Yum!

I know everyone is dying to see pics of the snakehead dinner but I haven't had a chance to scan in the menu and write the full post so... in the meantime, please enjoy this picture of our delicious University of Maryland Public Health Garden grown watermelon.

The Accokeek Foundation and CSAs

The 200 acres of Piscataway National Park that Accokeek stewards was established in 1957 as one of the nation's first land trusts. Originally founded to protect the glorious view accross the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, the property now offers a network of trails winding through wetlands, a native tree arboretum, an outdoor living history museum, an award-winning forest restoration project, an organic Ecosystem Farm emphasizing the future of agriculture, and perhaps most importantly, it serves as a teaching facility where farmers come to learn the tools of a new trade and practice sustainable use of natural resources. Did I mention they have a great blog too?

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending Accokeek's seminar "Successful CSAs: How to Start and Manage a Community Supported Agriculture Program" with my newest partner-in-learning, Allison Lilly. A panel of farmers who operate CSAs ranging from two-acre, 26-share, leased properties to hundred-acre, 1900-share farms, spoke about land-planning, seed-saving and the overall pros and cons of the biz. While I learned quite a few valubale lessons for my future farming endeavors, I imagine our readers are more likely to purchase a share in a CSA than try and start one up so I've decided to share a few tips for anyone interested in supporting community agriculture. Here goes:

• Understand your investment. Purchasing a share in community agriculture means fresh, local produce on a weekly basis for a reasonable price. Your farmer will collect your investment at planting time and you will receive the invaluable peace of mind of knowing exactly where your produce (and sometimes eggs) comes from for 20-24 weeks out of the year. Remember, you are putting your faith in the farmer and eating in-season with respect to the weather so... have reasonable expectations. You may not get strawberries every week but you will be exposed to new flavors (and probably plenty of kale).

• Find the best fit. If you want to bring your kids to pick their own berries, be sure your farmer offers that service. Some CSAs serve larger volumes and farm on hundreds of acres. This means dangerous machinery, busy business and a tight schedule - which isn't neccessarily conducive to drop-in visitors and volunteers. Smaller farms may offer a price break in exchange for weekly or monthly volunteer hours. To search your local listings visit LocalHarvest.org.

• Consider your shopping habits and expectations. Just as scale will vary between farms, so will the product you take. Some CSAs offer a certain number of products in a pick-and-choose manner. Members can come and take two-shares of tomatoes and skip the chard, or several watermelons instead of something less tantilizing to their taste. Others offer a box with equal amounts of each weekly harvest and perhaps a recipe for the lesser-known veggie they grew for your cooking adventures.

• (Maybe) Negotiate (during the last hour) at the Farmers Market, not the CSA. The price per share is carefully calculated based on size, soil capability, labor, climate and everything else that any business has to account for. Asking a farmer to lower it, or to go through the added complications of half-shares, can be disrespectful. Not to mention, a lot of sweat equity goes into farming. Just because massive distribution systems allow the big grocers to sell certain foods very cheap, doesn't mean a farmer can afford to offer such price breaks.

Additional infomation about Community Supported Agriculture can be found on the Local Harvest website. Additional information about educational opportunities at the Accokeek Foundation can be found on their website. Additional pictures and information from our recent adventure out to Accokeek can be found on Adventures in Container Gardening.

Best News I've Heard All Week

Some fantastic scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, West London, have graciously spent the last three years working with more than 200 governments to cut 600,000 duplicate names from the Global Plant List. The Telegraph reports:

"Alan Paton, assistant keeper of the herbarium at Kew, said the information will be vital for any organisation or researcher looking at "economically important" plants, such as those for food and nutrition or medicine. He said: "On average, one plant might have between two and three names, which doesn't sound a great deal, but if you're trying to find information on a plant, you might not find all [of it] because you're only looking at one name. "That's even more critical for economically useful plants: because they are more used, they tend to have more names."

The full results will not be published until the end of the year, but so far the researchers have found 301,000 accepted species, 480,000 alternative names, and have 240,000 left to assess."

New Apple!!

After 20 years of cross-pollinating, Swiss fruit grower and apple breeder and Markus Kobelt has developed a unique red-skinned, red-fleshed, tomato-lookin' apple called the Redlove. Spokesperson for the seed and sapling company, Suttons (who secured exclusive rights to the fruit trees in Britain), say their apple has "a delicious sweet and tangy taste with a hint of berries to it if eaten raw."

On top of claims that the apple flesh will not brown when sliced and left exposed, the Redlove is said to have a higher antioxidant content.

I guess we'll just have to wait until the Redlove hits American stores next year to find out if the flavor is as dazzling as its appearance. So far, two varieties of Redlove have been produced. The Era, which can be harvested from September and enjoyed until Christmas, and the Sirena, harvested in August and enjoyed until October.

Shopper's Guide to Pesticides (via EWG)

Consuming even small doses of pesticides can cause lasting health damage and is especially dangerous during fetal development and early childhood. Lucky for us, the Environmental Working Group is always workingb for our safety and has identified what they are calling the "Dirty Dozen" list of produce with the highest likelyhood for pesticide exposure. This doesn't mean we shouldn't consume those fruits and vegetables, but rather that we should buy them organic or try to grow them ourselves. Download their shopping guide here, here or find the iPhone App here.

