Take time to enjoy your life!

How do you keep yourself healthy and keep disease at bay?  This is a question I get asked a lot.  It is something I don’t obsess about.  After almost 8 years of figuring out a routine that works, it has now become like breathing for me.  Keeping cancer at bay has been a mission.   Here are some of the habits I’ve formed along the way that may interest you.

1.  Upon waking in the morning,  I drink a fresh glass of water with 2 tablespoons of raw apple cider vinegar with the mother.  It gets my digestion going, has many health benefits and rehydrates me after a long period of sleep. After breakfast I quickly figure out what we will have for lunch as well as dinner, so I won’t have to think about it again. This means checking out what’s in the fridge or freezer for anything I’ll need thawed by meal time. By devoting a few minutes to more nutritious eating, you invest in your own health and that of your family. And when I say a  few minutes, I mean it: Studies from UCLA suggest that a wholesome, home-cooked dinner takes only about ten minutes longer to prepare, on average, than serving processed or ready-made food. If you make enough for leftovers, you’ll save time and money in the long run. And don’t forget: obesity, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease all lead to doctor and hospital visits—which make not only for tremendous expense in dollars, but also in precious time.

2.  Each day, I try to make fresh organic fruit a part of our breakfast by having either a cup serving or by making a smoothie (recipe on right of this page under “Breakfast”). While I avoid boxed cereals, I do enjoy steel cut oatmeal (soaked overnight) cooked for 5 minutes the next morning,  with walnuts, blueberries and a very ripe banana to sweeten it.  You want to go after that fiber.  Sometimes I will have 1/2 cup of organic cottage cheese mixed with 1 tablespoon of ground fresh flax seed and a small handful of raw walnuts or sunflower seeds. Most days we usually have an omelet from the eggs our wonderful chickens lay each day served with a slice of gluten free toast. These eggs are loaded with omega 3′s and are a perfect protein.  Don’t fall for the false idea that eggs aren’t healthy.  Just make sure and buy locally from a farmer you trust.   Sometimes I will warm up what we had for dinner the night before if it strikes our fancy.  After breakfast is the time to take morning supplements.  Then around 10 am, or whenever hunger hits, I have a healthy snack like nuts or fruit.  Important.  Try to eat small meals all through the day so you won’t feel starved.

3.  Every day, rain, snow, heat or humidity, try to walk, stretch, swim or do yoga.  To avoid stiffness and painful joints start by moving in a gentle way. Don’t sit all day in front of a computer without getting up every 20 minutes and stretching.  Several days a week, lift 5 pound hand weights for resistance training.  To stave off osteo arthritis,  try gentle yoga.  Sign up for a class and don’t think you have to bend like a pretzel.  You will be astonished how much better your joints and muscles feel just after one class and how much better you can move.  (Of course, before beginning any new exercise program, consult your physician.)

4.  Lunch usually revolves around good protein and vegetables, soup, salad or last night’s leftovers—served on a 7″ plate to remind us to eat less.  Quinoa, brown rice, avocado, lentils, chick peas, grilled organic, local chicken or wild salmon are just a few of some wonderful choices- remembering that each animal protein portion should be the size of a deck of cards.  Salads are sprinkled with chia seeds, nuts, veggies and homemade salad dressing. We don’t use store bought dressing, as homemade is far healthier and too easy to make.  Just blend in 1 part fresh lemon juice or good vinegar like balsamic with 3 parts extra virgin olive oil.  I  add crushed garlic and a touch of Dijon mustard as well.  You’ll find not only that it tastes better and is healthier, but the costs are vastly reduced.

5.  Around 3 pm, I start looking for a snack to take the edge off until dinner.   In planning ahead that morning I decide what the snack is and try to stick to it.  Usually it is a handful of almonds or walnuts, 1 small piece of dark chocolate, 1/2 cup of berries or a small slice of Swiss cheese.  Just pick a food that is nutritious.  However, try to eat the dark chocolate before 2 pm to avoid caffeine highs later in the day.

6.  Just before dinner my husband Larry usually pours us both a small glass of organic red wine.  While this is a personal choice, it is a treat and can be very beneficial for good health.  Just stick to one 4 oz glass. If you don’t drink wine then pour unsweetened tart cherry juice in a wine glass so you feel it’s special.  Great for arthritis by the way!

