Apfeln…

Orange, yellow, and red, with the scattered pine in between is the current motif.  As is the reminder to self to simply create a bit more leisure in the day. Meanwhile the summer addiction to peach pie has been translated, amidst this inspired thought, to a classic apple indulgence.

Apple Pie

Preheat oven to 45o

Crust (2, bottom and top)

6 oz. cream cheese (cold)

1/2 lb butter (2 sticks, cold)

2 cups of flour

1 egg white

Mix first three ingredients by hand until blended. Divide in half, chill for another 10-15 minutes if needed (if it’s too sticky), then roll out bottom half on floured board. Line 9 inch pan with this crust then brush with egg white. Chill along with the other half of the dough.

Filling

6 cups of apples, sliced

3/4 cup of sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

2+ Tb flour

1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1+ Tb lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 Tb butter

Mix lemon juice and vanilla with sliced apples. Stir together sugar, cinnamon, flour, and nutmeg. Mix  well with apple slices. Fill prepared pie crust. Add chopped pieces of butter on top of apple mix.

Roll out second ball of pie crust dough and cut into 1/2-3/4 inch strips (a cleaver works well for this.) Weave over pie and crimp edges (for images of this process, see the Peach Pie recipe here.) Brush egg white over top of crust.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then cover edges with tin foil and reduce heat to 350 degrees. Bake 40 minutes more.

Cool and enjoy…

Image Credit: EssjayNZ

 

More on Blight…

Just caught up with an Op-Ed in the New York Times by Dan Barber on the issue of this season’s rampant tomato blight. Like others, it’s pointing to the problems of big-box retail (Home Depot, Lowe’s, K-Mart and Wal-Mart) in spreading the scourge…  It’s worth a read and can be found here.

 

The History of School Gardens

The Library of Congress has recently established its own channel on YouTube. Their online video collection is growing with the inclusion of historical footage (including some interesting footage of women at work in the Westinghouse factories, apparently ca. 1904) as well as videos of more recent academic talks at the LOC.

One video item stood out immediately as a sequel (or sequel link) to my last post on children and gardening – namely Constance Carter’s own discussion of the history of the school garden movement:

 

Kids, Gardens, and Healthy Eats…

The rain has been falling this spring. With wet ground and a collection of other distractions, I’ve only made it out to work on the back garden a few times in recent weeks.  This lazy Sunday has brought balmy sunshine, though, and I finally ventured out back to dig in the dirt. Or, mostly, pull weeds out of the same muck.

I’ve been distracting myself amidst the past weeks’ rainy days with a topic that is gaining ever more public attention lately: children’s gardening.  Compost had originally been my intended distraction and topic for a new post – namely composting practice, its historical trajectory, a survey of muck, literally, then and now,  as I’ve been puzzling how best an urbanite can dispose of those scraps.

That’ll remain a project for later (though not much later) as it quickly has taken me to other places. One of the most welcome events of the spring, of course, has been the establishment of a White House garden out on that front lawn. It’s been long in coming, a project advocated by a diverse and interesting contingent.  Most welcome has been the combination of a project to grow natural food for area folks themselves with an effort engage local school kids in the endeavor. The event has helped to bring new attention to DC-area school projects for kids in gardening and related issues of health and sustainability, as well as to local programs such as DC Schoolyard Greening (DSCG).

The project of bringing children into the effort of eating locally seems essential, not simply as a means to educate a new generation in wiser and healthier living, but also as an effort to exert a more fundamental – and immediate – change in institutional practices of eating and consumption.  Fast Grow the Weeds recently offered a wonderful account of involvement in a school gardens project. Working for the dual goals of learning and an embrace good foods, folks involved in the project have  produced a successful introduction of a “slow snack” movement, bringing local food directly onto the school’s snack menu. As a veteran of plastic-packaged saltines and cartons of chemical chocolate milk in elementary school, and one who is currently stuck with Sodexo at my own academic institution’s dining hall, I was very happy to see this success story.

