Ellen Zachos: Backyard Foraging — Mugwort

Invasive weed or tasty soup? If we’re talking about mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) then the answer is both.

Mugwort

The first time I found mugwort in my garden I thought it was a chrysanthemum left over from the previous fall's planting. I left it in place, expecting a riot of bloom come autumn, but alas, all I got was more mugwort. The foliage isn't unattractive, and it smells terrific, but it's a thug in the garden and not something you want to let run rampant among your perennials.

Now I pull up every speck of mugwort I find . . . as soon as I find it. (And yet there’s always more to be pulled. . . . ) But rather than throw it on the compost pile, I bring it into the kitchen.

Mugwort is a traditional flavoring in several Asian cuisines, and the taste combines well with ginger, garlic, and sesame. You can find mugwort noodles and mochi in stores, and if you have your own supply of mugwort, try making this spicy spring soup. You’ll kill two birds with one weed.

Mugwort Soup

 

Ingredients

1 medium onion, chopped

Olive oil for sautéing

4 cups vegetable broth

1 medium potato, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces

4 cups tender, young mugwort leaves, chopped

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

Instructions

1. Sauté onion in olive oil until softened.  
2. Add vegetable broth, potato pieces, and 2 cups chopped mugwort leaves.  
3. Bring to a boil, and simmer until the potato is soft.  
4. Add 2 more cups of chopped mugwort leaves and the almond milk, then simmer for 10 minutes.  
5. Remove from the heat, and let cool, then process until smooth with a food processor or an immersion blender.

The taste is earthy and herbal and green.  And if you’re not sure what that means, then why not pick yourself some mugwort and find out.

Mugwort ID: the underside of mugwort leaves is bright white.

— Ellen Zachos

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Ellen Zachos leads foraging walks and currently teaches at the New York Botanical Garden, where she received her certification in commercial horticulture and ethnobotany. She writes two blogs, which can be found at downanddirtygardening.com and gardenbytes.com and has written numerous gardening books and contributed to publications, including Horticulture and Better Homes & Gardens.

Backyard Foraging

65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat

Ellen Zachos

You don't need to trek into the forest to forage edible plants. Ideal for first-time foragers, this book features 70 edible weeds, flowers, mushrooms, and ornamental plants typically found in urban or suburban neighborhoods. You'll be amazed by how many of the plants you see each day are actually nutritious edibles! Full-color photographs make identification easy, and tips on where certain plants are likely to be found, how to avoid pollution and pesticides, and how to recognize the plants you should never harvest make foraging as safe and simple as stepping into your own backyard.

Down & Dirty!

43 Fun & Funky First-Time Projects & Activities to Get You Gardening

Ellen Zachos

Gardening for the nongardener, Down & Dirty! is the perfect resource for the first-time homeowner wondering what to do with the yard, the small apartment dweller looking for the right greenery and the right advice, and for anyone wanting to pull together kids, family, friends, or neighbors for a community activity. Fun outdoor projects cover everything from attracting birds to preparing treats with your homegrown strawberries. Each project includes the basics, clear and accessible information, and step-by-step instructions for getting your hands dirty!

Amy Cotler: Ramp It Up!

Listen here

Learn more about ramps, and get Amy’s recipe for ramp pesto.

Reposted from Amy’s blog: www.amycolter.com

Bloom Day: May 2013

Spring was off to a slow start. The first few weeks of April still felt and looked like winter in many areas of the United States. Luckily for us in the Northeast, the weather took an excellent turn for the better. The end of April was perfect weather — sunny, 70s, slightly breezy, and no humidity. That perfect week brought us blooming flowers, blossoming fruit trees, greener grass, and unfurling leaves.

Just in time for bloom day, the past weekend in Western Massachusetts was the peak of our spring. Tulips, daffodils, apple trees, cherry trees, forsythia, and lilacs scented the air and colored the landscape.

Here’s a look at the yards, forests, and landscapes surrounding us.

