Flying Tomato Farms

I am exhausted.  Please forgive any typos.

Shoveled about 600lbs. of horse manure this morning–that was just the loading part.  The picnic bench ramp worked pretty well, though the wind almost tipped me and the full wheelbarrow off a couple times.  I sunburned my nose, as my hat kept blowing off, so finally I just put it in the truck (my hat, not my nose).

Kathy’s horses are well-trained.  I had apples and carrots in my pockets, but they both just took a sniff and then trotted off to the lower pasture–no candy from strangers.

Altogether, it was a good day, despite all the heavy work.  I top-dressed a number of beds with the fluffy, aged horse manure.  The potatoes that were already in the ground got a dose (though I am concerned that the Peruvian Purple potatoes still haven’t come up), as did the elephant garlic and onions.

The peas got a little side-dressing, and so did the leeks.  I dusted a thin layer over the beets that are just poking up.  No manure for any of the greens–they will be ready for harvest fairly soon, and though this manure is well-aged, I like to be cautious.  I’ll manure those beds after the greens come out.

I finally got the last of my seed potatoes yesterday.  It’s late to be planting them, but these Australian Crescent fingerlings are really nice-looking.  They’re the biggest fingerlings I’ve seen, and I’m guessing I’ll still get a good harvest even planting them fairly late.

I worked up a new bed for some of them and planted the ones that didn’t need cutting in a nice manure-y mix.  Seed potatoes that are cut in sections should have at least a day to seal up before planting to lessen the risk of rot.

Tomorrow I’ll use the rest of the manure that’s left in the truck bed to ready another bed in the middle garden for the determinate (bush) tomatoes.  Though the big, indeterminate heirloom plants are my main crop, I like to get a few early-bearing bush plants in for a bigger early harvest.  You can never have too many tomatoes!

I hardly made a dent in that big pile of manure down in the paddock.  Like a kid in a candy store, my eyes are bigger than my stomach–for shoveling, wheeling, and loading.  I was thinking I’d get a load a day, but maybe every other day would be a healthier, and less exhausting, strategy.

…and I mean that quite literally.

I was out in the gardens this morning, and I saw our country neighbor, Kathy, go by.  She has horses.  Therefore, she has sh*t.  I waved at first, and then remembering her sh*t, I ran into the road, waving my arms madly, hoping she’d stop.

No dice.

So, I put the dog in the house (crazy chase lovin’ dog + Kathy’s horses= no more dog), and trucked on down the road.  Of course, she knew what I was there for.  She pointed to a big, two-year old pile in the paddock.  All I need to do is bring my shovel and wheelbarrow.

Oh, and I need to bring a ramp this time.  There’s nothing a gardener loves more than free sh*t–and sometimes in the mad dash for its acquisition, they (OK, I) will do some kinda dumb things.  Like (last year) decide, “ramp be damned–I’m gonna go get that sh*t right now!”

And fill the wheelbarrow full of it, and lift the entire wheelbarrow, full of sh*t into the back of the truck.  Several times.  And then whimper with pain for the rest of the week, as my body reproaches me.

So, I have something that will function as a ramp identified in the barn (it’s the top of an old picnic table bench), and tomorrow I will bring out my lightweight wheelbarrow and happily shovel all that fluffy fertility into the back of my little S-10.

I see all these big shiny pickups on the road (and often, several of them in my town neighbors’ driveway), and I wonder how they load those things.  But then, most of them have not a scratch in their beds, so maybe that’s not the point.

I am incredibly fond of my little Chevy because I can load an entire bed-full of manure, or whatever else I need to haul (today–12 big strawbales from the pole-shed down to the gardens) and also unload it, and not wreck myself in the process.

I can reach the middle of the bed from either side.  I can easily climb into the bed if I need to.  I can fit my big produce coolers and everything I need for deliveries or the farmers market neatly inside, and the dog can ride up front (looking so regal!) with me.  It is probably the perfect little work truck for my purposes.

And yes, it has a name.

Its name is Garland.

Here’s an economic stimulus package for ya!

I need to hire someone with the skills to finish my bathroom this summer. I don’t have the time or skills to do it myself, and I’m tired of living with a crummy half-finished bathroom.