7.  Our meal time is usually reserved and expected.  We cook dinner together.  Preparing a meal is when I feel most creative and happy.  It is an established routine that keeps both of us focused on creating a beautiful and colorful meal.    Eating together as a family makes it less likely that you’ll choose to eat fast food or products that have little nutrition and more likely that you won’t overeat.  Family life is so satisfying when you prepare food and eat it with each other.  There are numerous studies to prove it.

8. At dinner, we make sure our plate consists of at least 50-75 percent vegetables.  It could be salad, broccoli, sweet potato, asparagus, cauliflower, kale, beets or whatever colorful veggies you choose. Just have variety.   This ensures that we get enough nutrients and automatically reduces the amount of fat and calories we consume.

9.  We try to drink water with every meal.  If we slow down and savor each bite , express our gratitude for this marvelous food and talk about how delicious and beautiful it is we tend to experience “mindful eating”.   Studies indicate that simply by eating at a leisurely pace, you could drop several pounds a year.

10. Retrain your palate.  I found this to be far easier than I thought it would be but then I was extremely motivated after having cancer.  Our taste buds can be taught to appreciate new and subtler flavors. When you eliminate processed, high-fat  and over sweetened food for healthier fare, it can take one to two weeks before your taste buds acclimate. Don’t expect to love new flavors right away. Just keep serving the new dishes, and soon neither you nor your palate will recall what all the fuss was about.

The Last Word….You really are what you eat.
Most of us want radiant skin, shiny hair, more intimacy,  and more flexibility as well as great health as we age. Consider that all of this and more depends on the flow of blood for nutrients and oxygen—which, in turn, requires healthy blood vessels and a steady supply of red blood cells.  The best way to keep your body humming is to eat a well-rounded, nutritious diet and MOVE.  You can do this… It is how I stay healthy.—–Lee Newlin

We are growing an increasing number of Asian Greens this fall – they tend to germinate quickly from seed; reach early maturity and can also be harvested at a tender, baby stage; have good market acceptance; are pretty in the field and on the table in a wide array of sizes and textures. They are power-packed with nutrition but very few calories — rich in antioxidants (in particular of vitamin C), iron, calcium, beta-carotene, potassium, magnesium, and folates, Oh, and also they are DELICIOUS! Most are in the brassica family (kale, broccoli, cabbage, mustard) and have a mild mustard flavor. Others are mild with juicy stalks akin to celery.

Plant Asian Greens through early October – stagger plantings, if you begin now, to extend the harvest. Do not plant where you have grown brassicas in the past three years. Add a liberal amount of organic matter to the soil in preparing and feed with a complete organic fertilizer preferably including boron (a little dab will do you). Keep well-watered during the germination phase and through the growing period. Below is a lineup of some of the standouts in our fall garden – you may find most of these on seed racks at your garden center or niche grocery store, or you can order from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, High Mowing, Sow True, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Fedco, and/or Seeds of Change.

Komatsuna – Also called spinach mustard, Komatsuna has dark green leaves that are rich in calcium and often quite glossy. They can be harvested at any stage and prepared like spinach in the early stages. This versatile green can be stir-fried, pickled, boiled and added to soups or used fresh in salads.

Yukina Savoy – Large, crinkled, savoyed leaves. Plant habit is similar to Tatsoi, but more upright and vigorous for improved baby leaf yields. At full size the thick, savoyed leaves are held upright on pale green petioles. Delicious steamed or stir-fried.

Hon Tsai Tai – A Chinese specialty also known as Kailaan. The young plants soon branch and produce quantities of long, pencil-thin, red-purple, budded flower stems. Pleasing, mild mustard taste for use raw in salads or lightly cooked in stir-fries or soups.

Mibuna – Easy-to-grow Japanese green similar to Mizuna but with long, rounded leaves instead of serrated. Long white stems are born in rosettes reaching 12” tall. Perfect lightly cooked and seasoned, steamed, or stir fried. Mild enough to be added to any salad with health benefits akin to Mizuna.

