Radical Roots Farm
.
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • Garden Starter Plants
    • How to Prune Tomatoes
  • CSA Farm Shares
  • Recipes, Storing & Preserving
    • Recipes
    • Preserving Veggies
    • Storing Veggies
    • 2013 Radical Roots Farm recipe and tips booklet
    • 2012 Radical Roots Farm recipe and tips booklet
  • Blog
  • Videos and Photos

Eating Well into Winter                                              Carol's Weekly Planet column

3/3/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Rutland Herald/Times Argus

Article published Oct 20, 2013
Weekly Planet column

Eating Well into Winter

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak to a group of visitors from Fargo, North Dakota. While my joke about their city-named movie bombed, they all gasped in surprise when I told them that Rutland had a 52-week-a-year Farmers’ Market.  After assuring them that winter fare was not simply turnips and potatoes (not that there is anything wrong with turnips and potatoes), they were fascinated with the idea that Vermont winters could truly bring forth fresh greens.

Due to limited time, I begged off the technical explanation to the group as a whole, although a few curious souls stuck around to ask specifics. And while I very much doubt this column will end up anywhere near Fargo, it struck me that Vermonters may also be interested in the very same question: How is it possible to have local greens in the winter?

Let’s start off with a common misconception. Farmers (and ambitious home gardeners) are not actually “growing” greens in the winter months; more accurately we are “harvesting” greens throughout the winter. Plants (well most of them anyway) require at least 10 hours of sunlight in order to grow, anything less and they go dormant, no longer producing new growth. Therefore, the key to having fresh greens in the winter is growing the plants to maturity, in a protected environment, and harvesting them when desired.

Here’s a typical scenario. Most farms these days have high tunnels (also known as hoop houses), which are greenhouse-like structures that are unheated, save for the passive warmth of the sun.  Many of us have tunnels thanks, in part, to the federal Department of Agriculture cost-sharing program prompted and promoted by Michelle Obama (I jokingly refer to one of our tunnels as “the First Lady”). This program supports small farmers to construct high tunnels with the goal of increasing overall local food production.

The high tunnel is erected on fertile land and plants are grown directly in the soil inside the tunnel. Cold hardy greens, such as kale, spinach, bok choy, chard, tatsoi, and the like are seeded or transplanted into the tunnel in September or early October, making sure there are enough days and daylight hours for the seedlings to develop into full grown plants. While the high tunnel itself offers some frost and weather protection, row covers (spun polyester fabric called remay) are used to further protect the plants from the realities of the cold Vermont winters. It is not unusual to peek into a farmer’s high tunnel in the winter and see nothing but long lengths of white cloth seemingly floating over beds of hidden greens.

And what about those greens? Yes they do freeze in the dead of winter, and no they cannot be harvested when in that state. But thanks to the power of the sun (magnified by the tunnel’s plastic skin), thawing occurs on sunny days and the farmer can harvest gorgeous, delicious, virtually perfect greens to meet our community’s growing appetite.

The first time you taste winter greens you are sure to be hooked by the sweetness and the majesty of nature’s bounty.

Needless to say my explanation is short on details but, in a nutshell, it describes how we can have an abundance of fresh greens all winter long, in Vermont or North Dakota. That even means you folks in Fargo.

Carol Tashie, co-owner of Radical Roots Farm, lives in Rutland City and tries hard to find a balance between what is possible and what is impossible to ignore. She can be reached at carolweeklyplanet@yahoo.com

0 Comments

All Hail the Mighty Kale                                            Carol's Weekly Planet column

3/3/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Rutland Herald/Times Argus

Article published Feb 2, 2014
Weekly Planet column


All Hail the Mighty Kale


Driving south on Interstate 95 requires extraordinary concentration.

It’s not just the 18-wheelers barreling by at 80 mph or the tedium of flat roads and unremarkable scenery that demand your full attention. It’s also those ubiquitous billboards: mile after mile of stern-faced lawyers promising “big cash settlements,” smiling waitresses hawking an “all you can eat buffet” and, once you get south of the Mason-Dixon line, Bible quotations exhorting you to “believe and follow.”

And don’t even get me started on the callousness of the billboard calling Ponce de León Florida’s “first tourist.”

Maybe Vermonters are more distracted than most by the endless cavalcade of highway billboards; after all, our state’s ban is nearly as old as I am. But it’s hard to believe that anyone, no matter how jaded, would not be sidetracked by these relentless messages of consumerism and religiosity.

So imagine my surprise when the words “Hail the Mighty Kale” arose from the landscape, as if Vermont’s own “Eat More Kale” had graduated from one-at-a-time-design to the big time. Take that, Chick-fil-A, with all your billboards along the way!

OK, the mighty kale billboard was actually hawking a health insurance company, but it was still heartening to realize that kale now warrants such celebrity.

It was kismet to see this billboard. We were enjoying our annual camping trip through the southern states, and for the first time ever it was incredibly easy to find kale wherever we shopped. Local farm stands, farmers markets and most grocery stores were awash in this amazing green.

As such, kale became the staple around our campfire. Breakfast was kale and eggs. Wilt as much kale as fits in our too-small camp saucepan, while sautéing onions and garlic brought from home in our just-right frying pan. Add the kale and cook until flavors meld. Crack a few eggs, scrambled or not, and cook them amongst the veggies.

