June 2023 – Fruition

June 29, 2023Laurel Balog

Versatile Cooking in Summer

My favorite time of the year is here – summer. I love the warm days, fireflies, bonfires, farmwork, and of course, the fresh local food the season brings to us in abundance. Now is the easiest time of year to support our producers and eat refreshing fruits and vegetables. All the area outlets, from CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farms, farmers’ markets, farm stands, and natural food stores, are filling their shares, stands, and shelves with produce. We are once again able to enjoy big bunches of leafy greens, salad mix, carrots, garlic scapes, radishes, turnips, snap peas, onions, berries, and more as the season progresses.

An outdoor fire in a fire pit, with the moon rising over a background of pasture and forest. — My husband and I enjoy watching the moonrise with bonfires on summer nights.

Summer also brings full schedules. With the nice weather I find myself needing or wanting to do all sorts of different things – work in the orchard, fix fencing, mow the lawn, preserve fruits and vegetables, plant flowers, go canoeing, take my dogs for a hike, visit with family and friends – the list goes on! Prioritizing fresh food can slip lower on my activities to do, even when it’s most available. That means easy-to-make but versatile recipes are key to my summer eating. A favorite recipe we enjoy at home is Dragon Noodles. When you google “Dragon Noodle recipes”, there are many different variations that pop up and often have an Asian flavor influence. Our version stems from a friend’s recipe my husband learned while working on a vegetable farm in New Jersey. It consists of rice noodles, a stir fry of vegetables, a protein source, and a peanut sauce.

In the presence of plants

The county’s Master Gardener Volunteers and several others with an interest in foraging wild plants recently met at a local trail to learn from Tusha Yakovleva. Tusha brings a lifetime of learning about local plants to her educational events, from her childhood in Russia and Scotland to her time spent exploring ethnobotany with native youth in the Adirondacks.

She started by guiding the group to use all of our senses when learning about a new plant. Though we used a plant known to most of us for this exercise, rather than skipping right to how it looks and what it’s called, we started with feeling the presence of the plant, noticing the sounds in the plant’s environment, the hairiness of the stem, the smell of the crushed leaves. We even considered what name we might give the plant based on our observations. Lastly, we landed on the common name, goldenrod, and its use as an immunity boosting tea. This guided exercise primed us for what Tusha called “slow and present observation” throughout our 2+ hour walk on St. Lawrence University’s Kipp trail.

A stand of black locusts in full bloom attracts pollinators. The flowers are edible.

Of the many plants we encountered, some I most enjoyed learning about (and tasting) included black locust flowers – which taste like alfalfa sprouts – and wood nettle, our native nettle with tasty leaves that can be dried for tea, eaten raw or cooked, or even dried and rehydrated.

I also tried the broccoli-like unopened flower buds of common milkweed – the only nontoxic species of milkweed. In addition to the flower buds, the young shoots are edible before the leaves unfurl in spring, and the aromatic flowers can be used to flavor drinks and baked goods. Read more In the presence of plants

June 8, 2023Brad Pendergraft

Upping your compost game

Few gardeners would say that they have all the compost they would like for their gardens. The good news is that you can increase the amount of compost you produce with a method developed by Helen and Scott Nearing that is described in their books, “Living the Good Life” and “Continuing the Good Life.” I’ve been composting for the last 44 years. What follows is a description of the Nearing methods that I have modified over time for the North Country.

Most home compost piles are approximately three feet by three feet which is small enough to allow oxygen in on all sides. In the metho I use, a “chimney” brings air to the center of the pile, allowing an increase in pile size and the production of far more compost.

The process starts with picking a location. It should be well drained and shaded. To contain the pile, use six foot long poles ranging from one to three inches in diameter. It’s good if they are straight, but they can be slightly crooked. I cut mine from my woods, but if you don’t have your own, you may have friends that will allow you to cut understory trees or trees on the margins of their woods. Don’t use pressure treated wood.

Start the pile by placing two poles on the ground, parallel to each other, about six feet apart. Then add two more parallel to each other and perpendicular to the first two with the ends overlapping, making a square slightly less than six feet by six feet. Remove the sod and topsoil from within the square and set aside for later use in the pile. Use a fork to loosen the soil under the pile. Make a central chimney by bundling multiple poles approximately one inch in diameter and at least six feet long. They can be tied together with bailing twine and do not have to be perfectly straight. Make a hole in the center of the square with a digging bar and or insert or pound the poles in to create a vertical bundle. These poles will create a chimney to supply oxygen into the center of the pile.