Mizuna – A mild, slightly sweet Japanese green with slender white stems and bright green, deeply serrated leaves. Mild in flavor, it is good for stir-fries, salads, sandwiches and soup. It means “water vegetable” in Japanese with its juicy stalks. Low in calories, high in folic acid, high in vitamin A and carotenoids, high in vitamin C, and contains glucosinolates which are antioxidants that help prevent certain cancers.

Purple Mizuna – Purple veined leaves are sharply serrated and slow bolting. Color is most pronounced in late summer harvests. Mild in flavor and adds a distinctive look to salad mixes.

Tatsoi – Fast growing green, most popular as a baby leaf for salad and braising mixes or bunch at full size. Spoon shaped leaves are dark green and glossy with thin white stems. We had a dynamite casserole last year at the Carolina Farm Stewardship banquet – tatsoi and spinach, where the chefs used our tatsoi.

Bok Choy (aka Pak Choi) – We grow three varieties: Prize Choy which has great taste, color, and crunch; Shanghai which is smaller in stature and can be harvested in the baby stage for stir-frying, soups, or salads; and White-Stemmed which has little retail inspiration with its gangly, floppy growth habit but has a rich buttery taste – we’re going to harvest it in the baby stage this fall. Both the leaves and stems are edible and can be used in stir frying with garlic, olive oil, and a hint of soy sauce; braising, grilled, or simmering in soups.

Chinese Cabbage is also known as Napa Cabbage (having nothing to do with the California wine region). It is barrel-shaped with tightly-arranged crinkly, light green leaves and tastes mild, and crunchy. It is loaded with nutrients and extremely low in calories and high in fiber. There is an array of antioxidant compounds that protect against various cancers and bad cholesterol, an excellent source of folates, Vitamin C and K, as well as many essential vitamins.

Have a healthy and happy fall!

Larry Newlin, farmer Peaceful River Farm, Chapel Hill, NC

We recently returned from the Southern small farmer reunion, the annual conference of the Southern Sustainable Agricultural Working Group (SSAWG). All 1,250 of us met in Little Rock http://www.ssawg.org/ for dawn to dusk workshops. It was one of the most diverse group of people you can imagine – indeed, some fit the stereotype of young and crunchy; but there were just as likely middle age and older African American and Latino farmers, conventional farmers (and conventionally looking) converting to organics, and older Baby Boomers like us following a passion.

One of the speakers, Herbie Cottle, hails from Rose Hill, NC in one of the poorest counties in the South, Duplin, where Larry’s Mom was raised. It is hot and humid in the coastal plains, but the soil is sandy in which the addition of organic matter through cover crops, compost, and manure grows wonderful vegetables. Herbie stumbled onto organic farming as he was advised to cover crop a “dead” field with a high nitrogen-fixing, high biomass cover crop, hairy vetch. After mowing it for three years, he plowed it in and planted vegetables. The ladybugs appeared on the farm for the first time in years as did honeybees. The harvest was the best he had ever had on what once was the poorest three acres. What is it like to convert from conventional to organic farming? Herbie, the former tobacco farmer says, “It’s like changing your religion – it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Hard, yes – but profitable. Instead of being left to the pricing of “cut-throat” wholesalers, he is now a farmer owner in a farm co-op, Eastern Carolina Organics (ECO) based in Pittsboro, NC. ECO sells to high-end restaurants; niche grocers such as Whole Foods, Saxapahaw General Store, and Weaver Street Market; and institutions such as Duke University’s food service. (Our Peaceful River Farm also sells through ECO and harvests in-season on most Mondays and Wednesdays.) What you harvest is pre-sold, and you don’t have to expend precious time selling door to door to restaurants and grocers or manning a booth at the farmers market. Herbie now has 90 acres in organic production and is one of ECO’s top producers, accounting for 70% of his sales. ECO, in turn, has doubled its sales in the past two years and is now moving to a larger warehouse this spring in Durham’s old tobacco district. Organic has become the ticket to success for many farmers.

However you picture an organic farmer, we bet Herbie doesn’t fit any stereotype you had in mind. His farm has come back to life; he employs 25 workers seasonally and eight full-time including an older African American woman who is his best bean picker and who Herbie calls his “grandmother”. “She can out-pick any of the younger guys, and when I ask her to get out of the heat of the sun to take a rest, she admonishes – “Who do you think is going to pick this row in time to put on the truck to ECO!”” Another worker in the summer is a local UNC-CH student – cute and vivacious; Herbie tells us she is one of his best. When he tells the crew that today they are going to dig potatoes, she bubbles, “I’ve been wanting to dig potatoes!” Herbie slyly whispers to a standing room only crowd , “She out-harvested all the guys.”