Here’s what it entails:

Replacing my tub backsplash and faucet fixtures. That might include some work on the walls behind it–dealing with the mildewed caulk issue along the seam between the tub and backsplash. Sanding off a little of the old wall-tile grout along the side and top edges.

Fixing and finishing the ceramic tile floor. My ex installed it himself a few years ago, and there are gaps along some of the walls, etc. I have the tile and most of the supplies. Have a (hand, not machine) tile cutter. Grouting needs to be scrubbed and topped off. Floor needs sealing.

Re-installation of the molding. I have much of it–some might need to be procured. I can paint, or we can negotiate that part.

Payment can be in cash or home-grown organic vegetables or a combination of both. I just want it done, and done right. I won’t even be here much to be in the way.

If you, or someone you know, has the skills to do all of this in the Vermillion area, please contact me and I’ll give you/them the tour. I’d prefer to hire a person/persons, not a big company.

PS–I also need to scrape/pressure wash and paint the outside of my house this summer (wood siding). I have the paint. I would prefer to do that at least partly as a barter arrangement for veggies.

PPS–Two more things I thought of for local contract work: 1) I have about six squares of sidewalk that need replacing.  2) The silver maple out front needs some small branches taken off–a little too big and a little too high for me to handle.

I was doing a bit of blog-hopping this morning, and I came across a recipe for dal that looked fantastic.  But, in the notes, the author recommended serving it with rice, and she also recommended that everyone who likes rice should buy a rice cooker.

My house is about 940 square feet.  My kitchen is one of the smaller rooms of the house–if I could switch the living room, at about three times the size, with the kitchen, I would.

I have very few appliances, and I’m very selective about them because there’s just not room for their storage–nevermind the luxury of storing them right on the counter-top.  The only appliance allowed that status in my house is the coffeemaker, and even that gets put away if I need to take another appliance out.

I like rice though, and so tried for years to make it well on the stovetop without the resulting product being either scorched or soupy.  And I thought about buying a rice cooker.  But one of the most valuable things my ex-husband taught me was how to make perfect stovetop rice of any kind, in any amount, in any-sized pot.

Here’s how:

Use a saucepot with a tight-fitting lid.  Measure out how much rice you’ll want–I just throw in a few handsful–more if I think I’ll want leftovers.

Sometimes I rinse the rice, sometimes I don’t.  Either way, make sure the rice is in an even layer at the bottom of the pot.  Take your pointer finger and touch the tip to the top of the layer of rice.  Hold it there, without moving it up or down, while pouring in enough cooking water to go up to your first finger joint.

Now, add any spices, seasonings, etc. you might want to use, clap the lid on, and put it on the stove.  Turn the heat up to medium high until the water starts to boil.  Then, turn the heat down to low (about 2-2 1/2 on my electric stove).  Let rice simmer without ever removing the cover for 15 minutes, then turn the heat off.

Leave the cover on for an additional 10-15 minutes or so to let the rice soak up the additional water.

I cannot claim that you will make perfect rice the first time with this technique–you have to learn the whims of your cooking-vessel and your stove.  But this works very well for me, and I rarely have any crust to soak out of the bottom of my pot. This also works nicely for camping because it doesn’t require measuring utensils.

You’d think that different people with different-sized hands would throw this off, but even though Harry’s hands are literally twice the size of mine, there is little difference between us in the length between the tip of our pointer fingers and that first joint.

This works for brown rice or white–jasmine, basmati, long-grain, short-grain, you name it.  With brown rice, you just let it simmer a couple minutes longer, and let it sit a couple minutes longer after turning off the heat.

You might even try working a taller pot and steamer basket for vegetables into this technique–I’ll bet it’d work nicely.

Just read an article on Slate about the extravagant cost of most recipes you’ll find online and in newer cookbooks.  The article references one of my all-time favorite tomes from one of my all-time favorite authors: M.F.K. Fisher’s The Art of Eating.

I first encountered this volume, which is a collection of five books between two covers, over Christmas at the home of one of Harry’s daughters.  She and her sister, visiting from St. Paul, were preparing a luxurious feast of roast goose, dumplings, baked apples and Asian pears stuffed with what we ended up calling “boozy fruit”–snippets of dried fruit soaked overnight in a blend of a few different liquors.

