Farmer Joe
The papers today report that Michelle Obama has arranged to have a vegetable garden on the White House property, the first time since Eleanor Roosevelt presided over a victory garden during the Second World War. I suspect that there are not many regular participants in this blog who can remember “victory gardens”, or even are familiar with the term. I have few memories of the War–I was six when it ended–but one of them was of my father’s tending our victory garden in West Nyack, NY. Then when we moved a few miles to Nanuet, we had a much larger backyard which he turned into a vegetable garden–there was nothing like the taste of a ripe tomato straight off the vine. When I went looking for a house down here, near Catholic University, I had only two requirements: that there be room for my books inside and that outside there be room for a garden. And this past Wednesday I went out and planted peas, beans, lettuce and radishes–radishes both because I like them and because they grow so fast, and after long and cold winter I can’t wait for the first leaves to break the soil.
Last year I read with great enjoyment Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, an account of her family’s attempt to live for a year only on what they had themselves grown or on food that had been grown within 100 or 200 miles of their home. Besides telling that story, the book is a powerful criticism of the food industry–isn’t that an awful phrase! The book reminded me of the fall rituals of canning in our house: bushels of apples turned into apple sauce; peaches and pears preserved for winter deserts; chili sauce, relishes, and pickles; tomatoes and tomato sauce; jams and jellies; etc.
While I’m on my nostalgia kick, let me ask whether any of you remember using water glass to preserve eggs? We had chickens which wouldn’t lay many eggs during the winter months, so my father would put the eggs in a crock filled with water glass (sodium silicate, Wikipedia tells me) which somehow sealed the eggs and kept them fresh for the winter months. We used to dread hearing our mother say to go down to the cellar and get a couple of eggs because we’d have to reach down into this smelly viscous liquid–worthy of a horror movie–and retrieve them.
I’m retiring after 45 years of full-time teaching after this academic year, and my brother and I intend to have a garden and to raise chickens on our property in Bloomingburgh, NY. I think we’ll forgo the water glass, however.
I doff my gardening bonnet to you, most excellent teacher.
Knowledgeable, generous, able to engage a room and willing to do it–and a once in a generation mind.
(I stiill think you should pay the deutero-paulines a little more heed, but cessent lites.)
I looked forward to your classes because I wanted to understand, and I never left them disappointed. Thank you, Fr. Komonchak.
If you garden as well as you teach (from what I’ve heard in numeorus testimonies) and write (I know by direct evdience) then I suspect you’ll be feeding the entire community.
I could use some help, as my wife has recently gone to “the green side” after reading too much Michael Pollan et al. It’s good for me, too, and not so hard.
We moved last year to an apartment with garden access–first time in my adult life that I’ve been able to grow tomatoes and basil and such, and (as with access to a barbecue–well, so much for that) I’ve gone overboard. Yet it is snowing this morning in Brooklyn–yes, real, big flakes. So much for the first day of spring. I put my rosemary plant out a couple weeks ago, but I think it will survive.
In any case, back to the story at hand: I read the NYT version of the White House garden last night online and was enchanted. I’m a pushover for Michelle Obama, and maybe it’s the kids. But I like what they’re doing. I just hope you have no snow there, too.
Congratulations on your coming retirement, Fr. Komonchak. Is it something you look forward to wholeheartedly? I’m in a stage of my life when I can’t imagine not working.
I hope this new phase of your life won’t mean a break from dotcommonweal.
We do tomatoes and peppers every year, and have wild cucumbers that come back every year (not sure if “wild” is the right term – the first year we planted ‘em; now they reseed and return on their own).
I am not quite old enough to have been there for the War, but I have been told that in Chicago people were even plowing under the parkways (that green space between sidewalk and street) for their Victory Gardens.
There are lots and lots of good reasons for people to garden, especially now, but one that I don’t hear often mentioned is that home grown produce tends to taste much much better. One thing that has struck me as America becomes more proletarianized and standards fall is that people have not only become used to produce being tasteless, they have often even used appearance rather than taste as the standard of quality and don’t know any more that fruit and vegetables need to be ripe before eaten. So maybe gardening might introduce higher standards again.
