Grow Write Guild No. 4 - Inspiration and Influence

Here is a bit of a thank you letter to all those who have given me my start in this urban homesteading adventure.  I am so indebted to your wisdom.  I am inspired by parents, friends, grandparents, and great grandparents.

I know I have always liked plants and nature in a vague and general way, but now that this passion has blossomed - so to speak - I am so grateful to have the knowledge of the people around me when I need it. 

I am reminded of stories of great grandparents making up big chicken dinners on Sundays since they never knew how many people would be coming over after church.  There wasn't a worry that there wouldn't be enough because the homestead was so well provisioned.  Everything was right there on the farm.

I think that most of the people I come from have had a connection to the earth.  That may be because historically it was necessary for their survival, but even in recent generations many traditions have not been lost.

I remember savouring my mother's crabapple jelly.  She did not have a vegetable garden, but there was a crabapple tree that kept us in our favourite jelly every year.  I remember one amazing harvest of 39lbs of fruit; apples with red so deep they were almost purple.  There were so many that only the best were chosen.  The blemished ones were left carpeting the ground below the tree attracting the only four point buck I have ever seen visiting that house.

I have fond memories of shelling peas at 'the farm'.  There were so many that in the end my thumbs were sore from the repetitive motion but it didn't matter.  The communal family time of us all gathered in the kitchen over a shared task outweighed any fatigue.  The little peas seemed like green pearls to me at the time, and the few that missed the bucket for my mouth seemed sweeter than any I'd eaten before.

When I first forayed into gardening efforts on my own I commiserated with my grandfather about visiting deer.  I asked for help from neighbours and friends who had been gardening for years in this climate.  I am still learning about what works and what doesn't (mostly from experience).  I love sitting in someone's kitchen talking about local wild plants or the new things and the old tried and true things they are growing.

I went on my first asparagus foraging trip with a neighbour.  She bequeathed her knowledge as we walked and gradually I didn't need her help to identify where I might find the delicious spears poking out through the grass.  Now I can go on my own and even pass on the knowledge to others.  I want to be a solid link in this chain of wisdom.  I want to be able to pass down this way of living in close symmetry with the world around me.  God's creation gives so much and I want to steward what I can and pass these values on to the future generation.

Weekend Getaway to Calgary

This past weekend we made a trip through the Rocky Mountains to Calgary.  The main reason for the trip was my cousin's wedding in Red Deer, so we tacked a few vacation days on either side of the weekend and made it a bit of a bigger trip.  We have family in Calgary - and many places there that we like to visit.  Red Deer is close enough so we thought we would make our base in Calgary and commute to the wedding festivities.

We always love driving through the rockies.  Even when the weather isn't amazing the view is spectacular.  When we passed through it was cloudy and thunderstorms threatened.  Looking up at the shrouded peaks makes me feel so small!  I often think about how the early explores must have felt when they first caught sight of these massive rocks.  It is easy to forget that before our roads were paved people had to make their way through here on foot or horseback.  They had to brave the weather, and find their own path. 

After the wedding we made sure to stop at the HUGE Bass Pro in Airdrie.  Little Forager found the fish in their aquarium captivating. 

I am really excited because our reason for going there was to see if there was a reasonably priced reel that I could add to my vintage fishing rod.  At first I was so excited to have my own rod, and I loved the fact that it was vintage (and green!), but it turns out the reel is broken, so for now I have been sharing with Mr. Forager.  This is not our favourite arrangement, so I am happy to say that we found one, and it looks like now we can finally go fishing without taking turns.

As I said, the main reason we come to Calgary is our family.  It is hard to be far from them, but we make our way out there whenever we can.  These two are major inspirations for my gardening efforts!  They have taught me so much and are ready for any questions I might have. 

Little Forager loved story time with his Grand Nana.

While we are primarily there for family, the fact that these amazing doughnuts from Jelly Modern Doughnuts are only available in Calgary doesn't hurt.

