Preserving: Black currant jam

A big part of our longhaul way of life is to try to eat from the food we grow year-round. This means preserving fruit when it's at its peak so it can be enjoyed throughout the year. Since our fruit garden is in its infancy, we decided that picking local fruit and preserving it is the best and only way to get vitamin C and other antioxidants during the winter and early spring.

In the Hudson Valley right now black currants are ripe and ready. Some strawberries are, too, and this week we should have blueberries (but our early June cherry crop didn't come this year due to lots of rain and cloudy days). So I went to a local pick-your-own farm and harvested 5 pounds of currants in about an hour. After the first 15 minutes of picking, I remembered that it's hard and tedious work. Each currant bush had dozens of branches with hundreds of berries on them. Not all of them are ripe at the same time, so you have to pick your way through. And since I was planning on making jam right away, I painstakingly made sure there was nothing in that bucket but berries.

We preserved a lot of dulces (jams) and fruit down in Argentina, so I just followed the same method up here:

(1) Wash and sterilize your jars. (Wash jars with warm soapy water, then rinse them in water with a bit of bleach to sterilize them. Then rinse again in clean water. Wash tops with warm soapy water and then sterilize in boiling water. Let jars and tops air dry - don't dry with a towel, etc.)


(2) Use a large pot - big enough so that the fruit and sugar only fill it halfway (the jam rises as you cook it). Add your fruit and sugar in a 5:4 ratio. Since I had 5 pounds of black currants, I added 4 pounds of sugar. (This ratio preserves the jam sufficiently to store jars of it at room temperature for four years.)

(3) Cook the fruit and sugar over high heat, boiling and stirring constantly. You can add a bit of butter to prevent foaming. Cook time can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the amount you're cooking and the type of fruit. (Black currants are naturally high in pectin, so they take a shorter amount of time. Strawberries, on the other hand, are low in pectin so take longer to reach the right consistency.)

(4) Test for the right consistency by spooning a small amount on a cold, clean plate. Once it cools, tip the plate to see if it runs:  when it runs ever so slightly, cook for 1-2 minutes more.

(5) Pour the hot jam directly into your sterilized jars and close immediately. Be sure to use gloves and keep the jar in a metal pot while pouring in case it shatters.

Small doses

I am happy to say that I have been poison ivy free for one month now.

I haven't been avoiding it, as I probably should during these summer months when the oils appear to be dripping off of the leaves. In fact, I've taken a fork to many a plant to remove them from our garden area, which involves picking up the leaves and vines with gloved hands and disposing of them.

I would like to attribute my string of good luck to Oral Ivy, a homeopathic product that builds up your body's natural defenses against the toxic oils of poison ivy, oak and sumac. I take 3 drops of the concentrated rhus toxicodendron a day.

Like any homeopathic product, Oral Ivy works in small doses. Such remedies are made by potentizing a substance (serially diluting in water or alcohol, for example, and vigorously shaking it). The substance to be potentized is usually similar to the ailment one is trying to prevent (e.g., potentize poison ivy oil to prevent poison ivy; potentize pollen to prevent pollen allergies), but others are less intuitive. It is a complex science, despite the fact that it is not recognized by strict scientists nor the FDA as a viable "medicine."

I've always believed that small is beautiful (in the economic sense, and also in the social and cultural ones). There is a rhyme and reason to the practice of homeopathic remedies, just as there is one to the concept of peppering in biodynamic farming. In a time and space where bigness, globalism, heavy consumption, needless accumulation and frivolous expansion dominate the collective consciousness, recognizing and participating in the smallness of things is the best remedy I can think of.

R.I.P., Groundhogs

So you might be aware of our pest problem, and the fact that we have no more cilantro, broccoli, cauliflower or red cabbage plants growing in our garden. They even got to some kale, beet greens and radish tops.

Now we are less two groundhogs who were wreaking havoc on our vegetables. Without any detail, we actively got rid of one and passively got rid of another. But the big, fat, lumbering momma is still out there, although hopefully has moved her home since her presumed two offspring are gone.

It is a lot stranger to get rid of a 7-pound rodent than to squish a beetle between your fingers. We have not yet used a .22 (but are well-trained now, thanks to a very professional lesson from my father), but I can only imagine that killing an animal with one would be too easy (as long as you're a good shot)... you're physically removed from the being, pulling a trigger isn't innately violent and we've all seen it done millions of times in movies.

If only Mrs. Groundhog and her family had been feeding on the acres of grasses around us rather than our 2000-sq-ft vegetable beds, we could have all lived together.

Recipe with arugula

Arugula and prosciutto pizza

Ingredients: pizza dough, tomato sauce, cheese, prosciutto, arugula, lemon

Preparing: Make your pizza dough. Roll out dough and top with sauce, a bit of cheese, red hot pepper flakes and oregano (if desired), prosciutto, more cheese. Pop in oven at 500F for 10-ish minutes. When nearly done, completely cover pizza with fresh arugula and bake for 1 more minute.

Eating: Splash fresh lemon juice on your slice.

Dish history: This also originated for us in Argentina. Pizza Fridays were never the same once our butcher let us taste his home-salted prosciutto and we were able to cut fresh arugula from the garden.

Experimenting

Now that we've reached our goal of 20 double-dug beds, we are experimenting with other ways to loosen and add fertility to our soil.

First, we're trying a no-dig method:
Place sheets of newspaper or cardboard directly on the grass/sod. Add organic material in layers, alternating browns and greens (we're adding leftover sod from other beds, leaves, grass clippings, coffee grounds, 2-year old wood chips and soil from our leaf pile that has been decomposing for years) until you've built a "raised bed." Hopefully by mid-July we'll have built up enough material so we can plant a tap-rooting cover crop in there to break up the soil even more. This method is also referred to as the "lasagna" method due to the layering of materials. I honestly don't have highest hopes for this method, since I already know there are a few large rocks just below the surface and hundreds of smaller ones, and organic decomposition doesn't help us with that. But we are assuming that by next spring we'll be able to stick our forks into loosened, highly fertile soil.

Next, we're trying single-digging:
Remove the sod. Use a pick-axe to loosen the soil, remove all of the rocks and weed debris, continue to fork and pick-axe the loosened soil until the fork goes in 12 inches. So we are saving ourselves the steps of moving the top 12 inches of soil and loosening the next 12 inches of subsoil, cutting our bed-digging time in half. I have higher hopes for this one since we are getting a lot of rocks out. We will add manure and other organic material to the loosened soil, mulch it heavily and plant a green manure crop. We're hoping the winter freezes will have heaved a few more rocks upwards into the loosened soil so we can remove them in early spring and plant some vegetable crops there.

