Fourth and Sea Produce Swap

I finally made it to the 4th and C produce swap, which happens outside the very good fish and chips place called "Fourth and Sea". I brought some of my volunteer spaghetti squash and armenian cucumbers which grew to enormous sizes overnight.

Here is Ann Heatly, who started the swap. Find them on the facebook or at swapproduce.com

And then

I keep trying to grow okra, which is challenging here because it is not hot and humid and it is almost always in the 50s at night. Lately it has been cold during the day as well. I am trying to help the okra along with agribon fabric.

Also under the fabric is kiwano or horned melon. The melon has not made a single flower, though our crane melon and cucumbers have been flowering and fruiting. August is just around the corner. It could get to be over 100 degrees or it could stay chilly. The okra is about to flower.

So C-C-Cold-d-d-d!

It is easy to blog when you are blogging all the time, but I fell out of the habit and no longer feel like a blogger.

So much food has grown and it was even warm before, but now it is so cold. It is the end of July and as I write it is evening and 54 degrees. It got into the mid-70s today. I have tomatoes trying to get ripe and okra and melons trying to grow. I heard we are on target to have the warmest July on record and people are roasting all over but it is so chilly here.

Anyhow, to recap the past while, I had some volunteer squash come up very early. It looks like spaghetti squash but it tastes much sweeter. That's right, I already have winter squash. I have a bunch of strange squashes that must have come out of the compost. I took some pictures, but can't find them, but that is ok, because we also had:
potatoes and beets and carrots and onions and garlic and basil and greens and stuff, some of which can be seen here.

And then after that we had basil and made pesto. Some pesto went on pasta salad and some went in the freezer for later.

and so on.

USDA and the facts

I know months have gone by since I have posted here and I have tons of pictures of all the veggies I have grown, but I have been too busy with stuff and things to post anything. But now I am angry at how the government once again takes quick decisive action on the wrong things. While the company formerly known as Blackwater continues to get government contracts, BP continues to get military contracts and so on...

In case you have not heard about the story of Shirley Sherrod read here.

Or just google Shirley Sherrod. I am not going to get into the whole story, but in a nutshell, a right wing website posted an excerpt of a speech given to the NAACP by USDA official Shirley Sherrod who is African American. The speech is about how she overcame her own feelings of prejudice after her father was killed by the KKK and helped a white farmer keep his farm while working for a non-profit many years ago. The clip that was posted appeared to show her "admitting" to withholding help from a white farmer due to his race. Fox news aired it over and over and the USDA quickly fired her. The NAACP also condemned her without first talking with her and has since apologized. The USDA is re-considering their actions now that the full video has surfaced.

I think that Tom Vilsack should offer his own resignation.

Here is what I wrote at http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?edeployment_action=changenav&navid=FEEDBACK_FORM

I am writing to urge you to offer Shirley Sherrod her job back. It seems to me that you are taking longer to re-consider the situation than you did to ask for her resignation without knowing all of the facts. This rush to action without full consideration of the facts is deeply troubling. I would urge you to consider offering your own resignation in light of this very unfortunate incident.

Kimchi

After many misfires over the years, we finally got a good solid crop of daikon.

So I looked online for daikon kimchi recipes and cobbled together what I thought was the best of them. I didn't write it down, so this is from memory.  First, I peeled and cut the daikon into chunks and soaked them in a quart of water that had two tablespoons of salt dissolved in it. While they were soaking, I put about 10- 15 cloves of garlic, a thumb sized or bigger piece of ginger, some fish sauce, two tablespoons of salt, two tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 cup of chili powder into a food processor and made a paste. After the daikon had soaked for a couple of hours, I drained it and mixed it with this paste. Then I placed it in a large jar, alternately adding layers of mustard greens and green onions (also from the garden). I covered this loosely (so it wouldn't explode) and let it sit at room temperature for a few days before putting it in the fridge.

This kimchi is not very spicy for some reason. I think the daikon we planted was relatively mild and the chili powder must have been also. Still, it is a delicious companion to rice and other food. We have some more daikon in the ground, so I am looking forward to making another batch.

So much food already

It looks like I am dropping to once or twice a month for this blog. It is not because there is nothing going on. There is so much going on, I don't get around to blogging. We have been pushing really hard to get the Arroyo Community Garden up and running and we are pretty darned close. There is now a blog for that garden, so I will probably not talk about it too much here any more.

In other news, over the past several weeks, we have been harvesting the following food:

350 Garden Challenge

Weeks have gone by but I have been too busy gardening and working on the community garden and other things like work to post anything here. There are all kinds of garden opportunities comming up. Here in Sonoma County, there is an effort to get 350 gardens going on the weekend of May 15-16. There is a pretty broad definition of gardens so anything can count, whether it is a window sill garden, a community garden, a residential garden, etc. It can be a brand new garden or new work on an existing one. iGROW is the place to go to register. You can sign up your own garden or volunteer to help someone else's. In other garden challenge news, the Victory Garden Foundation in Oakland is also doing the 350 Garden Challenge.

Also, if you live nearby there is a meeting this Wednesday at the Baker Creek Seed Bankfrom 7pm to 9pm Phone (707)509-5171 199 Petaluma Blvd. North Petaluma, CA 94952

I will be working on my own garden as well as the Arroyo Community Garden that weekend. We had a workday on April 17th, shown here:



Another one is scheduled for May 1st.