Eliot Coleman

I came across an interesting article about Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch yesterday in the New York Times. It's nice to see that these pioneers are still working hard and doing what they do best - winter gardening! What I found particularly interesting is the fact that they were able to gross $120,000 in sales from veggies grown on 1 1/2 acres (though all but $25,000 went back into operating costs). Still, it offers some hope for those who want make a living from micro-farming here in New England (a rather difficult proposition indeed).

"The Land that Keeps Giving" - New York Times, February 22, 2012

Be sure to check out the beautiful slideshow!

Things to Ponder - Out in the Field and In the Kitchen

A while back, I came across this video for Pete's Greens, a local four season farm located in Northern Vermont. Hopefully we'll be able to make it up there one of these days to witness their amazing operation firsthand. Whenever I see a farm operation such as this, I can't help but to think of what an impact Eliot Coleman's ideas have had on our next generation of New England farmers. It's hard to regard food as a "commodity" when you are growing it in a way that is more sustainable and locally inspired.

I'll admit that I probably have an overly romanticized view of what it would be like to farm for a living. (I'm a dreamer, what can I say?) Still, I can't help but to fantasize about one day stepping off of the corporate rat race and starting a little homegrown business of my own, whatever that might be.


On a completely different subject, I purchased a copy of Tartine Bread a while ago but have yet to venture into the kitchen with it. To create bread made entirely from a natural yeast starter sounds amazing, especially if you're interested (like I am) in stripping down this wondrous craft to its simplest, less predictable and wildest form. I'm sure it will be a while before I can get one of my bread to look as good as the ones shown in this video - that is if I can find the time to go down this path. I hate to admit it but I've become a No Knead bread junkie (it's just so darn simple and convenient to prepare and I've come up with a version that we really enjoy).

Has anyone tried the techniques described in this book?

Favorites

I thought I'd mix it up a bit and write a post about something other than gardening (almost). I don't have time these days to do much quality reading, but I thought I'd share with everyone a couple of my favorites things.

My favorite culinary magazine is SAVEUR. This monthly publication focuses on food traditions and culture from around the world, and is in my opinion the best out there. I have been a subscriber for years and can honestly say that I've learned more about food and cooking from this magazine than from all of the cookbooks I've bought through the years. To me, food history and culture is just as interesting as the recipes themselves, which is why I give SAVEUR two big thumbs up.


For those of you history buffs out there, I highly recommend EARLY AMERICAN LIFE. This is a relatively new discovery for me but has quickly become something that I read from cover to cover. I have a Bachelor's degree in history (focused specifically on early American history) so this magazine definitely feeds my passion. Reading it on the train everyday offers me an escape from the grind of modern day life. (I suspect that many of us, including myself, grow our own vegetables for the same reason.) This month's issue has interesting articles about colonial ice cream, heritage breeds of livestock, historical adobe homes and early forms of lighting. Again, another two thumbs up.

Finally, I found a couple videos a while back featuring everyone's favorite winter gardening guru, Eliot Coleman. Pretty soon, it will come time to plan this year's winter garden. Enjoy!

Four season gardening from Cultivating Life on Vimeo.

I love getting reading and video suggestions from others who share the same interests and values that I do. So if you think that I should read or see something, please do share!

Making Soil Blocks

Ahhh...the first soil blocks of the season (and of my gardening career). All in all, I think they turned out well and were relatively easy to make. There's always room for improvement I'm sure. The consistency of these blocks were a bit unlike what I was expecting, but then again, it's hard to tell if I got it right since I've never made them before. I had to improvise a bit with the ingredients since a couple of them were impossible to source this time of year. I guess I won't know for sure until I'm able to follow Eliot Coleman's recipe exactly.


Making soil blocks isn't as messy as it might look. I'm realizing that the trick to making nice looking soil blocks (apart from the recipe) is in the amount of pressure you exert when pushing down on the soil block maker. As you squeeze, water oozes from the blocks. I guess the sponginess of this soil block mix is partly what differentiates it from ordinary potting mix.

Sowing artichoke seeds.

Last night, I sowed some Imperial Star artichokes, Tuscan kale, celery, yellow wild strawberry, red wild strawberry and some Red of Florence scallions. The strawberry seeds were kept in the freezer for the past couple of weeks in order to mimic winter conditions and hopefully increase overall germination rates. Wild strawberry seeds are notoriously difficult to get started.