Finally, we may experiment with some long-row, tractor-tilled space:
If a friend of ours can come in to till some 100-foot rows for us, we'll do the work of removing rocks and planting the green manure. These long rows could be a great space for main crop potatoes, carrots, corn or blueberry bushes.

In any case, all new beds will be receiving full soil fertility treatment: no more vegetable sowing, just adding organic material, cover crops, and liming in the fall when we till in the green manure.

Treated seeds

We've decided that once we pull an early crop (e.g., spinach, arugula) out of the ground, we should replant with peas while it's still early in the season. That way we supply some nitrogen to the soil (since peas are legumes) and get a vegetable to harvest in the fall. Much to my dismay, I opened up my 5-lb bag of shelling peas to find I had accidentally ordered treated peas. (The seed company we were dealing with was great and agreed to take back the bag and credit my account.)  

The red peas (L) are treated.

Treated seeds are treated with a fungicidal powder (typically Thiram or Captan) as a preventative against damping off diseases and seeds rotting in cold damp soil. The chemicals used to treat seeds can be harmful to human health, and although they are designed to have short half-lives and cling to soil particles so they erode and pollute less, they are also harmful to the environment. Many corn, bean, peas, lettuce and melon seeds, among others, are available treated. 

Treated seeds were developed primarily so large scale growers could benefit from an early yield: treated seeds planted in cold damp soil in early spring are less likely to rot. This increases the germination rate and future yield. But if profit's not your motive, you can just wait until the time is right, when the soil's warmed appropriately for whatever seed variety you are putting into the ground, and you don't have to worry about rotting seeds. With increasing population, high-demand global markets and rising food prices, how could we ever wean ourselves from big ag's use of treated seeds?

As a small-scale grower or home gardener, we have the choice to buy treated, untreated conventional or organic seeds. When you buy seeds online you can be sure to check the box that says "will NOT accept treated seeds" if you plan on growing organically and you will never be shipped a treated product. But another way to avoid treated seeds is to save your own and maybe eve join a seed saver exchange. That way you and your fellow exchange members control both the seed and the growing conditions, ensuring a safer, more locally-appropriate crop.

Recipe with kale

Kale chips

Ingredients: kale, olive oil, salt, pepper, red hot pepper flakes

Preparing: Wash kale and cut out tough stems. Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper and red hot pepper flakes. Grill for 10 minutes (or place under broiler) - until the edges of the leaves have crisped up nicely.

Eating: Eat with your fingers as a tasty appetizer or side dish to other grilled foods.

Dish history: We became obsessed with these "kale chips" in Argentina: there was an abundance of kale in the garden and we loved our parrilla. Simple.

The perils of public health: the case of raw milk

I'm sure many of us have tasted raw milk... years ago as small children or, more recently, fresh from a cow on a farm. Isn't it so much creamier and tastier? Don't you feel healthier after a glass?

Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized. Following the Industrial Revolution, the

Our nearly gone half-gal of raw milk.

swarms of people leaving behind their cows and rural homes for urban life, the discovery of the pasteurization process, and the up-scaling of dairy production on huge industrial farms, raw milk has been harder and harder to find. For all the good the field of public health brings us, it has brought us peril in the case of milk. The turn of the twentieth century saw the spread and dominance of the germ theory, the belief that disease was spread through microorganisms, such as bacteria.* Public health professionals, of course, were correct: many diseases are indeed spread through "germs." However, where we went wrong as a profession was our unfiltered, widespread push for pasteurization. In effect, all farmer's milk is treated as potentially contagious. This gives us peace of mind in an era of not being able to connect our milk bottle to a farmer's or cow's face. But is has also created a culture that assumes all unpasteurized products are dangerous.

These days selling raw milk is illegal in over 20 states. But there is a movement afoot to bring it back into trade, albeit at the small scale. It is sometimes available at farmer's markets, as part of CSA shares or for pick-up on farms. Raw milk proponents believe their unpasteurized version has more nutritive value and health-promoting bacteria than their mass-produced, highly-heated, bland-tasting counterpart. Its producers say that as long as their practices are sanitary (which can be more easily controlled when it is a small operation, for example), their milk is healthy for you. And its fans say it just tastes better.

Too bad I live in New York State, where the sale of raw milk at farmer's markets is illegal. (Luckily, we got one delicious week's installment before the farmer was told to halt sales.)

* Admittedly, a much better theory than the previous generation of public health professionals held onto: the miasma theory, the belief that miasma, a rotten, toxic form of air, caused disease and death.

Recipe with basil

Basil pesto (I'm doing such a basic basil recipe because it's a cheaper and easier one)

Ingredients: basil, pepitas (de-hulled pumpkin or squash seeds), parmesan cheese, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice

Preparing: If you have full/tall stems of basil, remove the stem from below the bottom set of leaves and keep the rest of the stems and leaves (you don't even have to chop them). Combine in a food processor the basil (leaves and adjoining stems), parmesan, pepitas (cheapter than pine nuts) and garlic. Slowly add the olive oil (or vegetable oil, even cheaper). When you get the right consistency, squeeze in some fresh lemon juice. Store in a jar in the refrigerator.

(Note: 8 cups of very loosely packed basil made 2 cups of pesto)

Eating: Really tasty on toasted raisin bread.

Dish history: Down in Argentina we made pesto all of the time, which is where we learned the stem-and-all trick, vegetable oil trick and non-pine-nut trick (we used walnuts that we harvested from the farm).

Peppering

Pests are a part of our ecology, and for this reason, I respect them. But when they do damage to my livelihood, I don't feel so bad about taking measures to get rid of them.

A farmer battles with many forms of pests: animals, insects, bacteria, fungi, viruses and weeds. Each battle depends on the pest at hand. And some battles can take over your life... this is, presumably, why insecticides, agricultural antibiotics and herbicides were invented and are now overused. But as an organic producer, we won't use synthetic or chemical products to protect our plants. 

Instead, we use row covers, our fingers, predator urine, companion planting, beneficial insects, we make sure our soil's healthy, and some use organic sprays. And after a recent visit to a biodynamic farm, the Pfeiffer Center, I was introduced to the concept of "peppering."

You can read about this art in Rudolf Steiner's own words to understand the meaning behind the method. I'll explain briefly in the case of peppering to prevent weeds: When a weed goes to seed, collect the seeds, place them in a metal container and burn them in a hot fire. Collect the ashes from these seeds, mix them with the wood ash from the fire, and sprinkle this ash around your garden where you do not want these weeds to grow. With the case of insects you would burn the whole insect and with the case of animals you would burn the hide. You can repeat this process several times a year and you can follow Steiner's word on the appropriate times to do it (based on the moon and other cosmic forces). After three to four years, you should be virtually pest-free.

