Perfect Fall recipe ~ warm, nutritious and brimming with comfort ~

8 carrots, diced (or thinly sliced)
8 parsnips, diced (or thinly sliced)
1 1/4 cups vegetable stock
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped (preferably chopped by someone other than you ; )
1 head of garlic, separated into cloves and peeled
3 large potatoes, diced (or cubed)
salt and black pepper
3 tbsp butter
1/4 cup hot milk
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (optional)
paprika to garnish (optional)

PARSLEY SAUCE
3 tbsp butter
1/3 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

1.  Blanch the carrots and parsnips in the stock for 2-5 minutes (depending on personal taste).  Reserve the stock.  Put the oil into an ovenproof dish, add the carrots, parsnips, onion, and half of the garlic.  Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile, cook the potatoes and the remaining garlic in boiling, salted water for 15-20 minutes, until tender.  Drain.  Add 2 tsp of the butter and the hot milk.  Mash, adding salt and pepper to taste.  I also add 1 cup of sharp cheddar cheese to the mashed potatoes but you may omit per preference.

3.  You may at this point remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon and divide among 4 individual ovenproof dishes or you may leave the veggies in the large oven proof pot (I have done it both ways, and both are fine, just increase cook time by 10 minutes for the larger dish).  Add salt and pepper to taste.

4.  Make the parsley sauce:  melt the butter in a small pan, add the flour and cook, stirring for 1 minute.  Remove from the heat and blend in the milk and reserved stock.  Bring to a boil, stirring, until thick.  Simmer for 2-3 minutes, then stir in the parsley and salt and pepper to taste.

5.  Pour the sauce over the vegetables.  Top with the mashed potato, dot with the remaining butter (I usually add several small pats of butter :)  and bake for 20 minutes (30 if in larger dish).  Serve immediately, sprinkled with paprika if desired.

From DK's Classic Home Cooking with Mary Berry & Marlena Spieler

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. "
Henry David Thoreau

This little path was built as part of our permaculture-inspired, front yard renovation.   As with all things, building the path brought a little surprise into our lives.  A nice surprise, so okay, I'll take it  :) 

As I worked in the front yard (on the path and on plantings), I had the opportunity to meet many of my neighbors I had not yet ran into.  In our suburban neighborhood many people keep to themselves.  Busy lives full of jobs, family, commitments, fill up time and building relationships with next-door neighbors just isn't as important as it used to be. 

One of my neighbors, who must have noticed me working in the yard all weekend, drove by just as I was setting the last stones in place and honked at me giving me a big thumbs up ~ but that was not the best compliment -

The children love it!  It is as used as any play place I have ever owned.  Neighborhood kids on walks can't seem to resist, they just zip onto and then back to the sidewalk.  I have to admit it even brings out the child in me and from time to time I skip from stone to stone, arms outstretched, hoping I keep my balance.

We installed the path to protect the trees as we walk to and from the house on our walks, and to help manage a water-pooling issue.  But the fringe benefits are better than the practical benefits.  Who knew sticking to the path would be so much fun!

I have a true talent for growing herbs and all variety of weeds - vegetables I am still trying to learn how to coerce from seed :)  This spring we got the garden out late, had to wait on my bonus check before we could move forward with dirt and the like, and unlike last year I had not started seeds inside.  So our vegetables are in baby form, when the inspiration hits to pull food out of the yard I frequent the herb garden and my "weed" patches.  Foraging is easy and the taste of many of the wild plants are similar to expensive versions of specialty greens.  In fact, in some urban markets "foraged" greens are sold at delicacy food prices.

If you want to forage in your yard start with easy to identify "weeds" like dandelion, chickweed, and plantain.  Dandelion has a spicy, bitter flavor. The plantain is also strong and I highly recommend the freshest, newest leaves as I find the older leaves unpalatable (ditto on the dandelion).  Chickweed is perfect and even the kids will eat it with no wrinkled noses in sight.  It is very light and juicy with a slight crunch ~ mild and delicious, it also makes a fabulous, fresh tea.  I add these foraged greens to spinach or other lettuce leaves and they make a nutritious addition to the traditional salad.