In case you have trouble downloading the guide, here are the dirty dozen:

1.) Celery
2.) Peaches
3.) Strawberries
4.) Apples
5.) Blueberries
6.) Nectarines
7.) Bell Peppers
8.) Spinach
9.) Kale
10.) Cherries
11.) Potatoes
12.) Grapes (imported)

Peak Farmers Market Season Has Begun

Don't miss out on the scrumdiddlyumptious seasonal produce coming to a freeway underpass or parking lot near you. The Washington Post has updated their interactive farmers market locator so you needn't travel far for fresh, local produce. And as always, we here at JustSaying love a reason to post Barbara Kingsolver's Vegetannual, "an imaginary plant that bears over the course of one growing season a cornucopia of all the different vegetable products we can harvest."

Talkin' Garden

If you’ve been following our gardening posts, then you know we’ve been discussing the beginnings of a vegetable garden to provide fresh, local, organic foods and a great sense of satisfaction from even just a small bit of self-sufficiency. So far, I’ve been able to get a few things started: The onions were planted and basil and lettuce were started indoors. Now, my attention turns to deciding what else to grow and finding the right seeds for each variety.

There are two main sources for seeds: catalog/internet suppliers and local garden centers/stores. My recommendation is that whichever the source, be sure to choose varieties that have been bred for success in difficult conditions. In many ways, the mid-Atlantic area is a good gardening area with its long days and long growing season. But there are a few pitfalls to this region. Extreme heat and humidity causes mildew and plant stress. Typically moderate winters allow a lot of pests to survive from one season to the next. Rainfall is variable and temperature is a wild card. Spring can be warm, hot, cold or a mix of all in one week - causing problems for germination. Bugs not only eat the foliage, they carry pathogens that cause plant disease.

Still want to be a gardener?! If so, you have to be an optimist in spirit, a pragmatist in practice and a believer in the Zen of working with nature - not fighting against it. But if you're still here reading, that means you’re up to the task, right?

My suggestions for dealing with these challenges is to minimize them by looking for varieties that are disease resistant and tolerate heat and humidity. Resist the sales pitch that a variety is “the best tasting” because anything home-grown beats supermarket and the fact is, if it fails to grow, you won’t taste anything!

Also, don’t plant veggies that will never make it to the dining table. A few examples: Corn will be stolen by the squirrels long before its totally ripe; Summer squash/zucchini will succumb to a type of bug called the Squash Borer (I refuse and do not encourage pesticide use); Broccoli and cauliflower don’t tolerate heat; Carrots and beets need near-perfect, no-clay, no-stone soil; Potatoes, peas , winter squash and melons take a lot of space relative to their yield.

So, what’s left? Well as I said, the backyard garden is small so concentrate on just a handful of high-yield vegetables like:

Tomatoes. They are THE NUMBER ONE crop based on taste! However, be forewarned: Once you grow your own tomatoes, you may never want to eat a supermarket/restaurant tomato again. Use several different varieties assuming each may do better in one set of weather patterns than another. Plant at least ten plants because the squirrels love them too. These can either be started indoors from seed in little pots, or you can buy plants at a garden center that are ready to be put into the ground.

Green Beans. Nothing in the store can match green beans picked 20 minutes before eating. There are quite a few varieties available so I recommend the following: Contender, which are the fastest growing but produce most of their beans at one time. And Provider, which produces beans over a longer period. Both are disease resistant.

Swiss Chard. A spinach-like green but better-tasting. Swiss chard has been called the perfect green because of its incredible nutritional value. By the time it reaches the store however, it’s wilted and expensive. A variety called Fordhook Giant is one of the best.

Cucumber. Since it’s a vine, cucumbers can be grown vertically on a fence or trellis using very little ground space. It is efficient gardening and there are many varieties you can eat without peeling (the skin is where all the nutritional value resides).

Lettuce. In the mid-Atlantic this is an early-season crop since heat causes it to become bitter. Fresh lettuce is delicate and has a subtlety that dissipates by the time it reaches the produce section. It’s efficient because when the lettuce is finished you can then plant beans in the same space. The best varieties for tolerating late spring heat are leaf lettuces, although if a romaine-type lettuce is your thing look for seeds of Jericho - bred in Israel to grow in summer temperatures.

Basil. Obviously not a veggie but one of the most wonderful herbs. Pick fresh leaves and sprinkle on any pizza. It can turn that cardboard-box take-out pizza into something special.

Onions. Onion sets - those miniature, ready to grow onions - are both easy to plant and don’t take a lot of space. They can be planted around the perimeter of a bed where something else will be planted later on when it gets warmer.

Flowers. If you like cut flowers on your dining table, then Zinnias are your flower. Easy to grow and with a variety of colors, they can be cut for a table display and new stems will grow on the plant. Varieties range from tiny quarter-sized blooms to giant six-inch flowers, and with a wide range of petal shapes.

Just remember, right now it is too early to plant anything except lettuce and onions. The rest of the garden has to wait until warmer temperatures arrive, usually around April 15- May 15. Stay tuned to JustSaying for later planting dates and advice.