over there for an inspection and discovered it wasn't a weed at all, but a rampantly healthy Thai basil plant, maybe the happiest basil plant I'd ever seen.

Again, no idea where it came from. We had never planted Thai basil in that area. Perhaps a seed had drifted over from the patch of Thai basil we'd planted at the opposite end of the garden a year ago. Yet we had never seen any plants this vigorous or grown to this size.

There was nothing to do but eat it.

I'm no expert in Thai cooking but we do love it. Often the process of producing a Thai meal is rather involved, just finding all the ingredients, and there usually are a lot of different ingredients in a Thai meal--herbs and spices and peppers of various kinds. We do have some Thai and Asian groceries in the area, but they require a trip. So I was determined to make this meal from items we already had on hand, and use as much of our newly discovered Thai basil as possible.

I started by sauteeing several of the small onions from our garden, sliced lengthwise. Then I thinly sliced two chicken breast halves and sauteed these as well, setting them aside for later. Now in the saute pan combine a cup or more of coconut milk, two tablespoons green or red prepared Thai curry paste (you can make your own curry, but it is rather involved), one tablespoon fish sauce, two teaspoons palm sugar (or light brown sugar) a small knob of ginger, peeled and cut into very thin match sticks, three or four kafir lime leaves (we keep them in the freezer), a fistfull or two or Thai basil leaves and the sauteed onions.

Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring the curry paste into the coconut milk, then reduce heat and cook at a slow boil for about 1/2 hour, or until the liquid has thickened a little. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary. The basil leaves will almost disappear. Don't be afraid to add more, as you will still have lots left on your Thai basil plant.

While the sauce is simmering, add one can of straw mushrooms, drained, and the sauteed chicken. Continue cooking until everything is heated through. If there is not enough sauce, or it is too spicy for some reason, don't be afraid to add more coconut milk. To serve, ladle the curry with the chicken and mushrooms into shallow bowls over brown basmati rice. A Singha beer is the perfect accompaniment.

With any luck, your Thai basil plant will still be as vigorous as ever, meaning you must now find another recipe that calls for lots of Thai basil.

Posted by Ed Bruske

More Urban Greening

From Treehugger, a Tale of 3 Cities:

• Non-profit Buffalo ReUse takes apart some of the 10,000 abandoned houses in Buffalo, saving 4 million pounds from landfill each year.
• As part of our ongoing 'Tell Us About Your City' series, we look at Sydney ranked as the world's most favourite city amongst the top 15 Green Cities.
•  Chicago showed 'bare knuckle politics' with a decree that city vehicles would no longer use BP fuel cards if the company polluted Lake Michigan.

Yes, City Gardeners CAN Have Wildlife Habitat Gardens

Here's a terrific article in the Washington Post about a wildlife habitat garden in Adams Morgan, coincidentally gardened by my friend Iris Rothman.  I've spent time in this garden and believe me, it's an experience of being in nature. (Go, Iris!)

Posted by Susan Harris

Urban Greening News

Hot off the presses is an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about urban gardenwalks as engines for community revitalization - in Buffalo, Chicago and Seattle.  The story's by my GardenRant partner Amy Stewart, and I was there in Buffalo with her for their hugely successful GardenWalk Buffalo last month.   I think of it as people's gardening and can't help but wonder:  Is DC ready for its garden walk?

Here's another great story by Marty Hair in the Detroit Free Press, this one about the greening of yet another Rust Belt city.  Notice there are four agencies involved in making vacant lots available and helping residents grow produce and then sell it.  (Maybe it takes more than a village but a whole city to make it happen.)

"Beat" the heat and drought? Accommodate is more like it

Here's an excellent summary of drought-beating gardening practices by Joel Lerner for the Washington Post.

Posted by Susan Harris

Global Warming in the Garden

There’s been lots of news lately about the effects of climate change on  our gardens and oddly, it’s usually presented as good news to gardeners. They’re shown rejoicing over the warm-climate plants they can now grow, like crape myrtles in Upstate New York. BUT:

IT'S GLOBAL WEIRDING
Some plants are failing because the winter cooling period isn’t long enough. And others, like lilac, Eastern white pine, American arborvitae, Colorado blue spruce, and many junipers, suffer when summer evenings don’t cool down enough. Local garden writers are no longer recommending many of their old favorites for local gardens - like PJM rhododendrons and yews.

