Beetnik Urban Farm Logo Wins Design Award

John Sayles, of J. Sayles Design Co., won a 2013 American Graphic Design Award from Graphic Design USA, for the  logo he created for Beetnik Urban Farm. Check out the previous blog post about the evolution of this logo.

To celebrate, we're offering free shipping on t-shirts this week only. Order one today.

 

Just Peachy

The peaches have arrived and with them, my favorite time of the year. While I loves me some fresh tomatoes, it's ephemeral peaches, with their slow arrival, short appearance and quick departure, that keep me anticipating, in thrall, and ultimately disappointed when they go.

The problem is waiting: waiting out the squirrels who love to take a bite of one and move on; waiting until the peaches are ripe, or nearly so, when they develop that sweetness that spoils you for imports; and waiting to see if the over-burdoned branches, nearly touching the ground, snap from their load. I need to learn from the Bosnian immigrants in the neighborhood who have elaborate scaffolds propping up their produce.

Putting the Loom in Heirloom

We're back from Maine and the heirlooms are coming fast and furious. Time to plant the winter veggies.

Garden Vacation

This is the last post until we return in a couple weeks from our trip to Maine.

I've been neglecting my side and back yards as I've been working on the front. The side yard has the fruit trees (background) and a marvelous hard maple (foreground, behind the peonies).

This little tree produced the most delicious and abundant peaches last year (might have been our Mediterranean climate of a year ago). If you've ever had a peach ripe from the tree, it will spoil you for anything store-bought. 

Still wondering what edible landscape I can plant back here. Hosta and fern salad anyone, or WWEGE (What would Euell Gibbons eat)? Open to suggestions. 

Pie or Jam, Pie or Jam?

Just plucked these from my Montmorency cherry trees. What to make?

Greens With Envy

Green Mashed Potatoes

This simple recipe is a relatively healthful version of a comfort food usually slathered in butter (not that there's anything wrong with that).

The olive oil and bitter greens make this dish. The potatoes are just a delivery device. Makes a good side dish or even a main entree. Consider it on your next meatless Monday. Or, if you're a vegeterrorist like me, any day of the week. You can also veganize it by leaving out the cheese, of course, and it's still delish.

Fresh from our garden: turnip and dandelion greens. Bread crumbs on the left, and taters on the right. 

Green Mashed Potatoes

Based on a recipe from the NYT by  Mark Bittman (March 6, 2009)

Time: About 45 minutes

Ingredients

2 pounds of golden butter potatoes (or any thin-skinned potato) cut into small chunks. No need to peel.

1 pound dandelion or other bitter greens or a mixture (turnip, mustard, etc.), washed and trimmed of thick stems

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Salt

1-1 1/2 cups homemade bread crumbs (four or five slices of crusty bread coarsely chopped in a food processor and mixed with 1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan Reggiano and black pepper)

Steps

1. Put potatoes in a large, deep pot and cover them with cold water. Add a large pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Cook until soft but not falling apart, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon.

2. Add greens to water and cook for about 1 minute. Rinse under cold water. Drain well, then chop.

3. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mash potatoes, adding enough olive oil to moisten them well. Mash in the greens, adding more olive oil as needed. Sprinkle with salt and lots of pepper.

4. Put mixture in an ovenproof dish and top with bread crumbs. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake until bread crumbs are golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Serve hot or warm.

Yield: 4 servings.

Dirt Farmer

I guess this is why real farmers wear overalls and not shorts. At least I was wearing my work boots. Clearly.

One can blithely rip out one's lawn, but then a realization sets in about how to fill up all that space without simply paving over it. Something more sustainable than turf grass, but attractive and even  functional.

In addition to dividing my over-crowded hostas around the back of the house, it was necessary to purchase a few dozen plants. These were mainly of the shade to part sun variety: ferns, more hostas, some black-eyed Susans and cone flowers, and a few other varieties.

First thing was to prep all the boundary areas so the mulch would stay put.

Then I began a marathon planting session that required the use of forty five bags of pine bark mulch.

Before.

After.

Doesn't look like much yet, but in a few years, I hope it will fill out and be half as lush and verdant as my neighbor Nancy's (background).

I dug up an old sidewalk that was previously  overgrown and unusable and much closer to the house, and moved it further out.

The next step is to terrace the remaining and sun-soaked lawn to the street, then build and install raised beds for vegetables. Perhaps a job for the cool autumn.

Garden Update and Recipe

The warm weather has helped the garden tremendously. Now if it would just quit raining so much. Can't eat the salad greens fast enough. All the greens are doing well. Made a delicious (I was told) meal with collards last night. 

Collard Greens With Farro, Mushrooms, & Black Eyed Peas

Vegetarian or vegan.

I modified a boring ol’ NYT recipe by adding mushrooms & black eyed peas, and doubling the garlic. I also changed how they cooked the farro and collards. So I guess this is pretty much my recipe now. One could also turn this into a risotto by adding a little Parmigiano Reggiano when the farro is almost done.

1 large bunch collard greens (about 1 1/2 pounds), stemmed, leaves washed

Salt & black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 medium onion, chopped

5 large garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

3/4 cup farro

1/3 cup dry white wine

1 quart veggie stock, vegetable stock or water

1/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

3/4 cup frozen black eyed peas

5 oz. fresh crimini mushrooms

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Fill a bowl with ice water. When the water comes to a boil, add the collard greens. Blanch for four minutes, and transfer to the ice water with a slotted spoon or skimmer. Drain and squeeze out extra water. Chop the greens into 1 inch pieces.

2. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a wide, heavy saucepan or Dutch oven, and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender (about five minutes). Add a generous pinch of salt, the garlic and the rosemary, and continue to cook for another minute, until the garlic is fragrant. Stir in the farro, and mix for a minute. Add the white wine, and stir until it has been reduced. Add half the stock and/or water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes, or until the farro is tender but chewy, adding broth/water as necessary. 

3. Meanwhile, cook the black eyed peas in water for about 20 minutes. Drain and set aside. Slice the mushrooms and sauté until they release their juices. Set aside. Chop the parsley. When the farro is done, mix in the collards, black eyed peas, mushrooms, and parsley. Heat through and serve.

Yield: Serves six.

Advance preparation: Will keep for two or three days in the refrigerator and reheats well.

Dry T-Shirt Contest

Hello! Hello, eh! 你好！Hallo! こんにちは,! Dai duit! Halo!, Salam!, привет! สวัสดี! Merhaba! привіт! Dzień dobry! Olá! Allô! Hola! These are the country  flags where this blog's viewers reside. I'm challenging someone from each of these countries to leave a comment.

Also, there is a flag from a country where no one has viewed the blog. I'll send a free Beetnik Farm T-shirt to whoever correctly guesses this country, regardless of where you reside.

Oh, and don't forget to check out this link: http://www.skydamon.com/beetnik.html

Take That, Dow Chemical; Make My Day, Dupont

Hey, Monsanto, meet Tyne Daly.

Yup, I named my rented rototiller after the actor who played Detective Mary Beth Lacey, one half of the iconic 1980s crime fighting duo, Cagney and Lacey.

Who better than tough-as-nails Lacey to take on the agro- and petrochemical industries? These companies have  convinced several generations of Americans to grow toxic golf course lawns free from weeds and fauna. Only one way to do that: spray our monoculture turfscapes with billions of gallons of poison, waste trillions of gallons of water, and spew tons of fossil fuels into the air mowing the damn stuff. And for what? For our annual game of croquet? Or for the dog we're too lazy to walk?

Now, while I've never used any chemicals on my lawn, I am guilty of cropping it with a gas guzzling mower. Many years ago, I did buy a manual push mower, but the crab grass is so thick, my push mower just didn't cut it.

I've been waiting twenty years to rip this unnatural, Sam Donaldson rug off my yard, and replace it with useful and ecological plants of the vegetable and wild flower variety. Even the Side Show Bob spirea we have next to the house is a better use of land.

For starters, let's be real: I'm only taking about a third of the front yard's turf grass at this point (the side and back lawns have long ago been ripped up). I still have to accumulate the flora with which to replace it. One can only divide one's hostas so many times. And, I still have to terrace and build raised vegetable beds.  But, mark my word, I plan to rid our entire property of all turf grass. Notice to the City of Des Moines: This includes the parking strip between the sidewalk and the street.

That first pass was cathartic. Tyne kicks ass.

Three-quarters of the way there and I've only used up an hour of my four-hour rental. Maybe I should do the neighbors a favor. I'm sure they wouldn't mind.

There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Reminds me a bit of my first Navy haircut.

Turf Grass: It Just Ain't Natural

Stay tuned tomorrow: Kill the lawn, Part One, at Beetnik Urban Farm #2.

Do Fence Me In • Part Deux

Finally time to start attaching the fencing to the posts. The fencing we chose is what's known as ornamental double loop. It's also known as arched cemetery fencing because of its use in cemeteries in the early part of the last century. It consists of crimped 11 gauge vertical wires looped at the top and again about two feet from the bottom. The verticals are woven together with twisted 13 gauge horizontal wires for added rigidity.

Only two U.S. manufacturers make this fencing  anymore. We chose Hutchison Incorporated of Colorado because they have a branch in Manchester, Iowa where I could pick it up. It weighs over 150 pounds for a hundred foot roll, and we needed two rolls.

This is how it looked after the first run was attached on the west, or street side of the garden.

Two sides down; one to go.

Marty overseeing as we prepare to install the final stretch of fencing on the north side of the garden.

First we roll out the fencing along the entire section.

Notice the technique: Heads down, eyes forward, knees bent at thirty degrees. Cap bills properly facing forward.

Then the fence is popped upright along the entire seventy-five foot span.

This of course is not without its risks. It's important to be sharper than the fence.

One big challenge, especially when installing fence on a slope, is stretching it taut. We lacked an actual tool for this, but improvised one using ratchet tie-down straps and a piece of steel woven between the fence horizontals.

Then the two straps were tied around the next set of posts.

Then carefully tightened.

Almost there.

Logan standing guard.

A view from the northeast corner. Tying into the existing rustic posts proved to be challenging as they were hard as iron, perhaps old hickory logs (bottom left in the photo).

Only one thing left to do: Install the cedar one-by-fours to each post to give it that finished look.

Gomer Pyle in his improvised shop. This is where the magic happens.

I caved in and used the pneumatic nailer for the finish nailing on the eighteen posts. With ten nails a post, that's 180 nails. My tired old carpal tunneled hands thanked me.

Now ready to dig up the remaining turf grass.