teeny weenies & BIG FATTIES

Carrots are a favorite garden staple in our family. Although they take several months to grow from seed, they are well worth the wait: pulling the long, brightly colored root veggies from the ground is almost as good as finding buried treasure. In the summer, my kids enjoy them as cold, crunchy snacks perfect for outings to the park and beach. When winter arrives we look forward to chunky carrots rounding out our soups and stews. Luckily, in our climate, we can grow carrots year round. Succession planting ensures that we don't run out.

Picking the growing site is key to carrot success, though. In early spring I uncovered a spare patch of rather sandy dirt that was partially shaded by grapevines. Without much thought, I scattered carrot seeds in the soil, and we waited... waited... waited... waited... and waited some more. When my children couldn't wait another day longer (early summer), I finally conceded and let them pull them up. This is a photo what they gleaned.


As you can see, although they spent lots of time in the soil, these baby carrots... well... they never grew past babyhood. With boisterous belly laughs, my children declared them to be "teeny weenies." They finished sifting through the soil with their fingers, picking out the little gems, screaming "teeny weenie" with each new find. I'm sure the neighbors wondered what was going on. They're not much to look at, but these carrots did make a great side dish that evening.

When we built our raised beds, however, we also planted a twelve foot square section with carrots. That may seem like a lot of square footage devoted to just one root, and it is, but at the rate we go through them it seems like we can never have too many carrots. With the rich, loose soil and full sun, our results were much improved. Here are my children having a typical afternoon snack. The carrots are almost as long as the kids are tall, and they drag the treats around the house as they munch, a lá Bugs Bunny. I occasionally find a green and withered carrot top strewn under the dresser or discarded in a toy box, but I really don't care: what healthier after school snack could there be?

For these extra large, juicy carrots, my children have coined the phrase "BIG FATTIES." I realize this label is not PC, and I declare--for the record--that they did not learn that term from me. In this case, however, the name seems both appropriate... and apt.


There are a few notes I wanted to point out about our friends, the carrots. First, carrots are especially great to for your home garden because they can stay in the ground in mild climates for exactly as long--or as short a time--as you desire. They are not one of those fussy crops, like green beans or tomatoes, which need to be harvested on a specific day in their development. Carrots you can plant and leave alone. Pull them up early if you just can't wait. Or you can do as we do, and leave most of them in the ground until you need them.

As our summer gluts of tomatoes and cucumbers begin to dry up, I can rest assured knowing we'll have plenty of carrots to eat in the month of September while we eagerly await the maturity of our newly-planted fall crops. Unless you live in an area that receives lots of snow and ice, you can even leave your carrots in the ground throughout the winter (this is called overwintering). No need to freeze or store these babies... just leave them alone, and they'll still be there when you want them. How easy is that?

One final note on carrots, and this is a pet peeve of mine. There seems to be a universal belief out there that carrots need to be peeled before they are eaten, raw or cooked. That couldn't be farther from the truth! Much of a carrot's nutritional value and fiber are in its outer layers of skin. Peeling is done for cosmetic purposes only, which seems like a sad reason to slice off and throw away so much of what you've just grown (or purchased). If you're concerned about smudges of dirt left on your carrots, run them under hot water and give them a good scrubbing. That's all you need to do!

I'll leave you with my favorite recipe for carrots. This one is handed down from my grandmother. It's super easy and always pleasing, no matter the season.

Sunshine Carrots

Ingredients:
Fresh carrots, large or small, any color
Salted butter
Brown sugar

Remove tops and scrub carrots clean.
If carrots are very large, cut them into smaller pieces as desired (either lengthwise or into rounds).
Toss into boiling water in saucepan on the stove; cook until fork-tender, but not mushy.
Turn off heat. Drain water, keeping carrots in sauce pan.
Add a few pats of salted butter to the pan and stir gently until carrots are lightly coated, but not dripping.
Sprinkle a few spoonfuls of light brown sugar over the carrots. Turn heat to low and cook, stirring, until butter and sugar have melted together and formed a glaze.

Sunshine carrots make a great side to any beef or poultry dish.
They are also good reheated in the microwave the next day for lunch.
Enjoy!