I also like to snip some chives and oregano out of the herb garden for a kick of flavor.  The chive flowers are edible and really pretty sprinkled into a spring salad.  The wild strawberries in the picture above look so pretty in the yard.  They form dark green mats of leaves sparkling with delicate yellow flowers and pretty red berries.  They however are best left to the birds ~ the taste is hard to explain, but pretty much "blucky" sums it up.

I am still learning about foraging and appropriate plants to eat in my area.  It seems pretty cool to swoop into the yard and fill a basket with non-cultivated food.  Earth is a cool, bountiful place and I am thankful for all her gifts, great and small.

Wanna forage for yourself? Helpful links:

Wild Greens: How to forage in your own backyard
Free Food in Your Yard
Healthy Vegetarian Additions from the Front Yard

Even though we are working to implement permaculture philosophy into our yard (and our lives as well), I am dedicated to maintaining the trees and plantings that have existed on this property for the last 30 years or so.  This means a plethora of perennial ornamentals: peonies, lilacs, azaleas, Rose of Sharon, forsythia, irises ~ these plantings make me smile.  The only maintenance they require (for the most part) is letting them be ~ they grow, flourish, bloom, attract a plethora of insect life and then fade into the winter gray, resting until spring sunlight begins to call them back into green.

I can follow the arc of spring by tracking which blooms grace our dinner table ~ first the forsythia, then large bouquets of lilac (the smell transporting me to my rural upbringing and the lilac bush beneath my childhood, bedroom window), then azalea and the first of the iris blooms, now on this day, the last of the irises nestle into the fancy pom-poms of the peonies.
 
These flowers are the yearly reminder of someone living here before us, someone who put these beings into the ground ~ the person is a mystery to me, but their flowers remain.  Sweet reminders of some other day, some other whispered life lived inside the place I now call home.  People come and go, but the plants, they remain.  They are always home.

Ingredients:

4 c rhubarb -- diced (about an inch long) ~ fresh from the farmer's market is highly recommended or     from your own garden, even better!
3/4 c sugar (refined or raw)
1/4 c honey (or you can do 1/2 sugar, 1/2 honey or all sugar or all honey)
3 tbsps flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon (or so, I just sprinkle it in)

1 c brown sugar
3/4 c rolled oats
1 1/2 c flour (white or wheat, I use white, unbleached for this recipe)
1 c butter (yes, that is 2 sticks and hence you come to the secret ingredient that will make men putty in your hands)

Pulling it all together:

Combine rhubarb, sugar, and 3 T. flour and place in greased 8x12 baking dish. Drizzle with 1/4 cup of honey (or just squeeze the bear and make your best guess). Combine brown sugar, oats, and 1 1/2 c. flour, cut in butter, and sprinkle over rhubarb. Bake at 375 for 35-40 min.

Serve with organic, low-fat, vanilla yogurt and everyone will be very happy.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.  Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all.  But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.
-  William Blake, 1799, The Letters


Our front yard is brimming with imagination, courtesy of two towering oaks which shield our home.  They are breath-taking at over 70-feet-tall.  Almost every inch of our front yard dances in dappled shade for 3/4 of the year.  My husband and I relish our evening time on the front stoop, soaking up the quiet, foresty quality of our front yard as we share our days with each other.


Deference to the oaks had driven our design for the front yard.  Bringing permaculture into our front yard means bringing food and medicine into the landscape while also working with the elements to create something that is cooperative, beautiful and bountiful.  Traditional permaculture designs are often built around nut trees but in the real-life of a 30-year-old yard we have as the backbone of our landscape mature oaks and maples.  And although they cannot feed us, they do shade our home, cool the yard, and bring beauty and serenity into our lives.   So, it becomes my job to work with them, finding edible and medicinal plants we can grow in harmony with them.


At first, I had thought we would build a raised bed on the outer drip-line on the South-side of the yard but research indicated this could harm the trees.  So that plan was trashed.  Instead, we have planted currants and gooseberries outside of and alongside the drip-line of the tree.    We put these in the ground last week, straight of the box from Stark Bros. nursery.  They are already greening and I am so excited to watch them as they progress.  We have 4 gooseberry bushes (2 each - Hinnonmaki and Invicta) and 4 currants (Rovada Red, Pink Champagne, Blanca and Ben Lomond Black).  I remember picking gooseberries when I was a kid and my mom making them into pie.  I hope to give my own kids a similar memory in a few years when the bushes are producing.
 