There is a lot to remark on this method. For one, if you kill the groundhog eating your broccoli and you do this in successive years, you'll have exterminated the problem and maybe the burning/sprinkling didn't do anything. Also, if it takes three to four years, what should I do in the meantime to protect my plants?!? But if you do read Steiner's lecture and study biodynamic farming, you might be led to believe in the power of peppering.

Recipe with peas

Fresh pea risotto w/ mint

Ingredients: onion, butter, olive oil, risotto rice, white wine or dry vermouth, stock, fresh peas, parmesan cheese, fresh mint, pepper

Preparing: Prepare as any risotto dish. Saute the onions in butter and olive oil. Then add and slightly toast the rice (we use 1 cup rice for a 2-person meal with a little leftovers). Add a hefty amount of white wine (or dry vermouth) and let the alcohol boil off. Then start adding the hot stock in small quantities, stirring often. When you add your last installment of broth, add the peas and fresh mint. Then stir in parmesan cheese and crack a lot of black pepper in it.

Eating: Sprinkle with some fresh lemon juice. A tasty main course or side for duck breast.

Dish history: If you are not going to eat fresh peas right out of the pod, this is a nice way to present them, still crispy and paired with their companion herb. Made this for the first time a few years back with a good friend who had the habit of only eating things when they were in season and this dish made such a fresh impression.

Looking out

One of the most amazing parts of starting Longhaul Farm has been family, friends and neighbors looking out for us. A good number of people are genuinely interested in what we do, they feel bad when our broccolis are beheaded, they are psyched to share a home-grown salad and they are eager to haul rocks and dig beds with us.

Just the other day a young couple from across the river dropped by, the old-fashioned way, so they say, to see what we were up to. It was so refreshing and informative and calming to have two new neighbors take a random interest in what we were doing... not to mention they know a lot about native plants in our area and are seemingly equally obsessed with my arch nemesis, the black swallow wort, as I am.

And we received messages from a few good friends saying "sorry about those pests - have you tried coyote urine?," a neighbor down the road dropped off supplies for us to harvest with and Jason's father helped us weed after the rains we had the past few days. A community that is looking out is a very comfortable thing.

On a related-but-not-so-related note about this "looking out" concept... I think people are capable of looking out... but a corporation?!? And even worse, a bank? Scenario: Jason is up in Canada on a week-long trip in the wilderness of Restoule Lake. He's buying groceries (presumably) at the local supermarket, tries to use his <bank name> debit card to pay for it, and it gets denied. So <bank name>'s Fraud Department calls our HOME phone to check that this "activity" is approved.

Sparing many of the details of what went through my mind and the conversation that ensued... I called back this <bank name> Fraud Department and because I am not on Jason's account, couldn't approve his purchase, but as an angry partner and angry <bank name> customer, could complain. This whole fraud-prevention-thing is billed as "consumer protection," but in this case I see it as a serious inconvenience and a way for <bank name> to be sure it doesn't have to lose money on any fraudulent activity on an account. Seriously... he's in Canada! Can't we go for a vacation and have our money work for us? (No, we can't: according to the <bank name> supervisor I spoke with: he said it is the consumer's responsibility to notify <bank name> of any impending unusual activity. Relatedly, Jason's account was hacked while we lived in Argentina and <bank name> didn't pick up on it for 6 days and $2,500 later, once Jason caught it and put in a call.)

Just recently I had to call <bank name> to ask that my daily ATM withdrawal limit be increased to a reasonable level. Yes, there are "consumer protection" reasons to put a limit on this, but, digging deeper, my email request to them stated, "Dear Sir or Madam, Please increase my daily ATM withdrawal limit. I would prefer $X00. I have no idea why it is set at $Y00, other than so you, <bank name>, can keep more of my money for your own investments. Cordially, Jocelyn."

So if you haven't read our posts on moving your money into a local bank, you might consider now (or not, because I understand many people like the comfort of fraud prevention at the expense of your privacy and daily purchasing being monitored by a computer program and then flagged and sent to some employee of the <bank name> Fraud Department who is overworked now from the inane daily checks they do on their hundreds of thousands of customers and is responsible for trying to get in touch with you while you are unreachable and on your vacation and in the end you can't even buy your groceries or pay for gas). I'm getting back on the task of finding an institution I respect to put my money into... and enjoying small personal pleasures in life of real live individuals just dropping by and looking out for us.

Please excuse the rant.

Black gold, made on-site

Since we launched our compost collective in mid-March, we collect organic matter from 10 families on our road, a deli on route 9 and a local supermarket in Peekskill. We now have 2 heaps of finished compost... about 4 cubic yards worth of black gold.

Sifting the compost

Black gold

Every week for the past 3 months we have layered our browns and greens, throwing in a little horse manure and lime here and there, and turned each pile to encourage the microorganisms to do their job. We have two more heaps that we've been working on for the past month. We sift the compost through a screen to separate out rocks, sticks and things that are not fully broken down and then apply it to our vegetable beds. Our tomato plants and asparagus seem to be starving for some nutrients, so we know they'll be happy.

Thanks to all of our neighbors who are participating!

Why we're double-digging (part II)

We are celebrating our hitting the 20-double-dug bed mark: 2,000 square feet of 24-inch-deep soft, aerated, amended soil.

Even though people still think we're crazy for doing it, we have a slow-and-steady-to-develop garden, we've got our own plans to experiment with the next few beds using newspaper sheets, organic matter, green manure crops and tap rooters, and Jason's muscles are bursting and his back is aching, we have a really, really, really good answer for "why double-dig?"

R.O.C.K.S.

No matter how much you build up your beds, there's no escaping the huge boulders we pull out just a few inches below the surface. These rocks are impenetrable barriers to plant roots, never to be dealt with unless we get into the ground.

And hopefully we will never have to dig this deep again.

Recipe with chard

Acelga (Swiss chard) pie

Ingredients: pie crust, onions, garlic, Swiss chard, bechamel sauce (butter, milk, flour, nutmeg), s+p

Preparing: Prepare and roll out any savory pie crust. Saute onions and garlic in olive oil. Add lots of chopped Swiss chard (or any other juicy green in season... spinach, bok choy, tatsoi cabbage) and cook down. Stir in bechamel sauce that has been flavored with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Pour the greens mixture into the pie crust and bake at 375 for about 45 minutes (or until crust is browned).

Eating: We top the pie with spicy tomato sauce.

Dish history: This is a classic Argentinian dish that we made so many times on the farm because they had the most booming crop of acelga.

