Simple Food for the Good Life; Book Review by Grace Olson

Nearing, Helen. Simple Food for the Good Life. White River Junction, VT. : Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1990.

    When the air turns crisp and evening walks begin smelling like wood smoke and fallen leaves, gardeners reap the harvest of their season-long labors. Tomatoes travel from vine to kitchen. Onions are braided and hung. Potatoes and carrots are transformed into breads and soups. It is a part of gardening that is cherished and looked forward to throughout the sun-soaked days of summer spent weeding, watering and whining about rabbits and deer.

    In Simple Food for the Good Life, Helen Nearing captures the joy of cooking with one’s own, bountiful harvest. Her extremely simple recipes focus on the wholesome nourishment of the fruit or vegetable itself. She takes her “random acts of cooking and pithy quotations” and boils them down into a quick, easy celebration of the land’s offerings that many a JeffCo gardener will be able to relate to.


    Her recipes focus on one ingredient, and bring out the best of its flavor: gingered pears, raisined rice, baked mushrooms or potatoes Tyrolienne. The seasons are highlighted, as well: winter supper salad, springtime soup. Each dish takes only a few minutes to prepare, yet some are elegant enough for a dinner party—and all would impress the most discerning connoisseur when made with fresh-from-the-garden produce.

    Nearing’s love of literature and “a good read” comes shining through as well. Quotes from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries are mixed into the batter of each chapter, giving perspective and humor to each section.

    “I want to show how delightful the old cookery book is as a book to read, not merely to keep handy on the kitchen dresser,” Nearing quotes Elizabeth Robbins Pennel, 1903. Indeed, whether you are gleaning ideas for that evening’s supper or simply wish to be entertained by a few morsels of culinary wisdom, glancing at a few pages of Simple Food for the Good Life will do the trick every time.

   
   



   

   

Green Manuring By Grace Olson

    Once when I was in early high school my mother asked me to take my old Toyota pickup and drive to a local dairy farmer to buy some manure for her garden. I dutifully chugged over to the quiet farm, where the owner’s teenage son helped me load several tractor buckets full of fresh, steaming slop into my truck bed. I puttered on home and began shoveling it out onto her beautifully maintained plot, eyes watering with the stench and wondering how anyone could stand using the stuff. A half-hour later, my mother came home, took one breath of the chaos ensuing in her yard, and explained to me in some very heated language all about the term “composted.” In the end, her garden recovered and we now laugh about how that was some really “green manure.”


    Fortunately, the term’s actual meaning is far more beneficial to the Front Range home gardener. In effect, using a green manure means growing your own fertilizer and compost. You take a cover crop, usually a grass or legume seed broadcast over a soil surface, let it grow a while, and then till it under a month or so before planting your garden. The tilled-in plant material adds fertility and soil structure to your garden plot. For most of Jefferson County, mid-September is the perfect time to begin a fall-planted cover crop for spring till.

Hairy Vetch

    Choose a rye/hairy vetch or rye/Austrian winter pea mix so the crop will overwinter in Colorado. Mix with a rhizobium listed on the bag and broadcast over your garden. (Rates can be found in Table 3 of Garden Notes 244, click here). You may choose to cover the seed with bird netting or less than one inch of straw to ensure germination, and water often to keep the soil slightly moist until the crop is established.

    The seed will grow all winter while you feast on last season’s harvest, sip hot tea by the fire, and order new seeds for the spring’s planting. 

    One month before you plan to fill the area with your vegetables or flowers, till the cover crop under, thereby turning it into your very own green manure. You can get a motorized tiller or use a spade, depending on the size of your garden. Waiting one month allows the plant material to decompose properly before your seedlings enter and compete for soil oxygen. Its nitrogen is released into the soil and its slime, mucus and fungal mycelia glue soil particles together to improve the tilth.

    Whether you are wrapping up your harvest and can afford the space to cover your entire garden plot, or you wish to fill the area left by your broccoli or tomatoes, a green manure crop will benefit your garden. And, even if you ask your inexperienced teenager to help you, there is a lot less room for error than that other kind.

    For more information, read Colorado State University Extension’s Garden Notes 244. http://cmg.colostate.edu/gardennotes/244.pdf

Belmar Farmers' Market by Grace Olson

The Farmers’ Market season crept into Jefferson County like a late spring, and is now suddenly in full bloom.  From Evergreen to Lakewood, the weekends are alive with smells of exotic cooking stations, shouts of face-painted children skipping through the streets, and the enthusiasm of those seeking a local connection to their land, food and community. In between the booths selling seedlings, scarves, fresh produce and stuffed chili peppers, Colorado Master Gardeners (CMG) add their voices to the festival-like atmosphere.

Colorado Master Gardener Apprentice Susan Bloomquist holds a presentation on container gardening at the Belmar Farmers' Market

    I recently volunteered at the Belmar Farmers’ Market. It takes place along a fifth-avenue-style boulevard, touted as offering the “finest shopping in America” by the market’s website. The clientele: Chic urbanites dwelling in sky-rise apartment complexes that offer postage-stamp-sized balconies inhabited by a Topsy-Turvey or two.  Couples in their 20s and 30s stroll by hand-in-hand, seeking ideas for a gourmet supper party. Families stop by, their bags full of tomato plants or lettuce heads, and shake their heads when asked if they ever grow their own.

Enter: the Colorado Master Gardeners, spreading the gospel of good tilled earth and the benefits of dirt under your fingernails. Didn’t get a plot in the local community garden? You can put a pot of tomatoes on your patio. Love to cook with expensive spices? Fill your window box with basil, oregano and thyme. The day’s theme was “Container Gardening in Almost Anything,” and the good people of Lakewood seemed taken with the idea of flowers springing out of watering cans, decorative baskets and even an old pair of running shoes.

    Farmers’ markets are becoming more and more popular across America. They add a sense of community, build up local businesses and help increase awareness about the source of our food. Colorado Master Gardeners play a huge role in the movement, helping children, families, retirees and busy executives realize that fresh, local produce can come right out of their backyards. We answer the hows and the whys. We field questions on pests, soil, watering and compost. Above all, we help the average market-goer feel confident enough to go home and face their own gardens with enough enthusiasm and knowledge to reap the benefits.

    And even if you are used to shopping Saks, that kind of interactive experience sure beats a day in the mall!