Saturday’s mail brought the first of the season’s seed catalogs. And Saturday night it snowed. The snow was just a sugar coated dusting, but it was a reminder that winter is coming—eventually—because it is forecast to be as warm as 59F/15C by next Saturday.
But today is gray and very windy and below freezing, a perfect reason to lose myself for a little while in the seed catalog. Yes, yes, I know, the garden just finished up and James picked all the collards Friday and has them fermenting—collard kraut! It’s a thing!
My internet recipe searches told me collard kraut used to be very popular across the southern United States and some people say it is even better than sauerkraut. James has ours fermenting with some garlic and crushed red pepper. I’ll let you know how it comes out.
This is the first year I’ve ever grown collards in the garden, and they’ve been a great success. Not only did they grow well, but we enjoyed eating them too. The small leaves made it fresh into salads and as they got bigger they’d get sautéed with onions and eaten as a side dish or combined with other things like tofu scramble, lentil eggs, curry, or soup. The variety I grew was “yellow cabbage” and came from a Minnesota seed company called North Circle Seeds. I asked James whether he liked the collards enough to grow them again next year, and he said that while it took him a little while to figure out how to use them and get used to cooking with them, he did indeed like them and we should definitely grow them again. Noted!
I also grew Swiss chard for the first time this year and we liked that too. I grew “bright lights” and the plant stalks and leaf vein colors ranged from golden yellow to bright red. We generally ate the leaves while they were small, chopped up in salads, which added some lovely color. The bigger leaves sometimes ended up in a stir fry. This will also make it into next year’s garden. Yum!
It’s sunchoke digging time! I dug up the first bowl Saturday afternoon just from one small area in the chicken garden. There are sunchokes in the chicken garden because last year I was silly enough to plant two roots along the outside of the chain link fence thinking—actually I don’t know what I was thinking. At the end of last season I dug up half a bowl of huge roots and thought, there, I’ve got them all. Yeah, right.
This year I had even more sunchokes growing along the fence outside and inside the chicken garden. So I dug and I dug and I didn’t worry about pulling out runner roots I came across because I am sure in spring I will discover that they have spread even more.
The sunchoke patch in the main garden is enormous. There will be more bowls to come as James has time to preserve them and I have time to dig and as long as the ground is not frozen. In spring when the ground thaws I will be able to dig up more, and there will be more, because I will find out as they pop up where all the runner roots have gone to this growing season. It’s a good thing we like them.
My turn for Reaping What She Sows: How Women are Rebuilding Our Broken Food System by Nancy Matsumoto came up on Friday. So far I’ve read the first chapter, “Black Mutual Aid, From the Rural South the Urban Northeast,” and it is fantastic.
As with everything in U.S. history, Black farmers have been, and continue to be, discriminated against. You can read a very good and succinct history in this September 2019 Atlantic article (gift link), The Great Land Robbery: The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms.
Matsumoto tells pieces of this history in her storytelling about a number of women farmers who have created cooperatives, training and helping Black farmers acquire land, seed, and fair prices through a cooperative distribution network. The women and their stories are inspiring and full of lessons on how to support regenerative farming outside a white-supremacist agri-capitalist system.
Matsumoto is familiar with cooperatives. Her Japanese grandparents were interred during World War II and her grandfather helped create a cooperative network in the internment camps. This network became the second largest consumer co-op in the United States. Given the political and economic situation in the United States currently, I suspect we will be seeing more cooperatives and mutual aid societies popping up all over the country in the coming years.
Throughout history women have been the seed keepers, carefully saving and preserving seeds from season to season and generation to generation. A few years ago I read a wonderful novel called The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson. It is the story of a current day Dakota woman who is gifted a cache of seeds saved by her ancestors when they ran from being attacked by U.S. troops. It is a story of healing and renewal. I was reminded of this novel while reading the first chapter of Reaping What She Sows because one of the women she profiles is a seed keeper and works for Truelove Seeds, an heirloom seed company that offers culturally important seeds.
Of course I had to look at their offerings, and wow! If you want to read more about the company, The Sierra Club has a great article about them, The Preservation of Culture Begins With a Seed I am definitely going to try and grow green striped cushaw squash! And they also have Korean hong-gochu peppers so I can make kimchi and even collard-chi next year.