F'er weed update

Now that I'm obsessed with this invasive plant, I figured I'd share it's official name:  

Black or Louis' Swallow Wort (Cynanchum louiseae). 

FKA: F***er weed.

Pun intended: it's in for a long-haul chemical-free, cultural, mechanical and biodynamical control battle.

Pests

We've got pests. And they come in insect and mammal form.

How many little green wormy things can you count?

Our brassicas, for now, are taking the biggest hit. The flea beetles have turned our Chinese cabbage into swiss cheese. The cabbage loopers (not really sure what they're called) have eaten away at our broccoli and cabbage leaves. And a loafy gopher has beheaded many a broccoli and collard plant.

I'm sure there's more to come.

A healthy broccoli plant

Dealing with pests in an organic way includes diverse techniques. There are still organic sprays you can purchase that will kill the pest, such as garlic barrier, rotenone copper dust, hot pepper wax or neem oil. For now, we are trying two methods: row cover and picking the pests off the plant and killing them ourselves.**

Row cover is a lightweight fabric that many organic gardeners use to prevent insects and other pests from getting to their crops. It is so light that you can put the fabric directly on your plants. The trick is to put the cover on them immediately after you transplant them out. We did not do this, which is why so many of our leaves have been victim to the flea beetle. But it's never too late to try: if we put the row cover on now we'll at least prevent more flea beetles from feasting on our future food.

Be-headed broccoli plants

As for picking the pests off ourselves... I've started inspecting all of our brassica plants daily, pulling off the little green caterpillar things and squashing them. It's kind of easy to find them: just look for eaten leaves.

Now we have to figure out what to do with the gopher we've seen lumbering across our pasture. He prefers the brassicas, too, although I have seen a few lettuce heads chopped off. We're hoping the row covers help with him. Last night we put out a radio in the garden and left it on, hoping to scare him off with noise. We plan to buy a motion detector light or noise maker to also scare him off. Otherwise, we'll have to find his gopher hole and smoke him out.

The row cover

** After a visit to a local biodynamic farm, I have stumbled upon another long haul method for ridding your garden of pests. More on this in an upcoming post.

Recipe with Tatsoi cabbage

Pasta with Tatsoi cabbage

Ingredients: olive oil, garlic, Tatsoi cabbage (small leaves like baby spinach), zucchini (or any other vegetable you'd like), parmesan cheese, lemon, pasta

Preparing: Prepare the pasta as you normally do. To prepare the "sauce": Cook up the garlic in olive oil. (Add some white wine or herbs at this point if you'd like.) Add the Tatsoi cabbage leaves and other vegetable and saute for just 2-3 minutes. The Tatsoi will be just wilted and the other vegetable will still be crunchy and fresh.

Eating: Serve the greens over the pasta with shaved parmesan and fresh lemon juice.

Dish history: You figure out lots of ways to eat Tatsoi cabbage when you planted 200 plants of it and they are all ready for harvest within two weeks. We use it in any recipe you'd use spinach.

F***er weed

They're everywhere. And so aptly named by an 82-year-old gentleman farmer friend who recently toured our farm and has been farming in the Hudson Valley his whole life.

The roots

These weeds have the most intense root system I've ever seen, can grow without light, and apparently thrive in our acidic soil. I've seriously found the roots of these weeds at the bottom of compost piles and a plant has grown in the dark, for two feet, until it emerges on top of the pile. We find the roots everywhere in our sod when we dig beds. And now we find the plant everywhere in our vegetable beds, sprouting from roots we missed. You can't just pull them out; their roots are always so deep you have to dig them out. If you get lazy and just pull, I swear, three pop up for each one you've angrily teared away at.

What to do with these f'er weeds?

The weed

The other day we visited Glynwood Farm here in Putnam County. It is a non-profit farm whose mission is to help small- and mid-sized farmers to thrive. The farm has a long history, but its current non-profit status means that it is always willing to advise anyone on how to improve soil, raise livestock, build irrigation systems and so much more, all in the spirit of self-sufficiency. So we took a tour with the lead livestock farmer to learn about how they sustainably raise chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, cows and horses. What does livestock at Glynwood have to do with our weeds?

The livestock farmer has a nemesis as well: they are an invasive rose bush. You see them almost everywhere at Glynwood. He received a grant from the USDA to raise goats in an attempt to control this invasive weed (rather than excavate all of the land). Goats will eat anything, so he sets them out to graze in these fields of grass and the invasive rose bush. They can't take down the entire bush because the branches are actually quite thick and brambly. But they do eat the leaves and small twigs. And what he's found, and I've seen with my own eyes, is that in the fields where he set the goats out in last year, the rose bushes are much smaller and more compact than in fields where the goats have yet to graze. So after a harsh winter where everything dies back, these rose bushes grow back smaller the following spring after having been nibbled on the previous season.

It got me thinking...

We need animals. BUT, before we bite off more than we can chew, we did decide to cut back all of the f'er weeds we could see. They were starting to get little flowers, so it was almost getting too late (we don't want their seeds dropping anywhere). Maybe if we continually cut them this season, we'll start stunting their growth. Although I'd really just prefer them to cease to exist.

Recipe with rabe

Rabe and white bean soup

Ingredients: broccoli rabe (rapini), pancetta, onions, garlic, hot peppers, white wine, broth, white beans, parmesan cheese

Preparing: Cook up some pancetta. Remove from pan and cook onions, garlic and hot pepper in the rendered fat. Add white wine and boil alcohol off. Add broccoli rabe cut to your preferred size and saute until bright green. Add broth and white beans (I use chicken broth and cannellini beans that have been soaked and cooked). Simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Eating: Serve with shaved parmesan cheese and some warm, crusty bread.

Dish history: When I was growing up we used to eat "beans and escarole" soup. My dad suggested using the rabe as the green. I added the pancetta and parmesan because they just taste so good.

Home soil testing

Moving into our new territory for digging, we've noticed the soil is much richer. So we bought a home soil test kit with fantasies that maybe our previous professionally performed test was conservative in its results (this is even in spite of the fact that 2 of our 6 inch spinach plants are already bolting).

Our little vials of soil, water and testing powders are color coordinated: green for measuring pH, purple for Nitrogen, blue for Potassium and red for Phosphorous. The test takes $5 of your savings, a half a cup of your soil and 25 minutes of your time (5 minutes of active time). That said, it is really worth every home gardener performing a test on their soil. Land deficient in nutrients grows vegetables, fruit and flowers deficient in size, shape, color and beauty.