Or this hibiscus sorbet from Village Ice Cream.

Eating Foraged Food - Lilac Ice Cream

So for some of us gathering lilacs can be either a wild, urban, or backyard foraging project.  In my area they are finished, but I think in some places - in Canada at least - they are still blooming.  If I am too late feel free to try this with other edible flowers.  I am going to be collecting some wild rose as soon as possible and trying this recipe again.  Where I live, it seems like everyone has lilacs in their backyards, but the plant has also naturalized to some extent and you can find the purple blossoms of syringa vulgaris dotting the ditches along roadsides.  Their fragrance is sweet, but their beauty is fleeting.  I think the blossoms only last for a couple weeks in their full glory. 

Our friends have the most lilacs I have ever seen in one yard and they grow so many varieties.  I almost missed out, but before all the blossoms were gone they sent us home with three shopping bags full of them!  I posted earlier about some of the things I made with them, but I felt this ice cream deserved its own special post. 

I had a dream to make some lilac ice cream.  I am not sure where I got the idea, but it was probably when I realized I had way more lilacs than I knew what to do with and I started madly googling what I could do with them.  I have been experimenting with my own ice cream recipes for quite a while, but with limited success.  It is so hard to get the consistency right!  I read up on message boards, checked other recipes, and troubleshooted until finally I stumbled upon David Lebovitz's recipe for vanilla bean ice cream.  I had seen a few specific recipes for lilac ice cream, but they didn't look like they would solve my problems so I gave this one a try, but instead of infusing the milk with a vanilla bean, I used about a cup of lilac blossoms. 

Finally!  Success at last!

I think I have found my new go-to ice cream recipe.  My next plan is to try some other flavours.  I won't post the recipe since it isn't mine and the only alteration I made was very small, but I seriously recommend trying this one if you are looking for a good basic ice cream recipe.  It is so important to have good ingredients though.  I am grateful to have access to good milk and cream in our local supermarkets, and gorgeous backyard hen eggs from a neighbour.  That seriously makes all the difference.  Don't skimp on the quality when it comes to eggs and dairy - you'll notice right away!

Do you have a favourite ice cream recipe or flavour?  Let me know in the comments!

Garden Salad and a Tip About Growing Root Veggies

On the first sunny day since our rainy long weekend it seemed right to eat a salad for lunch.  It also gave me an excuse to do a garden chore I hadn't quite got around to yet - thinning the beets!

My favourite thing to do when growing root veggies with edible greens is to purposefully plant them crowded.  Like super dense. I should have taken a photo.  Actually what I did was drop entire seed packets (in this case: radishes, beets, and some spinach) in a 3'x3' garden bed, rake them around, and cover with dirt.  Now that they are grown up a bit I am forced to thin them.  Normally I feel a bit sad thinning out my plants, but in this case I am excited because it's almost like getting a bonus crop.  Today I threw them in a gorgeous salad.  Tomorrow I might wilt some in scrambled eggs.

These radishes were getting on the larger side so I would likely sauté them or throw them in soup.

So many delicious options for something that would have otherwise been thrown in the compost heap (not that composting is ever a bad thing)!

Now about that beautiful salad.  I threw my beet greens in there, along with some lettuce from the Kamloops Farmer's Market.  Some walnuts, candied salmon from Haida Wild,  and a boiled duck egg from a neighbor went on top.  Here's my basic salad dressing recipe:

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HOW TO MAKE THIS

1. Combine roughly equal amounts of oil and some sort of acid (vinegar, lemon juice), in a bowl and whisk until emulsified.  For this salad I used olive oil and chive blossom vinegar (chive blossoms infused in white wine vinegar).
2. Add a blob of jam or jelly until you think it tastes right.  I used redcurrant jelly this time.
3. Add any other flavours you think might be good!  I taste and see what I think it needs.  You might want to add mustard or some fresh chopped herbs!  

