Growing Food and Kids

Don’t worry, this has nothing to do with Sarah Palin. Whether you like her or not, we can all get on board with getting outside. And in Palin’s home state of Alaska, both dogs and people are taking to the outdoors this week for the opening of the Iditarod, the iconic dogsled race. The race starts tomorrow, March 6, in Anchorage, and will end in Nome on March 20.

As the mushers and their dogs brave mountains, forests, frozen rivers, and tundra, with fierce winds and temperatures far below zero, at least one group of Alaskan children is joining the athletes for a challenge of their own. According to the Children & Nature Network, preschool students in Homer, Alaska, have been challenged to spend one to one and a half hours outside each day of the Iditarod race.

By the time the race is over, children who meet the challenge will have spent at least 1,150 minutes in nature — the same number of miles traveled by Iditarod competitors. I checked the weather for Homer and high temperatures aren’t predicted to get out of the 20s until next Thursday, when the high will only go up to 32 degrees. In my town, however, we’re looking forward to several days in the 50s and 60s over the next week.

If those Alaskan preschoolers can spend at least one hour in nature for the next two weeks, by golly, we can do it too. My kids are itching to get out and fly a kite, ride their bikes and dig holes in the dirt. So starting tomorrow, it’s an hour a day outside — at least. Anyone care to join us?

And for the mushers and their talented dogs, happy trails!

March 20 is the first day of spring. It’s hard to believe, since the temperature is supposed to drop to 26 degrees here tonight, but we’re less than three weeks away from that first day of spring. That means garden season is just around the corner. If you’re planning to grow some food this year and you’re anything like us (read: procrastinators), you’ve got a lot to do in the next few weeks.

I’ve started compiling a list of garden-related things we need to do in the next 21 (or so) days, to get our garden ready for spring, and ourselves ready for gardening. Here’s a start. Maybe this list will jog your memory about some of the things you need to do as well. (And please leave a comment if you think I’m forgetting something!)

1. Till the garden.

2. Clear out a spot in the flowerbed to plant berry bushes.

3. Talk to local extension agent about which berries will grow best in our area and decide which ones to plant. (I’m leaning toward blueberries and raspberries but need to check with an expert.)

4. Find a good spot for a small strawberry patch, a first for us.

5.  Decide which vegetables we’ll grow this year, and where to grow each (in the garden or in containers). We have several regulars that will always make an appearance, but we like to try one or two new ones each season, and now the kids are old enough to know what they like, so we’ll let them make some selections too.

6. Buy seeds. We love to buy from local places like Coldwater Seed & Feed (pictured in this post from last year), but everything we want isn’t always available nearby, so we’ll be purchasing some seeds online. (I’d love to hear your suggestions of the best sites to buy organic seeds!)

7. Weed the flowerbeds.

8. Test the soil in the garden. With the help of our local county extension office, we’ll need to send a sample to the agriculture experts at Auburn University, who will let us know if we need to treat the soil.

9. Sort through the gardening supplies in the garage and see if we need to buy anything new — tomato stakes, hoes, etc.

10. Finish eating the food we still have in the freezer from last year, to make room for new fresh veggies!

What’s on your to-do list for getting ready for spring gardening?

It’s been almost five years since we bought a house. But now, my family may be moving, so we’ve been looking — and because we started gardening five years ago, our housing criteria have changed.

Of course, in the past five years, gardening isn’t the only thing about our family that has changed. We’ve also gone from one baby boy to two big boys. But when it comes to finding a house that works for our family, gardening is now an important part of the equation.

Three things that are on our house-hunting wish list that weren’t there five years ago:

1. Plenty of dirt. A given for gardening, we have lots of dirt at our current house – but when we moved here five years ago, I don’t think we knew how important that dirt would become for us. So this time, it’s higher on the list.

2. Storage capabilities. For all those canned tomatoes, green beans, and pickles, I’m looking for lots of shelf space. And for the frozen squash, okra, peas, and corn, we want a space to keep the deep freezer. When I recently wrote an article about root cellaring, I learned about how onions, potatoes, carrots, apples and tons of other produce will keep, amazingly, for months in dark, cool places. So I’m keeping my eye out for hidden closets under stairways or other nooks and crannies that might make good root cellars. (That article will appear in Hobby Farms’ Popular Kitchen Series magabook, “Canning and Preserving.,” due out later this year.)