Underneath the canopy we have installed a mulched path with river-stone steps.  We were starting to wear a path in the front yard from the door to the sidewalk (we take a lot of family walks) and the path should cushion our steps and the tree's roots.  I am tucking in ferns, May Apples, pussy's toes, goldenseal, black cohosh, and Solomon's seal.  All plants which occur naturally alongside oaks in a forest setting (well, minus the goldenseal).  As I plant, I am going to be decreasing the turf that remains, hoping to create a more natural understory for our oak trees and a landscape teeming with fruit and medicine for our family.   Also, I am only planting from seed as I work under the canopy.  Too much disturbance of the existing soil or adding soil on top of the soil can harm the tree.  Also, watering within 10 feet of the trunk can make the tree vulnerable to fungal attack.  Mulch is acceptable under the oaks so I am carefully removing turf, adding mulch then putting very small amounts of soil here and there and seeding them.  This will be a year-long process as all of the seeds I am working with require cold stratification so I have them all in the fridge right now and will plant them outside in the fall so they can stratify over the winter.  I have never gardened like this before and am curious to see how it goes.  My main goal is continued care of the oaks, so as long as they flourish then all is good.


Links:
Oak-Hickory Forest Associations
Growing Currants and Gooseberries 
Midwest Permaculture 
Stark Brother's Berries 
Prairie Moon Nursery
Everwilde Farms
 

It has been an eventful and happy April.  My family and I have been busy working to convert our Overland Park yard into a permaculture-inspired, food haven.   We have a 1/4 acre already chock full of trees and traditional plantings.  2 huge pin oaks stand sentry in our East-facing front yard, reaching over 70 feet high they dominate the entry of our home.  Joining the oaks, we have traditional box hedges (with a less traditional shape : ), a mature Japanese maple, and an azalea hedge.  To the north-facing side of our house we have a driveway which wraps around to the back of the house and nothing else but the neighbors side-yard.  To the south-facing side we have 2 small beds of purple irises and a gate which takes you into the back yard.

In the backyard, which faces mostly towards the West we have a deck, and a gentle sloping hill that has one terraced garden (gone wild) towards the bottom of the yard.  There is a 10-foot privacy fence at the back of the yard buffering us and our yard from Metcalf Avenue.  Chain-link fencing flanks all other sides and are spattered with a wide array of plantings (lilacs, rose-of-sharons, small crabapples, honeysuckle, English ivy, peonies and a wide variety of rogue saplings).  The backyard also supports 6 maples, 4 cedars and a 12 foot long, Forsythia hedge.

Our first spring in the house I tore out some holly hedges alongside the South side of the deck and put in a mini-herb garden (bronze fennel, dill, chives, oregano, thyme, mint, basil and some small sunflowers).  Our second spring here, my husband and I worked on the terraced bed, took out a lot of the turf and put veggies on one side and flowers/medicinal herbs on the other.  The flowers and medicinal herbs are doing well but the veggie garden didn't do very well (too much shade, too many deer : )  Which brings us to this year, spring of 2010 and our 3rd spring on the property.

Over this growing season I will be sharing pictures and stories of our suburban, Permaculture adventure.  I will talk about which things work and which things don't, as well as, share information I collect and further define and explore permaculture and its principles.  As a quick overview we are going to be growing a wide variety of veggies in a raised bed, in containers and in a straw-bale garden.  We will continue to have herbs growing throughout the property with a focus on increasing our variety of medicinal herbs.  We will be planting Pawpaws, Persimmons, cherries and 4 other fruit trees (don't know what at this point). And a lot of berries ~ gooseberries, currants, elderberries, strawberries, raspberries, lingonberries, cranberries, blueberries and grapes.

I will also share stories and information from our Visionary Circle, which is an informal group my husband and I host.  Visionary Circle offers an opportunity for discussion and sharing and is our attempt to help build community and comararderie.  If you are reading this and in the Overland Park, KS area contact me for additional information.  We have an eclectic group of attendees and new people are always welcome.  Topics of conversation cluster around ecology, social responsibility, spirituality and consciousness.

Thanks for spending some time with me this morning.

Take care and happy creating -