The Urban Farmer's Almanac

Robbie and I were out picking raspberries today and he said, “These plants are dead, dad,” referring to the potato buckets we planted earlier this year. He was right. What was lush green leaves a month or two ago had faded to a couple yellowed branches. The dirt looked pretty dry, too. Things on the side of the house don’t get watered much.

I decided to see how the potatoes did this year. The design of the planter makes it really easy to harvest – since they’re sections of a garbage can, you just pull the container up and sift through the dirt pile for treasures. It’s pretty amazing that I was able to plant some mushy, terrifying looking potatoes from the drawer and get these as a result. The harvest was relatively modest but it will be fun to fry up some potatoes for dinner tonight.

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There have been a couple ingredients that have been languishing around here, causing me all kinds of guilt. One was a bowl of porcini mushrooms (King Boletes) that we foraged out near Leavenworth when we went camping a week or two ago. I owe you a post about those, by the way. The other was bok choi that’s been ready for at least a month in the garden, and was starting to flower.

Finally today, we woke up to a bit of rain after a string of 8o° days, and inspiration hit. I decided to make some mushroom and bok choi miso soup with rice noodles for lunch. It hit the spot, used some food up, and the kids even ate it.

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Awhile back on this blog we wrote about the revolution that was the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day .  It was a great change of technique that really improved our bread making.  However I still ended up buying or making a lot of our sandwich bread because I prefer whole wheat bread – it just makes me feel like a better mom.  Enter Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  A new (ish- I am little late to the table with this one) book by the same authors that includes 100% whole wheat, sandwich bread and many enriched breads.  I’ve checked it out from the library twice and am now thinking I will just buy the darn book so I can always have it around.  It makes a really nice sandwich bread and I am anxious to try some of the other recipes in the book.

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Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion–put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

practice resurrection

- Wendell Berry

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Our strawberry patch is doing MUCH better this year, having been hooked up to the main watering system.  Even with this improvement though there is no way we can grow enough strawberries for the jam we need for the coming year.  Luckily we are close enough to local u-pick fields to make acquiring strawberries not too difficult.  This year Hannah and I went to Harvold farms in Carnation, WA.  This is a no-frills farm that charges $1 a pound.  I was hoping to get 20 pounds, but my co-picker’s steam ran out pretty quickly so I settled for 13.

With this I managed to make 6 batches (30 cups) of Dan’s favorite freezer strawberry jam.  We actually had enough berries for a couple more batches, but we don’t want to run out of freezer space this early in the season.  Besides if we can’t make 30 cups last a year we may need to take our jam consumption down a notch. We’ve already enjoyed crepes with jam for breakfast today and now have plenty to last us a year, plus a gallon of frozen berries and a 4th of July strawberry shortcake to boot.

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