I’ve decided to leave Richmond for Washington as soon as I can find work. I’ve spent some time there recently, and the possibilities are good for community gardening and other work toward sustainable cities. And since I’m really serious about public transportation, it’s a big improvement over Richmond, where the bus system serves mostly the poor, rather poorly. Part of the problem is the way the city and counties are divided and administered, combined with the way the area has grown in the last ten years, with the city proper emptying out and more and more Big Box stores joining the western and southern suburbs. It’s just not my kind of town anymore.
So on to DC, where I can also feed my appetite for art, books, and politics.

I spent part of the day setting up new Worm Bin Starters and harvesting castings for the garden. I found myself enjoying my work very much and finished with several gallons of pure, mature castings that are quite pleasant to touch and handle.

Every now and then people I meet at the farmer’s markets (where I sell the Starter) will mention how much delight they take in their worm gardens, and I share that delight. It’s not just the satisfaction of having clean garbage cans and knowing that you’ve stemmed the flow of organic matter from your kitchen to the landfill.

For me, I think the pleasure comes from witnessing (and assisting) a process of cleansing and renewal that ends in a fertility-enhancing, vital resource that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.

On a much more prosaic level, if you think of the resources that are devoted to the transport and disposal of putrid organic matter, you can’t help but recognize the value of that worm bin out in the garage.

This week has seen a lot of good food come out of the gardens. In fact, I’m going to have to get cracking in the kitchen to make sure nothing goes to waste. (On the topic of waste, please read the Worm Bin pages. Links are at the upper right of this page.)

We have Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Better Boy, Golden Jubilee, and Juliet tomatoes (two heirlooms and three hybrids, if you’re keeping score.) The Juliets are small plums that I like to grill, the Golden Jubilee is a pretty yellow tomato that is especially good in a stew or casserole, and the others are all big slicers. All taste pretty good right now, but none so far have knocked my socks off. The riper the better, and I’ve been unwilling to wait.

There’s also a good supply of eggplant and plenty of peppers. I’m still getting gold-colored beets out of the garden, though they seem to have stopped growing in the heat of summer. The red ones are flourishing and even seem to like it. They are medium-sized (MUCH smaller than the ones in the supermarket, which I think are grossly oversized) with smooth, thin skins. The tops are not as bountiful as they were earlier in the season; the bugs have nibbled on them a little, as they have on my chard, but I still have plenty of braising greens, wild and cultivated, for anyone who loves them.

Still have those sweet, flavorful scarlet nantes carrots, too. A few squash and cucumbers. No green beans to speak of at the moment, but another bed is underway and there will be more in a few weeks.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have too much bounty for my family and not quite enough to make it worth setting up a table at the farmer’s market, so if anyone’s looking for a weekly delivery of washed, trimmed local vegetables (with the option of organic baked goods), send me an email. We can size and price the basket to suit your needs.

I love this little market in Oregon Hill — we’re there from 3:30 to 7:00, but often sell out earlier than that.

Patricia is bringing onions and herbs — both cut and growing. On the vegetable front, I expect to have roasting vegetables (new potatoes, baby carrots, golden beets, and red beets), grilling vegetables (green beans if we’re lucky, eggplant, banana and jalapeno peppers, and plum tomatoes), and summer braising greens (both red chard and a mix of wild and cultivated greens, plus the beet greens).

I’ll probably have dill and basil, and I hope to be able to bring some blackberries. As far as baked goods are concerned,  I’m thinking of bringing a peanut butter cookie that is a favorite at our house. It’s vegan, and all the ingredients are organic except for the maple syrup and the chocolate chips.

I’m also going to be selling more Worm Bin Starter for people who want to keep their kitchen waste out of the landfill. It’s $5 for a quart, and you can start your own bin with one quart — use more if you want to see results more quickly.

I’ll update this posting Monday night when I know for sure what I’ll have.

I spent a whole day tending to my garden beds, which are scattered around — I have eggplant, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and herbs in the west end, a small personal plot in the community garden at the Humphrey Calder Community Center, and a couple of much bigger beds on southside, where I garden with Patricia Stansbury of Epic Gardens.

I thought I’d be picking some green beans on southside today, and some beets, but was surprised to find that my first bed of beans hadn’t produced much since the last time I was there.  They are slowing down, and I need to decide when to pull them up and put in something else. I already have the next bed of beans planted and it has just come up, replacing the peas and lettuce I grew in the spring. (I also have a small bed at the HCCC that produced enough for a couple of servings).

But much to my surprise, there were quite a few new potatoes in a small bed I had given up on. They’ll be popular with the family. And I wandered out into the tall weeds under the power lines and found a couple quarts of blackberries. Shared some with Patricia and brought the others home to make a cobbler and eat raw. I’m a big, big fan of wild blackberries.

I also came home with a modest amount of arugula, picked from the now-stalky plants that are well into the task of making seed pods. There were a half-dozen small plum tomatoes, as well. I decided to give the beets and carrots one last thinning, and brought home several big handfuls. The golden beets and the danvers carrots, roasted together and dressed with a vinaigrette, are good with raw arugula and a little feta cheese.

For the first time this season, I used a little liquid fish-and-seafood fertilizer (2-3-1) to give the beets, chard, and eggplant a boost, and also gave a good shot to the volunteer potato leaf tomato that I picked out of the compost. It might be a Brandywine. We’ll see.