“I believe organically grown food is healthier and tastes better. It’s what I want to feed my kids and my customers. Growing organically has kept my multi-generational farm in farming,” Herbie concludes. Meet Herbie and other ECO growers through videos at their respective farms on the ECO website, http://www.easterncarolinaorganics.com/farmer.php?farmer=herbie+cottle

NC leads the nation in the loss of farmland — an inauspicious claim. Nonetheless, our bustling, sustainable ag region in the Research Triangle is seeing an increase in the number of new farmers (though not total farmland). Statewide in North Carolina we spend about $3.5 billion a year on food with about 98% of that food coming from faraway places like California, Arizona, and Florida. If just 10% of North Carolinians’ food budget ($1.05 a day) was locally focused, we’d be pumping $3.5 billion into our state economy. That would mean fresher and more nutritious food, less childhood obesity, a much smaller carbon footprint, lower health expenditures, and a whopping 90,000 +/- additional jobs in a state that desperately needs new jobs! We now have 440,000 unemployed (9.9% — one of the worst records in the nation). A focus on buying locally produced food would reduce that number to 350,000, or something in the neighborhood of 7.5% unemployment making us one of the best in the nation.

What does California have that NC doesn’t? We have a more sustainable supply of water, but California generally has richer soil. Soil can be improved by adding organic matter and cover cropping, but Califonia’s persistent droughts are curtailing some agricultural activity – so there! California is three times larger with three times more people, but if you turn North Carolina upside down, our climate zones are essentially the same – Northern California is in Zone 6 like our western mountains, the fertile Central Valley is Zone 7 like our fertile crescent from the northeast to below Charlotte, and Southern California is in subtropical Zone 8 like our Wilmington area. Oh yeah, and California is 3,000 miles away, and its large farms have had their share of food-related scares and recalls. So, tell us again why we are importing over 90 percent of our produce and fruit from the West Coast when we can grow almost everything California produces.

One of the exciting aspects for us in jumping headlong into the sustainable food tidal wave is meeting the local heroes of the land like Cathy Jones and Mike Perry of Perriwinkle Farm (Cathy has mentored us at the Fearrington Farmers Market); Bill Dow of Ayrshire Farm (NC’s first organically certified farmer and a fellow worshipper at Spring Friends Meeting); the Hitts of Perregrine Farm, who first pointed us to the available land that is now Peaceful River Farm; Ben and Noah of Fickle Creek Farm in Efland; Doug Jones of Piedmont Biofarm in Pittsboro, where Larry has taken workshops; and Suzanne of Cozi Farms in Saxapahaw, who welcomed us to her farm following torrential rains last spring on the CFSA farm tour and later sold us her first chicken tractor. We’ve met dozens — there are thousands more. The average age of today’s family farmer is 57, but there are loads and loads of young people wanting to take their place.

The obstacles to entering farming are enormous – high land prices, lack of capital and collateral, lack of a profitable track record, etc. And yet there is this dogged determination to become one of the 20 million sustainable farmers that Author Michael Pollan predicts we will need to develop a sustainable farm economy. At a showing of “Greenhorns” last fall at the Silk Hope Heritage Farm Center (a documentary about new farmers across America) there was standing room only in a hall packed with passionate wannabe farmers. http://thegreenhorns.net. Larry’s Sustainable Ag classmates at Central Carolina Community College are young, bright, and motivated – many earned a college degree already and are looking to make a difference in the world – the program has increased nearly twofold in a short period.

Our friend, Joanna Lelekaks of Dancing Pines Farm in Efland, heads up a statewide initiative, Bringing New Farmers to the Table. http://www.ncacc.org/annualconf/2011-cefs.pdf There is also a new effort to fund start-up farmers and food enterprises, Slow Money, with low-interest loans from interested individuals http://slowmoneync.org/our-loans/how-it-works/.

