Sweet Winter Fare Meal and Event

Honeybees photo courtesy of beneficialbugs.org

What sweeter way to begin the Winter Fare activities that with a honey brunch at Green Fields Market.

Sweet Honey and the Brunch!
Sunday, February 5 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Green Fields Market, Main St., Greenfield

Green Fields Market will feature local honey in a variety of dishes for this special brunch.   While you enjoy brunch, Shelburne’s Piti Theatre Company will be buzzing with information about their new production about bees (and the challenges they’re facing) To Bee or Not to Bee. Piti is launching a “10% For the Bees” Campaign in collaboration with Greening Greenfield and High Mowing Seeds, encouraging the replanting of 10% of business and home-owner lawns with bee- friendly habitat. The co-op will donate a percentage of brunch sales to the production which will premiere at the company’s SYRUP: One Sweet Performing Arts Festival, March 17th in Memorial Hall, Shelburne Falls. Support the production at www.indiegogo.com/bee or learn more at www.ptco.org/bee.

Then put this interesting movie on your Winter Fare calendar.

Film Showing: “King Corn”

Wednesday, February 8, 7 p.m., Sunderland Public Library, School St., Sunderland

King Corn is a documentary about two friends and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation: corn. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, Ian and Curt plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most productive, most subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat — and how we farm. (Duration: 90 minutes). Free. For information, contact Aaron Falbel at (413) 665-2642 or visit  www.sunderlandpubliclibrary.org.

Dan Conlon who I wrote about here told me that corn syrup is just as bad for bees as it is for humans. Beekeepers routinely feed sugar syrup to bees during the winter and very early spring if they see that honey supplies in the hive are low.  Cane sugar is pure sucrose, and the nectar that honeybees gather is principally sucrose so bees process it just as they do nectar.

Corn syrup, as we all know, is cheaper than sugar which is why it is used in so many of our processed foods and soft drinks. High fructose corn syrup is also cheap for those large bee companies to use, but the bees do not find it as delicious as sucrose. Aside from their taste preferences, corn syrup is a problem for bees because it crystallizes in the hive and becomes so hard that the bees cannot eat it.

Fortunately we have beekeepers in our area who give us great honey like Warm Colors Apiary,  and the Shelburne Honey Company located at Apex Orchards. Pretty sweet.

Winter Farmers Market and More – Coming Up

Winter Farmers Market January 7, 2012

The Second Winter Farmers Market will be held on Saturday, February 4 from 10 am – 1 pm at  the Second Congregational Church on Court Square in Greenfield. I attended last month and stocked up on beets, turnips, pears, apples, squash and Real Pickles sauerkraut. It is exciting that so much local food is available to us in midwinter. And even more exciting to know that plans are in place to give us even more local food all year long.

The February Farmers Market is the beginning of Winter Fare Week, a celebration of local food with many events planned. In addition to buying produce on February 4 shoppers will have an opportunity to attend a number of workshops.

Daniel Botkin of Laughing Dog Farm, a ‘seedy madman’ will inspire you as he shows off his favorite “open-pollinated” heirloom tomato (and other!) seeds that have inspired a decade of great gardening at Laughing Dog Farm. Dan will review the significance of “heirloom genetics” as well basic seed botany and seed saving/preserving protocols, including which ones need only to be gathered, cleaned and dried, (the “easy” ones…) and which seeds need more elaborate “isolation” and/or hand-pollination schemes. Seeds for sale and free!

Mark Lattanzi will show you how to can the delicious abundance of the summer and fall garden. Think about putting up your own local food this year.

Rachel Scherer will present Get Sauced. Did you know that condiments like “Sriracha” and “Tabasco” start with lacto-fermented chilis? That lacto-fermented fruit and vegetable chutneys are the culinary origins of ketchup and relish? This workshop will cover the basics of making lacto-fermented condiments at home, and the details of how to go from the general process to a custom recipe.