Roots in the Garden

It seems as though everyday someone, somewhere, asks me why I'm so interested in gardening... not just as a hobby but as a way of life. Sure, "being green" is all the rage right now. The eco-friendly movement seems to be catching on both locally and globally--but you still don't see too many people digging up their front lawns to plant veggies-- at least not around here, anyway.

I'd like to say that my "farming" obsession took root in recent years, after I became a mother. After all, the responsibility of raising and feeding a family played no small role in my gardening evolution. But the truth is that my roots in the garden were planted long ago... by my parents.

I was born in spring of 1979, and my parents lived in a nice and modest home, similar to my own in many ways. The year before my arrival, my father dug up a large section of grass in their backyard (at my mother's request) so that she could create a vegetable and flower garden. The large, rectangular space was nestled against two sunny walls and surrounded by a short picket fence and flower-filled borders. Three raised beds inside the fence were added to compensate for alkaline soil.

Here is a picture of my dad, Don, and me in the front pack. He is sporting the oh-so-fashionable short shorts of the time. You may be interested in knowing, in light of this picture, that my father once won an award for "Best Legs" in an official men's legs contest at the old Bullock's department store. I suppose that was life in the 70's for you! Oh yes, and my mom's vegetable garden is in the background. If you look closely you can just make out the zucchini, tomatoes, and sunflowers.

Here is a photo of my mom, Gail, tending her garden the summer of the following year. I'm assuming that I was probably napping at the time, judging by the smile on her face; I was a very fussy baby. Trust me, nap time is prime gardening time. Unless, of course, I am in need of a nap, too. Then the weeds can wait.

Although we moved away from this home, and garden, when I was nine years old, I still have many wonderful memories of time spent in that little patch of dirt. I remember the fleeting, careless, summer days of youth spent darting in and out of the garden in a wet swimsuit and tousled hair... probably to and from my all-time favorite summer pastime, the slip-n-slide (aka the wet banana).

I recall collecting cucumbers and tomatoes in my great grandmother's black enamel strainer. I can visualize drying heads of mammoth sunflowers for birdseed. And I remember eating inordinate, perhaps unlawful, amounts of zucchini. As evidence of this, when I word-processed my mom's cookbook for her as a gift several years back, I swear there were at least forty different recipes calling for [the disposal of] mass quantities of zucchini. Seriously. It's amazing that I still love zucchini.

My mother's garden was also a wonderful place for the not-so-rosy moments of childhood. I remember laying sprawled across a scribble of weeds when life was "so unfair," pouting... alone... trying making a point. I was always a little dramatic. I guess I still am, and I suppose I should admit that I still venture out to my garden when I need to pout a little. Veggies are very commiserative.

When I was in third grade, my family moved to our new home (which was really just a few city blocks away). Our new house had everything a So Cal girl could want. A pool (ooh)! A jacuzzi (ahh)! A gas fire pit for roasting marshmallows (gasp)! Our backyard was a prime location for a decade worth of pool parties. It was, and is, a wonderful family home.

There was only one thing our fabulous new pool home did not have: a vegetable plot. And, in retrospect, I think that's really one of the main reasons that I'm so interested in gardening today. I am recapturing a piece of my own personal history. My roots run deep in the garden.

$2 Ratatouille

The middle of summer at Pocket Square Farm brings an abundance of tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, and zucchini.

At the same time, my book club just finished reading a wonderfully prosy, autobiographical cookbook. It is entitled A Homemade Life, and is written by Molly Wizenberg, author of the noteworthy blog Orangette. If you like to cook, and if you like to eat, I highly recommend it as an easy read. You'll want to keep the book on your kitchen shelf for years to come, and it will inevitably get splashed with olive oil, salted, smeared with tomato sauce, and perhaps even singed a little, so buy this one at your local bookstore--and forego the public library.

The first recipe I made from this book (with help from my two little sous-chefs) was Roasted Eggplant Ratatouille (rat-e-TOO-ee), simply because I had [almost] all the ingredients growing in my garden. I figure that altogether this filling summer meal cost no more than $2 to feed my whole family dinner, plus left overs. The only ingredients I had to buy or use from my pantry were the olive oil, onion and garlic (I'll grow these next year), two eggs, 1 bay leaf, and a pinch of salt. In her book, Molly Wizenberg expounds the virtues of sharing recipes, so I hope she won't mind that I shared hers with you here. After all, I did plug her blog and book.

