MICA Sustainable Food Project

We distributed three new worm bins this week to first time bin users, and judging by my own personal bins, more worms are on the way. I’m looking forward to spring at the garden, hopefully we’ll see many new and old faces and grow a lot of wonderful food.

Some long overdue photos of our last potluck. Tomorrow night, meet at Patrick’s house around 7:00 for another. There will be a piano.

Thank you to everyone who came to our community dinner. It was a great turn out. At the garden, plastic is going up. More pictures of both soon to come.

I write this from home in Pennsylvania, where I grew up. After dinner last night, as my younger (but taller) brother and I were cleaning the kitchen, something subconscious in me motioned to toss a handful of compostable kitchen scraps in a worm bin–in this household a nonexistant furnishing. Without my boxed pets to feed I walked outside into the chilly backyard of my childhood and instead performed the strange old childhood ritual of hurling the scraps into the euonymus hedge that forms the natural fence between yards.

It could be that I had thought the burning bush, as its also known, the site of decomposition in the scrambled puzzle of the suburban ecosystem–I had seen my father do the same many times with browning banana peels, apple cores, and carrot skins, his tongue pushed against the inside of his cheek as he side-armed the scraps into the long hedge. Or was it rather a more persistent charactaristic of suburban life that drove the practice? Apathy? It might be useful to modify the negative connotation of the word. Better: “distraction.” There wasn’t time, we always felt, for seeing through the life cycle of our food, really. Better toss it haphazardly in the yard. It followed what we did with all our other waste: send it away. Other things were to be attended to by the boys: TV, games, walks, runs, hikes, bikes, wrestling, sports….It was my mother who, with her garden, patiently introduced the family to composting.

The kidney-shaped vegetable and flower garden that each year encroached on the lawn like a maturing paramecium was the previously absent answer to the equation that we boys needed for our life of logics. Composting never made sense. Before, the bush had been the perfect place for food scraps to disappear without a trace–a zero sum proposition. But after a few seasons of gathering the kitchen scraps carefully in a passive compost bin–a few wooden pallets nailed together forming a cube–my mother showed that all those tossed away foods could be used to produce the rich black soil that made her (our) corn, beans, and squash grow large and colorful.

We could see and taste the results of all our work–and this is something that I believe is terribly important for any kind of composter, particularly an urban one. The act may begin as a curiosity, or as an attempt at a less wasteful lifestyle, or maybe helping a friend with a project of hers….but in the end the lifelong composter will be the one who sees his or her food turn not just into soil, but into food again. Then, of course, you ought to find someone who can teach you to cook it right. But maybe we will leave that for another blog….

Photos from the high tunnel construction:

and these are two photos from our side project, Buddha Worms. These bin’s were made out of recycled wood. The whole project is basically a non-profit worm/worm bin distribution program. Check out the website for more details. We have a waiting list already, but I’ll post soon when there are openings.

-miranda

Hey everyone,

In the next few weeks we’re going to try and build this high tunnel at the garden (see photo of model from the previous post). This means that this and the following two weekends will include volunteer days at the site. If you’re interested in helping, this weekend we’re meeting at the Buddha Garden at 11 am. Patrick won’t be there, because he’ll be planting trees with a class. I think it will take about three hours to do what we need to do (till and add amendments to the soil) and that amount of time decreases depending on the number that show. Anyone that comes can take as many herbs, tomatoes, and eggplant that we have.

The upcoming volunteer days will include free fall seedlings. Hope to see you all out there. Feel free to invite anyone else.

Starting small, but:

Soon.

(Patrick built it, I took the photo)

High Tunnels and Season Extension

This breakfast recipe comes from Nellie Geraghty:

As much chicken stock as you want to eat
As much Kale as you want to eat
As much onion as you want to eat.
Anything else you think would taste good in the morning.

Boil all of that for thirty minutes, then crack a [really fresh] egg into the mix and turn off the heat. You want the egg yolk to stay soft Wait three minutes. Eat it.

You get calcium from the stock, iron from the kale, and protein and vitamin d from the egg.

(It was so good this morning.)

All this weekend we’re going to be planting in the garden. (Thanks to the CGRN giveaway and what we’ve picked up at Meyer Seed from the farm stands during the summer). If anyone wants to help out just show up.

overhead views of the garden:

close ups, a passion flower in the garden (notice the ants) and the adjacent Buddha statue that gives our garden its name:

(patrick actually took those last two)
this weekend we’ll be pulling out a lot of the crops. Let us know if you’d like anything to eat. We’ve already got some seed starters going, and we’re looking forward to CGRN’s giveaway this saturday.

We’re also trying to get as many people started on worm bins as we possibly can. Worms are in the mail.

And for the fall, we’d like to build a high tunnel to extend our growing season. Right now we’re looking for bamboo. If you or someone you know would like us to come cut down their pesky bamboo, [and put it to good use] please let us know.