The next chapter of the book is about rebuilding the grain economy. Looking forward to learning even more!
While I am on the subject of seeds, I have been a fan of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and bought seeds from them many times through the years. But in the last few months I’ve found out that as wholesome as they advertise themselves to be, this is not the case. In 2019 they invited a white supremacist to speak at their spring planting festival. After much uproar, they uninvited him, but issued no statement of apology or anything that I was able to discover. I have also heard that they steal seeds from indigenous peoples and then rename them and don’t acknowledge where they really came from, though I am unable to find direct confirmation of that. However, just last year the tomato they had on the cover of their catalog turned out to be a recently released GMO variety they sold as non-GMO. They said their seed came from France and they tested it and the results were inconclusive. Nonetheless, they pulled it from their stock and destroyed all the seeds.
Along with just discovering Truelove Seeds, I learned a few months ago about Native Seed Search and there is also Bertie County Seeds I just found out about. I generally buy seeds from Fedco who tell you exactly where the seeds come from (corporate grower, independent farmer, etc) and also credit and pay indigenous communities for their seeds. There is also Seed Savers Exchange. And then, as I mentioned earlier, North Circle Seeds, a small independent Minnesota seed company that sells varieties that will grow in my climate.
I guess I am getting a lesson in seed keeping and seed companies that I hadn’t thought much about before. Seeds are more than hybrid, open-pollinated, heirloom, GMO, organic. It’s important to know their origins and to make sure the people who have stewarded them are acknowledged and compensated. For some reason I always believed this was the case, but it turns out to be otherwise.
I really like sunchokes. I believe Wegmans in Rochester had them (when we were living there) and that’s how I discovered them. They are great sauteed in olive oil. That is too bad about Baker Creek Heirloom, I’ve been a fan of theirs too….it is so hard to find out the real stories behind the products we buy and use…
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Yay! Another sunchoke fan! Very cool they sold them at Wegmans, not something I’d expect from a chain grocery. It is a shame about Baker Creek. But I am glad to have found some other seed companies that do good work and support native people and seed saving.
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I love collards but have never thought about fermenting them: what a great idea! (I’m a nervous fermenter. heheh) And good point, as always, about the need to investigate the companies with which we do business: especially when one is trying to reduce what one purchases to begin with, it’s even more important to do the research and share what we learn, so that we are being as responsible as possible along the way.
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We had more collards than I knew we’d be able to eat before they went bad Marcie, and since they are in the cabbage family I thought, I wonder…and sure enough collard kraut turned out to be a thing! Fermenting is so easy and nothing to be nervous about. Start with sauerkraut, assuming you like it. Also, delve into the writing Sandor Katz, fermentation guru 🙂 Yeah, I was disappointed about what I learned regarding Baker Creek. They sell organic, open pollinated seeds and are always making donations for things like natural disaster relief so even though I’d heard rumors I thought, no, that can’t be right. But apparently it is.
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Other than our ongoing sourdough, we have made a few isolated batches of things (zukes, carrots, cabbage, asparagus, etc.) over the years, then we stop (out of my nervousness), but we eat fermented foods nearly every day, so we should learn how (we buy them via the same place that jars tomatoes, so it’s local at least). I should trust that things couldn’t really go all that wrong? Or at least that it’s obvious when it doesn’t? Will definitely look into that fellow: thank you!
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I totally understand your worry! But you will definitely know if the ferment didn’t go right; it is obvious to both eyes and nose.
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Hmmm, makes me think that, when I’ve tossed jars I wasn’t sure about midway, they were probably fine. I will try to channel some confidence: we are headed into cabbage season in a big way. Thanks!
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The fermented collards didn’t work out, something went badly wrong and it was obvious since they were murky and brown. Very disappointed but we will try again next year. We have a large batch of sauerkraut just set up to ferment Friday. Be confident and have fun!
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Yikes! story of seed stealing. Grrrrr. Dennis made a swiss chard bean soup that was pretty tasty. He was intrigued when I told him you all are making collard kraut. 😀
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Mmm Swiss chard bean soup does sound tasty! If the collard kraut comes out tasty he might want to try some himself so hopefully you like collards!