Thoughts of gardens bring happiness. Our mostly shaded property probably doesn’t have enough sun, but we lost a lot of tree branches in recent hard winters, perhaps now enough filtered sunlight for leafy greens, onions, garlic, chard, and other cold crops like peas which come up before the trees leaf out. Forgot about radishes! The children had a great time last weeknd helping dig the garden and putting in seeds. In past years we’ve replaced some of the roses in the one sunny area with peppers and tomoatoes. Now the main concern is keeping out dogs and worse, the many deer who live in wooded hill areas of our city neighborhood
I, too, am enchanted with Michelle Obama. One could wish that her husband was doing as well in his job–a little more complicated, to be sure.
Barbara Kingsolver’s book includes some very funny descriptions of the ignorance of people as to where their food comes from–including the Hollywood actress who said she wanted to buy a farm where cows could roam without every having to be milked. “How would you like to be milked!” she exclaimed.
As for the decline in appreciation of the real taste of foods: it reminds me of the young Italian man who went to Italy for his honeymoon. When he returned, my sister asked him how he had liked the food. “OK,” he replied, “but you couldn’t get real Italian food there.” His idea of real Italian food had apparently been formed by Olive Garden and other pseudo-Italian joints.
Fr. Komonchak,
I tried radishes last year and I didnt’ get any! The farmer at the market said more water, but I watered them every other day. Advice?
I wish you the best in retirement, and I hope I’ll get to read your thoughts here and in Commonweal.
Best wishes
Fr. Komonchak,
Have a wonderful retirement. I have been retired for three years and it has been a good period of my life. I know that it will be a wonderful time for you. I didn’t know where Bloomington, N. Y. was on the map. Now I know. You mentioned chickens. If you and your brother also like dogs and cats, you might want to consider adopting or really rescuing an old dog or cat. Often these old pets find themselves homeless and abandoned. They are great pets and St. Francis will be pleased with you.
JC: I have no idea why your radishes didn’t grow. I find them the simplest thing: just plant the seeds, and they come up. Perhaps you watered too much? Do you realize that there are people who don’t like radishes?
Mr. Miller: Between us, my brother and I have three dogs and a cat, so we’re well off in that respect.
Do I remember victory gardens? Of course.
Waterglass preserved eggs? Ditto, though I’m not sure I ever ate one. But then I’ve been retired for a while.
A piece of advice on gardening in the country. You will have legions of enemies: bunnies, deer, and woodchucks among them. Take Michael Miller’s advice and get a dog (and not one so old he or she can’t give chase to our furry friends). I’ve tried electric fences (they short out when the grass is wet); dried blood (makes great fertilizer, but the rain washes it away); coyote urine (I’m not making this up — it’s sold at our local farm supply store). None of them really work. Dogs of a certain size do.
Or, like St,. Francis, you could preach to the animals and get them to mend their ways. Then we can have a new tale about the taming of Woodchuck of Bloomingburg, right up there with the Wolf of Gubbio.
You can also go to the barber or beautician and get bags full of human hair and put them around your plants. Human smell keeps critters out. Tip I learned from my neighbor, and it seemed to work on everything but racoons, which are impervious to just about everything but a 20-gauge.
Another friend swore by the dirty method. Work up a sweat and let your shirts get ripe, then put several of them around on cross pieces around the garden. The scent has to be replenished occasionally. Ditto the hair.
Think about adding kale, good cold climate crop. The thick curly leaved kind, to your garden. You can eat it early in salads (slaw dressing is good) or leave it out until after the first frost. It’s more bug resistant than cabbage. Great chopped up in stews and soups. I add it to chili. High in fiber, calcium and iron.
I’d also recommend putting in a couple of herb plants. I use sage year round (dries on the bush in fall) which I use on everything from pork roasts to dressing to polenta to tomato sauce. (Ooops veering into the “no recipe” injunction now, sorry.)
I don’t remember the egg thing, but I remember my gramma, who kept her V garden going until she was 85, having unhomogenized milk. When he was about 4, my brother ran screaming from the table when he saw the cream floating on top of his cup.
