Pesticide Residues - from The Environmental Working Group

Gardens Update

We finally got rain!  We have most of the crops irrigated with either sprinklers back at the house or drip-tape under plastic in the fields.  Field crops without irrigation are potatoes,  some beets and carrots, leeks and sweet corn.  These crops have really been suffering with the drought.  Saturday's and Monday's rain brought about 2 inches.  We hope that's enough to save the sweet corn especially.
I picked the first of the peas last night:  snow peas.  We planted twice but had poor germination, so won't have as many snow peas as usual.  The sugar snap peas (edible pods) look great and abundant, and shelling peas look good.
The Kohlrabis and Pak Chois are done this week.  We'll hope for a fall planting.
The head lettuces have really suffered with the heat and are not nearly as nice as usual. We normally have great Romaine heads, but they have not developed like they should, and now just want to make seed heads.  We have some Anuenue coming - a summer heading crisp lettuce, as close to iceberg as we grow, only with more color and nutrients.  There's a little Sierra (crisp with red highlights) still growing.  More flats of head lettuce plants will be set out when it cools down a bit.
Tomatoes look good!  Eggplant and Peppers, too.  These crops love hot days.
The cucumbers are suffering from cucumber beetles eating their leaves, but they are starting to set tiny cukes, as are the summer squash.
Melons look great!
Onions and garlic are both doing well.  We'll have scallions soon for CSA shares.

Escarole, Salad Turnips and Daikon Radishes

These may be this week's unusual vegetables.


Escarole 
Escarole is a variety of endive whose leaves are broader, paler and less bitter than other members of the endive family. In taste -- but not color -- it is almost indistinguishable from radicchio.

High in folic acid, fiber, and vitamins A and K, escarole can be eaten raw or gently cooked. Try tossing a few escarole leaves into a mild salad, serving some quickly wilted with lemon juice, or stir chopped escarole into soup.

Salad Turnips

We keep these under row cover to keep them bug and worm-free.

Flavor: Similar to a radish, the salad turnip is earthy, crunchy and peppery. 


Benefits: Just like the radish, salad turnips are rich in Vitamin C, folic acid, and potassium as well as low in calories and high in dietary fiber. Turnip greens are highly nutritious, even more so than the roots. They are high in antioxidants like vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, carotenoids xanthins and lutein. Top greens are also an excellent source of the B-complex group of vitamins. The greens are also rich in important minerals like calcium, copper, iron and manganese. 


Storage Tips: The leaves cause moisture loss during storage, so it is best to remove tops and store the root and greens separately in the refrigerator. 


Preparation and Cooking: Enjoy salad turnips as you would radishes in fresh salads and relishes. Salad turnips can also be thinly sliced and sauteed, or pickled with other vegetables. I also like to cook turnips and mash them with garlic, butter and salt.

The greens can be cooked up, too!  They are really looking nice.  

DAIKON RADISHES

Daikon is is root vegetable said to have originated in the Mediterranean and brought to China for cultivation around 500 B.C. This is an extremely versatile vegetable that can be eaten raw in salads or cut into strips or chips for relish trays. It also can be stir-fried, grilled, baked, boiled or broiled. Use the daikon as you would any radish.

Storage - Chinese radishes will keep well in the refrigerator if they are placed in a sealed container or plastic bag in order to maintain high humidity. 

Preparation - To prepare, peel skin as you would a carrot and cut for whatever style your recipe idea calls for.

Nutrition Information - Daikon is very low in calories. A 3 ounce serving contains only 18 calories and provides 34 percent of the RDA for vitamin C. Rich in vitamin C, daikon contains active enzymes that aid digestion, particularly of starchy foods. 

Easy Daikon Salad    serves 2

1 cup julienne cut daikon radish (I used my food processor to cut it)

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar

1 tsp granulated sugar

1 tsp sweet rice wine (mirin)

OPTIONAL: crushed peanuts

Place the daikon in a colander/mesh strainer over a bowl or the sink and sprinkle with salt. Mix well. Let sit for 30 minutes. Squeeze out excess water and then rinse well with cold water. Drain.

