Growing Kale Through the Winter

Our gardens may seem to be sleeping for the winter but hardy kales have been flourishing in the protection of our cold frame.

Installing a cold frame in your garden is the perfect way to extend your season and harvest fresh, healthy greens year round.

However, we do recognize that eating the same kale salad or stir fry can get old. Read to the end for a way to mix things up, courtesy of Deanna, creator of an incredible urban homesteading blog called Homestead and Chill.

Deanna may be in sunny California (actually her microclimate is very foggy, but she rarely has to deal with freezing temps!) but her garden can serve as inspiration to us all.

One of Edible Eden’s custom-built coldframes.

The Homestead and Chill front garden. Check out Deanna’s work on Instagram at @deannacat3 and her blog at homesteadandchill.com .

Check out this before and after photo of her front yard and click the image to see more - you’re definitely going to want to check out her full scope of raised beds, fruit trees, and pollinator gardens!

Go for the inspiring photos, but stick around for the recipes, gardening tips, and useful product recommendations.

Speaking of sticking around, thank you for sticking with me through that digression. Back to kale.

Kale is hardy down to temps of 20°F and even tastes sweeter after a frost; that’s thanks to the plant producing sucrose to act as a natural protective antifreeze.

Despite their frost tolerance, kale needs an extra boost of protection to succeed through our winters.

Our temps here in Baltimore usually do drop below 20°F at some point during the winter, although our recent winters have been fairly mild. A cold frame is an extra layer of protection to keep your plants alive during a deep freeze, but it also serves as more than just an insurance policy for the coldest of days.

Kale prefer to grow at temperatures between 50-70°F. In lower temperatures, they go dormant and wait for better conditions to grow. A cold frame can raise temperatures by about 10°F, keeping your kale growing longer in Fall and waking up more quickly in late Winter or Spring!

Your kale will likely still go through a dormancy in the dead of winter, but extending their growth through late Fall/early Winter will allow your plants to grow full enough that you can continue harvesting the existing large leaves until the plants wake up again soon in Late Winter or Early Spring.

Deanna’s recipe below is the perfect (and most delicious) use for mature tougher leaves.

One of Edible Eden’s custom-built coldframes.

Homemade Seasoned Crispy Kale Chips Recipe by Deanna of Homestead and Chill

You’re going to want to check out the full instructions on her blog through the link above for full instructions on how to use your food dehydrator or oven, but here is the ingredient list to get you started:

• 1 large bunch of kale, or about a dozen large leaves

• 1/2 to 1 full tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

• Sea salt or your favorite seasoned salt, to your own taste

• Deanna uses a number of different seasons to keep things interesting, including garlic powder, onion powder, curry or turmeric powder, black pepper, cumin, lemon powder, chili powder, everything-but-the-bagel seasoning, and nutritional yeast for a splash of umami flavor.

• A strainer and mixing bowl, or a salad spinner

• A food dehydrator, or oven and baking sheet

Deanna’s photo of her Homemade Crispy Kale Chips.

Our Practices: Plant Native!

In our March blog post, we kicked off a new series by laying out our top ecological values in our landscapes and gardens. We strive for the landscapes that we steward to:

Zebra Swallowtail (Protographium marcellus) ovipositing on Paw Paw tree. (Photo by Meghan McCarty - blueridgediscoveryproject.blogspot.com )

• Build the soil ecosystem, restoring our rapidly disappearing topsoil

• Minimize the need for fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides

• Catch stormwater, decreasing the threat of floods and reducing run-off and erosion

• Trap carbon in the soil

• Support biodiversity and native wildlife

• Reduce and responsibly use waste

Last time, we discussed the importance of incorporating perennials to achieve the above goals. Today we want to share the importance of:

3. Planting Native

Native plants support native wildlife. Many insects, birds, and other animals have co-evolved alongside their food sources and habitats (plants!) and can only survive and reproduce alongside these specific species. As more land gets developed and non-native species continue to dominate our landscapes, we believe that it’s our responsibility to nurture the plant-animal interactions native to these soils. 

• Some of our favorite Maryland-native plants include:

Asimina triloba - Paw Paw

• Paw Paw trees:

  Paw Paw trees (Asimina triloba) are the sole host plant for Zebra Swallowtail butterflies. A butterfly “host plant” is a specific plant that is edible to their caterpillars. It is the only place that the butterflies will lay their eggs. No Paw Paw, no Zebra Swallowtails! The Paw Paw’s unique, early spring flowers also produce a delicious edible fruit. Learn more about Paw Paw trees by clicking here!