Zan Davies, North Adams, Massachusetts:

Daffodils

Deb Burns, Williamstown, Massachusetts:

 Bleeding hearts

Bloomers

Feral apple trees blooming in woods

Blossoming crabapple tree 

Violets

Debbie Surdam, Hoosick, New York:

Taken last weekend:

Azalea

Forget-me-nots 

Vinca vine

Leanne Curran, Adams, Massachusetts:

Taken along the Thunderbolt Ski Trail on Mount Greylock:

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Painted trilium

Trilium and Bellworts (the nodding yellow bell-shaped flowers)

Winterberry

This forest flower is unknown to us. Can anyone identify it?

Squirrel Corn

Solomon Seal

Kristy Rustay, Lee, Massachusetts:

My daughter, Josslyn, stopping to smell the daffodils
under a weeping cherry tree.

Gwen Steege, Williamstown, Massachusetts:

Crabapple

Dogwood

Ilona Sherrat: Asparagus — A Worthwhile Investment!

My husband and I were married and bought our house in the Berkshires in 1980. I had been growing vegetables at various rental houses for several years, but these were temporary gardens. Now that we had finally settled in our own home, I couldn’t wait to start a permanent, organic vegetable garden. The very first thing I planted in my new garden was a row of asparagus, and I am thrilled to report that after thirty years the bed is still healthy and productive!

I followed the planting directions in an old organic gardening book, which turned out to be exactly the same as those in Storey’s Country Wisdom Bulletin #A-63, Grow the Best Asparagus, and very similar to Edward C. Smith’s directions in The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible.

1. Dig a trench, 12 to 18 inches deep. (My husband did the digging, and he still talks about it!) The bed should be at least 4 feet from the next row or edge of a lawn.
2. Put 6 to 8 inches of compost and rotted manure into the trench.
3. Place the crowns about 18 inches apart in the trench. The roots should be spread out, like an octopus.
4. Cover with a couple of inches of soil, and as the plants grow keep covering them up until the trench is filled in.

DO NOT PICK UNTIL THE THIRD YEAR. It was tempting, but I held out until the plants were well established, with nice, thick spears coming up.

After the first year of hard work, all the asparagus has ever needed is basic care: top dressing with rotted manure in the early spring and later in the early summer, weeding, mulching with straw in the summer, and covering the bed with leaves in the fall to protect the crowns.

The asparagus shoots start to emerge around May 1 here in Zone 5A. The harvest usually lasts for a month, and I snap the spears off rather than cut them. Ed Smith recommends this method, too. I keep them in jars of water in the refrigerator until I have enough for a meal. At the height of the growing season in mid-May, I can pick a pound a day from the 25-by-5-foot bed that started as 15 crowns over 30 years ago. What a worthwhile investment!

— Ilona Sherrat, Illustration Coordinator, Storey Publishing

Heather Smith Thomas: Notes from Sky Range Ranch — April Calving, Spring of 2013

Granddaughter Dani (age 8) with one of our April calves

After we sold most of our cows to our son and his family a few years ago, we let them use our range permit (summer pasture on BLM for 4 months), and we’ve kept our smaller herd here at home. Thus we no longer have to calve in January to have the cows bred in April before turnout on the range.

We’ve been calving in April for several years, and theoretically, it should be easier than calving in subzero weather, right? The April weather this year wasn’t severely cold, but it was so nasty — with snow and wind — that we were glad we have a barn.

Dani loves to make friends with all the calves.

In late March we put the cows in our small pasture and maternity pen near the house where we could start watching them more closely. Eight-year-old Dani (our youngest granddaughter) helped me make this year’s calving calendar showing the dates when each cow was due to calve. We had due dates on most of them, from their breeding dates, and estimates on the other cows’ due dates from the veterinarian’s preg-checking. We started “training” the 2-year-old heifers so they would be easy to put in the barn for calving if the weather was bad. We lured them into the hold pen with hay, then gently herded them to the pen in front of the barn, where the doors were open, with alfalfa hay inside. We put them into the barn, and even though a couple of them were reluctant to go in, they stayed in awhile after they found out there were “treats” to eat. The next day they all went into the barn on their own — to eat alfalfa.