In a small saucepan, combine the seasoned rice vinegar, sugar and rice wine. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves (this will only take a few minutes).

Transfer the daikon to an airtight container and pour the rice vinegar mixture over. Shake or stir well to combine. Chill for 20 minutes before serving.

This can store for up to a few days in the fridge, if it lasts that long. If desired, serve topped with crushed peanuts.

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Veggies! Details ~~ Written about last week's veggies!

I got busy or lost internet service or something.  Forgot to publish this!

The carrots are our favorite early variety - Mokum.  They don't get much bigger than the size you got, but they are early and so sweet!  We have 2 other varieties growing that will be harvested in the next month.

Have you eaten Kohlrabi before?  It's something we started growing in the early 70s and has become a standard salad veggie.  Peel it and slice it.  Eat plain or sauté or use as a dipping vegetable or slice or grate into a salad.  We usually eat our raw.  The purple ones are only purple on the outside (darn).

The head lettuces are a Batavian variety called Sierra, and a Romaine.  Neither have liked the really hot weather we had recently.

Cilantro is one of those herbs that some people love and others think tastes like soap and is yucky.  We personally all like it a lot.  It can be used in salads or cooking, or as a garnish.

What's coming in your CSA shares in the next few weeks?  We ate a pingpong sized red new potato yesterday!  Just one...  Peas are blooming;  broccoli heads are forming.

Garden work:  We worked till 9:30pm last night transplanting more melon plants, broccoli plants, climbing Suhyo Cross cucumbers, and ornamental sunflowers into the garden.  There are many more brassicas (broccoli, cabbages, cauliflowers) to plant seed for, transplant into cells and eventually transplant into the garden.  Maintenance ~  weed weed weed / water water water. Keep the raccoons, deer, turkeys, and cows :-)  out of the gardens!

Today's Veggies, including recipes!

Garlic Scapes:  See June 22, 2009, June 20, 2011, or June 7, 2010 for information and a recipe for Garlic Scape Pesto.  Email me if you don't know how to scroll through older blog entries to easily do this.  Or - look down the side right margin and go to the year; then click on June and go to the date.

Beet Greens with baby beets / tips:  This variety is one that we weren't that happy with for full-sized beets last year, so we thought we'd grow it just for the greens and lovely tiny beets.  The greens were some of the best ever, and they are always nicer this time of year. Beet greens can be eaten like any other green - raw, cooked in many ways.  Use the little beet ends, too.  They are sweet.  Remember, sugar comes from sugar beets!


STIR-FRIED BEET GREENS WITH GINGER & GREEN CHILES

1-1/2 tbsp. Peanut or Canola Oil
1/2 fresh Hot Green Chile, cut into long, fine slivers1-1/2 slices Fresh Ginger, cut into long, fine slivers1/2 pound Beet Greens, cut crosswise into fine ribbonsDash Salt, or to taste

• 1. Put the oil in a large pan and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the chile and ginger. Stir a few times and put in the beet greens. Stir a few times and then cover the pan.
• 2. Turn the heat down to low and cook until the leaves have wilted. Add the salt and stir a few times. Add 4 tbsp. water, bring to a simmer, and cover.
• 3. Cook on low heat for about 30 minutes (I would cook for a shorter time - 10-15 minutes), or until the greens are tender. Stir every now and then during this period. Serve with pasta or rice.

Yummy Bok Choy Salad

• 1/2 cup olive oil

• 1/4 cup white vinegar

• 1/3 cup white sugar

• 3 tablespoons soy sauce

• 2 bunches baby bok choy, cleaned and sliced

• 1 bunch green onions, chopped

• 1/8 cup slivered almonds, toasted

• 1/2 (6 ounce) package chow mein noodles

• 1. In a glass jar with a lid, mix together olive oil, white vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce. Close the lid, and shake until well mixed.

• 2. Combine the bok choy, green onions, almonds, and chow mein noodles in a salad bowl. Toss with dressing, and serve.

