Tag: garden

Container Vegetables

With continuing recalls of food due to cyclospora cayetanensis and salmonella, now’s a great time to consider container vegetables. You don’t have to be an avid gardener or have tons of space to grow vegetables. If you have a patio, porch, deck, yard, flowerbed, or sunny room in your home, you can grow a number of herbs and vegetables. Growing your own gives you the ability to make sure contaminants don’t reach your food.

arugula in water in a black speckled roaster

All you need are pots or planters, soil, and plants or seeds. Pots and planters are often available for free through community gifting groups or at low cost from thrift stores and flea markets. Soil can be purchased from dollar stores, hardware stores, big box retailers, and garden centers. Many of these will deliver to your porch allowing you to avoid carrying heavy bags up steps.

Plants or seeds may be available from gifting groups, neighbors, hardware stores, big box retailers, and garden centers. To choose the most appropriate plants for your space, time of year, and growing zone, visit a seed company website and search by container vegetables then look for recommendations for your growing zone.

If you think you’ll be limited to tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You can grow those in containers, but you can also grow lettuce, kale, arugula, celery, scallions, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, baby okra, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and corn. And that’s not all, radishes, potatoes, and garlic are possible, even inside.

I gardened with my grandmother as a child and once when my children were little. In 2020 when I learned how fragile our supply chain was, I started gardening again. Currently in my garden are cucumbers, peppers, green beans, bok choi, and the end of romaine lettuce and arugula for the season. My blackberry bush is beginning to flower a second time, and I have a blueberry bush in a pot on my back porch.

That means I have a lot of a few things to consume. If you’re used to grocery store produce, you may not be familiar with seasonal substitutions. Yesterday, I used some of my abundance of cucumbers to make gluten-free muffins. They’re not that different from zucchini or kiwi muffins. I just substituted what’s in season from my garden and changed the flavor profile a little.

This is how I grew up eating so it’s not a stretch to try a new way to prepare something I might otherwise tire of. With seasonal substitutions you get the full flavor of fresh vegetables or fruit that haven’t been trucked around plus variety of taste and texture.

As some plants become prolific, you’ll understand why great-grandmothers made pickles, jam or jelly, tomato juice, cider, and canned vegetables and why many people dry or freeze food. Once you’ve invested the labor to plant, water, and weed, you don’t want anything to go to waste.

But you don’t have to go big to avoid recalled foods. A planter of lettuce may give you the salad base you’re missing. A pot of jalapeno peppers can bring the heat you miss to your nachos. Once you’ve made the initial investment, you will most likely save money as well.

I’m not happy with the lack of food safety we’re currently experiencing. But it is a reality. Growing container vegetables and fruit is a way to continue to enjoy fresh produce with an added layer of safety. Now’s a great time to try it out!

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Another Lesson from the Garden

Today, I’m pondering another lesson from the garden. While I was traveling, my garden was taken over by grass and weeds. Since then, downpours have given them the perfect amount of moisture and they are thriving!

When I first returned, I took a weeding fork and pulled the weeds up and left them to die. That is not what happened. Today, it looked like they had rerooted themselves and doubled in volume and size. Obviously, I needed to remove the grass and weeds by the roots and remove them from the garden.

red barn in background weeds and tomato vines

Because of recent rains, the soil was holding together well. I tried to shake dirt clumps from the weed’s roots, but much of that dark, rich, moist soil traveled over the fence with them. It was painful to see soil I’d recently added to the space fly out of the environment.

My choices were to leave the weeds in the garden, spend an extra hour reclaiming the soil, or feel the sting of watching it leave the garden. Yes, I could have put it in the bucket to reclaim later, but if I had that time available any time soon, I’d have done it right then.

I tossed weeds, grass, and clinging soil into the yard. Once I’d made that decision, I could focus on the loss of fertile soil to the garden or view it as good food for the yard.