We bumped into Larry’s cousin, Charles Newlin, at a showing of “American Meat” www.americanmeatfilm.com/ at the Saxapahaw Ball Room www.hawriverballroom.com/. Charles used to be a conventional dairy farmer with his late father, Larry’s Uncle, David, but Charles had to lay that business down due to the flooding of cheap dairy products from the Midwest and West. Inspired by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia (Joel is profiled in the American Meat film and has spoken to packed audiences in the Triangle plus has written a number of books including Salad Bar Beef, Larry’s cousin is taking steps to begin farming again with grass-fed cattle. There are thousands of farmers like Charles, who have been challenged by the tides of industrial agriculture’s commodity pricing, and who are now looking for a more profitable (one of the key ingredients to sustainable farming – profitability) entry back into family farming.

Sustainable agriculture equates to stronger communities. Our arugula, tatsoi, and lettuce were served to 800 farmers and foodies at the annual Carolina Farm Stewardship Association conference carolinafarmstewards.org/ in Durham this past November. Eating and conversing, whether with 8 or 800, is a powerful glue that binds us in community. The Eddy Pub in Saxapahaw is taking that notion to the next level with biweekly community dinners. Featured farmers provide most of the food for the evening dinner and tell their story afterward. We are on tap to tell the Peaceful River Farm story on Thursday, March 22nd www.theeddypub.com/.

We are selling our produce to the Eddy’s sister business, Saxapahaw General Store, where we took our daughter, Kathryn and son-in-law, Steve, on a recent Sunday for lunch. Every table was filled, and there was a line of 15 people at the register placing their order (we cheated and ordered by phone). Little mill town, Saxapahaw — where Larry’s great, great, great uncle, “Dear Me” John Newlin, built a mill on the Haw River in the early 1800’s – this little village is amazing and the happening place of the Triangle. It is Foodie Central where bluegrass music fills the air at the summer music series ands hosts vendors at the farmers market providing fresh and prepared food.

At dawn this morning there was a hawk perched on the phone pole, screeching out a warning that a stranger (Larry checking on his transplants) was approaching. He/she flew off to perch on a pine tree at a safer distance. A herd of teenage deer in the meadow near the retreat center were startled by this same stranger’s footsteps and hopped and pranced to safety. Up above in the market gardens, there are bluebirds seemingly on every post of the deer fence, and goldfinch are flitting about in anticipation of more spring blooms and seedheads to come. The robins bob for worms after a rain. Further down the slope we gaze up at the small V of geese overhead with an errant threesome flapping hard to catch up. When they fly over the axis of the Haw River, they make a perfect angled line that would make any geometry professor or Blue Angel pilot proud. A moment later a majestic blue heron parallels their path down the Haw, but at a lower altitude, scouting for food from the river and making our morning magical.

After an abundant day of tasks, accomplishments, and a growing list of things yet to do, we pause to gaze at the star-filled sky. It is a moment of awe and reverence – unspeakably beautiful with sparkles that we should be able to pick out of the sky. All this is sustainable farming. It is magical, mystical, hard work, rewarding, important, even essential, and restorative – and hopefully profitable one day. We, too, are the face of sustainable agriculture and loving every minute.
-Larry Newlin March, 2012

These foods are going to make you feel great!

You can reduce inflammation by focusing on foods that decrease the body’s production of inflammatory compounds, fight harmful free radicals, and boost the immune system.

In general, focus on antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables; healthful fats, especially omega-3 fatty acids and monounsaturated fats in olive oil; and include pungent foods and spices that have inflammation-fighting effects like turmeric. Some to try are:

1. Wild salmon, flaxseed – an excellent source of Omega 3 fatty acids which are known to successfully combat inflammation in the body.

2. Berries – fight inflammation through phytonutrients – natural agents which confer a high degree of protection. Blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, blackberries

3. Turmeric, ginger – have powerful anti-inflammatory properties.

4. Extra virgin olive oil- is the longevity secret of Mediterranean peoples. Rich in polyphenols and monounsaturated fats, olive oil protects us from the effects of inflammation and many diseases. Never cook extra virgin olive oil over high heat. It will destroy the antioxidants and turn a lovely fat into a bad one.

5. Green tea – is rich in catechins, antioxidant compounds that reduce inflammation. Purchase high-quality tea and learn how to correctly brew it (never boil the water) for maximum health benefits.

