Food, food culture, food as culture and the cultures that grow our food

Note to self: alfalfa, mustard, buckwheat, red night kidney, adzuki, soy, soy, soy

March 2, 2006

This is the planting order when facing the lower allotment. The acronym is AMBRASSS, which could stand for the the English embarass, if the cover crops once again fail to thrive. If the cover crops survive my handling and the weather, I can pronounce the acronym in French as in je t’embrace, which translates into a summer garden cocktail party with homegrown edamame as the cameo snack.

Note to self: I Innoculated the mustard seeds with dirt to form broadcastable seed pills. Narrowcasting is a more accurate description of what actually took place. Hopefully the mixing action didn’t disturb the sprouted seed too much.

First irrigation run goes awry. Lowered irrigation pipe, made a huge mess of the footpath.


Digital photo of author drinking soup in KvR’s new shed

It appears that I’m the first guest in Ktje’s new cabane. JT remarked that we’ve started to dress like the ‘Turnip Ladies’ in a fairy tale and excepting the fact that neither one of us has actually grown a turnip, it’s hard to disagree. For fun, we’re going to wash and wear urban clothing for dinner from now on. Starting tomorrow.

Each day the gents come to marvel at what seems to them to be a unique form of gardening. Today’s crowd got a buckwheat sowing performance and a taste of buckwheat sprouts. I tried explaining that I was growing buckwheat (and alfalfa, mustard…) to improve soil condition by fixing nitrates and increasing the organic matter in my soil, but this didn’t translate very well. In fact it didn’t translate at all. Trick is to leave the explaining to Sidi AlGouche, the allotment’s alpha male.

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6 Comments »

  1. Wow, it’s so nice to see your beautiful face. You clearly have keen intelligence in your eyes, and it’s nice to put a face with the “voice.”

    (Howdy from Soquel, by the way.)

    Comment by Tana — March 3, 2006 @ 5:41

  2. Heidi, I’ve planted the Red Night kidney beans in the nitrate-fixing, bio-mass creating je t’embrace- section of the garden.

    Comment by debra — March 3, 2006 @ 11:42

  3. Tana, that’s a very sweet thing to say to a Turnip Lady.

    Comment by Debra — March 3, 2006 @ 12:01

  4. kvr says: I actually have figured out what to wear for dinner this evening, but have YOU????

    Comment by kristi van Riet — March 3, 2006 @ 12:19

  5. I agree with Tana. It is nice to put a face with the words.
    Great picture.

    Comment by Christiane — March 4, 2006 @ 19:02

  6. You can see how much ice cream we eat around here! All the seeds are sprouted in ice cream containers. Everything gets recycled a few times over. Maybe this should ber a blog entry - recycling in the country.

    Comment by debra — March 5, 2006 @ 12:04


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