Ellen Ecker Ogden

On-line Kitchen Garden Design Classes

Learn to grow food

For the past month, I find that I have been silently going through my changing season routine and working internally to get into a new groove. I go dormant like a plant and put my focus on survival, rather than growth. This often involves not being very social, and just kind of shutting down a bit. When I was running the other day on the trails, a fox came dashing by me. I went home to look up the fox totem that is all about observing, staying low, and not acting without thinking strategically. That describes me pretty well right now.

But I am also planning something exciting for the spring, and have been writing curriculum to develop new on-line kitchen garden design classes, that would also involve cooking. Adapted from the workshops I have been teaching for the past year and following the format from my book, The Complete Kitchen Garden, these new classes would include video and podcasts, pdf materials and an open blog discussion, plus individual evaluation of your garden design and site. If you are interested in learning more, email me or sign up here.

If you have attended one of my classes or workshops, I would love to hear what you learned and how the class improved your knowledge of kitchen garden designs.  Thank you!

Bags of sugar, ginger knobs and red skinned garlic clutter my counter next to an army of clean jars and lids. Fruit is chopped, and stirred with a wooden spoon as everything simmers and the kitchen fills with a spicy aroma. The first canning session of the year is like learning how to drive on ice; it’s a little tricky at first, but once I remember how to do it, I don’t want to stop. It is one of the few times that I follow a recipe for the correct proportions of ingredients, and timing for the cooking process.

The joys of food preservation are most appreciated in the middle of winter, yet I take pride year round in simply admiring the jars that adorn my pantry shelf. A flavorful chutney or pickle heightens a winter menu with a sweet and sour burst, while a zesty salsa from a late summer explosion of tomatoes and chiles transports me back into the garden.

If you aren’t already a dedicated canner, it is well worth learning. Find beautiful jars and design a unique label. But don’t get too attached…they make wonderful gifts from the  garden.

Recipes for ginger peach chutney, pepper jelly, maple tomato salsa and other spicy and savory condiments can be found in my book, The Complete Kitchen Garden.

Support your Local Bookstore and Free Book Give-Away:

Our local, family owned independent Northshire Bookstore is the heart and soul of our small town. Besides hosting fabulous author events and community gatherings, it also just a great place to hangout. When my book, The Complete Kitchen Garden debuted last March, they hosted a book signing and continue to sell my book both in the store and on-line.

The Complete Kitchen Garden is a two-for-one deal; you will find garden designs plus recipes. If you like to start your garden with a plan, The Complete Kitchen Garden is the book for you. Fifteen full color vegetable garden designs, black and white diagrams with detailed plant lists, how-to instructions on soil, compost and garden design, plus 100 recipes. This book will inspire you to elevate your garden from ordinary to extraordinary.

Order a copy for yourself and a friend, at your local bookstore, or on my website. If you post a link to your favorite local book store on my website or face book page, you will be eligible for a drawing (on December 10^th).   The winner will receive a free autographed copy of my book.

All summer, I have been diligent about putting food by. I call it the self preservation plan because there is something truly satisfying about a pantry filled with homegrown and home canned chutney, salsa, jam, pickles and bundles of herbs. I’ll admit, I am already longing for tangy berries, savory herbs and greens and fresh clipped flowers for my table, yet also revel in the hearty foods of winter.

The next best thing to a kitchen garden is a well-stocked pantry. It is also a practical way to reduce extra trips to the grocery store, and helps me to be creative with the pelthora of root vegetables stored in the cool cellar.  Here’s a list of essentials that I like to keep on my pantry shelves and in the refrigerator, that inspires me to cook with ingredients on hand. It’s time to kick back and enjoy the food that I grew, and start planning the garden for next year.