Annie Sullivan-Chin with Catherine Bryars will talk about the many benefits of composting and how to make it feasible in your home. Conversation topics include soil science fundamentals, how to get/build buckets and bins, troubleshooting a lazy compost pile, and a special show-and-tell about worm composting. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and experiences to share.

In addition to the workshops there will be a Local Food Barter Fair. How does it work? Anyone who has home-made food items items to barter will gather at 12:15 p.m. with their goods and take part in informal trading.  A great chance to meet your home-growing neighbors, practice the art of bartering, and bring home delicious food and goods without exchanging money.  Open to gardeners, gleaners, foragers, canners, dryers… even professional farmers!

I’ll be telling you about more great events coming  up the week of February 5-12.  Friends and Food. What a combo.

Gray Dog's Farm, Huntington

Gray Dog’s Farm is just one of the farms that is participating in the market. Other participants include Clarkdale Fruit Farm, Red Fire Farm that is moving to Montague, and

Proof That Heath Loves Farms

Heath - A Right to Farm Community Roadside Sign

For more Wordlessness click here.

Sunday Afternoon with Mozz, Feta, Chevre, Cajeta and more

Sheila of Dell Farmstead

Actually my neighbor Sheila of Dell Farmstead started her cheesemaking workshop at 9 am! Fortunately, she included a beautiful lunch in the day’s schedule. By the end of the day we had made: chevre, a goat cheese; 30 minute mozzarella; feta; cheddar; creme fraiche, soft goat cheese, and a Tomme unique to Dell Farmstead.

Curds and When

We learned that all cheese begins with separating the curds from the whey – with the help of additives like citric acid, and starter cultures including rennet that are different for each type of cheese. Animal rennet is extracted from the 4th stomach of a calf, but vegetarians can use a rennet made from plants like thistle flowers and stinging nettles. We also learned that whey, the liquid that is left after the milk solids are removed is considered a pollutant. That means it cannot go down the drain into a septic system or sewer system. Sheila feeds the whey to her hens or dumps it on her garden where it does no harm.

Heating the milk

The very first step is to warm the milk. How hot it needs to be and for how long depends on the type of cheese being made. A cheese thermometer is vital because it gives small increments. All utensils were stainless steel and very clean. No oil or soap residue can be left behind.

Ricotta?

When the whey has been totally drained, the curds can look like this. I’m not sure if this is the ricotta or the chevre. Both look very similar.

We didn’t make any cajeta which is a Mexican caramel made from goat milk, but Sheila had some ready for us to sample. She also made dark chocolate covered goat milk truffles which you can see us tasting, while one devoted member of the group was deputed to keep his eye on the thermometer.

Luncheon Table

The truffles did not ruin our appetites. We sat down to a wonderful lunch of paillards of chicken with a creme fraiche (that we made)  sauce over rice and a lovely green salad. Sustaining.

Feta Cheese - almost

Feta cheese is not really feta until it has been brined.  for three days.

30 minute mozzarella

I couldn’t believe it only takes 30 minutes to make mozzarella. It uses the magic of a microwave, and some taffy-pulling technique.  Most of the cheese we made used commercial milk, but only Guida and Our Family Farms milk because these two are only pasturized, not ULTRA pasturized which would have killed every single bacteria. You need bacteria, good bacteria, to make cheese.

Cheese Cave

We only made one cheese that will end up in Sheila’s ‘cave’ which made use of an old cistern in her basement. She lives in an old farmhouse.  Many of the cheese recipes we used are in Ricky Carroll’s book Home Cheese Making. Ricky is known as the Cheese Queen and everything you need to make cheese is available through her website. Sheila took Ricky’s workshop nearly 30 years ago – and has been making cheese ever since.

Hoegger’s Farmyard is another company that sells cheese making equipment online.

If you’d like information about a cheesemaking workshop contact Sheila at  sheila@thedell.com. Oh, by the way – we all got to take some cheese home with us.