• Rain events are more extreme, taking the form of longer droughts and more deluges. Not good for landscapes, for agriculture or for plants in our few remaining natural areas.

• Longer warm periods mean more generations of some pests per year. Others, like the wooly adelgid that’s killing Canadian hemlocks throughout the East, are increasing their number because winters aren’t cold enough to keep them in check.

• Weedy and noxious plants, like poison ivy, honeysuckle and kudzu, thrive in the presence of extra carbon dioxide, and poison ivy becomes more toxic than ever. Ragweed produces more pollen. Kudzu moves north. Some weeds, like Canadian thistle, are now resistant to herbicides.

• Native plant populations are threatened by these changes in temperature, rainfall, pests and competitors, even the iconic ones chosen as state flowers and trees. In fact, the National Wildlife Federation predicts that 28 states will see their official plants become extinct by the end of the century. Picture Ohio without its buckeye or Kansas without its sunflower. Climate change has become a major threat to plant conservation, along with development and invasive species.

• The East experienced a Miami-style January this year, followed by a frigid February. These alternating balmy+frigid periods take their toll on blossoms and whole plants. Fruit growers were particularly hard hit.

• Hotter summers cause heat stress even to warm-season crops, like tomatoes, according to Cornell University.

MORE TO COME?
The life cycles of insects, including the beneficial ones that keep others in check, may become out of synch with their prey. Pollinators, like the disappearing honeybees, may already be out of synch with the plants they feed on. Science Magazine reported in 2001 that earlier flowering and fruiting has caused such a disconnect for some long-distance migrating birds, who depend on food availability at the same time each year. And to make everything worse, most climate modelers predict more flooding and drought. Even English Gardens are Adapting

To see how gardeners might adapt to all this change, let’s look first at what’s happening in England, a nation of gardeners. Last summer their southeast region had such a severe drought that sprinklers were banned. With more and longer droughts predicted, it’s clear that the very hallmarks of English gardening are now threatened - their traditional lawns and flower borders.

Thus the U.K. Environmental Minister is urging everyone to change their water usage, plant choice (look for drought- and heat-tolerance), and garden design - in other words, change everything they’re doing. No more roses and delphiniums. The use of gas-powered garden equipment is discouraged. Rain barrels are recommended, as are carbon-sequestering cover crops, like clover and winter rye. Brits are being given at least one bit of advise that fits their culture: plant roots are darn good at absorbing carbon dioxide, so plant more of them.

CHANGING OUR GARDENING PRACTICES
Here in the U.S. we see the mainstream gardening media beginning to respond, with both Martha Stewart and Better Homes and Gardens advocating less gas mower and blower usage. Gardening authorities across the U.S. are offering these very good suggestions: add organic matter to make your soil hold moisture better, plant shade trees on the south side of your home to reduce air conditioning loads, and do your planting in fall or early spring. Even turfgrasses can be damaged by the freeze-and-thaw events we’re experiencing, especially where there’s standing water, so we’re being told to fix our drainage problems.

CHOOSING DIFFERENT PLANTS
Research has really just begun, but here are the kinds of plants being recommended by gardening experts in response to global climate change:

Perennials from Mediterranean climates, which thrive without summer rain. Examples are such beautiful and useful plants as lavender, rosemary, sage, catmint, oregano, and thyme. The herb agastache flowers nonstop through the summer and is beloved by bees, and red agastache is a magnet for hummingbirds. Locally native plants are particularly good for sustaining wildlife, but be sure to ask for ones that will survive the new climatic conditions.

Choose trees and shrubs that do well across many temperature zones. Some have seeds that can shift strategies quickly, rather than the generations it usually takes for most trees to adapt to new conditions, which makes them so vulnerable to climate change. Oakleaf hydrangea, serviceberries, deciduous magnolias and many pines are especially adaptable to a range of conditions. Again, the science is evolving, with experts at Cornell currently saying they haven’t yet seen changes that cause long-term damage to trees and shrubs.