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Asclepias incarnata - Swamp Milkweed

• Milkweed:

  We plant both Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) in our gardens. Milkweeds are the well-known host plants of Monarch butterflies! 

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Amelanchier canadensis - Shadbush / Serviceberry (Image by Tom Palmer - marylandbiodiversity.com )

• Shadbush:

  Also known as Juneberry or Serviceberry, Shadbush (Amelanchier canadensis) is a beautiful flowering small tree or large shrub that is often used in landscapes for its ornamental value. The early blooms are an important Spring nectar source for beneficial pollinators and the edible fruits are loved by many birds, including orioles, cardinals, and cedar waxwings. The foliage is also a host to the caterpillars of several species of butterflies, including tiger swallowtail, viceroy (a monarch lookalike!), striped hairstreak, and red admiral. Click here for our Sweet Sweet Serviceberry Jam recipe!

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Chasmanthium latifolium - Northern Sea Oats

• Northern Sea Oats:

  Native grasses tend to be underappreciated, but there’s no denying the whimsical ornamental value of Northern Sea Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium). In addition to adding its flowing movement to your landscape, this grass is also a host plant to several species of equally whimsical skipper butterflies.

The plants covered in this post don’t even scratch the surface of our native biodiversity. There are plants that can be used for rain gardens, pollinator gardens, as part of your permaculture plan, or simply integrated into your decorative landscaping. Whichever native plants you choose to nurture, you are bound to appreciate the benefits of seeing your garden transform into a living, breathing ecosystem.

Our Practices: Plant Perennials!

In our March blog post, we kicked off a new series by laying out our top ecological values in our landscapes and gardens. We strive for the landscapes that we steward to:

• Build the soil ecosystem, restoring our rapidly disappearing topsoil

• Minimize the need for fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides

• Catch stormwater, decreasing the threat of floods and reducing run-off and erosion

• Trap carbon in the soil

• Support biodiversity and native wildlife

• Reduce and responsibly use waste

Last time, we discussed the importance of avoiding soil disturbance to achieve the above goals. Today we want to share the importance of:

2. Incorporating Perennials

• Perennials bring a permanence to our gardens that annual crops just can’t provide. While annuals are removed from the garden season by season, perennials stay in the ground year after year. This means that they disturb the soil less and provide year round habitat and food for wildlife. But their permanence also gives them the opportunity to grow a robust root system that holds soil in place (reducing erosion), to dig down deep (breaking up soils and accessing hard to reach nutrients), and to foster an extensive relationship with soil biology (which won’t have to be reestablished every season).

• Our favorite perennials serve many purposes.

  • Fruit: Brambles, bushes, and trees can provide the above benefits while supplying delicious fruit and berries for people and birds alike.

  • Herbs: Lavender, sage, thyme, and oregano are all hardy perennial herbs which make excellent ornamental plants as well as sources for culinary herbs. Their small, compound flowers are ideal for pollinators and beneficial insects.

  • Pollination: We like to plant native flowering perennials like milkweed, cone flowers, and black-eyed susans to provide nectar and habitat for native pollinators. 

  • Dynamic Accumulation: Plants like comfrey are credited as dynamic accumulators which send down deep taproots to pull nutrients up to the top of the soil where neighboring plants can access them.

• To keep from disturbing your perennials’ roots, we don’t recommend growing them in raised beds with annual crops. Rather, we recommend that you grow them nearby enough that they will attract pollinators and through-out your property to maximize their benefit.

Rice Hulls

At Edible Eden, we spend a lot of time thinking about the larger impact of our work - we try to always choose the most responsible selection of plants, materials, and garden amendments that we can.

One eco-friendly material we love is rice hull! Rice hulls are the the husks around rice grains that are removed in processing. The hulls are then par-boiled to sterilize any rice grains and ensure no diseases are spread. We often use rice hulls to aerate, improve drainage, and retain water in our soils. Unlike the commonly used perlite and vermiculite, rice hulls are renewable resources. They do not have to be mined and no land is disrupted in their production: they would otherwise be considered a waste product! Unlike those other products, rice hulls are also organic material so they break down and add new nutrients to the soil over time. Because of this, you must refresh your beds with new hulls every year.

Rice hulls can also be used as a mulch much like straw or leaves. Use them to retain warmth or moisture in a bed or keep delicate seeds in place; we just topped our freshly planted carrot seeds with rice hulls to keep them from blowing away and provide good germinating conditions without burying them too deep.

Have you tried using rice hulls in your garden? Let us know what you think!

How to Plan Your Garden: Start Early!

