A MOBILE GREENHOUSE // the local food report

Yesterday I spent the morning building a little moveable row cover. It's tiny—44 inches wide by maybe 60 inches long, but it'll be enough to house our lettuce starts come February. By the time they get big enough to be crowded, we'll be able to pull the cover off and transplant them into rows. In a climate like ours, it's all about getting a jump start.

My friend Lucas Dinwiddie is working to do this on a much bigger scale. Last spring he got a Matching Enterprise Grant for Agriculture, or what the state calls a "MEGA" grant. The idea is to help beginning farm businesses in Massachusetts with start up or expansion costs. In Lucas's case, the grant helped him build what you see up there—a 25 by 12 foot mobile greenhouse that slides back and forth over a 50 foot plot.

The idea comes from Eliot Coleman. He's the one growing greens and root vegetables and lemons year round in Maine, and he and his wife Barbara Damarosch have written quite a few books and articles on four season farming. The idea with the moveable greenhouse is that different crops need insulation at different times of the year. 

For instance, if you had a three plot system, the rotation might go something like this. You cover winter greens in Field A from late November through mid March. Then in early April, once the weather has warmed up enough that the greens will be fine without covering, you slide the hoophouse down the tracks 25 feet to Field B and get a jumpstart on your tomato crop by planting the seeds in the ground under the plastic. Once the frost free date comes, you slide the hoophouse another 25 feet to Field C where you plant seedlings of a heat-loving crop like peppers or melons. You leave the hoophouse over them for the summer, then cover another crop of greens come fall. It's a pretty ingenious system. 

There are all sorts of different combinations of crop rotations you can do, and you can put as many beds in a row as you want as long as you have a long row of level space. Eliot Coleman lays out one plan that has five fields! Lucas's has a two plot system, and his plan is to cover greens in the cool months and tomatoes in the summer. 

Beyond the two-for-one aspect—Lucas has essentially gained two greenhouse spaces for the price of one, which is pretty cool—the mobile greenhouse also helps combat common soil problems that arise in continually covered spaces. Pests, diseases, excess nutrient salts, and dry soil are all more common in stationary greenhouses, but are much less problematic in fields that are covered only part of the year. 

If you're interested in building something similar, check out these online plans from Eliot Coleman. And if you're interested in doing something on a smaller scale, I'll post a photo and plans for my moveable row cover soon. Hard to believe, but it's time to start thinking about planting again soon. Happy dreaming!

Winter harvest

I am planting like a mad woman. It began in the night, beneath a reading lamp with my dog and boyfriend fast asleep beside me. The only sounds as the clock ticked towards two a.m. were those of the pages turning, the trees howling, and the ebb and flow of my own breath.
















It was a book by Eliot Coleman that had me up. Four Season Harvest, it was called. A friend had turned me on to it, touting the text as a sacred book of sorts, a recipe for winter locavore survival in the universe beyond southern California. (You will notice, if you think through the most famous advocates of the trend—Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, even—that none of them lived in New England. Or really anywhere even close.) I have been drying and freezing and canning for winter, certainly, but I cannot expect us to live off of those provisions alone. There will have to be fresh food, too, and for that I had not yet devised a plan.

Until I met Eliot. With his seed lists and cold frames and construct-your-own root cellar diagrams, the winter gardening guru swept me off my feet. I lingered over his words until there was nothing left, until the only respite from learning was action itself. I hurried to the garden store in the morning, picked up a truckload of compost and a stack of seeding flats, and made my way home to place an order. Johnny's Selected Seeds, Eliot recommended. Arugula and claytonia and miner's lettuce and raddichio; evergreen scallions and kohlrabi and nero tondo black radishes. There were candy carrots and Asian specialty greens, celery and celeriac and broccoli raab. While the growing season might end, he reminded me, the harvest season need not.

Plenty of these crops could survive a hard frost. Frozen each night and thawed back to life during the day, they would remain fresh and hardy all winter long. Early spring varieties could be started now, too, ready to emerge once daylight returns.

It was revolutionary this idea of winter garden as Eden. The French do it, and the English, and others with our latitude and climate, but somehow in translation the tradition was lost. Without a custom of winter gardening, it is a difficult reality to grasp.

But there is only one way to begin, and that is to give it a try. I'm not expecting this year's harvest of tatsoi to keep us fed, but I do hope it will help point us in the right direction. Maybe if we spread the word, one of these seasons will bring a winter farmers' market. Until then here's a list of seeds and dates to start growing your own.

WINTER HARVEST PLANTING DATES*

*Note that these planting dates are for Coleman's farm in Maine, which has a slightly shorter season and harsher temperatures. I'd guess they can be extended at least a week, if not two, for Cape gardeners.