However, soil testing is a science. Relying on one result could lead you down an ill-advised path. For example, our test showed neutral-ish pH (neutral is 7.0; with this test it's measured against a color scale that is not exact). Our sourced-out soil test performed in a laboratory revealed a pH of 4.95. So the home gardener would benefit from performing multiple tests (which would only increase your time, not necessarily what you spend: the $5 test kit comes with 4 pH tests and 2 each of the macronutrients). And once you've got results, you can call your county's agricultural extension office (of Cornell University in New York State's case)- the two I've dealt with have staff waiting on hand to give free, friendly advice on how to improve your soil.

So... we've set our fantasies aside and accepted the fact that our soil needs some sweetening this year. And now back to double digging.

To mulch or not to mulch?

Mulch is a protective cover placed over soil to help retain moisture, suppress weeds, reduce erosion, and even provide nutrients. There are many different types of organic mulch material: lawn clippings, wood chips, pine needles, hay, straw, chopped leaves, shaved bark, sawdust, shredded newspaper, cardboard, compost or animal manure. What you apply to your plants depends on availability and the type of plant in the ground. 

Potato plant with chopped leaf mulch

We've got plenty of fallen leaves, pine needles and wood chips. We have to doctor the leaves before applying them as mulch: we run over piles of them with our lawnmower. This prevents them from matting together and actually doing more harm then good by not allowing water or sunlight to penetrate to the soil.

The type of mulch we apply depends on what fruit or vegetable we have planted. For example, pine needles, sawdust and wood chips are slightly acidic and can be applied to strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. These carbon-rich mulches also take a lot longer to break down than other mulches, so it is more practical to use them with plants that you will not pull up or that are perennials. Our vegetables, on the other hand, prefer chopped leaves or hay as mulch. It is amazing how much moisture they help retain.

That said, we've learned a few "don'ts" with mulch this year. I can hear Josephine, our Argentine farmer friend, always saying that whether to mulch or not depends on the person. Because despite all the good mulch does, it also attracts the bichos. Bugs. We've noticed our bean and Chinese cabbage seedlings have holes in some of their leaves. And some of our bean plants seem to have been nibbled to the point that they no longer exist. Our non-mulched beds do not have the same hole-y-leaf problem (but note, they are different plants).

Strawberry with pine needle mulch

I've also noticed more weeds in some of our mulched beds. I think this is for two reasons: (1) the mulch has weed seeds or weeds in it and (2) our soil is so inhospitable that even weeds can't survive unless they're planted or put there.

We've also learned not to mulch with radishes. We do have a controlled experiment with this one: the radishes that had been mulched actually try to grow in the mulch, and because it is so loose and not compact like soil, the "radish" does not get round, but rather long and skinny. The radishes that are planted and not mulched are developing as planned.

So mulching allows you to never have to use a hoe, but you might have bug problems or mulch weeds growing alongside your vegetables. If you don't mulch you might be carrying around your hoe every time you're in the garden... or you'll have to figure out a way to make weeding with friends a fun task.

Trigger finger

Although this is self-diagnosed, I think I have trigger finger. In my left pinky.

Every morning when I wake up, my least-used-finger (apart from typing "a's") aches, gets stuck in a closed position, and I need my right hand to straighten it. As the day goes on, it feels better and opens and closes almost like normal. From over-use (i.e., over-shoveling, over-forking, over-weeding, over-transplanting), I am wearing and tearing my poor pinky's tender tendon.

And it's only our first spring!

So I plan to splint it at night and while working, mostly because I can't choose the other home remedy: rest it for 4-6 weeks.

Recipe with radishes

I hope this isn't lame, but I thought I'd start posting simple ways to cook or eat a vegetable we are currently harvesting.

First on the list: Radish.

Ingredients: fresh radishes WITH greens; butter; salt and pepper.

Preparing: Select radishes with fresh greens (not wilting, browning or going bad). Wash well and remove any bad leaves. Cut the radish in half from the root to the top, being sure to leave some greens on both halves. Heat some butter in a pan and place the radishes in the hot butter; greens out of the pan and off of the butter for now. After 3-5 minutes (depending on how crispy you like your radish), add salt and pepper and move the greens into the pan. Saute for a few more minutes until greens are tender.

Eating: Eat the whole vegetable, greens and all. This method of cooking makes the sweetness of the radish come out, and it is oh-so-juicy.

Dish history: We had this several years ago for the first time at a friend's house. (Thanks, Cal.)

R.I.P., Sr. Copperhead

A perhaps more productive use of a hoe: killing copperhead snakes.

There are only three types of poisonous snakes in New York State: the timber rattlesnake, the massasauga and the copperhead. The former two have a rattle at the end of their tails. The copperhead does not. It has a medium brown body with lighter brown spots, a classic reptile pattern. These snakes are supposedly better left alone because they do not attack unless attacked themselves. In fact, they are quite sluggish and will stay still if you spot them and keep on walking.

But when you find one while raking up leaves in a part of your property that is heavily trafficked... in a pile you might very well have just picked up with your hands... and with a pet dog who doesn't know whether he's playing with or annoying a snake... your reaction is to get rid of it permanently.

So Jason took a sharpened hoe and beheaded the reptile with one quick blow. While the 2-foot-long body lay there lifeless, the head and stub of a "neck" held on to life for a few good minutes. The mouth opened and closed as if in pain or, rather, as if it wanted to take one last bite out of whatever hit him. It flopped over one way. It flopped over another. It twitched. And when it's eyes finally turned a milky color, we were positive there was no energy left in that thing. It was an intense few minutes, watching another living thing die. I felt badly, but I also now feel a tad safer. And it's a good thing we had looked up pictures of snakes to be able to identify the garter snakes from a copperhead, honestly, just one night before.

Please note: the video below is posted so that you all can witness the vitality of this snake's final moments and share in our empathy for life, not to celebrate or promote the beheading of wildlife.

What's in the ground...

Here's an update on our planting status:

Bed #1: Peas (some from Argentina), strung up and starting to flower at about 12" high. Intercropped with radishes that are ready to be harvested.
Bed#2: Chives, Argentinian leeks (transplanted in to replace the spring onions that for whatever reason didn't survive) and parsley (from Argentinian seed).
Bed #3: Potatoes, should be ready to harvest some "new" ones soon and leave the rest in the ground for main crop. When we took a peek at a plant the other day, there were only a few wee taters... not sure if it's the soil or the seed.

Bed #4: Two rows of celery and celeriac. Intercropped with lettuce in between, which is ready to eat any day. Once the lettuce is harvested we'll "hill up" the celery family so they stay blanched.
Bed #5: Brassicas: Red cabbage, Tatsoi cabbage and DiCiccio broccoli. Intercropped with leeks.
Bed #6: Transplanted about 200 basil plants and direct-sowed cilantro, chervil and borage seed. Under plastic still to protect the basil.
Bed #7: Our tomato holding bed, rich with compost and kept warm with a plastic row cover. Now contains over 350 tomato seedlings. The heirloom Brandywines and Cherokee purples will stay there, and once beds 18-20 are prepped, we'll transplant out six other varieties, including Amarillo grande and Cherry amarillo from Argentina, Fargo pear tomato, Peacevine cherry, yellow short, and Bellstar paste.
Bed #8: Half acelga (Swiss chard) and half kale (both from Argentinian seed).