For great dishes that boost immunity and tackle inflammation check out my recipes!

Cold weather makes collards get sweeter. Our meal was straight from Peaceful River Farm: braised collards, beet salad over arugula, bok choy with black sesame seed crusted tofu over soba noodles and for dessert-apple crunch made with Century Farms Apples from Reidsville, NC.

Body says to owner…..thank you.

About Kitchen Gardens

This article is adapted from a presentation that Lee gave recently at the 13th Annual Garden Symposium and Tour in Charlottesville which we organized and led. There we saw again Jefferson’s amazing 1,000 foot Terraced Vegetable Garden with his vineyard and orchard in the background. We’ve been fortunate to see some great and historic kitchen gardens which has influenced our own endeavors in the backyard. Below is some wisdom gleaned from those discoveries and experiences:

Starting a Kitchen Garden

1. Select a relatively flat, sunny spot facing east, south, or west and near your kitchen – the closer the more you will utilize it.
2. Start small but allow room to expand – an 18’x18’ plot will grow enough vegetables and herbs to supply a family of two or more – a model plan drawn by Herb Companion Magazine included paths, beds, and an arbor in that 324 square foot space.
3. Stake or eyeball (Rosemary Verey’s preference) your path and bed shapes – four foot wide (three is the narrowest and five is the widest you should consider) rectangular, square, or L-shaped beds work well for easy access from the path. Geometric patterns rather than free form patterns work best for planning and planting purposes. Seek to avoid stepping in your bed and compressing roots.
4. If you are seeking grass pathways – remove the sod in the beds only and utilize the existing grass as your path. If you have bare ground, you can add sod strips for your pathways. If you want brick, mulch, or other material for the surface of your beds – strip all the sod away.
5. Add a liberal amount of humus material to your beds as well as minerals according to soil test recommendations (I prefer organic supplements). Mushroom compost avoids the salt build up that you may get using cow or other manures and also unlikely to introduce weed seeds via mushroom compost. I like to use our own home-grown compost as an amendment or you can purchase organic soil amendments. If your soil is really poor, you may want to grow a cover crops for a couple of seasons – red clover, winter rye, and/or Austrian peas in the winter, for example – adds tilth, reduces weed pressure and erosion, and helps fix nitrogen.
6. Till or double dig this material with the having pliable, rich soil for at least the first 8 inches. If your soil is rich in earthworms, you may want to avoid the tiller and more carefully utilize the double digging technique, but if your soil is hard pan – loosening the soil is the most critical priority. The goal should be a raised bed at least 4 to 6 inches higher than your path – lower in sandy soils and higher in clay soils. The goal is to make tending the beds easier, growing more plants intensively, reducing weed pressure, and affording good root penetration and soil aeration.
7. You may or may not want to frame the bed with timbers or wood. Treated lumber is not healthy for growing food crops, but you need a non-rotting wood such as New England fir, Eastern cedar, or Florida cypress. You can also use stone, recycled vinyl, brick, or steel edging to frame your beds. We have used a combination of New England fir in a kit that fits together in a 4×8 foot shape in a manner of minutes with wooden pegs, brick pavers buried vertically at an angle, but generally have chosen not to frame to give a more natural appearance – this requires regular edging to keep the beds looking crisp.
8. Determine what to grow – I spend a good bit of time with seed catalogs in the winter – Johnny’s has the most useful and detailed information. I plot what to grow in which rows and have a crop rotation plan (at least in my head) based on Eliot Coleman’s suggestions in The New Organic Grower. Consider which flowers you want – can be annual or perennial, and some biennials and perennials can be sown in the fall. Also, consider which herbs – these can be planted as onesies and scattered in various corners of the garden or grouped together. Determine if you want a more formal edging appearance such as utilizing dwarf boxwood or germander. Consider which crops should be sown by seed, started indoors under a grow-light or in a greenhouse, or purchase starter plants from your garden center. Wyatt-Quarles has a backyard vegetable garden planner as does Chatham Extension agent, Debbie Roos for organic gardeners on www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/aboutagent.html. It is a good idea to start with easy to grow vegetables such as lettuce, kale, and beans. After you gain confidence and expertise, you can branch out to choose more colorful varieties and vegetables you can’t easily find in the grocery store or market. Add herbs and edible flowers.
9. Consider upright elements – an espaliered fruit tree or two, blueberry bushes, trellised raspberry, a dwarf peach tree, a tuteur, a trellis, or an arbor. I especially like the bentwood tuteurs we say at West Green House and generally stay with natural colors in utilizing garden accessories. Trellis, tuteurs, arbors and other supports need not be fancy since they will soon be covered with vining vegetables and flowers.
10. Determine your watering strategy – this is critical to success. Most vegetables are 95% or more water, and to grow well they need a constant source of water applied to their roots. A drip irrigation system can be installed easily and economically and use a lot less water from your faucet or cistern. I’d recommend a spray head where you grow lettuce. The other alternatives are to hand water which can be effective but time consuming and is not as efficient in concentrating water at the root zone slowly via a drip system; or a sprinkler – definitely do not use automatic irrigation systems for your kitchen garden – it will drown. The negative of sprinklers is getting the foliage wet which introduces disease.
11. Weed, insect, and disease pressures are reduced if the soil is worked well with humus – you may want to use hay to cover the roots of your pepper and tomato plants – this bounces more heat on the plant, keeps the roots cooler, and reduces weeds. We like to add compost immediately around maturing plants to provide water retention, reduce weeds, and improve the soil over time.
12. Potassium and nitrogen tend to be the major nutrients needed – soil testing is key. We like to use a worm casting tea from time to time as well as worm castings and kelp on new transplants. There are a number of organic fertilizers on the market – these break down more slowly and feed the soil as well as the plants.
13. If deer, rabbit, and other critters are a concern, you can construct a naturalistic fence fortified with chicken wire at the base. We spray an organic product, I Must Garden, when we see evidence of rabbits chewing – so far, deer have not been a problem in the edible part of the garden, but they loved the Indian Hawthorne in the front yard. As you grow proficient in your kitchen garden, you can plant a third season in November, and over-winter your early spring vegetables using hoops and heavy mil white or clear plastic or frost cloth. These hoops can also protect from insects and light frosts by using a lightweight Remay covering.
14. A productive kitchen garden can be a great way to make friends with neighbors – plant enough to share and invite neighbors and friends to help themselves. Also, consider becoming involved in Plant a Row for the Hungry – ask your local garden center if they are participating in this national initiative – Logan Trading Post in Raleigh is a model for this effort. This is an initiative of the Garden Writers of America, ask Pam about their success.
15. Churches, synagogues, schools, and public spaces have sponsored community gardens, if you do not have room in your own garden for a kitchen garden, volunteer to assist one of these local efforts utilizing your new-found or honed expertise and enjoying the fruits of your volunteer labor.