Freddy, one of our oldest cows, started calving the afternoon of March 30. About the time she started serious labor, at 9:00 p.m., a cold wind was blowing, so we put her in the barn to calve. She had a nice black bull. Freddy’s udder has sagged a bit in old age. Her big bull calf was so tall that he couldn’t figure out how to bend his head down low enough to get on a teat, so Andrea and I quietly went into the barn stall and helped him nurse. I rubbed his hind end and kept him pointed in the right direction while Andrea slipped a teat in his mouth. Freddy always has a lot of colostrum, so Andrea milked a little of the extra into a small pitcher — in case we need it for an emergency. By the time we finished helping Freddy’s calf nurse, Rosalie had started calving, so we put her in the barn also, and she had a bull calf at 2:00 a.m.

Freddy and Thunder Bull enjoying a mother-son moment.

We had several more calves in the following days. Dani named the first ones Thunder Bull, Lightning Strike, Brownie Tip Tail, Merrinina, Bug Eyed Bear, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. For the 3 weeks we were calving, Andrea came down from her house to watch the cows during the first part of each night, until I got up about 4:00 a.m. to type articles and continue the cow-checking. One night Lynn and I went to bed early, and I woke up at 9:30 and realized Andrea hadn’t come yet. I looked out the window to check the cows in the maternity pen with the spotlight and saw that one of the heifers (Buffalo Baby) had just calved — lying by the fence with a newborn calf behind her.

Lightning Strike and Thunder Bull were the first two
calves born and were named by Dani.

New Perspective of Life on a Farm

I just read an amazing post called “Life On A Farm” by Luanne Armstrong.

Here’s an excerpt:
I have now been wandering around the same piece of land for some sixty years and now it’s clear to me that the more I know about it, the farther away I am from understanding anything. That’s okay by me. When I was eighteen I knew everything and now, all I know is that I don't know anything. I’d like to go back and re-read every book I ever read but I don't have time. I do have time, however, to watch and see and listen as I go for my daily walk.

On every walk now, a particular raven comes with me, appearing overhead or perching on a tree, silent, watching me. I stop to look, to recognize this presence. I don’t know if it is a she or a he. Or why she or he comes on walks. But it does. Or they do. Yesterday there were a couple of ravens, clucking to each other in the dead craggy tree by the beach, combing beaks.

When I watch animals, both domestic and wild, I interpret their behavior every day, trying to find the boundaries of a shared understanding. What do we share? Is it how our bodies move and communicate? Our senses? Plus we share land, we share an ecosystem, and I believe we share something else, a mutual recognition of being alive together.

“Life On A Farm”  brought Storey’s mission to mind: “To serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment,” as well as bringing to mind many of our books. Here is a short list of books (out of many that could be named) that relate directly to Luanne’s beautifully written article: Alan Hamilton’s Zen Mind, Zen Horse, Cherry Hill’s How to Think Like a Horse, Judy Burris and Wayne Richards’s The Secret Lives of Backyard Bugs, and Tammi Hartung’s new book releasing this fall, The Wildlife-Friendly Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Food in Harmony with Nature.

For Storey’s full library, check out our Fall 2013 Catalog below.

Storey’s Fall 2013 Catalog by Storey Publishing

Ali Berlow: A Portrait That Makes a Mama Proud

Photograph by Elizabeth Cecil

This photo is of my youngest son, Eli, taken on his friend Oscar Thompson’s farm in Vineyard Haven. It was a day last summer that these two teenagers (who met in preschool) came together to humanely slaughter Oscar’s flock of broilers, using Island Grown Initiative’s Mobile Poultry Processing Trailer (IGI’s MPPT).

This portrait makes this mama and papa so proud . . . feathers, blood, bird, boy.

— Ali Berlow, Author of Mobile Poultry Slaughterhouse

Consumers are hungry for fresh, locally raised poultry, but small-scale chicken farmers often find themselves with few good slaughtering options. Community and food activist Ali Berlow provides a solution, demonstrating how to bring a modular, affordable slaughtering facility right to the farm.