I hope you are reading this somewhere cozy enjoying that delicious sensation of being warm and safe when it is cold and wintery outside. The past few days have finally brought what feels like real winter temperatures to the MidAtlantic region, the tender annuals are brown and dry, and thoughts of the garden’s fresh bounty seem distant.

One thing I love about a four-season climate is the opportunity to rest, reflect, recharge and plan between growing seasons. While we know that the old adage “make a plan and make god laugh” certainly holds true with any sort of farming or gardening, it’s also true that a garden plan can serve as a vital road map when navigating the fluctuations and challenges of a growing season.

Here at Edible Eden we create garden plans using Excel (although there are numerous aps and programs these days that purport to simplify the process). I like the Excel solution because it allows me to think strategically about the varieties, successions and rotations I want to include in my plan. Of course if your plan calls for a March 2 seeding of radishes and March 2 is a blizzard with frozen solid soil…obviously you will need to shift your timeline, but having the basic road map of how many of any given crop to plant where, on what date really helps maximize your yield because you an estimate how many successions you can fit into any given space.

One of the things I love about both landscape design and garden planning is that you are applying a blend of creativity and knowledge across a spectrum of dimensions- certainly time, space, height…but also temperature; remember that the same beet that claims 50 days until harvest in June will take a lot longer to reach maturity in the fall as the hours of sunlight wane and growth slows down (even if the temperatures stay warm).

That brings me to the question of timing. It would be fantastic if there was a hard and fast rule about any given element of garden timing. The truth is- especially in light of climate change- getting the timing right in your garden is like learning to dance on a moving carpet.

This past year I had all my tomato plants in the ground by the end of May and felt very proud of myself. And when the weather conditions conspired to welcome in heavy populations of fungal diseases and blight, most of my tomatoes died and I was very sad.

Meanwhile my wife, who cannot tolerate to see a plant die, had been nagging me to plant the left over tomato seedlings that were dying slowly on our deck all summer long- long past the point in the season that it isn’t worth planting. She just couldn’t stand to see them die; so against all my recriminations and judgements, finally she went and planted tomatoes all over the yard in late July…

Can you guess what happened? The late planting avoided the worst of the fungal diseases, and the warm weather lasted longer than usual…and we were picking ripe tomatoes for Thanksgiving dinner!

All this to say, the winter is a great time to plan, dream and prepare for the growing season even though you never know how the season will play out!

You most likely will want to order any seeds you are purchasing in January. And If you’d like

some help with your garden plan contact Edible Eden for a customized road map for your 2017 growing season.

What is Reemay? Every Farmer's Favorite Fabric

You may have seen it your neighborhood -- the spider webs, cackling pumpkins and plastic skeletons have been replaced by gourds and hand-traced turkeys taped to the window. October has come and gone, and Thanksgiving is quick on its heels. For gardeners nationwide, the next thirty days are a last breath of life before the winter freeze. Many are wondering how to get the most out of their edibles before it’s too late.

Here at Edible Eden, the start of November harkens the beginning of Reemay season. What is Reemay? Reemay is a type of cloth-like fabric, generally made of polyester or polypropylene, which can be stretched over just about any garden plant. The fabric lets in about 75% of all sunlight while helping the plant retain heat and ward off bugs. As the weather gets colder, Reemay is crucial for extending the life of your garden.

Reemay should be set up as soon as the weather starts to turn, we recommend getting it up as soon as possible! Leave it on through the New Year, by which point even a covering of Reemay won’t be enough to ward off the winter.

Reemay is perfect for any late fall crops, like cabbage, kale, arugula, spinach  or carrots. By waiting as long as possible to harvest them, they grow sweeter. Reemay fabric can extend the life of your garden by several months and can result in plenty of extra pounds of produce. If you have even a couple of food plants in your garden, It makes sense to consider covering them for the next couple months.

To set up Reemay, we first stretch metal or PVC hoops over the garden to suspend the Reemay without crushing the plants. The fabric is anchored by garden staples pushed into the soil, or, if you’re on a budget, weighed down by rocks.

Interested in ensuring your fall harvest is as bountiful as possible? The garden gurus at Edible Eden can get your Reemay set up in an quick afternoon session. To learn more visit edibledenfoodscapes.com/contact.

Seasons of Abundance: Farm-to-Table Thanksgiving Ideas

Thanksgiving is such a confusing holiday! It’s simultaneously cozy and delicious and so hypocritical. There’s the historical injustice to consider and then there’s the factory farmed Butterball: monstrous animals so over-engineered they can’t even mate on their own. And yet, is there a better feast than the Thanksgiving shmorgasborg of autumnal abundance? Is there a meat more savory and delicious then a pasture-raised, heritage breed turkey roasted to perfection? Here in the MidAtlantic we can grow most of the components of a Thanksgiving feast right in our yards, and the holiday really gives us an opportunity to enjoy the bounty of our harvest! Here are some farm-to-table Thanksgiving ideas you can try this season. 