Learning from Great Gardener Cooks

It seems like many of the great gardeners love(d) their kitchen gardens, and some like Rosemary Verey of Barnsley House, Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter, and Marylyn Abbott of West Green House have written about them. Lee’s inspiration is Alice Waters, the godmother of the Slow Food Movement, who’s Edible Schoolyard in Berkley inspired and supported the Edible Schoolyard at Greensboro’s Children’s Museum. This is an amazing and very “green” new garden dedicated this summer with hundreds of kids and their families joining in the celebration – visit when you are next coming through. Alice best expresses the passion we have for using the harvest from our own garden in preparing dishes for family and friends and Lee’s teaching healthy cooking workshops. We love this sentiment from her new book, In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart:

…thinking about food, deciding what you want to eat, shopping for ingredients, and finally, cooking and eating – is the purest pleasure, and too much fun to be reserved exclusively for ‘foodies.” Cooking creates a sense of well-being for yourself and the people you love and brings beauty and meaning to everyday life. And all it requires is common sense – the common sense to eat seasonally, to know where your food comes from, to support and buy from local farmers and producers who are good stewards of our natural resources, and to apply the same principles of conservation to your own home kitchen….

The late Rosemary Verey’s Barnsley House iconic potager in the Cotswolds served to make kitchen gardening much more popular in England with her writings and her television show. Her BBC gardening series focusing on her gardening endeavors at Barnsley House greatly popularized kitchen gardening in England and to a lesser extent America. From her Making of A Garden:

From Making of a Garden:

The fun of planning what to plant in the potager is endless. There are two major considerations. It must look attractive, with colour contrasts of vegetables, and we must always have plenty to cut.”

