Author Archives: Hand in Hand Parenting

End of the Season

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Ready-to-GrowThe garden is quiet now that the last session of the Spring 09 Dirt to Dinner project is done.

Real-World Wide Web

Real-World Wide Web

We explored the interconnectedness of the food webs we participate in every day. Latecomers spent part of the afternoon asking why we all had on nametages that said things like “Flowers,” “Oak Tree,” “Earthworms” and “Cougar.”

We also dug the potatoes that have been growing in the black nursery cloth circles since the start of the program. The plants had long ago bloomed and were mostly ready for us.

Washing the Dirt Off Dinner

Washing the Dirt Off Dinner

There were lots of the red-skinned potatoes with a blush color inside. I hope the folks at Common Ground know what they were because we liked them and they might work for next year’s Red White and Blue Potato Salad. They kept their color and held up nicely when we cooked them for the Balsamic Green Beans and Potatoes.

Some of the kids chose to pull the plants with their *many* green tomatoes and take them home to hang for ripening.

Roma Tomato Prepped for Dry Hanging

Roma Tomato Prepped for Dry Hanging

We are experimenting with three or four different ways to ripen green tomatoes and I’m curious to see what works best. Right now my favorite is to put them into a paper bag with a ripe apple or tomato and to let them redden that way. We are testing the plant hanging method, sunny window sills, newspaper wrapping and apple-in-a-bag. We’ll let you know how it comes out!

We also stabilized the gourd trellis and planted the gourds, picked the Principe Borghese and Costaluto Genovese tomatoes that were ready and explored the Ice Box watermelon ripening that has happened so far. (Not there yet, but close and already quite tasty!)

Everyone Loves the Eating Part!

Everyone Loves the Eating Part!

Today’s lunch included Balsamic Green Beans and Potaotes, Red White and Blue Potato Salad, Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese, Egg Salad, Tomato Basil Mozzarella, Roasted Tomatillo and Avocado Salsa.

Thank you to everyone who made this year’s program possible, including our generous donors at Seeds of Change, The National Gardening Association Seed Donation Program, the generous and helpful folks at Bauer Lumber and Mark Lassen at Lassen Construction.

Finishing Our First Program Season

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As Dirt to Dinner Begins

As Dirt to Dinner Begins

I’m cleaning things up around the garden for our final Dirt to Dinner lunch of the Spring session. A lot has changed around here since we started. Here’s what it looked like when all we had growing was the Spring Pea Trial vs. where the kids growing box and the rest of the front garden area are today.

Lots of Growing Changes!

Lots of Growing Changes!

We’ve added additional beds, trellis, arbors and teepee support structures, and, of course, lots of plants. We’ve let the lawn dry up and the mulch and straw take over to the point where I’m starting to wonder if I have 50 feet of defensible space around the house in case the suburb is consumed by wildfire. ;-)

Gourd_corsican_lgTomorrow we are going to put in several different varieties of gourds on an arbor we’ve constructed over the bench. It’s a tad late for gourds since they like such a long season, but we could still get lucky, and we could always try covering them with season extenders. Could be a good challenge for the new crew starting in September. One of the neighbors gets tomatoes until November, so I’m hopeful.

Eternal optimism is very helpful when it comes to experimenting with agriculture.

We’re also going to experiment with various ways of ripening green tomatoes, clean up around the garden a bit to see what we have to add to the compost bins, and we’ll probably tuck in some surprises for the folks who are coming back in the Fall.

Lunch is a Summer picnic theme so we are making tomato basil salad, potato salad, green beans, chopped green salad with veggies and some folks are also bringing a bit of potluck to spice things up. Should be a wonderful time to celebrate what we have accomplished and review the kids suggestions for what to do differently next year.

Food Independence

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Return from 4 sq ft devoted to potatoes

Return from 4 sq ft devoted to potatoes

The Dirt to Dinner project is about creating a little bit of food independence in each of the kids who works with us. Making them aware of what it takes to grow the food they eat, showing them how they can do it, and helping them raise healthy food that goes directly from the ground onto their lunch plates. And, luckily for us, the whole process has been delicious.

Mashed Bounty

Mashed Bounty

Today we pulled some Yukon Gold-style potatoes out of the modest 4 sq ft patch where they had been growing and quickly boiled and mashed them. They hardly needed butter and were immediatly pronounced a success. The flesh of the potatoes is yellower than what I want for tomorrow’s red-white-and-blue potato salad, but it may have to do. Though I guess I could skin the red-skinned potatoes for the white, keep the skins on for the red, and, well, I still have my fingers crossed on the blues, but we haven’t raided any of them yet. Not one peek under all that dirt, compost and mulch. Though I have high hopes, we did plant thirty potato plants! There better be enough blue potatoes for one dish of potato salad tomorrow!

Tomato Season Finally Begins

Tomato Season Finally Begins

One thing I know we will have is tomatoes. They have started ripening in the warm weather and, so far, we have been eating the Principe Borghese drying tomatoes fresh. They are tough to resist. Especially with some of the blue flowering basil growing in the front bed and balsamic vinegar. These guys ended up in a salad bowl so fast they were still warm from the sun as we ate them. But just as soon as there are other tomatoes ripe, I really do plan to get out the drying recipes. I swear!

My bet is that the Costaluto Genovese will be the next to be ready. We’ve had one or two of them already. Some people call them ugly tomaotes because of the deep ridges they develop but they taste great.

The Last of June

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Squash-PatchFor the last week we have been battening down the Dirt to Dinner garden with various kinds of mulch to help it thrive in the hot weather. We are testing several kinds of compost, straight worm castings, tan bark and rice straw (which is cheap, soft, and easier to keep in place than I had feared.)

Even so, some of the squash plants still look unhappy by dinner-time. And days that threaten to see 90 degrees or better require watering morning and evening for some of the plantings, especially places where we have young plants growing or seeds starting for rutabagas, parsnips, etc..

Cucumber Hopeful

Cucumber Hopeful

Many of the plants seem to be enjoying the heat. The peppers are flowering. The tomatoes are happily turning red. The watermelons are busily climbing their supports. This vine, which I hope is a cucmber, seems undaunted by the temperatures. It’s a volunteer that turned up near the patch where I am trying to grow the new Luffa plants and some Bloomsdale Spinach which will appreciate the shade underneath. Whatever it is, it’s a robust deep green vine that looks like it may grow us something tasty.

Right next door to the Luffa, Spinach and their Mystery friend is the new Fort Knox bed where we are growing five different varieties of carrots and the parsnips under a 1/2″ wire cover and burlap shade where rodents can’t get into them and tear them up before we are ready to eat them. We were going to end up with some sort of betacarotene deficiency around here if we don’t find better ways to deal with our ‘guests’ than just the old burlap covers.

Spaghetti on the Vine

Spaghetti on the Vine

At least there seems to be no doubt that we will have Spaghetti Squash. The plants are bowing the bamboo pole that supports their trellis a little bit more each day.

Of course, I had to pick one early and cook it to be sure it really *was* Spaghetti Squash. I have another variety that I knew was Spaghetti Squash growing not to far from this one that clearly has no intention of climbing the trellis we have provided for it and the stems also look different, so I took a little convincing, but now there’s no doubt.

Still, I can’t seem to look at a Spaghetti Squash without thinking of my mother’s garden-inspired dinner creations which, she told us all the way through the 70’s, would taste, “Just like pizza!” if only we could actually be convinced to try them. Rest assured, I will not be making the kids try the recipe for Spaghetti Squash Lasagna that I saw on the Internet the other day.