Grow Write Guild No. 3 - Describe Your Garden Right Now

I realize it has been quite a while since my last Grow Write Guild post (and that the Grow Write Guild is so old that probably no one is doing it anymore).  Probably about a year.  Despite my neglect, I think the writing prompts are really helpful and interesting.  Usually I just do a quick update that is mostly photos, and maybe a recipe tagged on at the end.  Most of these prompts are not something I would normally think to spend time writing about, and so that is why I still want to continue with them.

Despite what I just said, I wish that I read this prompt before I wrote my last post since it is basically about the same thing!

"Describe your garden right now".

Well right at this current moment it is covered in rain, which as a gardener and as someone living in an area at risk for wildfires I have to say I am ok with that.  My perspective on rain has changed dramatically since moving from coastal BC to the southern interior of the province.  Rain used to be the backdrop of nearly every day from November to June!  Now a rainy day is a rare reprieve from the heat.  I am adjusting to this new climate, but I still make a lot of mistakes.  Not to mention that each season is so different from the last that I feel like I'll never quite get it right!  Last year summer came on with the flip of a switch in April if you can believe it.  This year we are having much more of a normal spring with rain and cooler days.  Last year I couldn't grow peas or radishes to save my life.  The heat came on so heavy the peas stayed half a foot tall, and the radishes bolted up to flower almost as soon as I put the seeds in the ground!  This year both are flourishing.

Speaking of peas and radishes, these are both unlikely success stories when it comes to my seed saving efforts.  Unlikely for the radishes since I have always had to garden in very small spaces and often try to grow different varieties of the same type of plant.  Preventing cross-pollination is a huge challenge in such close quarters.  Last year since they all bolted I wasn't able to get any of the roots, so I decided to see what would happen if I let them go to seed.  They might not be quite true to form (which is a pity since they are a beautiful heirloom variety called Purple Selzer from the preservation gardens collection of Seed Savers Exchange that looks like it is not available any longer) but they are still producing.  I am hoping I can weed out the ones with the wrong characteristics and get them back on track.  I was also growing some Rat Tailed Radishes - also from Seed Savers Exchange - and I was hoping since they had slightly different blooming times that the seeds would not cross-pollinate too much.  We'll see what happens.  So far I'm just impressed that the seeds were viable at all!  I wasn't convinced that it would work out.

The peas star in a story of my forgetfulness.  I was really excited to save some of the seeds from the Amish Snap peas I planted a few years back in my garden in Surrey.  I let the plants go brown and harvested the seeds at exactly the right time.  After that I promptly forgot them outside in the garden only to remember to go get them after the pouring rain had soaked them through.  I was hoping that I could somehow dry them out and that not too many would germinate right away.  Maybe I could save them!  I figured it couldn't hurt to try them out if I happened to have a spare garden bed sometime in the cooler weather.  Lo and behold that opportunity came earlier this year in March.  I hadn't purchased any seeds yet for this year so I thought I might as well find out what the verdict was.  It had been quite a while and there was no sign of growth so I picked up a few more pea varieties to try, but when I went to put them in  there were quite a few pea seedlings poking out from the ground.  Rather than waste the other seeds (although I suppose I could have tried returning them) I sowed them too and now - as I referenced in an earlier post - I am accidentally growing three varieties of peas.  It remains to be seen if this was a bad idea or not.  So far all are growing well and two are already blooming!  I must make sure to save the Amish Snap seeds again this year!

As for the rest of my garden there is garlic (Russian, German, Music, and also a variety I do not know the name of that I have been growing for four years), buckwheat (sharing a bed with the Green Arrow peas), beets, onions, scallions, spinach, rat tailed radishes, raspberries, haskaps, potatoes, and many herbs.  I am really happy with everything so far, but I am starting to feel the crunch of the warmer weather and I need to get my summer crops going!  I don't want to be caught without any tomatoes, peppers, melons, corn, or squash!  I may not succeed with those things (I have had mixed results so far), but it is always my goal to try.