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Snow already, Stefanie? Brrr! Thank goodness for some wonderful comfort food coming out of your patch. I reckon you will have those sunchokes for ever . . . 😉Rainbow chard is one of my favourites in the garden, it’s very forgiving, has a looooong growing season and is always there when needed. Versatile ,too: we love the young greens in salads, the older ones in ‘green up’ stir fries or shredded and stirred through other dishes and the stalks are great braised or thrown into a dish of roast veggies. Great value for money, and backlit by sunlight they bring some jewel colours to the patch, too. 💕
The issue of seed provenance is a very thorny one and the reason I save as much of my own seed as I possibly can. I’m really excited to be part of a seed share group this year, a bunch of like-minded people sharing seeds from their garden, many being landrace varieties which no commercial company sells. Apart from the issues of provenance, I’m a bit obsessed with being self-reliant in seeds as if there was a global economic/agricultural crash (which some predict could happen very soon), commercial seeds would be unavailable anyway and so resilience and self-reliance become crucial to survival. My seed box is possibly one of the most valuable things I have!
We have so much to learn from indigenous people who have understood the importance and wisdom of seed selection and saving for millennia and as you say, it was a tradition passed down from mother to daughter to ensure there would be food for future years and generations. I watched this TED talk by Winina LaDuke some years ago and it had a profound effect on me and my attitude towards seeds, it’s well worth watching if you haven’t already seen it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNlel72eQc
Happy seed sourcing! 😊
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Heh, I might live to regret the sunchokes one day 😀 I am super happy to have tried the rainbow chard. It is indeed very versatile which is always a good thing when one doesn’t have a large growing space.
I’ve been getting better and better at seed saving but there are some seeds I can’t save, like onions and carrots. Since they are biennial I’ve not found any that survive the inevitable winter week of -26C temperatures and I’m not one to dig and store them to replant in spring. And neither my chard nor collards were kind enough to bolt so no seeds to save there. Plus I’m always looking for something new to try and squeeze in! But I do worry about a global economic/agricultural crash which is another reason I like to try so many different seed varieties as I search for ones that do best in my garden and that I like. Thanks for the LaDuke link! I will be watching it along with the other link you shared about garden rotation this weekend. LaDuke is from Minnesota and ran for US Vice President 25 years ago so I go to vote for her. Very sad she didn’t win, things would be so much different now.
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Right now I’m riding my indoor exercise bicycle while I’m on my break, and you grab me over here cackling with and you got me over here cackling with “thinking—actually I don’t know what I was thinking.” 🤣
I’m having a love-hate relationship with the snow here. Several inches came down, and I guess it’s supposed to melt tomorrow. The issue is that the farmer who rents our field still has corn out there. I read that in our area, typically farmers harvest corn by October near the end of the month. I literally googled to see if this man had died. On the other hand, my next door neighbor who used to own our house likes to think she still owns our house. She hires somebody to clean all the leaves out of her lawn, which makes me sad, and then she dumps them in our field! Usually, by that point, whatever is in the field has been harvested. But here we are, with corn in the field, leaves in the snow, and me just enjoying life.
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Happy to delight Melanie, cackle away! 😀
Did your farmer get his corn harvested? That is strange he would leave it for so late. That’s kinda hilarious your neighbor dumps all her leaves in your field. At least the leaves are good for the soil and the corn stalks are keeping them from blowing away at least.
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I actually called the farmer and confirmed he is not dead. He said he was behind, it was too wet, no one wants corn, etc. He’s supposed to come get it this week.
I’ve been in a TIZZY about these stupid leaves, Stefanie. It’s just my anxiety, but OMG. Nick already talked to them about not putting the leaves in the field anymore, but my brain is still fixating on it.
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Glad the farmer is still alive! Farmers are really struggling to sell their crops because of Trump’s tariffs. MN farmers are currently in a world of hurt since a huge portion of their soybeans used to go to China and now China isn’t buying them.
The leaves in the field are good for the soil so there is no need to worry! And next year it sounds like your neighbor won;t be offloading them into your field. It’s all ok.
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My mom was saying the same thing about the tariffs.
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Oh that is too bad about Baker Creek! I’ve used them a bunch. What a disappointment.
I think fermented collards sound wonderful! I am excited to hear how that turns out.
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I’m really disappointed about Baker Creek Laila, I’ve bought seeds from them for years.
Collards are still fermenting, hopefully we can try them in the next few days. I’ll let you know!
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