• Extra virgin olive oil
  Assorted vinegars (for salad dressings and deglazing)
  Real lemons
  Garlic, onions, shallots
  Dried fresh herbs and spices
  Vanilla bean
  Crystallized ginger
  Tomato paste
  Grains: rice, barley, quinoa, bulgur
  Vermont maple syrup
  Dijon mustard
  Walnuts, pignoli
  Dried lentils and other legumes
  Dried wild mushrooms
  Onions, potatoes, winter squash
  Soy or tamari sauce, fish sauce
  Capers, olives, anchovies
  Miso paste
  Vegetable bouillon concentrate
  Coarse sea salt
  Black peppercorns and pepper grinder
  Whole Wheat & White Flour Bread
  Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese ( Refrigerated)

Growing up in New England, I have always felt a special affinity with Thanksgiving. I can even claim ancestral connections with William Brewster, the minister on the Mayflower. Annual visits to Plimouth Plantation as a child, was a good way to create appreciation for the strength, courage and determination of the first settlers. The tiny drafty houses with cold dirt floors, always contained a kitchen garden just a few steps away from the door, enclosed by a low fence to create a boundary. Growing a garden has always been essential to our survival and we are reminded at Plimouth Plantation that getting it right was not a matter of choice.

We can all agree that there is a certain myth that surrounds this harvest holiday, yet it is one of the few that celebrates truly healthy, home grown food. It would be nice if we could come together around the table to honor our connections more than just once a year.  Here are a few photos taken by photographer Ali Kaukas who created the photos for my book, The Complete Kitchen Garden that magnify the powerful beauty of food fresh from the garden.  When you set your holiday table, why not create a centerpiece with a bowl of squash, onions and carrots in honor of food grown from the good earth.

These days, with the garden demanding less time outdoors, the move indoors prompts me to surround myself with books. I naturally gravitate to books on garden design and food, yet lately have been drawn to read about the environment. I am focused less on what I know and more on my journey to learn something new.

Here are a few titles that I’ve been reading that are refueling my mind for another gardening season ahead, and guiding me to tap into a larger network of like minded people who are dedicated and focused on creating more positive planetary changes for the future.

Amy Seidel, an ecologist and gifted writer, shares a platform with Bill McKibben, Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, yet with a personal twist. In Early Spring, she writes about climate change by observing nature through family walks in the woods with her two girls, and closely observing changes as she sees them, combining science with nature. She brings home the message of global warming by considering how it has altered her life, the natural communities around her, and the traditions of her small Vermont town. Her newest book, On Higher Ground is next on my list.

I first heard Peter Forbes  speak at a NOFA –VT conference when his book , Coming to the Land  (collected essays) was first published and filled a notebook with ideas.  His message and his powerful stories rang clear with a deep examination of the value of preserving land to preserve our culture and our souls. As the visionary co-founder of The Center for Whole Communities, Peter gives the reader a new approach and new hope to work to heal the great divisions and losses we see around us each day. Information about the many workshops and inspiring books and articles can be found on their website as is worth a visit.

Perhaps it was serendipity that I picked up Gatherings by Diane Ott Whealy and turned to a page about her trip to a seed grower in Holland that matched my experience as a seed collector. I was drawn to the cover featuring a Moon and the Stars watermelon, one of my favorite heirloom seed varieties and find the down-to earth narrative refreshing and humble. Seed Savers Exchange began as a simple exchange of seeds among passionate gardeners who sought to preserve the rich gardening heritage their ancestors had brought to this country and has grown from a small coterie to more than thirteen thousand and will continue to grow as our seed future becomes more important.

 

I recently found a used copy of French Dirt by Richard Goodman, at a library sale. While I had read it in 1991 when it was originally published, it was timeless in nature since it involved the experience of a first garden. The writing is fast, witty and full of good humor in a slightly self-absorbed style, the plot is focused on the vegetable garden that Goodman kept during a year spent in a tiny French village near Avignon. This book is really an account of living as an outsider in a tightly knit community and how connections and friendships were made through the garden.

The Dirty Life by  Kristin Kimball is one of the best books I’ve read on how to leave a comfortable career in favor of a new life on an old farm in upstate New York growing food. Kimball is a brilliant writer and brings humor, grace and dignity to the story. She does not make the work or the lifestyle look glamorous, yet instead shares all the worry and the problems they face, while she and her husband share a deep passion to succeed. Brilliant and fun to read, a good book for anyone who has a farm, wants a farm or who is a member of a CSA.