Bed #9: Spinach (Tyee and Bloomsdale) and lettuce (Ithaca and Blackseed). Both fully alive but not growing much (until I add the manure tea).
Bed #10: Direct seeded arugula (some seed from Argentina, the rest is Rocket), transplanted Yellow Cortland and Redwing onion and Spring rabe. The arugula needs to be thinned or we'll be eating the tiniest leaves ever. The rabe is flowering and going to seed... we'll keep one plant in to save the seed and re-plant with some Yukon gold tubers.
Bed #11: Humberto's bed: contains tomato, lettuce, radish, cucumber, broccoli, leek, jalapeno peppers.
Bed #12: 1/3 Early wonder beets, 1/3 carrots (Scarlet and Tonda), 1/3 parsnip. Transplanted some leeks with the carrots because they are good companion plants. Beets need thinning.
Bed #13: 1/3 Haricot verts, 1/3 Provider bush beans, 1/3 Jacob's cattle drying beans. Radish are intercropped on half the bed.
Bed #14: Direct seeded mixed greens: endive frisee, chickory, garden cress, bibb lettuce, Parriss cos lettuce.
Bed #15: Transplanted more brassicas: Chinese cabbage, Tatsoi cabbage and collards.
Bed #16: Skimmed and in need of double-digging! Future site for cucumbers, gherkin cucumbers and zucchini.
 Bed #17: Direct seeded zapallo (from Argentina), butternut squash, acorn squash, Cheese pumpkin and Crookneck squash.

In our herb garden: transplanted tarragon and oregano, planted some sage cuttings, seeded melissa, dill and shiso. Wild mint is growing near the cow barn. Rosemary is still too small to put outdoors.Thyme and lavender are in seed boxes.

In our perennial plots: 10 artichoke bushes, 5 horseradish roots, 3 rhubarb crowns.

Still waiting to be transplanted out: lots of kale, lots of cabbage, some broccoli and collards, cauliflower (which may never go out unless they form their "bud"), more celeriac, tons more leeks, asparagus (from seed!), more oregano. Fava beans also on deck.

Still to be planted for the fall crop: Brussels sprouts, baby bok choy, garlic, more spinach, kale and cabbage.

What we're missing for Longhaul's first year: hot peppers, fennel, rutabaga, bell peppers, eggplant, melons, kohlrabi and corn (from most-to-be-missed to least-to-be-missed, in our opinion).

Rock Hall-of-Fame Revisited

We've broken new ground. Just East of the site where the century-old vegetable garden used to be, mirroring our freshly dug and planted bed #'s 8-17, we are turfing and double-digging. The soil is much friendlier down here. But you can't have it all... the rocks are back and determined to make our joints ache. Could there be an ancient stone wall or foundation down there? The 300-lb-at-a-minimum boulders we are taking out one after another are just too close for coincidence. We've even had to leave two behemoths in the ground because they are wider than our 4 foot bed width and wouldn't even budge for 3 strong men.

Dare I say, "That's okay." Is living with rocks easier on our bodies and morale than impenetrable soil?

Healthy world: human help required

There’s something about preparing the soil for our vegetable beds that reminds me of Pizza Friday.  

On Fridays, we make pizzas and have fancy cocktails (well, martinis for me and red wine for Jocelyn).  It became a tradition on the farm in Argentina, when pangs of longing for NYC pizza and a night out would sometimes pierce our small farming community rural bliss.  So we started making our own pizza dough, thinking up toppings from the garden and local butcher, and pulling city-slicker clothes from the suitcases that had been abandoned under our bed. 

Pizza dough is simple: flour, yeast, salt, sugar and water.  But getting it just right is more difficult, more about the kneading process and getting a feel for what the right consistency of the dough should be.  Adding a pinch of flour or a few drops of water until it’s elastic.

Kneading the dough just right is what I’m thinking about with the pick-axe in my hands on Friday afternoon in our vegetable garden, double-digging another bed.  If you drove by on the road, it might just look like a guy slogging away at the rocky ground, but we’ve got a process here, a plan driven by the hopes that the soil will come out just the way we want it to.  

Just like pizza dough, it’s a pretty simple recipe and goes something like this: dig down a foot and remove the top-soil, break up the soil another foot down with a fork and mix in a good helping of manure, place the sod you removed back in the bottom of the hole for future compost, replace the top-soil and fork in lime and organic material.  Simple recipe, harder to execute in reality.  But it’s what we think is best for the future of our farm.

What I started thinking about is that while most people would accept the idea that human skill and involvement is needed to create the perfect pizza dough, most people would not automatically think the same would be true for a perfectly healthy soil -- or a perfectly healthy natural environment for that matter.  But I believe the work we are doing in the vegetable garden is helping the place be a better version of itself; more beautiful, more rich, more productive, more conducive to life, more a part of its natural eco-system.

One of the most important things we are doing by double-digging is loosening the soil so air, water and nutrients can better move through it and vegetable roots have room to grow.  The soil is largely compacted for natural reasons – thousands of years of little rain-drops hitting the ground like a herd of seven ton elephants if time was condensed (*disclaimer to this metaphor – using the unknown-as-of-then future vegetable garden as our wedding parking lot may have added to soil compaction).

So in our work we are helping to change a natural process which results in making the land more sustaining to life around it; not only ours and hopefully our neighbors, but soil micro-organisms that need soil with space and nutrients, birds that will feed off of the small life forms in the soil, bees and other insects that will feed off of and help pollinate our fruits and vegetables, rabbits and moles and squirrels and deer that will (hopefully only) stare longingly at the produce of our garden from beyond our fence, and the predators that will be drawn to stare longingly at the rabbits, moles, squirrels and deer…the list goes on and on up the chain.

On a farm, examples of this relationship between human help and a healthy natural environment are abundant.  Fruit trees need to be pruned so sun and air reaches the fruit; early fruit buds need to be thinned on each branch to protect the branch from breaking and to produce large, healthy fruit.  Fields need to be mowed every so often to protect against one dominant, fast-growing weed from squeezing out other beneficial grasses.  Vegetable beds need to be weeded and pests controlled to produce a bounty of food.  Forests need to be cleared of low-lying dead brush to prevent against fires and make space for new trees; invasive climbing vines need to be cut from trees before they kill them.  