Parsley Plant!

Parsley – Kidney Cleanse, Healthy Heart and Women's Health Everyone needs a couple of parsley plants growing in pots or their garden. Eating a sprig of parsley a day fresh from the pot will contribute to abundant health of your whole body while vamping up energy and bounce to your day. This plant can be soaked really well and transplanted into a sunny part of your yard or into a deep pot at least 6-8 inches in diameter.  Use the outer sprigs all summer long until snow comes!   Parsley’s high iron content is fantastic for anaemia and fatigue as it is also high in Vitamin C which is needed by the body to assist in the absorption of iron. The high vitamin C content, beta carotene, B12, chlorophyll and essential fatty acid content makes parsley a powerful immune booster. It is an excellent addition for heart health as it dissolves cholesterol within the veins, is a blood purifier and rejuvenates and strengthens blood vessels while maintaining elasticity of blood vessels. Parsley also helps improve digestion. As a Diuretic parsley can assist in the treatment of edema. Parsley can be used for gout, dissolving gallstones and glandular support of the liver, spleen, kidneys and adrenal glands.  Parsley’s high iron content is fantastic for anaemia and fatigue as it is also high in Vitamin C which is needed by the body to assist in the absorption of iron. The high vitamin C content, beta carotene, B12, chlorophyll and essential fatty acid content makes parsley a powerful immune booster. It is an excellent addition for heart health as it dissolves cholesterol within the veins, is a blood purifier and rejuvenates and strengthens blood vessels while maintaining elasticity of blood vessels. Parsley also helps improve digestion. As a Diuretic parsley can assist in the treatment of edema. Parsley can be used for gout, dissolving gallstones and glandular support of the liver, spleen, kidneys and adrenal glands. For Hormonal support in women, parsley can improve oestrogen and nourish and restore the blood of the uterus. Women may also find relief of symptoms such as irritability, depression and hair loss which are associated with PMS and menopause. Parsley may also assist in regulating the menstrual cycle. Parsley is a powerful remedy for the kidney and rejuvenates the liver. Except in severe kidney inflammation, parsley can help eliminate wastes from the blood and tissues. It has also been beneficial in strengthening the spleen (particularly parsley root), assist with stomach problems and strengthen loose teeth.  Placing a few sprigs of Parsley into a cup of boiling water can make a refreshing herbal tea. Parsley is also a good source of protein, magnesium, boron, vitamin K, folic acid, calcium, phosphorus, manganese, inositol, vitamin B12, and sulphur.

Last Updated on Monday, 09 April 2012 23:16

 

Wet and Cold

It was a bit miserable picking your veggies today. We had on rain suits, winter coats and boots when outside, and had a fire going, hot coffee and hot lunch indoors.

Welcome to June!

Today's Veggies

What’s for supper?  For lunch today, we had a large salad with lettuces, radishes, the last of the green onions and the first of the carrots, along with pasta salad with pesto and roasted veggies from the freezer / last year’s bounty.  

You have a large amount of mixed lettuces for salad this week.  They are triple-washed and just need a quick rinse and spin as we can’t sell ‘ready to eat’ items from the Farm.  There’s also a large amount of Cherry Belle Radishes.  These still taste sweet to me.  Radishes get hot and spicy as the weather heats up.  

Chive Blossoms are edible.  Use whenever a light onion flavor and aroma is desired. Separate the florets and enjoy the mild, onion flavor in a variety of dishes.

They can be a nice addition to a salad:  crumble the bloom petals right into your salad.  Kids usually get a kick out of eating flowers. Or try the recipe below!

The fresh Dill Weed is good for flavoring salads and veggie dips, or making salad dressing.  Dill is also good in scrambled eggs.

If you have been in our CSA in past years, you are familiar with Kale.  This is White Russian Kale, a standard variety.  We grow 3 different kinds.  My favorite way to prepare it is to prep the Kale by washing it, removing some of the large stems, and chopping it into smaller pieces.  Then sauté onions and garlic (green garlic?) and add the kale after about 4-5 minutes.  Saute for about another 5-10 minutes.  I usually then turn off the burner and cover the pot.  The kale will be ready to eat in about 5 minutes or so.  You can just flavor it with salt and pepper, or toasted sesame oil and rice wine vinegar, or tamari.  Chopped Kale can also be added to any soup, casserole or stew dish.

