Homeland security

Chag Purim sameach

A great message from American Jewish World Service:

Save locally grown greens!

Today the USDA and Big Ag are conspiring to implement a set of rules that favor giant industrial growers while placing small, diversified farms at risk. Known as the National Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, this set of rules was designed by industrial growers to protect their market share while harming their main competition, the growing local and organic food movement. The Leafy Green agreement, drafted by the largest vegetable growers’ lobbyists in an effort to whitewash their growing food safety problems, would implement draconian practices that saddle farmers with one-size-fits-all rules and would drive local and organic farmers out of business with expensive regulations.

Tell Secretary Vilsack that it's time to protect family farmers and stop letting Big Ag write the rules by adding your name to the petition:

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/leafygreens/?referring_akid=.92252.M13cg7&source=mailto

Better food is coming to a college campus near you

Check this out.

Garden anxiety

This time last year we were eating cukes, zukes, patty pans and possibly even beans out of our garden. This year, plants are still tiny, half my seeds didn't germinate, and I only just now noticed we have fruit on our tomato plants (nothing ripe yet, of course).

I find I've been experiencing actual anxiety over our garden this year. We had a long, cold wet spring (it rained on the 4th of July, something almost unheard of here), and so far summer seems to be progressing in fits and starts, weather-wise. Everything is late, and some things haven't come up at all, despite repeated sowings (I don't think we'll have any onions this year, which bums me out).

We planted a lot: potatoes of various varieties and colors, basil (not doing well yet, but I'm hopeful), carrots and greens in pots this year (they seem to do better than when I planted them in the ground, plus slug control is easier in pots), tomatoes, cukes, zukes, patty pans, delicata squashes, asparagus beans and bush beans. Oh yes, and strawberries, which we planted as a ground cover and hope will produce a bumper crop next year. So lots of food potential, but no actual food yet.

The poor growing season is definitely impacting our grocery budget, as I'm having to buy veggies and fruits that in other years we'd be eating out of the yard by now. But it's not the financial burden that occupies my thoughts. What's interesting to me is how my mindset has completely altered. I watch the weather reports now with the eye of a grower, and when I hear about hot weather coming I'm happy, even though I hate heat (dry Oregon heat notwithstanding). I track the sunlight and note where it falls in the yard each day. My hatred for the non-native hemlock on my neighbor's property grows, as it continually shades out parts of my yard that were formerly sunny. My thoughts are constantly wandering out to my garden, as I take breaks from my symphony work.

I'm just a nice Jewish girl who grew up in Los Angeles. I never gave any thought to weather or rainfall or soil temps. I mean, there is no weather to speak of in LA; it's always 72 and hazy. I was an urban kid in most senses, although I loved being outside and felt an affinity for forests and oceans from the time I could walk.

Now, although I continue to live in a city, I've become much more attuned to the vagaries of growing. My thoughts and mindset are that of a food producer, of someone whose fortunes are, albeit in a small personal way, tied to the land and the seasonal cycles. I like the change, and I love how growing food has given me a personal stake in, and attachment to, the patch of dirt in the city in the state on the planet I call home.

Michael's done it again

Michael Pollan's assessment of the current state of the food movement, through five book reviews, in the June 10 New York Review of Books. As always, he manages to gather all the strands of this complex and often conflicted socio-political movement and present them with eloquence. Really worth reading.

Did you know...?

Whodathunk it? It's a start. For a good explanation of what this means, check out Sam Fromartz' post here.

Harvesting angst

This is something most every vegetable gardener can relate to, I imagine. Right around now is the time when everything ripens at once. I find myself feeling vaguely oppressed by all the bounty in my garden, even while I revel in it. I recently joined a social network called Homegrown.org, and posted a comment that talked about feeling rich when I contemplate my abundant tomatoes (sorry, folks back east).

When it comes to food, I do feel rich. I feel lucky to have land to grow food on. We had friends over for dinner twice last weekend and I loved feeding them meals that were more than 60% homegrown. But I also feel kinda crazed when I look at everything ripening at once. I can only eat so much in a day, and my sweetie can eat even less, owing to her Crohn's disease, which limits her veggie consumption. I've been donating extra food to a local pantry, but what I really want is to stretch the calendar, extend the growing season, so that I can enjoy all this bounty for more than just 6 weeks a year.

Last week Portland Tuv Ha'Aretz hosted a canning and jam making workshop, so I learned the basics of food preservation, and that's one way to extend my harvest. But there's nothing like the taste of a freshly-picked tomato or cucumber. Of course, by the time I start hankering for fresh tomatoes in December and January, I'll be eating the beets and parsnips I planted earlier this month...

Portland Tuv Ha'Aretz Jewish Garden Bike Tour

Sorry to be such an absent blogger lately; there's no real reason for it, and I'll try to get back to posting soon.

Here's a post I wrote for The Jew and the Carrot. Enjoy!