But all of this work leads to a more important question: what does it mean that human help is required to do this?  In a natural system that we often consider to be so intricately complex and balanced that it goes beyond our full understanding and abilities of prediction, what does it mean that we have a necessary role in helping nature be it’s best, life-sustaining self?

Frost seeding follow-up

That cold winter morning seems so long ago now... when Jason woke up early to sow his green manure seeds in our pastures while the ground was still frozen and the spring thaw had yet to set in.

Nearly two months later and we are on stage two of our frost seeding experiment. Now that our red and white clover are beginning to grow, we have to mow back the older, more established grasses so that the clovers can see the sun and prosper. We hitched on a 3-bushel bagger to our two-decade-old walk-behind lawn mower, adjusted the blades so they'd take down the now 3-foot high Timothy but spare the small stuff, and let the mower take off. Mowing about an acre takes less than an hour. We'll cut again in late June, so long as the weather works in our favor.

Now we've got green to add to our compost pile and a nice pasture to admire.

Buying bulk

No, I don't mean shopping at Costco...

I'm referring to the purchase of grass-fed, sustainably-raised livestock. There are a number of local organic farms in the Hudson Valley who practice farming the way we like it and a great way to support them is to buy their product. We've reserved a whole lamb, a quarter steer and a Thanksgiving turkey; all to be ready for pick-up beginning in November 2011.

This meat is affordable, not cheap. For example, our quarter steer price per pound, hanging weight (which means prior to preparation), is $3.75/lb, bones, marrow, liver, tongue, and all the cuts you could want. A major perk is that the price for the loin is the same as the price for the chopped meat. We'll end up with about 100-150 lbs of beef this winter, to store, share and enjoy.

So I am challenging the notion of "cheap food." Why do Americans have a fascination with finding the best "deals" on the very things they put inside of their bodies? I used to, but no longer, feel comfortable with $2.99/lb meat bought at a big-box grocery store. Understanding we live in a culture such as we do, and that a pound of meat that costs less than a gallon of gas seems like the only option for someone with limited dollars who wants their protein source, I won't fault. But I do ponder the idea of buying bulk meat from a healthy farm as a group, so that the price is still right but you don't have to buy a chest freezer just to participate. This requires communication and coordination, but if you really stop to think about what you're digesting, it seems so doable.

Community Supported Agriculture

Our desire to eat local and seasonal food is growing across this country. Over the past two decades, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular way for tens of thousands of eaters to buy local, seasonal food directly from thousands of farmers. Our close farmer friend runs one in Virginia, our landlord participated in one in Brooklyn, and some of our neighbors here have joined a CSA.

Us Longhaulers have yet to be the eaters involved in a CSA, but we are hoping to be the farmers.

The basic gist of a CSA is that farms offer "shares" or memberships to the public. These shares provide up-front money in the springtime when farmers typically need it the most. In return for their investment, eaters receive farm products, usually a weekly box of freshly harvested vegetables between the months of June and December. This partnership is positive for both parties, for many reasons.

Personally, I enjoy the community and health aspects of a CSA. We have an opportunity to get to know the people who make or eat their food. CSA pick-ups create a time and space for fellow members to meet each other, maybe even harvest something together. Also, you can feel connected to the food you put in your body, knowing exactly the kinds of farming practices your farmer uses. A weekly box of freshness encourages consumption of fruits and vegetables and even inspires someone to cook up that rutabaga or rhubarb they've always been wary of.

* * * * * 

So while we were in Argentina, enjoying a long winter on Chacra Millalen, we wrote our Farm Plan. It is a manifesto of 100+ pages, packed with our own ideas and our efforts to boil down the wisdom we learned from our farmer friends and from great and practical agricultural thinkers and doers. We made the conscious decision to hold off on our CSA until year 2 of our farm. Even though this 1st year requires the biggest capital layout, we were skeptical of our virgin soil. We wanted to get as much going as we could without promising too much... we didn't want to disappoint our partners or neighbors. 

So I flipped through the Farm Plan just this morning. Sitting there on page 24 in our Future Directions section, (along with Learning Center, Policy & Advocacy and Catering), we wrote: "Our CSA program will serve 10-15 families. We hope to have a CSA model where upper income families help subsidize lower income families' participation." This is a core tenet in our model for farm sustainability, and it addresses my two favorite concepts of community and health. The Hunger Action Network provides profiles on many CSAs in New York State that share our values of equity. These amazing farms have implemented some great programs: donating produce to soup kitchens and food pantries, offering revolving loan funds or sliding scale share prices for low-income persons to be able to join the CSA, and accepting food stamps and WIC. We look up to these farms and are excited to join the food justice movement with them.

First harvest

We had our first harvest of broccoli rabe, sowed in our very first seed box on March 8, germinated on March 13, hardened off in cold frame on April 2, transplanted out as our very first transplant on April 7 and sauteed onto our plates on May 9. They tasted green and healthy, satisfyingly bitter, but not perfect yet. We've got a lot of soil improvement ahead of us.

The Fruit Garden

Our "Old" Vegetable Garden has now been transformed to The Fruit Garden.

We spent the two weeks leading up to Saturday prepping the land... augering holes for the trees, forking the old vegetable beds, weeding, adding manure, compost and wood ash. We paid close attention to wise advisers, who said add a bushel of manure to the raspberries, put the blueberries in the most acidic spot you can imagine (which would be pretty much anywhere in our land, read here), don't add manure to the fruit trees, but do add half compost/half soil, some lime and bone meal to the tree holes.

The prep work paid off because we managed to transplant 3 low bush blueberries, 3 high bush blueberries, 12 raspberry canes, 100 strawberry crowns, 4 rhubarb crowns, 3 apple trees, 2 peach trees, 2 pear trees and 2 cherry trees.

We enjoyed the fruits of our labor this morning with Sunday breakfast, the newspaper and a haircut.

Compost tea, anyone?

Sometimes vegetables need a boost. Particularly those that live in soil that is deficient in nutrients.

There is an old custom of "steeping" tea that can be applied to your plants. By adding compost to water and allowing it to steep for a few days, you can create an organic liquid fertilizer that is nutritionally rich, well-balanced and easy to apply to your plants after they're in the ground. It also helps make your limited compost supply stretch a little further because you can keep adding water to the tea and use it so long as it still maintains some brown color and nutrients.

There are several commercial compost teas you can purchase and too many websites out there teaching you how to make a homemade version. We were inspired by Josephine, our farmer mentor in Argentina. Josephine filled a 55 gallon steel drum with sheep manure, egg shells, wood ash and some aged compost, filled it with water, and used a watering can to apply the tea to her crops. It was amazing to see them bounce back to life or add a few centimeters of growth in just a day.