We all spend time wondering about the future of our gardens – how will they look in years to come? In my own potager, instead of worrying, I try to enjoy the present and look back to William Lawson for inspiration. He wrote that when we walk in our garden in the evening, all our senses should “swim with pleasure”. So each evening, as I go to cut salad, asparagus, artichokes or mundane cabbages, I find something to enjoy in every corner of this peaceful, bountiful enclosure.

Marylyn Abbott is one of the most vivacious and tireless gardeners we have met. It was not enough to have the most visited private garden in Australia, Kennerton Green, inspired by her mother and grandmother’s love of gardening, and all this while she was director of marketing and tourism for the Syndey Opera House. She felt challenged to garden in more subtle light and fell in love with the gardens of West Green House and worked out an arrangement with the National Trust to repair the bombed out estate from an IRA terrorist plot if she could receive most of the proceeds from garden visitors and hosting summer opera there. “I never found the right strong, handsome man to occupy my time,” she told our tour group in 2008, so, the garden has become my preoccupation and constant love.”

The Walled Garden was restored between 1994 and 1997. It is divided into two separate squares by apple arches with one side devoted to herbaceous plants, the other to a decorative potager, with spectacular fruit cages designed by Oliver Ford. She is an expert on garden design and especially garden light and colors and lectures around the world.

In her book, Designing the New Kitchen Garden, Marylyn writes:

What makes the potager different from a typical vegetable garden is not just its history, but its design: the potager is a landscape feature that does not need to be hidden in the corner of the backyard, but can be the central feature of an ornamental, all-season landscape even in the front yard of a home in the most exclusive residential area. The potager is a source of herbs, vegetables, and flowers but it is also a structured garden space, a design based on repetitive geometric patterns…. The potager is more than a simple kitchen garden: it is a philosophy of living in harmony with nature. It is a dependence on the seasons and the earth to supply the bounty of flavors and textures for the kitchen

The late Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter in East Sussex, England wrote a book entitled, Gardener Cook in which he revealed his second love of cooking with local and seasonally fresh produce and farm products. Our tour group was told in 2008 by our guide and close friend to Lloyd that early morning garden visitors would be startledly summoned from the kitchen window to “come inside soon – your breakfast eggs are getting cold”.

Growing one’s own food is tremendously rewarding, the product being, in most cases, so much tastier than anything on the market….I have written here only of what I grow and have experienced….A book on such a subject should convey enjoyment. I have had so much from growing plants, from eating their products and from the social opportunities that cookery opens up, that I wanted to write about it, and perhaps, to strike an answering chord in some of my readers.

There truly is a Food Revolution going in our “Back to the Future” return to our vegetable and kitchen gardens and shopping elbow to elbow at farmers markets. It began with the Medieval monasteries, was adapted by the French in their intricate potagers, perfected by the English with their walled kitchen gardens, Americanized by patriots like Jefferson and Washington, helped win a world war through Victory Gardens, and is today, helping us become healthier and better stewards of a planet in peril.

Grab you hoe and trowel – it’s off to the Revolution!

Happy gardening,
Larry and Lee Newlin

Can you imagine how this feels knowing that THIS is coming from the garden to the table in a matter of minutes?

This week we had a “Quakers in the Kitchen” night and was it ever fun. Carole Hunter and John and Betsy Young joined us in chopping and dicing some amazing super foods. Our meal consisted of
*Springtime Asparagus and Shrimp Saute
*Sesame Red Quinoa Salad
*Saffron Sweet Potato Salad
*Sauteed Spring Kale with Mirin
*Blueberry Buttermilk Pie made with a Spelt crust by Carole. Folks, that woman can cook!
*Marash Peppered Avocado

Carole’s Famous Blueberry Buttermilk Pie

We gathered as a family today to be reminded of just how much we love each other. Our meal was enjoyed on our screened in porch on a perfect day. Spanakopita topped with caraway seed was front and center with Edamame Salad, Roasted Asparagus, and of course, Whole grain Spelt rolls. Dessert was a “drop to your knees good” Coconut Chocolate cake lovingly prepared by Kathryn Brown. I think this was a mostly healthy meal (except for the cake and the jelly beans!).