BROCCOLI RAAB 7/1 to 8/1
CABBAGE, CHINESE 7/15 to 8/1
CELERY/CELERIAC 7/1 to 8/1
CORNSALAD 8/15 to 9/15
CLAYTONIA 8/15 to 9/15
DANDELION (ITALIAN) 7/15 to 9/1
ENDIVE, ESCAROLE 7/1 to 8/15
GARLIC (FOR SPRING) 10/20
KALE ("WINTERBOR," "VATES") 7/1 to 8/1
KOHLRABI ("PURPLE KOLIBRI") 7/1 to 8/1
LETTUCE 7/15 to 9/1
MIZUNA 7/15 to 8/15
GREEN ONION ("EVERGREEN HARDY WHITE") 7/15 to 8/15
RADICCHIO 10/15 to 11/15
RADISH ("ROUND BLACK SPANISH") 7/15 to 9/15
SPINACH ("SPACE," "WINTER BLOOMSDALE") 8/1 to 9/1
SORREL 9/1

The Local Food Report: Four Season Farm

This post, I'm afraid, is a bit fraught for me. I'm supposed to write about Four Season Farm, and the guru Eliot Coleman and his spritely, lovely wife Barbara Damrosch, and their penchant for winter gardening. The trouble is, the picture that keeps coming back to me is this.


It's the town closest to the farm, Harborside, Maine, or maybe Brooksville, I can't remember to tell the truth. The picture was taken from the street, peering down a roadside hill, lens teetering out into the mist. It's where the fishmonger and I got engaged. He asked (of course) while we were walking, just minutes before the interview, so that when we showed up for lunch with Eliot and Barbara, I was flustered, to say the least.

But to their credit—or perhaps in testament to my fascination with the idea of growing winter produce in Maine—soon after entering their busy kitchen, I became so enthralled with the couple I just about forgot the ring. I swapped diamonds and white gold for spinach and carrots, and couldn't have been happier with the trade.

It started with lunch. First of all, we had the pleasure of sitting down not only with Barbara and Eliot, but also with their farm hands, a couple who had come over to think about buying a greenhouse, and their adorable, cheeky child. The table was set for twelve and the food cooked entirely on an old-fashioned gas cookstove, complete with a cast iron cooktop and tourquise enamel paint. The first thing I did, of course, was to swoon over it, a sentiment Eliot promptly dismissed. Please don't encourage her! he laughed. It was straight out of a 1930s kitchen, detailing and all, and he seemed to think it should go back.

But then there was lunch, which on November 7th, tasted more like September 28th. It was whole wheat pasta with carrots, Tuscan kale, red pepper, cauliflower, and maybe even broccoli. There was some sort of a lemon tahini sauce on top, which I originally thought was perhaps the only item bought from away, until we went out to get the greenhouse tour and I encountered the lemon tree. Yes, we were in Maine, and yes, it was November, and yes, there it was with three others in a row, churning out Myers like a champ.


This greenhouse was heated, the only one. It had a woodstove and a washing station, so that the workers could scrub the lettuce and carrots for market and still keep their fingers on. The other greenhouses—those with the leeks, the spinach, the candy carrots—were all insulated, but none had heat. They simply relied on a double layer of plastic, with a few inches of air trapped in between, to soak up what radiance they could from the day.

The land was amazing—part of the original Nearing Farm, that Helen and Scott and the back-to-the-landers so revered in the 50s and 60s. Eliot bought a piece and cleared it himself, and today it's a year round commercial farm. He and Barbara sell to local grocers and schools, and in the summer operate an out-of-the-way farm stand. They have interns coming and going, learning their ways of coaxing the land into production come snowfall or hail or rain.

There is certainly a lot to learn, what with tools and techniques and selecting seeds. Luckily, for those of us who can't spend a year on the land, they've written book upon book to inspire. The Winter Harvest Manual and Four Season Harvest I think are the best; they help with picking out spinach and raddicchio and radishes and whatnot, and how to best cover the plants. They span a wide ability range, too, from novice to accomplished hand.


There are a few other resources any aspiring winter gardener should check out: Moveable Greenhouses (in case you're looking to offload some serious bucks), and Grower's Supply if you simply want to get started, sans cash. There are also lots of winter seeds available through Johnny's online, and through FedCo in Maine.

But even if you don't make it this far, there's a winter recipe from Barbara to enjoy—butternut squash and leek soup, with a dash of tomato paste, and a good dose of chicken broth. It's quick, easy, and fantastic, and warm right down to your toes.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND LEEK SOUP

adapted from a Barbara Damrosch recipe, published in Food + Wine, February 2003

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 leeks, white and tender green parts only, coarsley chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
1 garlic clove, smashed
1 quart chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 large butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice (3 cups)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
several leaves sage
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream

Melt the butter in a large heavy saucepan. Add the leeks, celery, and garlic and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 7 to 8 minutes. Add the stock, squash, tomato paste, and sage. Season with salt and pepper and simmer over moderately low heat until all the vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes.

Puree the soup in a blender, then return it to the saucepan. Stir in the cream and cook until just heated through. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

Surprise, surprise

I saw two things this weekend in Maine that I thought I'd never see. This first was the fishmonger, down on one knee. (Yes, I agreed! Anyone with a bake ahead cake recipe, or some idea of how many whole pigs it takes to feed two hundred hungry guests, please report immediately.)