This year we planted sweet potatoes in raised beds and they went nuts! Some tubers were big as my arm. Sweet potatoes, like winter squash, can be harvested, cured and held in a root cellar until their starring role in the big meal. If your sweet potatoes are visually perfect you will most likely candy roast them in chunks, but if the bugs have been nibbling them, never fear, just trim the ugly spots, boil the rest and make a mashed sweet potato casserole with brown sugar and pears (or marshmallows but you didn’t hear that part from me).

Hearty fall greens like kale and collards are still growing despite the mild frosts we have had so far. Those greens start getting sweeter and sweeter as the frost brings out the sugars. They are fantastic sautéed in olive oil and served with fried shallots and pumpkin seeds on top for a healthy side dish even the vegans will love.

Some other great farm-to-table Thanksgiving ideas: apples and pears have been ripening over the past few weeks and bring a wonderful crunch to any dish. Consider a ultra-local Thanksgiving salad incorporating arugula, red meat radish, honey crisp apple and purple onion. Don’t forget a rice pilaf with wild rice, baby carrots, onions and thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms from the logs for another hearty side dish. I like to season mine with cinnamon, nutmeg and chicken broth.

Want to really confuse your cousin? Slice up a kolrabi, drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with salt for an appetizer none of your relatives will recognize.

Another exciting, garden-to-gourmet Thanksgiving dish features mini-pumpkins. I had always thought of those little 4 inch pumpkins as ornamental; turns out they’re delicious! Scoop out the seeds and bake them with sage leaf, butter and a sliver of garlic, or consider stuffing them with other creative fillings like minced lamb or even cheesecake.

My thanksgiving tradition is to go up to one of my farm mentor’s farms and help slaughter turkeys for a day in return for the bird of my choice. Homer raises his birds on pasture and they peck on the freshest grass and bugs until their big day. Possibly an odd choice for a lapsed passionate vegetarian, but that way I get to avoid the quandary of how ethical/economical I want to be regarding the turkey I purchase.

While today supermarkets give away free turkeys as a marketing gimmick, our ancestors’ harvests were dictated by the weather, luck and hard work. These farm-to-table Thanksgiving ideas take us back to the very roots of the holiday. Growing food and learning about what it takes to get an abundant harvest helps me feel connected to those that came before me; a universal and yet ultra-local birthright that connects us to the seasons, the earth and to ourselves.

Gardening Tips: Show Your Planter Boxes Some Love and Drain Them

As many gardening gurus, books and videos will tell you- there are lots of tips and tricks to growing food successfully. Choosing the right spot, planting the right crop for the right conditions at the right time, sun, water and nutrients are all important.

Maybe more then any other mistake however, Edible Eden is seemingly always fixing people's gardens and containers that have been built without adequate drainage. 
Whether we are talking about a raised bed built with heavy duty tarp material underneath it, planter boxes with no holes in the bottom, or decorative clay containers that have not been drilled through- people everywhere try to grow in containers that don't have enough drainage.

This is not rocket science folks- if the water cannot get out the bottom of whatever you are trying to grow in...the plant will not thrive. Plant roots need to be able to take up nutrients and water from the soil, but that same water becomes a killer if it can't move through the soil and drain away. Without drainage holes, that water sits in the container creating anaerobic conditions and rotting the plants' roots. Very few plants can survive such conditions and even if they don't die they will be stunted and weak.

Recently we re-did seven hefty deck boxes that had been built solidly with a complete lack of drainage holes. This means we had to remove anything planted there, take out all the soil, drill holes, lay in gravel and then replace all the soil. This is a big job and can get expensive if you are hiring someone else to do it! It's so much easier to make sure your containers and beds have appropriate drainage before filling them with soil and plants.

If you are planning a new garden or getting ready to plant some containers make sure to contact Edible Eden for an initial consultation so we can make sure it's done right the first time!

Time to Prune the Grapes!

Now is a great time to prune your grape vines. While most fruit trees and vines need some pruning, in order to get healthy, abundant grapes: you actually have to remove between 70% and 90% of the plant every year!

Grapes fruit on one year old wood: which means, say a main trunk sprouts a vine in spring, that vine grows all summer and fall, and that winter it turns grey and smooth. The following year it sends out shoots which bear clusters of grapes. By the next year, it looks shaggy and has dark peeling bark on it and no longer bears fruit. So in pruning: keep that in mind and seek to “think like a grapevine”.