Ingredients:

1 lb. eggplant, sliced crosswise into 1-inch-thick rounds

Olive oil

1 lb. zucchini, trimmed, halved lengthwise, sliced into 1/2-inch-thick half-moons

1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 large bell pepper, any color, seeded and chopped

4 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced

5 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped

3/4 tsp. salt

3 springs fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

1/4 c. finely chopped fresh basil

Directions:

Position rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees.

Arrange the eggplant rounds in a single layer on rimmed baking sheet. Brush a few tablespoons of olive oil onto the eggplant; flip slices and brush the other sides as well. Bake for 30 minutes, flipping slices half way through, until soft and browned on each side. Remove from oven and let cool, cut into 1-inch pieces, and set aside.

*Painting the eggplant rounds with olive oil is a good job for little hands.

Warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep skillet. Add the zucchini and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden and just tender, 10-12 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon of oil to the skillet again, reduce the heat to medium, add the onion and cook until softened, 4-5 minutes. Add bell pepper and garlic and cook until tender, about 6 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, salt, thyme, and bay leaf and stir to combine.

Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, for 5 minutes. Add the eggplant and zucchini, stir to incorporate, and cook until everything is tender, about 15-20 minutes more. Discard the bay leaf and stir in basil.

I served this meal with a fried egg on top and homemade french bread for dipping. Yum!

Corn 101

A few friends have asked me recently for advice about growing corn. Coincidentally, I just harvested all of my corn last week. I've heard (and read) here and there that corn is very easy to grow, but I have to disagree. This is my second year growing corn, and I'm still unsure whether all the work (and space) is worth the pay-off. My attempt at growing corn this year was much more successful than my pitiful attempt last year, so I did want to share a few tidbits I've learned (perhaps the hard way) about growing corn successfully.

First of all, the classic image of corn growing in perfect rows is just wrong. In order for kernels to actually develop, the tassel at the top of the plant must release a yellow powder which falls down and pollinates the silks growing out of each ear of corn. A pretty comical analysis of the evolution of corn can be found in Michael Pollen's Omivore's Dilemma in a segment called "Corn Sex." Basically, the farther apart your corn plants are spaced, the harder it is for the silks to be pollinated. Planting your corn in a grid rather than rows puts the plants closer together and facilitates pollination, giving you more kernels.

I learned this lesson by trial and error. Last year I planted my corn in rows resulting in poor pollination and only about 20% of the kernels actually developing. This year I planted in a block, and when I harvested it, about 90% of the kernels had developed. Much better! If you want to help the pollination along even further, you can manually tap or gently shake the tassels at the top of each stem when you can see the powder drifting down. Just try to keep the pollen on the corn (and off of your hands as much as possible), especially if you have seasonal allergies!

In his book, The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, Ed Smith recommends preparing your site with a few inches of fresh compost and planting your corn seeds or seedlings in blocks, one inch deep and eight inches apart in all directions. Corn is a heavy feeder, he wrote, and should be fertilized often. His book also suggested pole beans as a companion plant, and so I planted two teepees of pole beans directly next to my corn. What happened next surprised me: the corn growing directly next to the green beans took off compared to the plants that were further away from the beans. Hmmmm, that was interesting. I wondered why some of my corn plants looked amazing and others appeared, well, pathetic.

As fate would have it, I stumbled onto an article in Organic Gardening magazine a few days later about Natural Design Gardening. The author discussed the importance of biodiversity in vegetable gardening and farming, and specifically mentioned the Three Sisters concept of inter-planting corn, beans, and squash. In essence, the beans build up or "fix" nitrogen in the soil. The corn feeds off of this natural nitrogen boost from the beans and, in turn, acts as a trellis for the beans to climb. Planting trailing varieties of squash in between the corn and beans provides shade and protection for the corn's shallow root system.

This may be way more scientific information than you want to know, but I'm really encouraging you to try planting this way next season; the results were very impressive! At the end of the season, the corn stalks planted directly next to the beans were literally three feet taller than those that weren't, and the ears of corn were almost twice as large as the others. When I finally pulled up the stalks, the corn that had bordered the beans had a root ball three times wider and deeper than its counterpart further away from the beans.