3. Extra counter space. In most areas of life, I definitely believe that less is more. But when it’s the middle of summer and we have buckets of tomatoes, squash, okra and cucumbers that all need to be washed and processed, a little more kitchen counter space could be a little bit wonderful. I admit to getting a little overwhelmed when I just need to make the kids a peanut butter sandwich and every surface in the kitchen is covered with fresh produce. Thankful, but overwhelmed. We looked at one house that not only had an extra wall of counter space in the kitchen, but also a separate vegetable sink, seemingly created just for those bountiful-harvest days. Ah, but the house was out of our price range.

So the search continues.

Does your gardening habit influence your choice of abode? What would be on your wish list for the perfect house for gardening?   

So here’s one more reason to buy (or grow) organic foods. A new study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences found that three different varieties of genetically modified corn caused organ damage in laboratory rats.

The GM corn didn’t favor one specific organ; it caused damage throughout the body. According to an abstract, scientists found most of the damage in the kidney and liver, but they also documented damage from the corn in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system (that’s the system that produces blood and includes the bone marrow, spleen, tonsils, and lymph nodes).

So if we forgot how disgusted we were by the industrial corn industry portrayed in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, now we seem to have proof that our corn chips are not just making us (and our kids) fat and unhealthy, but also actually damaging our essential organs. Do you have any idea how much corn we Americans eat? It’s in everything. (Take a look at a few of the labels in your pantry; most of us will find a lot of corn syrup, corn oil, corn flour, and cornstarch, along with simply corn.)

And unless we’re buying organic, or growing our own organic corn and making everything we eat from scratch, we’re usually eating corn that’s genetically modified.

What to do? The only solutions I know of are to eat more homegrown foods, whether from our own garden or the farmer’s market, and to read labels more carefully. What are your solutions to scary news like this?

Thanksgiving may have been only a week ago, but we’re already in the throes of Christmas around my house. And while I certainly don’t want Christmas to be all about buying and getting, I have to admit that finding cool gifts is part of the fun. (And it’s nice to have “Christmas shopping” marked off the to-do list.)

For kids who like to garden — or just play in the dirt — there are lots of interesting gift options, including some that cost hardly anything.

If you’re looking for just the right something for your little garden buddy, consider some of these:

• The gift that keeps growing. A packet of seeds wrapped in festive fabric or paper makes a perfect stocking stuffer for a kid with a budding green thumb. Consider something that can be planted right away during cold weather months, such as fava beans, so your gardener doesn’t lose momentum (or lose the seeds before planting time).
• Bring on the birds. A great way to watch wildlife during the winter months is by beckoning birds to your window with a bird feeder. I have sweet memories of sitting at my grandmother’s breakfast table in Nashville, Tenn., and watching hummingbirds eat their breakfast just outside the window beside us. There are all kinds of bird feeders in fun, kid-friendly colors and shapes. I like the Woodstream #262 48OZ Apple Feeder or the Woodstream #260P 48OZ Strawberry Feeder, especially for hummingbirds.
• A tree to grow on. What kid wouldn’t like to grow his or her own Christmas tree? This kit comes with a Douglas fir seed, peat, and a ceramic pot, along with a jingle bell ornament to hang on the tree when it starts growing. 
• Pamper your pets. If growing your own food is fun, what could be better than growing food for your pet? Suttons offers a cool pet food pack that includes seeds for  dandelions, carrots and other foods that rabbits, hamsters and other household pets love.
• Read all about it. My boys love books, and I love to give books to them and to other children. There are plenty of good books that are perfect for kids who love the outdoors, such as those included in this post from July. Other favorites include Growing Vegetable Soup (Books for Young Readers) by Lois Ehlert and The Tiny Seed (World of Eric Carle) by Eric Carle.
• No time to be board. Who knew there was a board game all about gardening? Your little gardener will love playing The Garden Game, which requires players to feed the soil, plant seeds, nurture plants, have harvest festivals, and help each other through natural disasters. You can win by planting the largest garden and saving the most seeds!

What are your favorite gift ideas for kids who love the outdoors? 

Say nobody in your family likes pumpkin pie, but you’re a traditionalist. So at Thanksgiving, you’re kind of screwed. You feel like you must serve pumpkin pie because it’s always been done, but you know you’ll be left with most of a pie to be thrown away or fed to the dog. But we don’t even have a dog, and this is my family.