The well-loved and annotated book lay open on the long dark dining table, and I fell into its pages and could barely extract myself until dinner was served several hours later.  (This might also have been partly to disguise my nervousness, back then, about spending the day with Harry’s family.  I have since gotten over it.)

I waited, wanting the book for several months and reminding my local used bookstore proprietor to keep an eye out, before I finally bought a new twentieth anniversary softcover edition in a Sioux Falls bookstore.

Another month after that, my friend at Main Street books got in an older hardcover edition, and I kept that and sent the newer one off to a friend in Seattle, who shares my love of things gustatory and literary.

Fisher often references that Brillat-Savarin masterwork, Physiology of Taste, and some day I may explore its pages–but for now, this collection does so much for me–gives me both comfort and flight of culinary fancy–that I am satisfied whenever I open its pages.

I should explain that The Art of Eating, composed of Fisher’s works How to Cook a Wolf, Consider the Oyster, Serve it Forth, The Gastronomical Me, and An Alphabet for Gourmets, is not so much a cookbook as a book of inspiration as much for people who like to eat (as opposed to people who simply have to eat), as for cooks.

You can certainly find recipes within its pages–some simple and some complex, a few pedestrian and some unlikely unless you happen to procure a fresh, whole head of calf with the brains and ears intact.  What I like most about it is Fisher’s belief that even these unlikely situations should be accounted for, and celebrated.

There is no snobbery here–no edicts that eating alone (who hasn’t?) is pitiful or eating cheaply is eating badly, or eating out of a can brands you as a heretic.  On the cooking of fish, she divides into “Haute Cuisine and Campfire” the unsalted butter or bacon fat cooking medium discussion, and states, “There is no arguing with either, as long as the dish is fresh and the fat is honest.”

This book is a gift–the recipes as useful and inspiring as the writing is clear-headed, honest, friendly, comforting.  The stories are without ego–and it is as much–more–about the experiencing of eating, of savoring, of remembering, as it is about the cooking.

It’s a sunny, albeit chilly Saturday morning, and I finally worked my way through all the final paper critiques in my composition classes as of yesterday’s snowy afternoon, while making a thick stew of roasted sweet potato, Lundberg Old World pilaf, and local bacon.

The rich sweetness of the orange-fleshed tuber made me remember I had one (purchased from an Iowa farmer at the Firehouse Market in Sioux City) growing little branches in the basement, and I should probably figure out how to root all those little sprouts, so I can grow some of my own for next winter’s pantry.

I was about to get online to figure out how to do so, when I cast my eyes to the left of my laptop and saw my newest garden book acquisition: Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed, which told me everything I need to know.

I’m going to clip off about six inches off the top of each sprout and root them individually in moist potting mix next to my light shelf in the basement.  Considering this is a Northern Iowa-grown sweetie, it should be a good variety for my Southeastern South Dakota climate as well.

The book recommends burning the original tuber and the potting soil as well after the seedling rooting process is over, as sweet potatoes can carry a lot of diseases.  I don’t know as I’ll go that far–I’ll likely just dump it down my back hill in the woods, where it shouldn’t cause problems.

I grew sweet potatoes several years ago from slips (that is, rooted sprouts) I ordered from a seed company–but sweet potato slips are incredibly expensive, so I’m glad to have even this few (I think there’s about seven or eight) for free.

Sweet potatoes are really marginal in this climate, but you can get a reasonable crop if you get them in after danger of frost and leave them in until right before the fall frosts.  If they come early this year, I may even cover the plants to give them an extra week or two.

Last time I planted them, I tried digging one or two in late August and they were tiny, spindly things.  Then, after the fall rains of September, and into the first week or two of October, I dug the rest, and they’d gotten really fat and happy.

The vines are rampant sprawlers (they are a morning glory relative) unless you can find a compact variety, and they crave hot soil.  Some people grow big crops under black plastic, but I have sworn off the stuff as wasteful and non-renewable (not to mention a pain to lay in our windy climate).  I’ll grow them in a hot area of the garden and take a smaller harvest if I have to.

It snowed pretty much all day yesterday (see previous post).  Now, it’s pretty much gone.

Ahh, the southern paradise of the Dakotas.