This process reminded me of a conversation I had with a 5-year-old last week about telling the truth. They insisted they hadn’t kicked someone. I saw the kick. I told them I saw the kick so that story wasn’t going to fly. There was some screaming, stomping, and tears which led to blaming the person they kicked for making them do it. Once things calmed down, we discussed why it’s important to tell the truth.

As we noted, telling a lie may be faster and less complicated than telling the truth. It’s like my first stab at weeding. The problem is, I ended up with a more difficult job this time around.

Lying is the same. The temporary effects are rarely worth the long-term consequences of eroding trust, undermining goals, and preventing progress. We get ourselves lost in the weeds.

Turning perceived failures, relationship difficulties, and workplace conflicts around in our minds until we’re lying to ourselves is a common adult manifestation of the 5-year-old’s behavior. It serves the purpose of diminishing pain, keeping us out of trouble temporarily, and providing the option of convincing ourselves someone else is to blame.

But the ultimate result will be no different than that in my garden. The entanglements will grow, multiply, and thrive. In the long run that is detrimental.

Finding the courage and strength to face pain, difficulty, and loss directly is the equivalent of me facing reality and tossing grass back into the yard where it belongs without removing garden soil because I know I can’t allot the time to do it. Is it annoying? Yes. Does it pain me? Yes. Is it the best way to avoid the same problem in the future? Yes. Can I do it? Yes.

Obviously, garden soil doesn’t carry as much emotional impact as other things. But I recently had the experience of participating in a conversation in which the other person, let’s call him Bob, turned a situation entirely around in his mind from what we had both experienced, discussed, and agreed about two weeks before.

The incident was a business negotiation between Bob and a potential client. There was nothing egregious in the original transaction. Annoying? Yes. But immoral, illegal, or unheard of? No.

Two weeks ago, Bob was clear he had provided less than clear communication to the potential client leaving her guessing and also implying she was doing something wrong without stating any specific objection.

In our more recent conversation, Bob believed he had been crystal clear and the potential client had treated him terribly. Because of this, he did not believe she deserved to have her phone calls returned. In addition, he had poisoned the water with other colleagues she could have hired.

Bob has revised the story into something I don’t recognize, and I was there for the initial negotiations. I don’t know if he does this often, but it makes me view his stories in a whole new light. Will I ever take them at face value again? I’m not sure.

His credibility with me is damaged because I saw him kick (figuratively) the potential client and then say it was her fault. It’s the same behavior I observed with the 5-year-old.

To repeat because it bears repeating, the ultimate result of taking the easy way out and avoiding painful truths will be no different than using the easy way to weed my garden. The entanglements will grow, multiply, and thrive. In the long run that is detrimental.

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Why Isn’t Okra a Star?

Why isn’t okra a star ingredient? I mean, it’s even shaped like a star. What gives?

This summer, I planted okra in my garden. It’s still going strong. The plants haven’t required much other than an occasional watering to become taller than I and they are prolific producers. One acre yields 4 to 6 tons.

In spite of that, I rarely see okra at the farmers market and it’s not often available at the supermarket. This left me curious what drives the minimal availability and whether accessibility limits its inclusion in recipes. I started clicking around.

Okra is grown commercially for both the fresh and frozen food markets. Some varieties have round pods. Those preferred for the fresh market have star-shaped pods. That’s what I grow.

Since pods for the fresh market require harvesting with a knife, picking can be time-consuming. And the window for perfect-sized pods is narrow. No need to click around to discover that. I’ve learned the lesson in person many times over. Picking a single acre of okra takes between 10 and 20 man-hours.

Machine harvesting has been attempted with varying degrees of success. Given its labor-intensive nature, okra may never be available on the scale of potatoes, corn, or spinach.

But does that mean okra shouldn’t star in more dishes than gumbo, succotash, okra & tomatoes, and fried or pickled okra? Many of you may be imagining its slimy texture and thinking, nah, that’s plenty of dishes– maybe more than enough.

It’s true okra can be slimy. Pairing it with citrus or adding vinegar will reduce this. You can also cook at high heat to minimize sliminess. For example: sautéing, grill charring, or breading and frying result in delicious flavor and texture sans slime.