The Imperial star artichokes I'm growing this year were specifically bred to be grown as annuals. The seeds are really interesting looking - somewhat resembling a hulled misshapen sunflower seed. They will be left to grow indoors for the next 6 to 7 weeks, and then moved to one of my mini-hoop houses for an additional 6-8 weeks before being transplanted out. Exposing young artichoke plants to low temperatures of between 50 to 32 degrees for a period of at least 6 weeks is supposed to increase the chances of them producing edible buds the first year.


Since I only had one heating mat, the scallions and strawberries were left to germinate at normal basement temperatures (anywhere between 60 and 70 degrees). I figured that since these plants are accustomed to being winter sown, additional heat is not crucial. Hopefully, I'm right!

Random Happenings Around These Parts

Yet another non-harvest Monday in January. I was planning on picking some spinach this past weekend but unfortunately the weather was too bitterly cold for me to do so. Oh well. I guess that just means I'll have another harvest to post about in February. I can't wait to be able to go out into the garden and do weekly garden updates again. Anyway, here are some things that have been occupying my time lately:


I'm really loving the latest issue of Urban Farm magazine. There's a lot of information regarding square foot gardening, keeping chickens and composting. If I do decide one day to return to living in the city, this is definitely one magazine I'd want to have on hand. Also, I picked up this Starting From Seed guide from the publishers of Fine Gardening magazine, which is filled with information on saving seed, growing from seeds, and starting seeds indoors. Also, there is whole section devoted to flowers.


I received some heirloom tomato seeds from Wintersown.org a couple of days ago through their "Your Choice Tomato SASE" offering. I'm very excited to try all of these varieties, which include Hillbilly, Black Cherry, Dr. Carolyn's Yellow Cherry, Isis Candy, Black from Tula, Clear Pink Early and Aunt Ruby's German Green. They also threw in some flat leaf Italian parsley and pole beans for fun. I guess I'll be growing a lot of tomatoes this year.


I picked up some garden trellis, a seed sower and a soil PH tester a couple of weeks ago. One of my goals this year is to get a better sense of my soil's overall health and fertility.


I mixed up a big batch of soil block mix last night using Eliot Coleman's recipe, which can be found in The New Organic Grower. Tonight, I will start my first seeds of the year. Hopefully, the soil blocks will hold together nicely.


Finally, a couple of months ago, one of my readers suggested that I enter Brighter Planet's Mastering the Art of Sustainable Cooking Contest, which was to be judged by several notable food advocates, including Alice Waters. I ended up submitting two short essays. And well, I'm proud to say that both of my essays made it onto the list of top 25 entries received and one of them won a grand prize of a Kindle DX and a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com. (YES!) If you'd like, you can read my entries on Brighter Planet's latest publication.


I thought it was only fitting that my first digital book acquisition be Michael Pollan's Food Rules - An Eater's Manual. I must admit that a Kindle is not something I was ever interested in buying since I absolutely love the smell and tactile feel of a book. However, all of that changed once I turned it on. What I love so much about the Kindle is that it does not feel like you're reading from a computer monitor at all and the screen amazingly resembles the page of a book. Me likey.

Extending the Season with Quick Hoops

In addition to my mini hoop houses, I also installed some quick hoops during my fall garden cleanup this past week. Now you may be wondering, why would I have both? While hoop houses and quick hoops both extend the growing season, each has it's own advantages and disadvantages. Hoop houses are obviously more expensive to build (or buy) and time consuming to put together, whereas quick hoops are very cheap to purchase and easy to install. However, hoop houses make gardening and harvesting crops a breeze and are more durable under wintry conditions than quick hoops.

Ultimately, the reason why I have both mini hoop houses and quick hoops is because each in my opinion serves a unique purpose in the four season garden. While I will attempt to grow year-round (or as close to year-round as I possibly can) inside my hoop houses, quick hoops are primarily used to give my fall crops the added warmth and protection they need to mature in the event the weather gets unexpectedly cold quickly, which is what happened this past week. After harvesting, the quick hoops will be put away until it's time to get an early start on spring sowings. Quick hoops can also be used to overwinter crops like carrots, in which case, you sow the seeds in November and harvest a super early crop in the spring. Here is a great article about this technique, which was pioneered by farmer/guru Eliot Coleman.