And, of course, there are do's and don'ts to compost tea-making. A few that we're paying attention to: use well-aged compost (our "young" compost still has organic scraps in it and would not break down properly if we soaked it in water) and stir our tea daily (this adds oxygen to the tea that is needed to keep the aerobic microorganisms in there happy and alive).

And now we're inspired to home-brew other organic concoctions. I've got an aged horse manure tea in the works (even more important to stir this one often to prevent any anaerobic - i.e., smelly - activity) and just picked up 20 pounds of fish scraps from our local fish market. I'll bury the fish scraps for a few days, then collect the compost and make a fish emulsion tea. Best of all, we've got a fall trip to the ocean planned to haul as much seaweed as we can for, you guessed it, seaweed tea... supposedly the richest in nutrients of them all.

Putting our money where our mouths are (part II)

Back with an update on our attempt to move our money to a bank that will use it to help support the community we live in.  It's not a lot of money, but we'd rather know our deposit account isn't being used by the big banks to support things we don't agree with (think sub-prime mortgages, CEO mega-salaries, or investments in the types of corporations that generally take advantage of people in the name of profits).

First, I'm not good at this type of thing.  I’ve never been great at math, figuring out my taxes, or making shrewd financial decisions.  Luckily, with so many smart people working on good things out there and access to boundless information over the internet, there’s ready help to make the money move easy and informed if you know where to find it.

 Step One: Bank Sourcing

Our first step was finding out the local banks close to where we live.  The reason I’ve stayed with J.P. Morgan so long is probably convenience, so it will be important to make sure the new bank we choose remains convenient.   

I’ll be honest: change of personal behavior is incredibly difficult, so the easier we make it the better.  Maybe there’s a very thin threshold separating moral action or inaction, at least for beginners.  We’re farmers after all, and like everyone else facing a time deficit, it doesn’t lend itself to driving forty minutes round trip to make a deposit.

The “Move Your Money Project” has a simple website that can help you put together a list of small, independent local banks in your area in twenty minutes. 

After using all three tools they offer to find a local bank by entering our zip code, we had a list of five potential banks within 10 miles of us (a limit we set ourselves based on what we consider local while maintaining convenience): Hudson Valley Bank, Hudson City Savings Bank, Putnam County Savings Bank, Emigrant Savings Bank and Trustco Bank.

Step Two: Interviewing the Banks

There is something empowering about going through the process of choosing a new local bank based just as much on principles as self-interest.  Once the bank representative has finished pitching you on why they are the best home for your money based on your self-interest (convenience, protection against fraud, account fees), the tables are turned and you are in new, strange territory.

We walked into the nearest Hudson Valley Bank branch, located in the slightly run-down Beach Shopping Center strip mall that is obviously experiencing a slow death since the newer, larger strip mall was put in two miles down the road.  The bank branch itself was a bit worn and the only people waiting in the teller line were three Hispanic men dressed in worker clothes (this was a good sign to us, as Peekskill has become a majority Hispanic town in the last ten years, so the bank is serving the local population).

We were pointed in the direction of an empty desk and told to wait for Kendra. Kendra, when she emerged from the bathroom, was an African-American woman who went immediately into a canned spiel after we told her we were interested in learning more about a business checking account.   After learning about their account fee structure, we told her we wanted to move our money to a bank that was lending to the local community and wanted to ask her a few questions: what was their geographic market, what are their lending rates to local small businesses and community projects, what are their lending rates across different class and race lines? 

Kendra stopped and took a second look at us, focusing on us for the first time.  Then she asked us what our business was and we told her we were starting a farm.  Then we began talking about farming and about her memories of her grandmother’s house in Jamaica, how her grandmother had goats and chickens and a pig and nothing ever went to waste. It seems almost everybody has a grandmother or grandfather who raised their own vegetables or animals.

Then Kendra told us that it was the right thing to find out who you’re bank is lending to and if they’re practicing “red-lining” (discriminatory lending practices based on race or class) and that while she didn’t have that information at hand, it was information that was public and every bank’s "CRA" office was legally mandated to provide it to you.  When I asked her what CRA stood for, she told us these reports on banks were part of the Community Reinvestment Act.   

That act has a nice ring to it.

Step Three: Grading Banks on the Bigger Things

The problem with access to so much information is that there is so much that it is often impossibly time-consuming to find what you are looking for.  Modern information can be like a form of snow blindness, where corporations can hide how they are operating by being mega-transparent and drowning the investigator in mountains of paper-work and data. 

We needed to find answers about how our local banks act or don’t act in the interests of their local communities before making our decision about where to move our money, answers that most bank associates didn’t seem to have at their fingertips.

The CRA requires all federal regulatory agencies to examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, rating all banks on their CRA performance. Banks are graded on their lending practices across the  community they are meant to serve, including lending for community projects, small businesses, the amount of loans that stay in the local community (versus an investment in something 300 or 3000 miles away) and across lines of income and race.

 Most CRA performance reports can be found either through the the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency or the Federal Reserve Board.  These reports can help you get as good a big-picture as possible of where your deposit money will go once you open an account with any specific bank.

So we've decided to put together a banking report card before we decide to move our money.  Instead of being grilled by banks on our credit worthiness, income level, and asset wealth, we thought we'd grade them on whether or not they're benefiting our community. The way they used to do and should be doing now.

Now we've got some homework to do, waiting for a rainy day.  Hopefully, the third installment of this experiment will have our money in a place where it keeps working while we're not using it.  We like to think of it as our way of improving the community soil.

Hairy vine, no friend of mine.

Wish I learned that one when I was a kid.

We have both been blessed with a lack of immunity to urushiol, the irritatingly itchy oil of poison ivy. Jason got the first case back on the first of March. There were no "leaves of three" to indicate to him that the vine he was whacking with the axe in order to clear a path for our deer fence should be avoided. In fact, there were no leaves anywhere because it was still winter.

So a tree expert alerted us to the fact that this perennial weed takes many forms. Fine. That hairy vine climbing up the wild cherry tree at the NE corner of our garden is off limits. Easy...

... if only. I got a case from cleaning up some rocks that must have touched that very hairy vine. Then I got another case while I was clearing a spot in the middle of our field to plant our perennial horseradish roots.

And finally today, after two days in a row of sunny, warm weather, the leaves of this persistent plant have shown face. Shiny, red, mini ones... climbing up the door of our tool shed, lurking next to our sunflower plot, and I even weeded one out of our arugula rows.

But we're in this for the long haul. We'll have to learn to live with this species, because it won't go away, no matter how deep you dig.