The Pak Choi isn't as pretty as we like to grow them.  The taste should be fine.  We'll try to get them sprayed with the biological spray soon so the next harvest looks better.  They have been covered with row cover for bug prevention.

Recipe for today is below.  If we'd been thinking through this CSA business from the start, we would have planted a quarter acre of asparagus the first year so we'd have asparagus for all of you!  You'll have to get your asparagus from elsewhere (organic is available at Sweetwater Local Foods Market).

Asparagus with Sesame & Chive Blossoms

Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 8 min

Ingredients:

1 pound asparagus, washed, trimmed, and cut diagonally into 1-inch lengths
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
About 16 chive blossoms, stems removed to separate flowers
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
Salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste
A few whole chive blossoms for garnish 

Preparation:

Blanch the asparagus in lightly salted boiling water for about 3 minutes or until crisp-tender; do not overcook. Remove from heat and refresh under cold water; drain well.  (Patrice's note:  I would skip this part and just plan to sauté the asparagus a little bit longer).

In a large frying pan over medium heat, heat the olive oil; add sesame seeds and stir for 1 minutes. Add asparagus and soy sauce with salt and pepper; stir well, cover, and cook for 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove the lid, sprinkle the chive blooms over and asparagus, and cover for 1 to 2 minutes so that the chive blooms steam briefly. Remove from heat. Stir lightly and taste for seasoning. Serve hot. Garnish each plate with a whole blossom or the serving dish with a few.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.
 

Pictures from May 28th, 2012

The view from right out the front door and kitchen window.

Here's Kathleen, Nic and Carolyn picking lettuces for shares this morning.  The row covers are to prevent bug damage.  You can see crops of spinach, salad greens, turnips, daikon radishes, small salad radishes.

Up close- growing lettuce salad mix.

We'll have Mokum carrots in a few weeks.

Buttercrunch Bibb lettuce

A baby Kohlrabi

NY Times article on Green Garlic!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/when-garlic-goes-green/?ref=healthupdate&nl=health&emc=edit_hh_20120522

More pictures and "Farm Talk"

Patti is posting pictures and blogging a bit about her experiences here.  This is a link to what she's writing:
http://thisloveoftheland.blogspot.com/

Welcome to our 2012 Season!

We are here on the Farm this morning picking, washing, bagging and packing your vegetables for the week.  You can always read the update What's In Your Box to the right of this post to know what you are receiving for the week.  I'll try to include more information about unfamiliar items or recipes for some things in the blog, too.

Green Garlic!  We wait all year for this lovely treat.  We plant a lot of garlic and have been growing our own seed for it for about 7 years.  We only plant the largest cloves for next year's garlic, and save all the smaller cloves to plant closer together for Green Garlic.  These look like giant scallions but have a definite garlicky taste.  Peel the outside layer and chop them to use like regular garlic.  This will be the only time you receive this vegetable this season.  It stores in a bag, in the refrigerator.  You can trim the top greens off to have it fit better, but the whole shaft can be eaten.

There are also scallions in today's share boxes.

Turnip greens.  I'm from the South.  Turnip greens were a standard green vegetable. They are a little stronger in flavor than other greens. On an ounce-for-ounce basis, turnip greens contain about 4 times more calcium than a much less bitter-tasting cruciferous vegetables like cabbage. Turnip greens outscore cabbage, kale, cauliflower, and broccoli in phytonutrients that can be converted into isothiocyanates (ITCs) with cancer-preventing properties. 

These get washed, chopped, and cooked like any other greens.  My favorite way is to sauté garlic and onion till soft, add the greens, and sauté till wilted and tender (a little longer for Kale and Turnip Greens than Chard).  You season them with just salt, pepper and butter, or bacon, or sesame oil and rice wine vinegar.  Here's another recipe:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/neelys/ginas-turnip-greens-recipe/index.html

Spinach!  We can only grow spinach in the cooler days of Spring and Fall.  Enjoy.