So here is how I set up my quick hoops: I had two raised beds measuring 3 ft by 6 ft each that I needed to cover. I went to Home Depot and purchased 4 quarter-inch PVC conduits measuring 10 ft long. At home, I used a hacksaw to cut each in half, down to 5 ft lengths. I placed 4 hoops over each bed, driving them at least six inches into ground. I was surprised by how sturdy they were, the tension strong enough to keep them perfectly straight. Then I laid 6 mil polyethylene over the hoops and secured it with clothes pins. Finally, I placed a large stone at each corner to keep the poly from blowing away under windy conditions (sand bags can also be used).


It rained (and snowed) all day Sunday and the quick hoops performed beautifully. Do you utilize quick hoops in YOUR garden?

Seed Mats - Radishes

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to create my own seed mats after seeing a tutorial given by Gran at Annie's Kitchen Garden. I have to admit, the concept was completely new to me and I was very excited to give it a try. If you've ever seen photos of Eliot Coleman's Four Season Farm, you'd be amazed at the level of accuracy and neatness that can be accomplished by a 6-row seeder (which can by purchased at Johnny's at a hefty price). I wanted to be able to duplicate this on a much smaller scale in my home garden.

I had listed the many potential benefits of using seed mats that I could come up with in an earlier post. For instance, I could see how they would be useful for small seeds and crops that do not require a large amount of space in which to grow. From my own experience, I've found certain seeds to be particularly tedious to handle and sow into neat rows (wild arugula seed, for example, is the size of a grain of sugar). And having to thin carrot seedlings is a chore that my back would gladly live without. Finally, as I'm just about to harvest some of my Hakurei turnips, I've noticed that growth has been pretty irregular due to the fact that the spacing between each plant is not consistent, a problem I'm hoping to solve with these mats.


I decided to grow a quick crop of radishes (30 days to maturity) using this method. To construct the seed mat, I used fast food chain style napkins that measured 12" x 12" when unfolded. On each napkin, I was able to fit 24 radish seeds spaced 2 inches apart. Since my raised beds measured 6 feet in length, I was able to align comfortably about 5 and a half mats down one strip.

I amended the soil in my bed and leveled it using a garden rake before positioning the mats seed side up. I then covered the mats with about a half inch of compost and watered well. It was as easy as that.


One week later, about 90% of my radishes germinated and sprouted within a 24 hour period. They look impeccably spaced and their growth appears very consistent. I'm extremely happy with the results. This past weekend, I sowed some mache, minutina and Tango lettuce using the same method. Hopefully they will do just as well.

Making Compost

Yesterday, I started my compost pile. I figured I should find a good use for all of the grass clippings we've accumulated in the past month. It's amazing how quickly grass grows, not to mention the amount of effort that goes into maintaining a decent-looking half-acre lawn. It almost doesn't seem worth the trouble (but that's just the gardener inside me talking). Next year, I'm hoping to get most of my "green" material directly from the vegetable garden, however for this year, grass clippings will have to do.

I decided to utilize some leftover 2" by 4" wire mesh (which I used for my fencing) to construct my compost cage. The ring is held together by plastic electrical ties (easy to attach and easy to snip off). It took about 5 minutes to assemble. As far as locations go, I decided to place my compost pile behind the shed under the evergreen trees. This location is out of sight from the house (though I find nothing "ugly" about a compost pile). I figured the evergreens would act a kind of protection from heavy winter snow storms and drifts.

I'm building up my compost pile in layers of brown, green and black. I started off by putting a layer of straw into the cage. I purchased the straw this past weekend for use as a mulch in the garden and as a "brown" in the compost pile. A 50 pound bale was only $9 and more than enough to suit my needs. Adding straw ensures proper drainage and airflow. Then came a layer of grass clippings or "green". Next, I added a layer of grass roots, which I removed from the plot when digging my raised beds. The "black" component comes from the soil that's caked onto these roots and supplies the microbial life that will break down all of this material. Finally, although I forgot to do so yesterday, I will also add a fine layer of greensand and rock phosphate to top things off. So why go through the trouble of building these layers? Eliot Coleman likens this process to that of a smoldering fire. The browns provide the fuel, the greens provide the fire, and the microbial life powers the engine. Evenly distributing these elements ensures that this engine runs smoothly, or at least that's what we hope for.