I sometimes slice a few pods and throw them in with fresh green beans I’m sautéing. The other day, I added some sautéed slices to pasta. It took the dish from a solid, everyday flavor into the slightly exotic category.

I love using large pods, lemon juice, lemongrass, chicken stock, water, and seasoning to create a broth for cooking fish and rice. It creates a pleasing base that can be taken to another level with the addition of saffron or topped with fresh pico de gallo for an extra pop of flavor.

Okra will grow in zones 2 – 11 but it’s traditionally considered a southern food. That association may contribute to it being a role player rather than a star ingredient.

And while many people may hear the word slime and assume they won’t like it, anyone who has had fried okra done right will fight you for it at the store. It was always the star of my grandmother’s summer table.

Tomorrow, it will be the star of mine. I have some sliced and breaded and waiting in the refrigerator. Once I pull out a cast iron skillet and heat some oil, I’ll be minutes away from a mix of soft and crunchy texture that tastes like nothing else!

I even have vine-ripened tomatoes from the garden to go with. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Lessons from the Garden

Make Lemon Gumbo

When life gives you okra, make lemon gumbo. Life didn’t give me lemons last week, but it gave me some HUGE okra pods. A mere two days away from the garden and tiny pods grew so big my grandmother would have disinherited me for not picking them sooner.

The pods weren’t really hard or dry, but they were large and slightly tougher than anything I would want to fry. After the planting, weeding, and watering, I don’t like to throw away anything I’ve grown unless I must. I decided to use the pods in a stew.

Actually, I decided to use the pods in a stew made from ingredients I had on hand. That turned out to be a lemon, some boneless/skinless chicken breasts, chicken stock, brown rice, and seasonings.

While gumbo may technically be a stew thickened with okra, no one I know would call a dish gumbo unless it began with a roux. This did not. Maybe I should call it Coulda-Been-Gumbo.

Anyway, I began with a 32 oz box of ImagineR Organic Free Range Chicken Broth and 2 quarts of water. Into that, I squeezed one fresh lemon.

I removed the ends of each okra pod and sliced them about 1/8” thick. I added the slices to the stock along with one shishito pepper with the non-stem end removed. Then I chopped a small carrot and threw it in. While this mixture was heating, I sprinkled salt and a few grinds of fresh black pepper over the mixture.  

I wanted to add a little more flavor to the broth, so I dug around in the spice cabinet opening jars and smelling spices. I like to do this while standing close enough to the boiling pot that I can smell the spice jar and the broth in the same breath. Then I pick the best combination of aromas.

This time, I chose a blend from Penzeys Spices called Ruth Ann’s Muskego Ave Seasoning. The aroma reminds me a little of the chicken bullion cubes my mother used. It’s a blend of salt, black pepper, garlic, lemon peel, and onion. I sprinkled in about a half teaspoon.

Unlike when I test recipes, when I cook like this I rarely measure. That means I can’t tell you precisely how much I added. I can tell you it smelled right after I stirred everything together.

By now, the mixture was boiling. I reduced the heat and allowed it to simmer for 30 minutes. Then I removed the pepper.

Turning the heat back up, I added a cup of parboiled brown rice and 4 thin sliced chicken breasts. I sprinkled the chicken breasts and rice with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. I put on a lid, reduced the heat to medium low, and set a timer for 25 minutes.

Once the timer alerted me, I turned off the heat and allowed the gumbo to sit for about 5 minutes before I spooned some into a bowl. After a little cooling, I was ready to sample.

The flavors were scrumptious and the texture was pleasing. The lemon juice prevented the okra from making the broth slimy. The extra cooking time caused the slices to break apart into tender pieces of green pod and loose seeds. The chicken was moist and tender.

I was pleased enough that I want to try this again. Perhaps next time, I’ll use tilapia instead of chicken. And maybe I’ll add some lemongrass for added citrus zing.

I’m pretty sure the opportunity will present itself soon. Okra grows FAST!

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