I’m holding off on picking the eggplant, so as to have some for the Byrd House Market on Tuesday.

We’re having a pretty successful first season of gardening in Richmond, all things considered. There’s too much for my family to eat, but not quite enough left over to create a bountiful display at the farmer’s markets. (I often show up at St. Stephens in the west end and the Byrd House market in Oregon Hill.) If one or two families were interested in full or half-share size CSA-type arrangements, that would about take care of my surplus. I’m offering baked goods as well — breads, granola, and a couple of varieties of cookies made with maple syrup and mostly organic ingredients. (No eggs or dairy.)

Send me an email [peasantfare@gmail.com] if you’d like to talk about having a weekly delivery.

All the lettuce is finally gone — with the heat, it becomes too bitter to eat. But the green bean season is well under way, beets and carrots will be plentiful for a while yet, and I expect to have at least another dinner or two of redskin potatoes. The chard is beautiful, and along with the beet greens, amaranth, and lambsquarters, I really have a nice variety of braising greens (my favorites).

I just started picking Juliet tomatoes, the smaller peppers, and zucchini. I should have eggplant to eat in a day or two. I’m cutting basil whenever I want it, and the plants are replacing the cut stems within days, it seems. Still have dill, but the cilantro will be gone before long.

I only planted a few flowers, a couple of cosmos and sunflowers, but they look healthy, and I’m looking forward to seeing the blooms brighten up their beds. The nasturtiums remain really lovely, and taste good, too.

I put some cantaloupe and watermelon seeds in the ground last week and hopefully they’ll trail the ones I planted earlier just enough to keep the harvest steady. A new bed of beans should sprout soon, and I plan to continue planting more of those, along with some more chard (in a somewhat shady area), more summer squash, and a few butternut.

Not for eating, for gardening. Worm composting is a great way to keep your kitchen waste out of the landfill. In the worm bin, decomposition of organic matter takes place in a way that is very good for your soil and much better for the environment in general. The finished compost helps plants get the nutrients they need from the soil and promotes the health of your plants. See the Worm Bin Starter page at right for more information.

Usually people buy worms mail order. Minimum order is often over $30 for a pound of worms, including shipping.  I’m selling Worm Bin Starter by the quart at the St.  Stephens Farmer’s Market. If you’re on a budget, you can get your bin going with one $5 quart of starter. To speed things up, buy more than one. I’m also offering a couple of mature worm bins in five-gallon buckets, full of completed worm compost and chock-full of worms of all ages and their eggs. $75 for a full-functioning bin, about 3 and a half to 4 gallons.

My cousin Ellen and I shop together, and try as we might to find a good, healthy, delicious granola or breakfast cereal, we just haven’t been able to get satisfaction. So we made granola yesterday with sunflower seeds, pecans, sesame seeds, almonds, cinnamon, and maple syrup. Wow. It’s really delicious. I prefer it without dried fruit, because I’d generally rather add fresh fruit. Also, Ellen points out that dried fruit can get too dry when it’s surrounded by all those oats. And no flippin’ coconut!

So I’m adding granola to the list of baked goods I’ll be offering my customers. Speak up [peasantfare@gmail.com] if you’d like some. I’ll be experimenting with ingredients including ground flax seed and pumpkin seeds. And raisins and coconut if that’s what you like..

We are still offering organic breads (cornbread, garlic bread, rosemary bread, crunchy whole wheat), cookies (organic peanut butter, almond-raspberry), and selected vegetables and herbs. I have mixed washed organic salad greens, whole heads of romaine, herbs including cilantro and dill, small tender beets with greens attached, baby carrots, and green beans.

Still working on the plan that will make the full package of prepared foods available for ordering online. Stay in touch.

I’ve been developing a “Greens and Beans” menu as an all-purpose, one-size-fits-all diet improvement strategy, and made it part of my business model for the Fulton Hill project to promote anti-diabetes and anti-heart disease cooking. This morning I went to the ADA website and found beans and greens are the top two foods on the “diabetes superfoods” list. That’s really helpful.

A farm in Tappahannock that raises chickens, pigs, and goats will be feeding its fish tanks with red wigglers! The system involves setting up a worm bin large enough to produce a steady excess of worms while maintaining a stable population. The compost will help grow plants to filter the fish water and I suppose will also go into the vegetable garden. I sold him three gallons of worm starter that, given a good environment and lots of “stall hay” from the goats, should be able to produce a half-pound or so of worms every week by next spring. I’m making some pretty wild guesses about time and quantities, and hope to visit his farm to see how it all works.

Most composting worms are sold online and delivered by mail. I sell “starter,” which is a bucket (from a quart to as much as five gallons at a time) of worms, well-composted bedding, and castings — a healthy, functioning worm colony full of worms of all ages, eggs, and all the other little bugs and microbial life forms that convert organic waste (kitchen scraps, leaves, sawdust, paper) into an excellent soil conditioner and fertilizer. Using starter instead of mail-order worms to start your own bin makes for a smoother transition for your worms and helps you avoid the troubles that new worm farmers sometimes have. Email me at peasantfare@gmail.com if you want to get started with your own organic garbage disposal!