I am fortunate to teach at a school with a well-funded and supportive PTA and an expansive learning garden with raised beds for every grade level. At the end of the school year my fourth grade students and I planted a Three Sisters garden of corn, beans, and squash in a large raised bed in the kindergarten yard. The bed is set up on a drip system, so it's been watered throughout the summer. I drove by recently and the corn was so tall you could see it from the street, just one month after planting (see photos below). I will be sure to plant my own home garden according to this design next spring.

Back to planting. So, you plant your corn seeds or seedlings in a grid eight inches apart. After the seed has sprouted, I would recommend planting one or two (no more) pole beans seeds about two inches from the corn plant to ensure that the roots intermingle. This will produce stalks of corn so thick and strong that they can withstand a pretty decent gust of wind. However, if you still find your corn sagging to the side, especially when the heavy ears start to fill out, you can go ahead and stake up your corn with bamboo and gardener's tape, or any other stake of your choice. I again learned this lesson the hard way when my corn (the ones further away from the beans, that is) sagged over and onto my next door neighbor's brand new Cadillac SUV (clearly, an urban gardening problem)! You can also prevent corn from falling over by keeping the soil moist but not saturated.

So, let's assume you planted your corn, it's still standing up straight and tall, and the ears are developed... or are they? How do you tell when corn is ready to be harvested? Well, that's tricky and the experts don't necessarily agree. Most gardening books state that corn is ready to harvest when the silks at the end turn brown. Some authors insist you peel open the tip of the cob to check and see if the kernels are pale yellow and there is a milky liquid when a kernel is pricked with a knife or your fingernail. Other authors say you should never open a corn husk before you're going to harvest it because you risk damaging the corn, and the husk should only be opened once the water is boiling on the stove and you're ready to cook it. Instead, these guys recommend that you just "feel" the husk to see if it's full and rounded. Being a visual person, I chose the first method, but I'll leave that up to you.

What I can say is that, once you've decided to bite the bullet and harvest that cob, the one that you've been nurturing and observing and picturing with butter and a little salt all spring and summer long, I hope you don't find what I did inside my corn this year: worms!

That's a blog for another day.

Morning Cup of Beans

Parenthood, awe-inspiring as it may be, is not without its multitude of challenges. For this urban working mom, dawn's breaking light typically symbolizes my greatest of all parenting obstacles: getting up and out the door. The past five years have begun in approximately the same manner:

Child starts crying.
Alarm clock rings.
Wailing becomes louder.

Hit snooze. Roll over.
Other child begins crying.
Put pillow over head.
Pitter-patter of little feet.
Avalanche of screaming kids flailing themselves on my bed

demanding milk, waffles, or (fill in the blank).

Drag myself out of bed.

And so it begins. Again.


The following hour is a blur of clothes flying and bags being packed; cereal is served, spilled, and cleaned up; children are wrangled and teeth are brushed; kids are eventually buckled into their car seats through bribery, pleading, trickery, or [when all else fails] physical means... and after several increasingly frantic rounds of "We're late, we're late, for a very important date," I start the car and we're off--to daycare, preschool, and work, generally in that order. I feel like Alice in Wonderland, frantically being chased through a colorful, swirling oblivion, which is ironic since I'm usually the one doing most of the chasing.

And my day hasn't even really started yet, because I haven't had my first cup of coffee.

Recently, however, there has been a change in my early morning routine. Spring has officially sprung, and with it, three new raised beds in my front yard (courtesy of my handy husband). Each measures 4' x 6', giving me a not-so-grand (but still exciting) seventy-two square feet of garden. In mid-April I scoured my gardening books, cross-referenced companion plants and adversaries, sketched out a garden plan, and planted, planted, planted. A few weeks later the garden sprang to life: seeds emerged and seedlings grew exponentially.

As seed leaves and shoots covered the earth like a verdant shag rug, I found myself (to my amazement) springing out of bed each morning... even before the kids began wailing! A new morning routine took shape. I brewed a fresh pot of coffee, kicked on my slippers, and headed out to the raised beds (coffee cup in hand) to observe the changes that had occurred overnight. I'm sure the neighbors thought I was crazy, staring intently each morning at my front yard, sleepy-eyed and pajama-clad.