This year, since I’m in charge of Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, I’ve decided to opt out of serving pumpkin pie. If you share my aversion to the pasty orange stuff, join me. Instead, I’m making pumpkin bread. It’s not a hit with my husband, but the kids and I love it, and my in-laws once made themselves try it to avoid hurting my feelings. (And I think they actually liked it.) So it’s settled.

I first made pumpkin bread in college after one of my fellow English majors brought it to an early-morning get-together. But the recipe I make now came from my good friend Gin Phillips. She’s the award-winning author of The Well and the Mine, but she’s also a fabulous cook, the kind that doesn’t really measure ingredients but just kind of knows how much nutmeg, how much salt, how much flour will make it just right. When I insisted, Ginny gave me a recipe for her pumpkin bread, but of course she doesn’t follow it herself. So it may never taste exactly like hers, but it’s still pretty darn good.

If you want to try it, here it is:

PUMPKIN BREAD

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups plus 4 teaspoons sugar, divided

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 eggs

1 15-ounce can of pumpkin (or fresh pumpkin, even better)

1/2 can canola oil

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, salt and nutmeg.

Combine the eggs, pumpkin, oil, water and vanilla; mix well. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.

Spoon into two 8”x4”x2” baking pans coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with remaining sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I’m still alive, although you’d never know it based on my conspicuous absence from this blog over the past few weeks. What can I say? We picked our last tomatoes in October and then I took a break from thinking about gardening for awhile. We do have a small fall garden underway, mainly just cabbage and greens, but I’ve been so busy with kids, work and life that posting to this blog got lost in the shuffle. 

Now here we are, less than two weeks away from Thanksgiving! And for the first time ever, I’m hosting Thanksgiving dinner at my own home. No more getting to drive in for the day bringing just a sweet potato casserole. No, this year, I’m responsible for the whole meal. Yikes! While I volunteered for the job, and am excited about the challenge, I have to admit it’s a little intimidating.

At least my mom won’t be here. She’ll be out west visiting my younger brother and his family. And while I’d love to spend Thanksgiving with her, I’m sure she’s the reason I’m intimidated. I’ve spent most of my Thanksgivings with my feet under her table, feasting on a lavish spread that I could never hope to replicate. Not just turkey and dressing (we don’t do “stuffing” in Alabama), but also ham, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, squash casserole, okra and tomatoes, green beans, congealed salads, homemade rolls, and sweet tea to wash it all down. And for dessert, there’s  pumpkin pie, apple pie, maybe a carrot cake, and turkey-shaped sugar cookies. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things.

There’s a lot to be said for tradition, but as I plan our menu over the next week, I’m trying to put a new twist on some of the old favorites. For instance, nobody in our family really likes pumpkin pie, but we usually have it just for tradition’s sake. I’m thinking this year I might take the liberty of serving pumpkin bread instead, since I know we like it and it makes a good appetizer. I’ll share the recipe tomorrow.

What are you serving or bringing to Thanksgiving dinner this year? How do you incorporate foods from your garden or farmer’s market? Any new twists on old favorites? 

Do you have a third grader at your house? Or do you know a third grade teacher? If so, let them know about Bonnie Plants’ Third Grade Cabbage Program.

Through the program, Bonnie Plants provides free cabbage seeds to third grade students across the country whose teachers have signed up to participate. Each student plants his or her own cabbage, waters it and cares for it. The seeds are for oversized cabbages, so they’re especially fun to watch as they get bigger and bigger and bigger. And at the end of the growing season, Bonnie Plants awards a $1,000 savings bond to one student in each state.

The contest has been going on for the past eight years, and it’s now accepting registrations for the 2010 edition.

In a note to third graders on the company’s web site, Bonnie’s general manager Stan Cope writes, “We at Bonnie Plants want to share our love of gardening. By planting one of our oversized cabbage varieties, you can watch your cabbage plant grow bigger than a basketball! Help us by planting your cabbage and watch it grow, and grow and grow!”

It’s great to see a large corporation making an effort to get kids involved in gardening. Now if all the third graders will actually eat the cabbages, even better! Spread the word and get your local third graders involved. Maybe they’ll end up with $1,000 or even better, a lifelong love of growing their own healthy food.

Do you eat cabbage? How do you like it?