HOW GARDENERS CAN HELP REDUCE CLIMATE CHANGE
To borrow from one of the central tenets of organic gardening, the first goal of gardening should be to do no harm. Here are some ways:

• Stop using gas-powered lawn equipment or products that use fossil fuels in their production, like synthetic fertilizers. Gas mowers spew as much pollution in one hour as a new car does in 40 hours - that’s how terrible the gas-mower technology is. And those synthetic fertilizers can be replaced primarily by compost and organic mulches, supplemented with organic, slow-release fertilizers when an extra boost is needed.

• Instead of blowing leaves into plastic bags for them to be trucked away to landfills or to an incinerator, turn them into soil, by composting. Home compost operations help lighten pressure on landfills and result in more water-retentive soil for the gardener - that really cool circle of life thing. Some municipalities collect leaves and turn them into free leafmold mulch or compost.

• Grow your own food. It’s fresh, it’s as organic as you want it to be, and it doesn't have to be trucked or flown in from far away. In the alternative, frequent our local farmer’s markets.

• Finally, the quaint suggestion that we bring back a garden ornament from our grandmothers’ gardens - the clothes line - comes from the Goracle himself.

ZONE MAPS - A HOT ISSUE
The last time the U.S. Department of Agriculture amended its famous map of zones (bands of land that share the same winter low temperature), was 1990 and a promised update has been delayed. One wonders why. Is it because, as a spokesperson said recently on EarthBeat Radio, the mappers are in Iraq with their tours extended indefinitely? Many suspect another reason - that the Bush administration is trying to avoid documenting more proof of global warming. It didn’t help that the USDA rejected the map update done for them by the American Horticulture Society, and their explanations have been less than convincing. >Fortunately, someone stepped in to fill the void. The National Arbor Day Foundation recently released its own updated map, which shows many places a full zone warmer than in1990, which means their low temperatures are now 10 degrees warmer.

MORE GOOD INFORMATION ON LINE
Both Cornell and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden are excellent sources.  And here's an overview of global warming, carbon credits and the positive contribution made by organic gardening.

Posted by Susan Harris

Gardening with Nature? Local Gardener Says it All

"Wow" is all I can say about this article in today's Washington Post.  It's the latest in their terrific "Summer Moments" series, this installment describing the wonders of being in a garden and surrounded by nature.  Does it sound too sappy to say it brought tears to my eyes?  Okay, then I won't say it.

Posted by Susan Harris

DC's Own Women Garden Cyclists Rock!!!

I LOVE these women and how they're spending their summer - on a 3-month cycling trip from Washington D.C. to Montreal and back again, with this very worthy purpose:

We’ll be visiting urban farms in big cities, but also grassroots organizations in small towns – anywhere where people are being reconnected with the food they eat. For example, we’ll be spending time at Mill Creek Farm in West Philadelphia which yields fresh, affordable produce in a malnourished, urban neighborhood. Red Hook Farm in Brooklyn is another site we will be visiting, in which youth from the surrounding neighborhood are employed to harvest organic vegetables and market the produce from the urban farm. 

Then they're bringing that wealth of information back to D.C. to make something happen HERE.  D.C. really needs these Women Garden Cyclers, I'll tell ya.

The tour started July 6 and according to their blog, the cyclers in the New York City area. Follow their route.  Or drop them a line: gardencycles[at]gmail.com.

MORE FROM THEIR BLOG

The bicycle tour investigations will be documented through audio and visual recordings that will be distributed via website and public forums, ultimately promoting the journey as a resource for academic institutions and bringing it back to use in budding grassroots initiatives in Washington DC, where we live.

MORE HIGHLIGHTS

• The cyclers visited City Farms in Baltimore and this farm in Philadelphia.
• Here's a story about them in the Philadelphia City Paper.

I hope to meet them upon their triumphant return and post about them again.

Runaway Garden

A garden waits for no man and that should be perfectly clear. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect when we arrived home after two weeks in Mexico. Our friends Helen and Tomeika have been doing a great job of watering through the depths of summer in Washington, D.C. So everything is lush and green.

But as I had feared, the tomatoes are escaping their cages. They are like wild animals, almost impossible to contain without constant attention. There were many cucumbers that had grown to almost enourmous size, but not too big that they can't be pickled. (Wave for the camera, dear.)

For more on this tale of absence and hope renewed, along with a recipe that addresses the overgrowth, go here.