Radishes.  In order to grow radishes organically, we have to keep the rows covered with fabric to prevent damage by root worms.  These are French radishes:  D'Avignon and French Breakfast.

What's coming next week?  More lettuces, spinach, kale or chard, Pak choi, a parsley plant to put into a pot or the ground, and maybe some fresh herbs!

Health and Safety

We are very careful about how we handle the produce we grow.  Hands are washed.  Manures are composted.  Irrigation out of the pond does not go on certain crops, and most crops are irrigated with drip lines.  Produce is cooled and washed as it comes from the field.

We cannot sell ready to eat products, so you will need to give your veggies a quick rinse.  If you don't have a salad spinner, please add one to your shopping list.  It's the best way to keep greens, especially salad greens, fresh.  I got a zyliss and really like it, but the cheaper models work well, too.  We also have  3 gallon and 5 gallon spinners :-).

Please keep your boxes clean, and return containers throughout the season clean.

Thanks!

Where is my camera?

If I could find it, I'd post pictures of what we are planting!

The garlic looks fantastic.  It was planted in October, and the green garlic will go out in shares the first week of CSA this season.  Bulbs will be harvested in July.

Onions are coming along.  They were planted from seed in the greenhouse in February and were transplanted into the garden a month ago. We also planted a bushel of little tiny onions (called sets) that will be the earliest bulb onions that we harvest.

Early potatoes were planted about a month ago - they are just poking above ground, though the plants have been growing below ground for some time.  We save a lot of our own seed and also buy quite a bit each year.  Potato 'seed' is potatoes.  You know how they sprout?  That's a new plant.  If you plant the sprouted old potato, it will grow a new plant with 4-8 potatoes.  The rule of harvest is you get 10# from each 1# planted.  Of course soil health, water and rain affect yield.  Last year we planted over a mile of potato rows.  But we didn't have most of them irrigated and had a lower yield.  This year they will all be irrigated.
Another interesting potato fact:  Commercial potatoes are treated to prevent them from sprouting.  I don't know with what, but doesn't that sound like it would take the life and nourishment right out of them?

We have the first large rows of salad mix ready for harvest.

We have the wintered over spinach done with harvest and those plants were pulled out this past week, compost spread, and the ground where they were was tilled.  It was also planted to daikon radishes and salad turnips - all in the same day!  4 more plantings are growing.

Pak choi should be ready for the first week of CSA.
Turnip greens are ready for harvest - we are hoping they hold till the week of the 21st.
Radishes are big enough to eat.

Peas - we have 4 kinds planted, and replanted.  Untreated (no fungicides) pea seed is more vulnerable to rot if the weather conditions aren't perfect.  We got it planted quite early, but then got some wet and cold weather conditions. Plus we think some seed was eaten by birds, earthworms, who knows what else.  The seeds  were live nourishing 'food' for what ever feasted on it.

We also have broccoli, cabbage, scallions, arugula, beets, head lettuces, carrots, celeriac, kohlrabi planted in the ground outside.  And the greenhouse is still full!  Sweet and hot pepper plants, + / - 800 tomato plants, celery, the first planting of summer squash and melons.  We have many more head lettuce, broccoli and cabbage plants growing.

Just a sampling...

We still have some CSA shares available for 2012!  Please email us if you are interested.  If you want to know about the veggies that we grow for you, scroll all the way to the bottom of this page and you'll see what went out in shares week by week for the past 4 years!  We feed our customers well!

Last Veggie Week for 20 week shares

You've got a good variety in your box this week.  The Sweet Potatoes are not our usual great quality - they have some bore holes in them.  We aren't sure why.  Please cut around them - Sorry!
Enjoy!

Published on Organic Gardening (http://www.organicgardening.com)

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Wendell Berry: The Pleasure of Eating

Created 2010-12-10 17:45

Many times, after I have finished a lecture on the decline of American farming and rural life, someone in the audience has asked, "What can city people do?"