The amazing thing about a vegetable garden is that if you slow down, almost to a stop, and truly observe, it takes on a life of its own, and there are changes every single day. A cucumber tendril gently winds around a trellis. The first plump tomato reveals the faintest red blush on its emerald skin. A pumpkin blossom the color of sunset just begins to open. A garden breathes, and no two days of the season are ever exactly the same... if you pause and take the time to look closely enough.

A few stolen moments in the garden allow me to inhale deeply, acknowledge the cycle of life, and press "reset" before I head back into the house reenergized, a spring in my step, to wake my little ones.

My garden certainly doesn't solve all of the struggles of parenthood. The milk still spills and requires wiping up, and inevitably I must convince one or both of my children of the virtues of wearing underwear (this is a near-daily battle). But my morning "cup of beans," that is, starting my day sipping coffee in my garden, helps me handle the little challenges with infinitely more patience and perspective--and less like the monstrous Queen of Hearts.

Welcome to Pocket Square Farm!

Welcome to Pocket Square Farm, and thanks for visiting!

Pocket Square Farm is the name I have chosen for my itty-bitty "farm" in the city. Farm probably is not the right word to describe what I am creating; however, it does symbolize what I want to achieve.

Growing up , I always thought that perhaps, one day, I would live on a farm. As a little girl in Orange County (yes, the real OC) I found myself dreaming of horses and chickens more than, say, expensive cars and designer labels. A few decades later, while I have come to appreciate the therapeutic qualities of mall-shopping, my dreams of a more rural lifestyle have not faded. However, my husband and I have settled into a stable, comfortable life in Southern California, close to family and great friends, and in this economy leaving good jobs and a home to plop ourselves down in the middle of nowhere and dig in the dirt doesn't seem like the smartest of ideas.

Add to this equation two children, ages 2 and 5. As a young(ish) mother, I came be more concerned about what my family ate, where I shopped, etc. First I began to buy organic, then local. I started reading books like Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. The more I learned the stronger my conviction to feed my family the freshest, most local meals possible... both for them and our struggling planet. What could be fresher and more local than food from my own garden?

Since buying our home six years ago, my husband and I had "tinkered" in vegetable gardening. One raised bed, a few shriveled green beans, and several years later, we decided that if we were going to be serious about this, we just needed more space. Hmm.

We turned to our front yard. Why? Our small cottage-style home resides on a fairly open lot with more front yard than back. It was important to us to maintain some open grass spaces while our children are young, for the purpose of playing the inevitable games of whiffle ball, soccer, family football, and tag. To one side of our house sprawled a large (relatively speaking), unobstructed, grassy strip that receives full sun throughout spring and summer. Until now, it sat unused and unappreciated, requiring constant mowing and watering, and to what end? We zeroed in on the plot, which measured about 500 square feet, grabbed our shovels, and began digging. Here are some pictures of our "side yard" as we began our project. Ours is the house on the left (the neighbor's grey house, right, is built all the way to the property line).

It's taken approximately four months to create our "Pocket Square Farm." We could have rented a rototiller and dumpster and completed our project in a weekend, but we took a slower and more careful approach. Sod was removed by hand, courtesy of husband Ross and BFF Brett. Soil that was excavated was saved, as much as possible, and reused in our new foot-deep raised beds. Paths were lined with garden fabric and covered with gravel to create a tidy and geometric layout. A drip system was installed (again mostly by my husband, although I oversaw the system's design). We purchased the very best compost, manure, and garden soil we could afford, and finally, after months of waiting and dreaming and working and planning... we planted.

And so it began. Our garden is young and small, but our goal is big: we are striving for sustainability, year-round, in our big little city. Sustainability is a frightening and lofty goal. I am both an idealist and a realist, and so I admit that success may be a long way and many more raised beds off, but it is where we are headed, the destination we are trying to reach.

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle the progress, successes, failures, and lessons learned in Pocket Square Farm. The site is a compilation of many things, beginning with garden projects and reflections, and worthwhile tidbits I've learned along the way. Because I'm a farm girl at heart, I plan to also include related entries such as farm-to-table recipes and some of my favorite farm things. Recommended reading and references will also be noted. I hope this blog will be useful (or at least thought-provoking) to anyone interested in beginning a garden, whether it be a small pot of cherry tomatoes for dressing a side salad... or a multitude of raised beds for feeding a growing family.

Dig in and enjoy!