Mobile Poultry Slaughterhouse is a first of its kind. If you are raising poultry for meat and lack easy access to a humane, local slaughterhouse, a mobile slaughter and processing unit may be what you need. This guide shows you how to put together a unit that accommodates any type of poultry and can be moved from farm to farm. It can be funded, built, and used by a community of farmers, or you can develop one yourself and use it as part of a business. This book covers the mechanics of constructing the unit, government regulations, the permitting process, sanitation, safety, and more. It also includes 16 recipes for cooking chickens after they’ve been processed.

Available June 2013!

Virginia is for Food Lovers

The Hampton Roads Show featured Dishing Up Virginia author Patrick Evans-Hylton on Tuesday’s Taste.

Tuesday's Taste

Patrick announced winning chefs and dishes of several local (to Virginia) food competitions, including Sysco’s Food Show Chopped Competition and American Culinary Federation Tidewater Chapter’s Student Culinary Showdown. He also highlighted a few new and rebounding restaurants in the Virginia Beach area. And he talked about his new cookbook, Dishing Up® Virginia!

He called Dishing Up® Virginia a “3-year labor of love” and his “love letter to Virginia.” He went on to say that the book and the recipes within cover both the contemporary and traditional foods of Virginia as well as the culinary history of the Commonwealth.

Dishing Up® Virginia is part of Storey’s Dishing Up® Series. To toot our horn a bit, I have to admit that I love all of these cookbooks — they are by far my favorite recipe books! Each one features fresh, local ingredients. While the recipes and ingredients have close ties to the named state, you don’t need to live in the area to make the recipes. If you cannot find a specific ingredient, substitute a similar ingredient local to you (or — hush, hush — store-bought from areas afar). From appetizers to salads to entrees to desserts, from elegant to rustic — all the recipes are equally delicious.

If you enjoy cooking, pick up one of these cookbooks and invite some guests, or treat yourself to a five-star, home-cooked meal made with fresh ingredients to enjoy in the comfort of your own home.

P.S. The best part? You can dine on your five-star meal in sweatpants and your favorite old T-shirt, and no one would be the wiser — truly a delight to be had!

Carleen Madigan: I’d Rather Be Direct-Sowing

Just a few reminders . . .

• Transplant Your Seedlings. If you have hardened-off seedlings that are ready to be planted outside, you might think about doing that right before a few cloudy, rainy days are forecast. The little guys will settle in nicely.
• Direct-Sow Your Root Vegetables. It’s time to sow your carrots, beets, parsnips, celeriac, potatoes, and root parsley.
• Start More Seeds Indoors. It’s a good time to be starting squash and cucumbers indoors, too. A lot of people just direct-sow these, but why not get a head start, especially with varieties that take a long time to mature? 

More good gardening tips:

• Water and Fertilize Garlic and Onions. I had lunch yesterday with Ron and Jen Kujawski, authors of Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook, and got a couple of good tips. Ron says that now until late June is the critical time to be watering and side-dressing (with either fertilizer or compost) onions and garlic. This is when their foliage is really growing, and they’re storing up reserves to make great bulbs. Once the beginning of July rolls around, you’ll want to taper off the water and fertilizer so that the plants put their energy into forming bulbs and tight skins for storage. 
• Plant Onions in Bunches of Four. If you haven’t planted out your onions yet, here’s a good tip from MOFGA: plant them in bunches of four. A friend of mine in Maine always does this, with great results – less weeding, easier harvest, and no decrease in bulb size. Check it out here. 
• Effortless Spinach. A fun anecdote. Last fall, I sowed a little patch of spinach to overwinter and sprout in the spring. Last night, I harvested it into reused bags from the farmers’ market (which I had purchased spinach in, for $5 a bag). I thought to myself, “Geez, I just grew $15 worth of spinach with almost much no effort and maybe 10 cents worth of seed!” That’s pretty awesome. 

These tips apply to gardeners in regions where the last spring frost usually occurs near the end of May.

Happy gardening!

— Carleen

Before becoming an editor at Storey Publishing, Carleen Madigan was managing editor of Horticulture magazine and lived on an organic farm outside Boston, Massachusetts, where she learned the homesteading skills described in The Backyard Homestead. She enjoys gardening, hiking, foraging, baking, spinning wool, and knitting. Carleen lives in western Massachusetts.