Similar stories, projects, tools, guides, and images seem to be appearing in increasing number these days (or, just as likely, are sites and scenes I’m finally stumbling upon, like many others who are new, or newly returning, to gardening…) My early hunts for good info online regarding composting brought me to the University of Illiniois Extension and Urban Programs Network own “Come Live with Me” kids page with detailed instructions for raising earthworms. And I’ve recently discovered that Flickr hosts a wonderful image group for “Children Gardening.” I’ll be keeping up the search for useful sites and project pages related to children and gardening, education and local foods. Looking forward to seeing more…

Image: Children’s Farm, N.Y.C., ca. 1910-1915,  Library of Congress Photostream

 

July’s arrived…

As have the eggplant, or at least the very first one to appear. This is the long, slender Asian-style variety known as “Ichiban.” It makes for a great Chinese yuxiang eggplant dish (fried eggplant, garlic, ginger, vinegar, chili sauce… delicious.)

The garden has been producing other good things for the kitchen as well. I harvested some tasty chard from out back for a nice dish of cannellini and garbanzo beans together with onions and tomatoes, which I served on top of pasta. (Many thanks to Christina from A Thinking Stomach for the suggestion to grow chard and the encouragement regarding eggplant this past spring!) The inspiration for the dish, incidentally, was a delicious recipe offered at A Chicken in Every Granny Cart. It made for a great meal, and an economical one at that… not to mention healthy (it’s both vegetarian and high in protein.)

 

Cherry tomatoes coming along…

Gardening has moved into a slower mode lately. There are still a few peas appearing, but those are mostly past their season. Drying out and ready to be retired. Meanwhile, the container vegetables are doing nicely. The cherry tomatoes are coming along (I can’t wait to get some in a salad, especially the sungold cherry tomatoes…) Eggplant is also coming along, slowly but surely. I think it’s liking the warm and wet weather we’ve been having. The Kentucky Wonder beans I’ve got going in the ground are shooting skyward by at least 4-5 inches a day, it seems. They look like one could just sit and see them grow. The weather’s about to turn even hotter – mid-90s with potential thunderstorms predicted for the next few days.

The other arrival out back has been slightly less expected. We’ve seen evidence of something digging in some of our containers, especially little bins where we’ve got parsley growing and nasturtiums. Other evidence? Empty nutshells, half-eaten crab apples left on the slate stones of a little garden patio. Finally, we spotted him:

Actually, there are two chipmunks. They’re loving the crab apple tree we’ve got out back and all the container veggies amongst which to play, eat, and chase each other…

 

Mellow day in the garden…

Today’s tasks were simple: weeding and mulching. I added mulch around my Kentucky Wonder beans, which are growing nicely these days. And weeded here and there, just trying to keep up. Or catch up.

Gardening continues to be making news this season, particularly in terms of a conversation regarding household budgets, a slagging (to put it mildly) economy, and, of late, problematic tomatoes on retail shelves. The New York Times ran an article yesterday, “Banking on Gardening” (6/11) in which a number of gardeners, beginners and veterans, spoke to the amount of savings they obtain through growing their own food.

The piece had me wondering about different approaches – and particularly mine, which has been probably about 80% container and 20% ground, given the small space I have at home. It’s really a suburban leaning towards semi-urban style of gardening… I haven’t kept close track of the money I’ve invested in potting soil or equipment (though the latter can be reused and seems a worthwhile investment), and I think having home-grown, fresh, tasty vegetables is something well worth spending a bit of the budget on. But it did get me wondering how different the financial outlay is in container gardening vs. ground plots. It’s an issue I also contemplate as I consider raised beds for next season…

 

…and the bad news? Bugs and blight.

Blight may be too strong a word – and perhaps the bug is a good one? I’m working to identify this insect at the moment, starting with a helpful set of helpful insect images offered by the University of Maryland’s Home and Garden Info Center. (I came across another nice set of images of helpful garden insects offered by Texas A&M University’s Extension Horticulture program and Galveston County Master Gardeners, though Texas is a bit far afield from my own territory…)

I didn’t get a perfect image of the bug I’m trying to identify (it was running – fast – around the leaf when it realized I was coming close…) A rough description: about 1/2 an inch long, black back and wings and legs, reddish-orange head. Black eyes.

The little thing is out of focus here as it sits on one of my eggplants, but this actually gives a better profile view than the other image I have:

Would love to know what that one is…

I’ve also found that my tomatoes and beans are looking a bit afflicted. The tomatoes are getting white-ish yellow spots (see left)…

…while the leaves on a bush bean I have are just fading in color from green to yellow to a crunchy, dried brown. Are they roasting in the sun, I wonder? I have been watering them regularly. Short some nutrients? (Ah, the inexperienced gardener stands and stares… on the up-side, though, I did eat some fresh beans from the plant with dinner tonight.)