After I had accumulated several layers of material, I watered the pile well. I will also cover it with a piece of tarp or old carpet to keep it moist. All that's left to do now is to slowly build up this pile and wait for mother nature to do her thing.

More Thoughts on Winter Gardening

From left: Flowering Brassica, Hakurei Turnips, Salad Greens

What to grow and harvest during the long winter months - I came across a great article in the New York Times the other morning on this very subject. I have a stockpile of hardy Asian Greens in my seed box waiting to be planted out this fall. Hopefully they will fair better than the ones currently growing in my garden, which tend to resemble Swiss cheese these days. (One added benefit of winter - fewer pests!) I've already sown my winter carrots and the special package I ordered from Johnny's Selected Seeds just arrived in the mail today (more on that later).

Winter carrots

I'd mentioned in a previous post that I have a fascination with growing and harvesting food during the winter months. If someone were to ask me why, I don't know if I'd be able to give a definitive answer, especially since in my opinion there are many compelling reasons for doing so. For starters, I appreciate the fact that this practice has had a long and rich history particularly in Europe, and the stubborn Luddite inside of me wishes to preserve this dying tradition. Also, I think this idea lends greater credence and meaning to a piece of advice being widely dispensed these days by foodies, gardeners and even physicians -"eat according to the seasons" - a concept that is generally more acceptable in parts of the world where winters are mild or where access to the global food trade is still limited. In my case, this particular piece of advice also begs the question - are seasonal eaters living in cooler climates (New England, for example) limited for 6 months out of the year to what's stored in a root cellar, processed in a jar, or bagged in a freezer? Or is it possible to add some variety during these lean months by starting a winter garden, while at same time lessening our dependence on produce shipped from California and South America?

Having never grown a successful winter garden myself, I'm approaching this endeavor admittedly with a bit of trepidation. I can't help but wonder- if winter gardening is possible in this part of the world, then why aren't more people doing it? This I can't be sure of. But what I am certain of is that it indeed is worth an earnest effort.

Back to my package - earlier this week, I placed an order with Johnny's for the seeds I intend on growing in the coming months, crops that are particularly known for their hardiness. Those who have read Eliot Coleman's books will find some items on this list rather familiar:

Spinach - Smooth Leaf Space (F1)
Wild Arugula - Sylvetta
Green Oakleaf Lettuce - Tango
Minutina (Erba Stella)
Mache (Corn Salad) - Vit

As you've probably noticed, this list is limited mainly to the traditional salad crops. In addition to what's here, we hope to be eating some Napoli carrots, Hakurei turnips and assorted varieties of Asian greens. A year from now, and if all goes according to plan, I hope to add on to this list some kale, leeks, chard and other salad greens such as claytonia and bulls blood beet.

Finally, I'd like to give a BIG thanks to Kelly from How My Garden Grows for filling me in on a special offer that was advertised in Johnny's newsletter this month. I also happily received today free packs of Johnny's all lettuce mix (1200 seeds) and Easter egg radishes! YES! I love free stuff! THANKS KELLY!

Winter Gardening

The other morning, I awoke at 5 AM startled by how dark it was. To think that this time 4 weeks ago, I was already dressed and laced up to do some early yard work. Despite the weather being insufferably hot and humid these past few weeks, you can still feel the days of summer drawing steadily to a close. To many around our parts, this may sound a bit depressing. I have to admit that I'm not one of them. You see, I've never been a huge fan of summer (shocking for a gardener to admit, I know). I guess I'm just a creature of cooler weather or maybe too many childhood summers sent baking in "the urban jungle" have left a lasting impression on me. Who knows? What I do know is that growing food doesn't have to end with the summer season.

I am a huge fan of farmer and guru Eliot Coleman, best known for his writings on winter harvesting. His Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine specializes in growing food all year long using only low-tech, non-heating (and in some cases, minimal-heating) elements. Coleman's technique relies upon, among other things, choosing the right varieties of winter crops, succession planting on specific fall dates, and a couple of added layers of protection during the harsh winter months. Such will be my inspiration for the coming season. I figure that if Coleman can accomplish all of what he does on a commercial scale in zone 5, I can at least have some success with my winter garden in zone 6. There's still so much to do before our first frost, and such precious little time...like the nature of most things.