PS – Don’t forget that tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 14 is the great Winterfare in Northampton. Fresh produce, workshops, soup cafe, and lots of fun all around.

Bridge of Flowers

The Bridge of Flowers officially closed on October 30, but it will be open for a few more days so people can take the scenic route from Shelburne to Buckland OR Buckland to Shelburne. Last week there was a final exciting event. Note the graceful ironwork on the Bridge sign. It was a collaborative community effort between Bill Austin and Grey Marchese of Austin Design in Colrain, artist/blacksmith Bob Compton of Rising Sun Forge in Conway, and Michael Therrien’s freshmen/sopomore carpentry class at Franklin County Technical School.

Tree of Friendship by Bob Compton

Last week Bob Compton installed this beautiful tree of friendship which will annually record the names of all the Friends of the Bridge who support the plantings and maintenance of the Bridge. As you can see this is a blooming tree and we look forward to the blooming of a strong neighborhood of Friends. Thank you, Bob!

Now that the flowers are gone from the Bridge of Flowers it is easy to see how important foliage is in any garden. Obviously conifers are an anchor in the fall and winter garden. The Bridge has two magnificent weeping hemlocks, one at either end.

Some shrubs have foliage that turns gold.

Others have scarlet foliage. I am not sure what this is, but it is not the invasive burning bush.

Some foliage stays green well into the season, but adds berries.

Some foliage, like this Pieris japonica is very dark.

The foliage of  this azalea is almost black in the fall.

Hakonelochloa 'Aureola'

The crisp dried grass adds a very different note,

As does the annual ornamental kale. There are many ways to have color in the garden after the flowers have gone.

Only Bob Compton’s flowers will bloom all winter.

Our Food, Economy and Community

Jim Barry

When I drove down the Greenfield Community College driveway last Saturday I passed ‘my tree,’ a weeping cherry that I donated when I left the College in 1989. I reveled in its good health, parked my car and walked towards the steps. A head popped out of the Sloan Theater door, calling to tell me I could take the elevator up. I called back, “No, no. Step to health. Step to health,” ever my motto as I was always up and down those stairs in my days with Continuing Education. A man right on my heels, asked me if I thought they were just being friendly or was the offer a reference to – and here he brushed his balding, white haired head and made me laugh. I had exactly the same thought, although I had a little more white hair.

My white haired companion turned out to be Jim Barry, Regional Coordinator, Green Communities Division, Western Region, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources who gave a great talk about what the state is doing in the areas of energy and the environment. His talk made me very happy that I live in Massachusetts. Although more remains to be done.

Shelly Beck

We trailed after a young woman in red to the front steps and met Shelly Beck. She represented Enterprise Farm and gave a presentation about the farm in the “How Can We Scale Up Our Food System?” workshop. These were just two of the ways that the Greening Greenfield Energy Committee found to inform and inspire an energetic group of area residents who were stepping up to action in a whole variety of ways.

I could not attend all the workshops at the Creating Greenfield’s Future: Our Food, Economy and Future conference, and was sorry to miss Youth as Change Makers where young people from the Seeds of Solidarity SOL (Seeds of Leadership) Garden in Orange shared their experiences, or Let’s Divorce the ‘Sick Care’ System that was about finding ways for us to take more responsibility for our health.  There were business workshops and the opportunity to spend more time with Ben Hewitt, author of “The Town that Food Saved,” who gave a thoughtful and engaging keynote speech.

It was the growing, processing and distribution of food that was of most interest to me on Saturday. Margaret Christie of CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture) led a discussion that made clear the challenges of our area, rich in land and skill as it is.

The first challenge is to find more ways to put potential new farmers in touch with people who have land available for farming. Start up costs for farming are considerable, especially land. It made me think that although Heath is not an ideal location in many ways, I would love to have some of our acreage under cultivation. I am definitely going to explore some of those linking resources beginning with local land trusts.