There are many methods and styles of pruning grapes which are more or less appropriate to different varieties, trellising styles and climates. In the MidAtlantic, we have three basic types of grapes we can grow.

• The Labrusca varieties are descended from an American grape and tend to produce fruit further along their vines, so they are ideally pruned in the Kniffen or Cane pruned style.

• Vinifera, decended from French grapes, and Muscadines, a southern variety, bear closer to their trunk and hence are better suited to the Spur pruning style.

If you are struggling with your vines, consider giving us a call. Edible Eden will beat any vine back into submission, no matter how grisly!

Fall Greens Container Garden

Different kinds of fall greens are good to grow together in a single container. Different varieties of kale along with tat soi, arugula, mizuna and mustard greens grow at similar paces in similar conditions and are easy to seed.

Taken together they create a container that is both aesthetic as well as delicious. Start planting in late August and early September for ongoing yields throughout the fall. Scatter mixed seeds into potting soil and clover with a very thin layer of soil. Water gently and keep moist as the seeds germinate. Clear-cut baby greens for a crisp fall salad and wait for regrowth or wait until the plants get a little bigger and harvest select leaves.

My favorites would be:

• Toscano Kale

• Red Russian kale

• Siberian kale

• Mizuna

• Tat soi

• Red Giant mustard

• Golden frills mustard

Potatoes from the Earth with Love

I love growing potatoes! Maybe more then any other crop- digging up glowing gems from out of the soil that translate into real, belly filling food feels like magic. This year we planted three different kinds of potatoes and the Red Norlands rewarded us with this message from below...

Potatoes can be harvested starting in early July- and many farmers will start digging them early for market considerations. The best for home growers however is to wait until the plant starts to die in mid-late summer and then dig up its nest of starchy treasures. If you dig them before the plant starts to die you might be missing some additional tuber set.

Different varieties of potatoes have shorter and longer growing seasons so best to plant a few different varieties and have a long harvest window.

While theoretically any piece of potato with eyes planted in the early spring can generate a plant and create more tubers- supermarket potatoes are often treated with a chemical that inhibits sprouting and not the best idea for growing your own. Seed potatoes are available from most seed suppliers. I splurge on Maine Potato Lady as they have great organic varieties and you can get smaller and larger amounts of different kinds. Not cheap however!

In any case- the heart shaped potato played a starring role in this morning's garden produce hash served with fried eggs and feta.

Preserving the Harvest

With the Fall coming on quickly thoughts turn to preserving some of our harvest so we can enjoy local foods during the cold months when little is growing. We have multiple options available to us when it comes to putting up goodies for the off season. The simplest and quickest option is  blanching and freezing. Many vegetables lend themselves to blanching and freezing and hold up well in the freezer. Zukes and summer squash, beans, carrots, beets, turnips, peas, and kale are all good options for blanching and freezing. To do this, wash and chop them into suitable sizes, drop them in boiling water for three minutes, then into ice water until cool, then lay them out on a cookie sheet and freeze. The next day put them in clean, ziplock backs, label and forget about them until January!

Another great craft to explore is pickling. When creating pickled delights we can choose to lacto-ferment or vinegar pickle. Lacto-fermentation is an artisanal method of food preservation that has many heath benefits and creates amazing and unique flavors. It involves creating the right conditions for healthy microorganisms to come and do their work of breaking down sugars and releasing lactic acid which acts as a preservative. Old school sour or half-sour pickles, dilly beans, saurkraut, and kim chi are some great options for fermenting. Vinegar pickling involves making a boiling brine of vinegar and seasoning and pouring it over fresh vegetables. Cucumber, sliced beets, baby onions, asparagus and okra are great veggies to vinegar pickle. This method is the best way to get a shelf stable product that doesn't need to be kept in the fridge and can create some really fantastic flavors, although it has no health benefits.

Canning is the process of creating a shlef stable product by sealing mason jars using heat. With canning you really need to follow correct procedures to avoid food borne illness so best to do it according to concise directions- or better yet, do it with a friend or family member who has experience with canning. Pureed tomatoes, jams, and vinegar pickles are all good options for canning.

Dehydrating is also a good option for preserving veggies; if you have a dehydrator you can create the best backpacking foods ever!

Regardless of how you go about it, make sure to try out a food preservation technique this late summer as there is nothing so satisfying as eating homegrown produce from your MidAtlantic garden in the cold weeks of February.

To learn more join us at another free Edible Eden workshop on preserving the harvest Sunday afternoon, Sept 20, 4-6 pm.