Happy farming.
Um, that’s the “dirty SHIRT method.” Got so exciting thinking about my garden, I didn’t proofread very well.
I got hungry reading Jean’s post. If you ever invite her to Bloomingburgh, ask her to do the cooking. You will be farming for a long time. My grandmother, who was the wife of a cotton farmer, also had a vegetable garden till her mid-eighties. My grandmother didn’t call it a victory garden. I think that is because the Roosevelts called their garden at the White House a victory garden and my grandfather hated FDR.
I don’t travel well, Michael, but I’m happy to provide copious advice about gardens and cooking from afar.
And if Fr. K and his brother want to raise sheep or angora rabbits and do some spinning and knitting, I can offer some tips there, too.
All these rural survival skills that nobody wants or needs to know anymore. Sigh.
Growing herbs can be addictive. I started growning them to cook with 40 odd years ago and soon learned that their fantastic variety of shades of green, of size, flowers, leaf shapes, etc., etc., etc. offers material for a very beautiful little garden. Just put things that contrast a lot next to each other. And be careful not to block the sun for the little ones. The best part is that they’re essentially weeds and easy to grow. Basil hates cold, but otherwise is a snap to grow. And most of them (exepot for prostrate rosemary) are quite small. In my 7″ x 7″ little plot I had over 60 varieties before Katrina, which killed everything but the rosemary and the beautiful aloe.
Thyme, rosemary, oregano and sage are also very easy to grow. Also try marjoram, savory, cilantro,amd, Thai basil … amd … and …
Now I’m rebuilding the plot, and I’m going to cut down the tiny tree in the middle to make room for some veggies. Thanks for the inspiration, folks.
P. S. If you really get into herbs, the WEll-Swept Farm (online) is a treasure trove of all sorts. I too recommend Alice Waters glorious book “The Art of Simple Food”. Her explanations of *how* to cook are simply great. Also Julia Child’s “The Way to Cook” is about everyday cooking, not one of her sophistocated books. Bon appetit! .
You people are making retirement sound exhausting! After 6.5 years, I have learned that the day will fill itself without any major planning or exhaustive effort. And if it doesn’t get done today there is tomorrow or next week or whenever. Particularly housework (my partner avoids it even more than I. Dust bunnies and we are the BEST of friends these days).
Relax, travel, read, find a nice friendly little old-fashioned coffee shop and meet people you never thought you ever would find friendly and worth the effort. This last thing has bee one of the best surprises of my retirement.
One of my great pleasures in retirement is that most mornings I go to Peets for a latte to read the newspaper. When I first started going there, I gave them different names to identify me and my latte with (Michael, Mike, Miguel, etc.) The name that stuck is Mikey. That is who I am at Peets in Portrero Center or with my family. My mother used to tell people that I knew no strangers. I didn’t really know how true that was till I retired. I have met many interesting people in retirement at Peets and elsewhere.
Enjoy the people that will come your way.
Let us not forget that today is the Feast of the Transitus of Saint Benedict.
Ann, many thanks for that Web site and book rec’s.
Jimmy, I’ve pared my garden down to a raised 6 x 6 plot (it’s my kid’s old sandbox, actually) with herbs around the perimeter and a patch for tomatoes behind. I have a bad back and can’t take gardening on a big scale.
Dust bunnies are my friends, too. They don’t eat the nasturtiums (which are good in salads)!
Let me get off this thread by recommending my favorite movie about gardening, “Brother Orchid,” with E.G. Robinson as a crook who hides out in a monastery “Yeah! Nice mugs!”). Ann Sothern is his ditzy girlfriend.
I loved Barbara Kingsolver’s book, too, and was inspired by her family’s adventures. Our family lives in Chicago with a small city lot. We’ve had rat problems in the past, but think we’ve fended them off with some repairs, so we’re starting our own gardening adventure this year. My kids think they love anything that comes packaged in a wrapper and has lots of strange sounding ingredients, but oddly, they all love pesto! So we’re starting with a variety of herbs this year and working on salsa and pesto gardening. Thank you, Fr. K., and happy spring!