Lunch meant raw kale salads or kale inside wraps or added to sandwiches. We were pleasantly surprised to realize that even grocery store kale was sweet and tender enough to enjoy uncooked. Dinner could be a side of sautéed kale, another kale salad or our favorite — kale with pasta.

Wilt as much kale as possible, even if it means making several batches in a too-small saucepan. Using a bit more olive oil than usual, sauté onions, garlic, and whatever veggies you have on hand.

Since zucchinis and tomatoes were in season down south, these were our standards, along with the carrots we brought from home. Once the veggies are soft and the flavors have melded, start cooking the pasta. Now here’s the trick — before draining the pasta, add enough of the pasta water to the cooked veggies to make a sauce.

As eaters, we know the power of kale as a nutritional champion. Kale is chock full of vitamins A, C, and K, iron and calcium. Per calorie, kale has more iron than beef, more calcium than milk and more vitamin C than spinach.

Kale is known for its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer virtues. It also has cardiovascular, digestive, and detoxification benefits. Wow! And it tastes great. Double wow!

As farmers, we know the power of kale as a champion food source. Kale can be grown in a wide variety of soils, and it does quite well in spring, summer and fall. With the proliferation of unheated high tunnels, kale can be harvested long into the winter months — even in our northern climes. Imagine, a leafy green vegetable that is in-season in December, in both Florida and Vermont.

Carol Tashie, co-owner of Radical Roots Farm, lives in Rutland City and tries hard to find a balance between what is possible and what is impossible to ignore. She can be reached atcarolweeklyplanet@yahoo.com
.

1 Comment

A Wish List for Santa                                                 Carol's Weekly Planet column

3/3/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Rutland Herald/Times Argus

Article published Dec 8, 2013
Weekly Planet column


A Wish List for Santa


Spoiler Alert: Parents may want to keep their children away from this column’s opening paragraph. Of course, how many children read my column in the first place?

Dear Santa,

It’s been many years since I stopped believing in you. In fact, I can still remember the exact day I realized you weren’t real. It was Easter — yes, Easter — when 7-year-old Carol concluded there was no giant rabbit hopping around the globe delivering eggs.

And as the Easter Bunny fell, so, too, did you. Don’t feel bad, Santa; that kiddie logic banished the Tooth Fairy the very same year.

But today, dear Santa, I am putting aside old grudges to send you my Christmas list.

The first thing I want is for the good folks who answer the phones at Vermont Health Connect to get their stockings filled with chocolate and flowers. Throughout the very rocky launch of our state’s health exchange, these people have been on the receiving end of frustrated and occasionally furious phone calls.

Include a few bottles of good Vermont wine, and hopefully they will finally know how much we appreciate their patience and support.

Please send our president a feather for his cap for bringing sweeping changes to our country’s inequitable health-care system. Although I was rooting for single-payer, he deserves credit for succeeding where so many others have failed.

But once you go down his chimney, please leave him Bill Gates’ phone number. Next time he needs some computer work done, hopefully he will ask a pro.

Santa, bring our governor and state Legislature the children’s book “The Little Engine That Could.” They will need courage and fortitude as they craft and codify our state’s single-payer system and stave off those who say it can’t be done.

And why not throw in a copy of “David and Goliath” to remind them that the little guys — us — can win against the giant — Monsanto — in the GMO-labeling war?

There’s a rumor going around that our beloved Sen. Bernie Sanders is thinking of running for president. While we are damn proud of our independent Socialist senator, please give Bernie a gift certificate for a weekend getaway with Howard Dean. And Dennis Kucinich. And Ralph Nader.

Please bring a red pencil to the U.S. secretary of agriculture so he can delete the inane food-safety rules included in the farm bill. While food safety is critical, these one-size-fits-all rules could put many small farmers out of business and make it virtually impossible for schools to get local food into their cafeterias.

For the Supreme Court justices, please give them the games of Monopoly and Operation so they can learn the difference between corporations and people.

I know I should ask you to bring something for the folks in Congress. But since you are Santa and not the Wizard of Oz, I guess brains and hearts are not possible.

Oh, well.

Here’s a tough one, Santa. Please give all climate-change deniers the deed to a small sliver of beachfront in the Republic of Maldives, the island nation that is disappearing into the sea.

I know this seems like a reward for bad behavior, but there’s nothing like firsthand experience to change somebody’s mind. Plus your old standby of a lump of coal is what got us into this mess in the first place.

And lastly, for everyone who has everything he or she needs and yet fills their Christmas lists with more of what they want, please bring them all fruitcake and hope they can take a joke.

Thank you, dear Santa, for making all of my Christmas wishes come true.


Carol Tashie, co-owner of Radical Roots Farm, lives in Rutland City and tries hard to find a balance between what is possible and what is impossible to ignore. She can be reached at carolweeklyplanet@yahoo.com.

1 Comment
Forward>>

    Radical Roots Farm's Blog

    Carol Tashie and Dennis Duhaime will occasionally share stories from the farm, the farmers' market, and their lives. They will also share Carol's Weekly Planet column which runs once a month in the Sunday Rutland Herald and Times Argus .

    Archives

    February 2016
    February 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Radical Roots Farm is located on Creek Road (also known as Dorr Drive) in Rutland.  We are directly across the street from #531 Creek Road, Rutland Town, VT. Look for our sign in front of our farm stand.


Home
About Us
Find our Vegetables
Recipes
Storing Vegetables
Preserving Vegetables
Our Blog