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Gardening
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Amanda Cooke
mothering Mother
Home Gardening
Growing your own food is a journey not many take in these times of abundant inexpensive and high calorie foods that fill the shelves of super markets just a short car drive away. To know and see with your own naked eye how a seed transforms into the plant that produces the next ingredient of your recipe is to know the secret of good eating itself. When are cucumbers in season? How do I maintain an affordable year round supply of fresh herbs for cooking, tea, and medical uses? Nothing is more whole and local than fresh food you produce in your care on your very own land or inside your home. With your home garden you will avoid the carbon footprint of transportation and processing of both conventional and organic industrial agriculture. You will become more in tune with the earth cycles and all the wildlife even in your own backyard. Producing your own food is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences, to connect with your food in a whole new way and to bring to life an entire meal with your bare hands! You have the freedom to grow whatever vegetable you please. All it takes is a trowel, some seeds, and a good spirit to get started in one of the most ancient yet constantly evolving arts.
Outdoor Garden
 The key to a successful garden is early and proper planning. Organizing which vegetables you are going to plant when and where will help you acquire the materials you need and prepare the area in enough time for your hardiness zone. Make a calendar and a garden map. Keep a good record of your seed varieties and harvests. Intercropping, or planting specific crops together, will help your plants defend themselves against pests. Designing your garden according to permaculture principles will help your garden be environmentally and economically efficient.
Pick an area that receives at least 9 hours of sunlight. The more sun the merrier for heat loving tomatoes and peppers while water loving greens prefer shade. Align your rows so the longest length runs north-south to allow your plants equal access to the southern sun.
Next, producing and maintaining adequate soil nutrition is crucial. As I once learned, “feed the soil not the plant.” Plants need three main macro-nutrients: potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus, and a whole range of micro-nutrients. Composting your kitchen and garden waste, like food scraps, weeds, and leaves, will provide your plants with enough “food” while reducing the carbon emissions necessary to transport the organic material to the landfill. If your compost is working properly, there should be a nice earthy scent.
Your seeds are the foundation of your garden. Purchase organic and well-adapted seeds like those from most heirloom seed companies. Try and avoid seed companies like Monsanto and its subsidiaries that genetically modify their seeds. If you can, talk to local farmers and gardeners about which varieties grow well in your area and ask if you can buy seeds from them. Saving your seed will ensure a better crop every year!
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Sydney’s Leafy Green Vegetables
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This recipe was inspired by a friend with a beautiful vegetable garden. Our friend Resi came to visit us and she brought, literally, a bucket of swiss chard. What to do with such an abundance?! Change dinner plans from a restaurant with friends to home with friends, and create something tasty! Thank you Resi for inspiring all of us to eat our greens!
Leafy Green Vegetables (4 servings)
1 bunch of leafy greens (swiss chard, collards, kale, mustard greens)
2 cloves of garlic, halved and then sliced thinly
1 dried chili pepper or ¼ tsp pepper flakes
2 T olive oil
1 T water
2 cobs of corn, cooked and corn cut from the cob
Salt, pepper, herbs (as desired and available)
 Wash the leafy greens and remove the leaf from the stem. See the photo to note the way in which the hand slides along the stem and a gentle squeeze of the leaf brings the two apart. Once this art is mastered much time will be saved in the prep work of the greens. Spin the leaves to remove most of the water and then chop roughly.
 Heat the olive oil in a wok or a large frying pan. When the oil is hot add the sliced garlic and the chili pepper or pepper flakes. Cook for about 30 second to let the flavors release. Add the greens in a big bundle, and add the large tablespoon of water. Quickly seal with a lid.
 Let the vegetables steam for about a minute. Then using a flat wooden spoon or spatula, turn the greens over so that top goes to bottom and bottom comes to top. Cover again and cook for a further minute.
Turn off the heat. Let the greens sit for half a minute while gathering the corn and seasonings. Remove the lid, take out the whole chili pepper, add the corn, salt, pepper and available herbs. Scoop into a serving dish.
Sit, give thanks and enjoy.
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Eating Our Way Out
(Part 5)
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| Sydney MacInnis Founder mothering Mother Holistic Nutritionist and Yoga Instructor Let’s discuss our eating!
As I work at a mothering Mother cotton bag demonstration at a large health food retailer, I see the same consumerism as in other major grocery stores. There are perhaps a few less preservatives, but lots of packaging. Even if it is not a packaged food, why not purchase it without the packaging? A meeting of company executives is taking place right beside me, 3 plastic bottles on the table, wrappers from consumed packaged items lay in the garbage bin, out of sight. Are we walking a walk of awareness? Are we bumbling along? Do I want to bring in a quote from the eclipse? Remember, the way that marketers and tasters were able to reconcile on low-fat foods was to increase the sugar content. It was a trade off of one stimulant for another. At some stage it is about getting quiet, and still, very still, but still awake. Sitting, consciously, listening, feeling. The mind races at an unbelievable speed, dipping into memories, planning, imagining (that would be worry and fear!), rewriting and …. on and on it goes. Be aware and listen to the voices in the mind. Our food is often a method to pacify ourselves from these voices. Or to alleviate a voice that tells us to eat something for our own happiness, or survival. This is so much of what makes it difficult to change our eating habits, and hence our shopping hablits. We may wonder if we will be okay without the “comfort” food. Food, it will fill our senses. How are you filling yours? The following is a quote from a book called “To Bless the Space Between Us” by John O’Donohue. “Our consumerist culture thrives on the awakening and manipulation of desire. This is how advertising works. It stirs our desire and then cleverly directs it toward its products. Advertising is schooling in false desire; it relies on our need to belong, our need to play a central part in society, not exist on the fringes of it. Because awakened desire is full of immediacy, it wants gratification and does not want to be slowed down or wait. It wants no distance to open between it and the object of desire; it wants to have it now. This manipulation of desire accounts for the saturation of our culture with products that we don’t need but are made to feel we do. There is no end to false desire. Like the consumption of fast food, it merely deepens and extends the hunger. It satisfies nothing in the end…. This blind greed is at the heart of our environmental crisis.” Desire can fuel us in both negative and positive ways. Unchecked desire can lead to addiction, nurtured desire can lead to creative awakening. May your desires fuel something quietly residing within you, something that takes you to your personal “fringe”. |
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