The second challenge is the need for more agricultural infrastructure. I know this from my own experience raising pigs and chickens for meat. Over the years we have been here the availability of slaughter houses has decreased – even as more people are interested in raising their own meat, and farmers are seeing a good local market.

Also if more food is produced here, we need more ways to process it to give farmers a year round income, not just during the growing season. That means freezing capabilities and cold storage.

I cannot begin to cover everything discussed, but the CISA report Scaling Up Local Food is available and downloadable on their website, www.buylocalfood.org.

In the afternoon, after a great lunch, I attended the Food Security: A Household Approach workshop. Eveline MacDougal talked about founding the Pleasant Street Community Garden and the benefits that go way beyond growing some vegetables, Jay Lord brought us up to date on Just Roots, the town’s new Community Garden space, Wendy Marsden gave advice about preserving our own harvests in a variety of ways, and Kimberly Walker-Goncalves gave an informative and amusing talk about raising chickens in town.

There are any number of people in town who might be happy to know that it is perfectly legal to have ten or fewer chickens in your backyard. Since I assume that anyone raising a backyard flock is more interested in eggs and the cheerfulness of the chickens, they don’t even have to worry about the lack of poultry slaughtering facilities.

Chickens are cheerful, domestic and productive. At least that is the way I have always thought of them. They are not much trouble, although as Goncalves pointed out, even in town you have to be aware of predators, not only neighborhood dogs but foxes and raccoons. I would add the caveat that you will not save any money, but the eggs will be unlike store eggs, and you’ll enjoy the chickens’ company.

Pigs are not quite as picturesque as a mixed flocked of silver laced wyandottes, barred rocks, and buff orpingtons, but it is legal to have two pigs in your backyard in Greenfield. And remember you must have at least two pigs in order for them to thrive. They are social animals and need a companion, and a little competition at the food trough.

Ben Hewitt

I left the conference to the rousing rhythms of Echo Uganda, but the words that were ringing in my ears were those of Ben Hewitt. “I want more than sustainable agriculture. I want restorative agriculture. Agriculture that restores our health, restores our soil and environment, restores our economy and restores our community.”

Thank you Greening Greenfield for an inspiring day.

Between the Rows   November 12, 2011

Jane and Eudora

Readers often have favorite authors and are not content with reading the author’s books. They want to know where and how the  author lived, what made them the writer, the person they were, what influenced them and what supported them. In recent years, after a tough beginning, I have come to enjoy Eudora Welty’s books. I confess it took listening to an audio book of her stories including “Why I Live at the P.O.” and heard those southern cadences spoken that I was finally able to read and appreciate her fond understanding and delineation of a world that had seemed so foreign to me.

During the past year I attended a concert performance of a one act opera written by Alice Parker of Hawley based on Welty’s book “The Ponder Heart,” read a biography of Elizabeth Lawrence, another southern gardener who was a friend of Welty’s and her mother Chestina, and most recently met Jane Roy Brown of Conway, who, with co-author Susan Haltom, has written “One Writer’s Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place.” That book, illustrated not only with gorgeous photographs of the restored garden, but family photos as well, has sent me back to re-read Welty’s wonderful stories filled with unforgettable characters.

Jane Roy Brown found her way to writing and to gardening slowly. It was during a period of unemployment years ago that she took a job working as a gardener in a private garden that she found she loved working with plants. “The work spoke to me. While working with rocks I thought of the Japanese gardens I had visited two years before,” she said. That job led to the beginning of nine years of classes at the Radcliffe Seminars (now the Landscape Institute at the Arnold Arboretum) earning a certificate in landscape design history.

At the same time she was working as a journalist in many different fields, but has specialized for some time in travel journalism, often collaborating with her photographer husband Bill Regan. In 2004 she was invited to the opening of the newly restored Welty garden where she met Susan Haltom, who had worked with Eudora Welty in her last years, and oversaw the renovation. Since Brown is a knowledgeable gardener as well as a writer, she and Haltom soon found a lot of common ground. “We just clicked,” Brown said.