 

 

Like every good Vermont kitchen, mine is a meeting place for friends who migrate to the stools at my counter and don’t want to leave. So I’ve made my kitchen a welcome center, and placed all of my favorite art on the walls. This includes three prints by my favorite wood cut artist, Mary Azarian, who I first met in 1984 when I visited her studio in northern Vermont in search of prints for our seed catalog. Back then, we printed only black and white, using soy inks and recycled paper and her artwork dovetailed nicely with our simple farmhouse lifestyle. For two decades, her images filled the pages of our catalog for two decades and appeared in my first cookbook, From the Cook’s Garden. Recently I came across a box of prints, and was reminded of how much I love her images of jam cupboards, Glenwood woodstoves, and harvest baskets, as well as the flowers and gardens, always with a bench or a cat that bring it to life. I can honestly say that much of what I most appreciate about living in Vermont and the food that I bring from my garden into my kitchen is captured in Mary’s woodcuts, and to her I am grateful for all the years her woodcuts have graced my kitchen walls.

 

 

The annual Bioneers conference took place in California this past weekend, beaming live via the Internet to 23 cities across the US with 40,000 viewers. I was among a group in Montpelier, listening to a diverse group of passionate speakers who balanced traditional knowledge with science, looking deep into the heart of living systems to understand how nature operates. There was an overall theme to mimic “nature’s operating instructions” and to observe the bio mimicry of ecological design to inspire technology to serve human ends without harming the web of life.

It is possible to create conditions that are conducive to life, if we follow nature’s genius. “The Elders want us to succeed” said scientist Dayna Baumeister, and offered these three steps:

1. Reawaken Curiosity and re-connect to our sense of wonder.
2. Embrace Wisdom and share what we discover.
3. Reconnect to our own humanity. Bring back the wayward ones and show them how beautiful the planet is.

Gardeners are naturally connected to the cycles of the earth, observant of the biomimicry that is in plants and all life, and our values reflect common environmental themes. But it is not enough to plant our own gardens. It is time that we reach out to teach others how to grow food, nurture soil, and pay attention to how all of our actions affect the future of the world. It is time to give back to the land instead of taking from it. As gardeners, we are in partnership with the natural world and caretakers of place.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  - Einstein

 

Knowing when to end the garden season used to be so easy: it would frost. I’d scramble to harvest basil, tomatoes, and beans, and cover all the annuals plants that might survive a dip in the temperatures. But the seasons have become longer over the past few years, and closing up the garden has become a voluntary act. Knowing when to pull the plug is the key.

Like falling in love, the spring garden was filled with excitement, hopes and dreams, love and passion, but now there is a letting go of the small details in favor of harvesting the cucumbers before they get too big, and the tomatoes before they drop to the ground.

I know the importance of building good soil and fight the urge to yank the end of the season plants and sow with a cover crop for winter. But the thought of going back to shopping for food, keeps me foraging in the garden for one last taste of summer.

 

Blueberry-Zucchini Bread

Makes two 9-by-5 inch loaf pans

What grows together, goes together – in the garden and in the kitchen. So when the blueberries are ripening just as the zucchini is starting to get big, its time to make this delicious quick bread.

 

1 medium zucchini ( yield: 2 cups grated )

1 pint fresh blueberries

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1-teaspoon ground cinnamon

1-teaspoon baking soda

1/4-teaspoon baking powder

1-teaspoon sea salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

3 large eggs

1-teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2-cup plain yogurt

1 tablespoon lemon zest

 

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Grate the zucchini, measure out 2 cups and set aside. Rinse the berries and remove any stems.

3.  Combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.

4.  In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and butter on high speed until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reduce the speed to low and beat in the vanilla and yogurt. Gradually add the flour mixture until combined.

5. Remove from the mixer and with a wooden spoon, gently fold in the zucchini, blueberries and lemon zest until blended. Pour into the buttered loaf pans ( or muffins cups). Bake 45 minutes or until golden.