At 9am, it was raining.  Now this.

Anyone else starting to think Mother Nature’s sense of humor might be a little twisted?

I shamelessly stole this title from one of my favorite Nikki McClure artworks–in her 2006 calendar for March.  This Red Russian kale plant survived the winter in my home garden–having sprouted last year from a batch of old seed I tossed in the bed on the north side of my house.

What I love so much about McClure’s work is that the curly kale plant pictured in her calendar has a long stalk like an overwintered kale plant would, and is sprouting a topknot of leaves.  This Red Russian plant’s stalk is hidden by the leaf mulch I piled on the bed last fall.

These are “Quail” daffodils I planted last fall.  They’re not huge trumpets, but each stalk has two or three flowers.  I’ve cut a few of these for the green glass vase flecked with mica that I made back when I lived in Wisconsin and hung out with glass blowers.  The yellow and green combination is incredibly happy and Spring-y.

Another yellow beauty–a tulip whose variety I can’t remember.  I planted these several years ago on the south side of the house.  Their colors have gotten a bit washed out over time–they started out the first couple of years flamed red and yellow, but have lost most of their blush.

My hellebores have finally started blooming.  They are nicknamed the “Lenten Rose,” but with our late and heavy snow cover, they missed Lent by a long shot.  They are also, by the way, incredibly poisonous.  I have read that one should wear gloves when transplanting them, as the sap from their roots can make you ill if it’s absorbed through your skin.

I bought this Black Cohosh plant very late in the season at a local greenhouse a couple years ago.  I like to go in to nurseries when there’s only a few dregs left, and see what weird and wonderful plants I can “save.”

Last year, there were only two stalks on this plant, and they looked a little rugged.  This year there’s six healthy-looking heads unfurling!  They have a lovely tall silhouette with deep green foliage and foamy white flower spikes.  The roots are traditionally used as a woman’s herb.

These little shade-loving lovelies have an ugly name: Pulmonaria, or Lungwort.  But they have pretty speckled leaves and little bell-shaped flowers that start blue and turn pink (or do they start pink and turn blue?  I can never remember…).  This is a plant I lusted after in my heart for a few years before finally getting some transplants from a friend’s garden.  I think this variety is called Mrs. Moon.

And, last but not least, the miniature bleeding heart:

This sweet little fern-leafed shade-lover came from the garden of my late friend and employer, Marj Robertson.  I have a number of plants from her memorable and fantastically diverse gardens, and they help me remember her warm heart and generous spirit.

Ahh.  Spring.

The Vermillion Area Arts Council is holding a special election for a new Board of Directors now that the transitional board has passed an amendment to the ByLaws to make that election possible.

A list of the candidates:

Judy Zwolak

Harry Scholten

Noah Iacino

Caitlin Collier

Micah Wonnenberg

Steve Merryman

Deana Fuller

Gail Bickel

Norma Wilson

Roger Jeck

Teri Davenport

The mailing I received does give a paragraph on each of the candidates’ qualifications and intentions, which I will not reprint here.  If you are a member, you should have received this mailing.

There are some incongruities in the wording of the ballot, which indicates that, “Each membership will be able to cast a vote in the election” (which suggests that family memberships only get one vote).  The next paragraph reads, “…each Verified Member may vote for up to 7 of the candidates.”

This suggests, to me, that only one adult in a family membership is a  “verified member.”  This would explain my confusion when the ballot for Harry and I’s family membership came addressed only to me, and Harry never received a ballot at all.

Another confusing aspect of the ballot is the timing.  You can vote anonymously at the Washington Street Arts Center on Tuesday, May 13, from 6:30-8:30 in the evening.  That’s fairly straightforward.  But the mail-in and e-mail options are cloudy:

“…If you do not desire anonymity you may mail the enclosed ballot to the Arts Council prior to the election or e-mail your selection of candidates to vaacboard@yahoo.com no sooner than May 11th, and no later that [sic] 6:00pm May 13th.”

Does this mean I can mail my ballot anytime before the election, but I can only e-mail my selections starting within a certain timeframe?  That seems unnecessarily complicated.  But, at least it gives me a few different options.

If you’ve let your membership lapse, now would be a good time to renew.  Let’s vote!