Photo courtesy of Bill Regan

Brown said that Eudora Welty gave Haltom exclusive permission to write about the garden, but because she was not a professional writer she proposed that the two of them work together. “We wrote a proposal and that was a valuable task because it allowed us to get out our ideas. It was a safe place to make mistakes while we got to know each other. Mostly we worked long distance by phone at this stage,” Brown said.

“The University of Mississippi was interested in doing the book right away, and then our work really began,” Brown said. “Susan is a visual person and a big picture thinker. I’m more interested in detail and exploring the historical context.”

Haltom had access to Eudora Welty’s letters and her mother’s garden journals, and both Haltom and Brown had garden magazines of the period to help illustrate the aesthetics and practices of the time. Chestina was an avid and skilled gardener; the garden she created in Jackson, Mississippi is an example of what the typical residential garden in the south looked like in the first half of the twentieth century. Though the garden had been overgrown and the lines were lost, Haltom was able use almost archeological methods to find and reveal the beds and paths of the original garden. Though she traveled widely Welty made the house on Pinehurst Street her home all her life. She always thought of the garden as “Chestina’s garden” even after her death, and exhorted Haltom not to make the garden anything more than it was during her mother’s lifetime.

The story of Chestina’s garden is also the story of a remarkable progressive woman who lived at a time when work outside the home was discouraged, but who found ways to engage with other women and the community, to keep learning, and to support her daughter Eudora in her desire for a different kind of life.

Brown has shown that the story of a garden is also a story of a particular time and place, of social movements and important personal events, both joyful and sad.

Readers of Welty’s works will be familiar with the way gardens and flowers appear in her work and it is clear that the garden inspired Welty and refreshed her spirit and imagination. It is fitting that the restoration of the garden was completed before the restoration of the house which she bequeathed to the State of Mississippi and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

In addition to working on this book, Brown has projects closer to home serving as the Director of Educational Outreach at the Library of American Landscape History which has its office in Amherst. This non-profit organization produces beautiful books like “Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of  Memory and Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery” and a new reprint of “Design in the Little Garden” by Fletcher Steele who designed the gardens at Naumkeag in Stockbridge.

Talking with Brown I thought of the way the garden path leads to paths into history, art and culture. Brown has also strolled those wandering paths, personally and professionally, and to the benefit of us readers who will open “One Writer’s Garden.”

Between the Rows   November 5, 2011

Smith College Chrysanthemums

Sometimes a chrysanthemum is just a mum, but sometimes a chrysanthemum is Art. Artistically grown chrysanthemums will be on display during Smith College’s annual Fall Chrysanthemum Show which will run November 5-20 in the Lyman Plant House. A $2 donation is suggested. On display will be the stunning chrysanthemum cascades and other skillfully pruned and supported chrysanthemums, some in pillars, and some trained to a single stem with a giant bloom.

Like the spring Bulb Show the Chrysanthemum Show depends on the knowledge of greenhouse staff and students to bring the plants into bloom just in time for opening day by carefully controlling light and temperature. The Japanese style cascades, rarely seen in the U.S., require the patient pinching and arranging of plant shoots through a chicken wire frame to create this stunning effect. The Chrysanthemum Show is a glorious last hurrah to the end of the blooming season.

This year the show will actually begin on Friday, November 4 with A Garden Writer’s Journey, a talk by Paula Dietz, Smith alum, co-founder of the Friends of the Smith Botanic Garden, and author of “On Gardens: Selected Essays.” The talk will be held in the Campus Center Carroll Room at 7:30 p.m. and will be followed by a reception where Dietz will sign her book. The Lyman Plant House will also be illuminated for a preview of the show for attendees.

