December 2009

Winter Salad We have reached the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Today I went to the greenhouse to pick a supper salad of escarole, spinach, arugula, mache and sorrel. The kale was added to our potato broccoli soup. What a pleasure to be able to pick fresh greens this late in the season. I've talked with several gardeners recently who loved eating fresh food all summer and now are moaning that supermarket produce doesn't compare. I encouraged them to get my new coldframing DVD so they could continue eating fresh! Once we get accustomed to lovingly grown garden goodies we notice that something is missing in the industrial scale counterparts. I'm thankful our family will be able to eat butternut squash for many months this winter plus potatoes, cabbages and turnips from the root cellar. There's plenty of frozen green beans and jars of canned tomato sauce too. Having fresh greens to accompany the storage foods just seems to make winter feel less bleak and sparse. I've been attending the new Local Roots market in Wooster as a vendor the past several Saturdays and it's exciting to see fresh winter foods continue to be available there also. The hot sellers at our table though are my DVDs, Olin's bells from old fire extinguishers and my cards from handmade paper. Selling over 40 cards this past month means I have a good reason to work on more this winter. It is a Homemade Cardsfun creative process that involves putting my stash of junk paper in the blender with water and turning it into new paper. Some batches get coffee grounds added or onion skins and dill seed. For Christmas cards, I tossed last year's shiny wrapping paper in the batch for a colorful confetti look. Once the paper has dried, I add pressed flowers, lace, burlap and other embellishments.

With a goal of sending a seed order to FEDCO by January 1st, I am being forced to make my seed decisions early without as much time to linger over all the delicious descriptions. Other market gardeners are also getting their orders in early to ensure getting everything they want. As gardening gains popularity, seeds are becoming a hot commodity. Last year budgetary constraints meant minimal experiments in the seed category but this year I am feeling adventuresome again. There are some cool ethnic veggies to try, some new salad greens and a couple wild flowers. My weekly demos at Lehmans store have ended for 2009 but I was given the assignment of selecting 40-50 varieties of seeds for their new Seed Savers rack. What bliss to spend someone else's seed dollars but how will I narrow it down to under fifty??? The fun part is when I start doing demos again in the spring I'll be next to the rack and will be able to coach folks on seed selection.

Working on Website Olin is going into winter mode also. In addition to some part time jobs, he is spending time tweaking my website plus is available to create websites for other small farms or cottage industries. To learn more about his tinkerings, check out the backyard.