Homegrown Evolution's Page

A Hairy Cucumber: Mezzo Lungo di Polignano

There's a crass joke or limerick to be made here but I'll leave that up to you, our dear readers. I'll just say that this cucumber, an Italian heirloom called Mezzo Lungo di Polignano, has done well for us this summer. No powdery mildew and it's tasty. I got the seeds from Craig Ruggless at gardenedibles.com. I wrote Craig to ask him about it and he replied,

"This is one of my favorites. They are also very good when left on the vine to get larger. Be sure to peel and remove the seeds. They make a great "boat" for salad fillings Like tuna or salmon with lemon and capers in maybe a mayo or yogurt dressing."

The salad boat idea, in our case with tomatoes and a yogurt dressing, made for one of my favorite meals this summer. As for the hairy skin--biodiversity in action--and there something to be said for variety and aesthetics even though that crazy skin never ends up on the dining room table.

It's Official: Erik is Insane

It's true. Erik has gone insane trying to protect his baby. His squash baby.

A little background:

We've long gardened in two raised beds in the parkway in front our house (the parkway being the space between the sidewalk and the street). This is officially city property, though we are responsible for maintaining it. It gets great morning light, so it's a valuable growing space. It's also fun to garden out in public, so we can talk to our neighbors and get all the fresh gossip, and show little kids what food looks when its growing.

The drawback to a public garden, of course, is that it is defenseless. This means that dogs and cats and sometimes people tromp through the beds, scattering freshly planted seeds and smashing delicate seedlings. If the plants survive, then they become subject to theft. Now, we don't mind sharing food. The parkway isn't really ours, after all, so we figure what grows down there is fair game. Generally we either grow things down there that are easy to share--like beans or cherry tomatoes--or things people aren't likely to pilfer--like greens.

This all changed this year, because Erik decided to plant squash down there. Not just any squash, but this fantastical Italian winter squash called Lunga di Napoli. It's a green skinned squash, rather like a butternut in shape and texture, except it can reach a meter in length.

At the time of planting, I did the wifely, "Honey, are you sure that's a good idea?" thing. It's just not a good idea to plant high-investment crops in the parkway. He assured me he knew it was a risk, but he wanted to try, and we didn't have space to plant it anywhere else. "No big deal," he said. Back then he was reasonable.

Since then, our parkway has turned into a dense jungle. *** Note: We love our tolerant neighbors!!!! *** There's not only squash growing in those two small beds, there's also scarlet runner beans, strangely hairy cucumbers, volunteer tomatoes and giant lamb's quarters going to seed. The giant squash tendrils are spreading across our driveway and walk. Sure, it's better to be lush than bare, but it looks crazy. Grey Gardens type crazy. In my more optimistic moments I think of it as a "food forest." I tried to take pics, but it's hard to capture the wildness of the space.




Back to the squash. It only bore two fruits. Erik began to obsess over them as soon as they appeared. How would they ever live to maturity? He just knew a thief would take them at zucchini size, and then they'd never reach their potential. Suddenly, it was of utmost importance to him that these squash reach their full one meter length. I trembled with dread and ill foreboding.


One morning the inevitable happened. Erik stomped into the house, crying, "The %$#$!*s took my squash! They took my squash!" The smaller of the two squashes was gone, picked long before its time. After a brief period of depression, which he spent either cursing the unjust nature of the universe or reiterating his desire to chop down all the trees in our backyard, so as to maximize secure growing space (which is not going to happen as long as I'm around!), Erik began to scheme.

And now, we are the proud proprietors of Garden Guantanamo. The remaining squash baby --and it really is baby sized, and growing fast--soon I will have to refer to it as the squash toddler--is wrapped in layers of chicken wire and spiked deep in the earth. But that was not enough. He's also surrounded the entire parkway with a cordon of bright yellow rope (invoking police tape?) and most alarming of all, fashioned little signs that say "Warning: Experimental/Not For Human Consumption/No Es Comida" and staked them at 3 foot intervals on all sides.


I'll admit I've put up my share of signs in my time (Keep Door Closed, Turn Off Lights, Don't Eat the Cake in the Fridge, etc.). But age brings wisdom, and I've learned that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who read signs and those who don't. And the great irony is that those who read signs don't need the signs in the first place. And those who need the signs never, ever read them.

In other words, I don't think the signs are going to work. And I'm dreading my neighbors asking me what's experimental about our food.

In the meanwhile people, pray for Erik and his squash baby. And I'll keep you updated.

Raw Milk Talk With Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures on the Homegrown Evolution Podcast

Image from the Organic Pastures website

In the second episode of the Homegrown Evolution podcast we present a talk by Mark McAfee, founder and CEO of Organic Pastures Dairy, a raw milk dairy in California. The talk was recorded on August 28th, 2010 and was sponsored by Altadena Heritage and the Arroyo Food Co-op.

McAfee had slides, but I think the talk is self explanatory without them for the most part. When he mentions his neighbor's farm he showed a slide of a typical concentrated dairy operation: a lot of cows packed together in muddy pens. By contrast, the cattle on Organic Pastures' land grazes on green grass. Another point that might need to be clarified is that when McAfee mentions the two kinds of raw milk he is referring to his own milk, meant for consumption raw and most other dairies whose milk is only raw for the brief period between when it leaves the cow and when it is pasteurized.

Click on the player above to hear the podcast. You can also subscribe to the Homegrown Evolution podcast in iTunes or download an mp3 of the podcast via archive.org here:

http://www.archive.org/download/HomegrownEvolutionPodcast2RawMilkTalkByMarkMcafee/HEPodcast2.mp3

A big thanks for letting us record this talk goes out to the folks at Altadena Heritage who, incidentally, sponsor some amazing events. Check their website for details. And also thanks to Mark McAfee who is open and transparent in his business and operations. Unlike his competition, you can visit his farm and see where your milk comes from.

We're raw milk fans but realize there's considerable difference of opinion on the subject. Let us know where you stand on raw dairy--leave a comment! And listen to McAfee's talk.

Blue Garlic A-OK

Mrs. Homegrown here:

Note the lovely blue tinge of the garlic in my latest pickling adventure. Turns out that there's a few reasons garlic might turn blue or green when prepared, but whatever the case, the coloring is harmless. What most likely happened here is that the garlic I used wasn't fully dried, so it reacted with the vinegar in the pickling mix. I remember noting how moist the garlic cloves were as I worked with them that day.

If you want to read up more on this topic, and learn some of the science behind it (I'm too lazy to retype all the big words), check out this garlic fact sheet from What's Cooking America. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

By the way, the pickles I'm making are tourshi--Armenian pickles. If they work out, I'll share the recipe.

New Homegrown Evolution Events Calendar Widget Thngy

I've created an events listing widget for events we're either involved with or simply think are cool. You will find this widget along the right side of this page and at http://twtvite.com/hgevolve. Click on an event and you'll get a map and the ability to add the listing to your busy calendars. You can also Facebookasize it and tweet it. Right now we'll focus on Southern California happenings, but will consider expanding it nationally (internationally?) with the release of our new book Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World in the spring.

The fist event up is a lecture on raw milk by dairyman Mark McAfee, taking place today in Altadena. I'm still figuring out how to use this application--it shows us as one of the organizers, but that's not the case. We just think you should go!

Thanks to Stephen Box, on whose blog I spotted twtvite. Vote for Box!