"Eat responsibly," I have usually answered. Of course, I have tried to explain what I meant by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt that there was more to be said than I had been able to say. Now I would like to attempt a better explanation.

I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as "consumers." If they think beyond that, they recognize that they are passive consumers. They buy what they want—or what they have been persuaded to want—within the limits of what they can get. They pay, mostly without protest, what they are charged. And they mostly ignore certain critical questions about the quality and the cost of what they are sold: How fresh is it? How pure or clean is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? How far was it transported, and what did transportation add to the cost? How much did manufacturing or packaging or advertising add to the cost? When the food product has been manufactured or "processed" or "precooked," how has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value?

Most urban shoppers would tell you that food is produced on farms. But most of them do not know what farms, or what kinds of farms, or where the farms are, or what knowledge or skills are involved in farming. They apparently have little doubt that farms will continue to produce, but they do not know how or over what obstacles. For them, then, food is pretty much an abstract idea—something they do not know or imagine—until it appears on the grocery shelf or on the table.

Food in the Mind of the Eater
When food, in the minds of eaters, is no longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous. The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared or fast food, confronts a platter covered with inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality. And the result is a kind of solitude, unprecedented in human experience, in which the eater may think of eating as, first, a purely commercial transaction between him and a supplier and then as a purely appetitive transaction between him and his food.

And this peculiar specialization of the act of eating is, again, of obvious benefit to the food industry, which has good reasons to obscure the connection between food and farming. It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams, or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around. And, though her sympathy for the slaw might be less tender, she should not be encouraged to meditate on the hygienic and biological implications of mile-square fields of cabbage, for vegetables grown in huge monocultures are dependent on toxic chemicals—just as animals in close confinement are dependent on antibiotics and other drugs.

The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry—as in any other industry—the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price. For decades now the entire industrial food economy, from the large farms and feedlots to the chains of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, has been obsessed with volume. It has relentlessly increased scale in order to increase volume in order (presumably) to reduce costs. But as scale increases, diversity declines; as diversity declines, so does health; as health declines, the dependence on drugs and chemicals necessarily increases. As capital replaces labor, it does so by substituting machines, drugs, and chemicals for human workers and for the natural health and fertility of the soil. The food is produced by any means or any shortcut that will increase profits. And the business of the cosmeticians of advertising is to persuade the consumer that food so produced is good, tasty, healthful, and a guarantee of marital fidelity and long life.

Eat Responsibly
Eaters must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used. This is a simple way of describing a relationship that is inexpressibly complex. To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as one can, this complex relationship. What can one do?

Here is a list, probably not definitive:

Participate in food production to the extent that you can.
If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life.

Prepare your own food.
This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of "quality control": you will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat.

Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home.
The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence.

Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist.
All the reasons listed for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.

Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and what do you pay for these additions?

Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.

The last suggestion seems particularly important to me. Many people are now as much estranged from the lives of domestic plants and animals (except for flowers and dogs and cats) as they are from the lives of the wild ones. This is regrettable, for these domestic creatures are in diverse ways attractive; there is much pleasure in knowing them. And farming, animal husbandry, horticulture, and gardening, at their best, are complex and comely arts; there is much pleasure in knowing them, too.

The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think it bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort.

Eating with the fullest pleasure—pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance—is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.

Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer, is the author of many books of essays, fiction, and poetry. His article on the pleasures of working with a hand scythe appeared in our January 1980 issue. "The Pleasures of Eating" originally appeared in What Are People For? by Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1990 by Wendell Berry. Reprinted by permission of North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

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Source URL: http://www.organicgardening.com/living/wendell-berry-pleasure-eating

Hot Peppers

Let us know if you want some! We are overloaded right now. Hungarian Hot Wax, Jalapeno, Hot Bulgarian Carrot, Thai, Long Red Cayenne. Hot Hot Hot!

Last Week for Beans in Bulk

15# for $20.

They are almost done for the season.