In “On Gardens” Paula Dietz writes of her experiences over decades in all manner of gardens around the world from the U.S. to the serene gardens of Japan, evoking the sense of the culture and personalities that create gardens, and the way they are used. She uses her knowledge of history, art and literature to bring those gardens and gardeners to life for the reader. I was particularly delighted by the section on parks and public spaces, seeing some of the landscapes that are familiar to me through her eyes and sensibility.

Dietz also reminded me of how important chrysanthemums are to Asians. A couple of years ago I attended a rare exhibit of Kiku, Japanese style arrangements of potted chrysanthemums at the New York Botanic Garden. I saw how the artistry of Japanese gardeners reflects ideals of perfect form and mindfulness.

I also thought of the way the Chinese consider chrysanthemums the iconic symbol of autumn and imagined holding a moon viewing party in September on the night of the full moon, when the chrysanthemums are in bloom. We could search for Chang’e, the beautiful lady in the moon with her companion the jade rabbit, and eat sweet mooncakes.

The organizers of the chrysanthemum show must also be thinking about the place mums have in Asian culture. On Saturday, November 12  at 2 p.m. students in the Culture of the Lyric in Traditional China: Plants and Poetry class will read selected poems in the Church Exhibition Gallery. Chrysanthemum tea will be served. I should say this delicate tea is made with the blossoms of a particular chrysanthemum, not any old hardy mum.

Dan Ladd gourd sculpture

The Church Gallery is also hosting a new exhibit Shaping Plants: Fruits, Shoots and Roots. The artist, Dan Ladd, is exhibiting examples of his collaborations with nature, gourds grown inside molds to become sculptures, and photographs of pruning and grafting trees and plants into unique and whimsical structures. His art has grown out of his fascination with the adaptability of plants. Ladd will be on hand Friday, November 18 at 6:30 p.m. for an informal talk in the gallery.

While working with different plants in a totally different way, Ladd has similar patience and skill in his handling of plants as the Lyman House staff takes in preparing for this show which is such a treat for the broader community beyond Smith College.

Smith College is known for the excellent education if offers its enrolled students, but it is also an educational resource for nearby communities. The perennial and rock gardens that surround the Lyman Plant House contain hundred of plants, all carefully labeled. These labels educate local gardeners about what blooms when, and how late into the season they will bloom, and the exact names of the plants so they can be brought into their own personal gardens.

I have always been impressed by the way the campus acts as an arboretum, with each tree tagged and labeled. When it is time for any of us to add a tree to our own domestic landscape we are often handicapped by our limited knowledge of trees in general, and the trees that will thrive in our climate in particular. A stroll around the Smith campus is all it takes to be inspired, and given the information to choose a beautiful and interesting tree for our own gardens. A guide to the trees is on sale.

This is not the place to describe all the gardens at Smith, but many readers may have ambled along the paths by Paradise Pond and found the Wildflower and Woodland Garden or the Japanese Garden for Reflection and Contemplation. The Capen Garden includes a rustic rose arbor and a gazebo. There is a garden for every mood and season, or search for learning.

The Lyman Plant House is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is wheelchair accessible. A special handicapped parking space is just outside the Plant House entry. Full information about the gardens and planning a visit is at www.smith.edu/garden.

Bridge of Flowers Season Ends

October 31, 2011

We don’t usually have snow at the end of the season, but it has been a remarkable and difficult year with extraordinary weather. I think the Bridge is ready for a rest.

See you on April 1, 2012.

Bridge of Flowers – End of Season

Buckland side entry to Bridge of Flowers

Chrysanthemums were planted in September. We want the Bridge to be full of bloom all season.

I am so happy to see roses still in bloom.

I am also happy to see a quiet river behind these dahlias.

The dahlias are important at this season.

But the weather has been so relatively mild that even the begonias are still blooming.

The gardens will be put to bed and the official garden season ends on Sunday, October 30.  Have a good winter. See you on April 1.