The second surprise, more startling still, was a Myer lemon tree, hidden from the fog and wind by a subtle layer of plastic, and in full bloom nonetheless. Tucked into the eaves of a Down East greenhouse, it sat warmed by a woodstove and the gentle hum of the sun.

It was on the grounds of Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch's famous Four Season Farm that we found the tree, on a tour through their greenhouses after a noontime meal. I was there to interview the year-round gardeners, to learn how they kept their plates so green in the months of white and gray.

The farm was beautiful, full, laid out in a clearing that once belonged to the estate of Helen and Scott Nearing, the back-to-the-lander legends. The Nearings hadn't touched the land when Eliot came looking exactly forty years ago, and so they sold it to him at the price they'd paid: $33 an acre.

His thrift is as inspiring as theirs. Together with Barbara, he runs the farm from January through December with very little waste, changing crops with the season and working with the weather rather than against. On that gray November noon, she served us a hearty meal of whole wheat pasta, fresh cauliflower and peppers, Tuscan kale and carrots, and a warming sauce of Tahini and lemon. I never guessed the lemons could have been local—until I walked into the greenhouse, that is.

As it turns out, the Myer lemons do just fine over the winter. So long as they're potted and moved into a greenhouse or sunny room for the duration, they'll likely keep fruiting for months to come. Just be sure to re-pot the plant periodically, keep its soil moist, and feed it from time to time. It may be a labor of love, but the promise of Florida sunshine on a winter's day ought to chase any doubts away.

Of course I can! A glance at the closely intertwined histories of sugar and canning

I have been using what seems to me like an enormous quantity of sugar recently. Between the rhubarb pies, the canned pie filling, and the beets, at least 15 pounds have flown off the cupboard shelves. I have been justifying this by telling myself that my great-grandmother (the Michael Pollan reference point for how to eat) would have used plenty of sugar to preserve things the same way.

But would she? Sugar has never been local to New England, and was a luxury until not so many years ago. She would likely have known how to substitute honey or maple syrup in pies or breads, but not in canning. Over the course of nine months in a mason jar, there's no telling what could go wrong.

Wondering just how much canning she would have done, I did a bit of research. First, I turned up what I already knew, but hadn't really thought about. Sugar was first made affordable in the late 1700s by slave labor; it's no coincidence that Nicholas Appert came up with canning around the same time. But while Appert fed Napoleon's army with the first on-the-go meals at the start of the 19th century, it wasn't until the 1880s that summertime canning became a domestic ritual for American women.

Even so, jars were expensive, and records of canning classes during both World Wars suggest that not every home was well-versed in the preservation method early on. By WW2, however, proficiency had reached a level where home canners were allowed extra ration sugar—up to one pound for every four quarts of finished fruit. The above illustration from the War Food Administration in Washington D.C. encouraged women to put up fruits and vegetables during the summer and fall so that commercially canned goods could be sent to soldiers overseas, an effort seen alongside the Victory Garden as the ultimate in patriotism.

But the World Wars were the era of my grandmother, not my great-grandmother. Recipes in my grandmother's hand-scribbled book from Maw-Maw, my great-grandmother, are few and far between. Nonetheless, I did manage to turn up a few for canned items: Maw-Maw's quince preserve, "strictly southern" watermelon rind preserve, and green tomato pickles. All called for a good amount of sugar, putting me in the safe zone in Michael Pollan's terms.

While that's good enough for now, I'm still curious about we ate before the era of cheap sugar and mason jars. What if sugar prices rise as much as flour already has? Surely, there are other methods of preservation using local ingredients. Thanks to Amazon, answers should be arriving soon. Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning is an exploration of Old World preservation methods compiled by the French gardeners and farmers of Terre Vivant.

As Maine garden guru Eliot Coleman puts it in the introduction, "Food preservation techniques can be divided into two categories: the modern scientific methods that remove the life from food, and the natural 'poetic' methods that maintain or enhance the life in food." I'm hoping to learn a thing or two about the latter.

And in case your hot house tomatoes are greening up:

MAW-MAW'S GREEN TOMATO PICKLES

Slice 1 peck green tomatoes and 12 onions very thinly. Sprinkle with salt and layer on bottom of large pot. Take 1/4 pound ground mustard, 1/4 pound white mustard seed, 1 ounce whole cloves, 1 ounce ground ginger, 1 ounce whole allspice, 1 ounce celery seed, and 1 ounce black pepper grains and mix well. Put in pot in alternate layers with tomatoes and onions. Cover with 1/2 gallon vinegar and cook till tender; about 3 hours. Use sugar to taste—about 3 pounds is good for above recipe. Put spices in cheesecloth bag (allspice, cloves, and whole peppers). Put in sterile jars.

THE LOCAL FOOD REPORT: BUYING THE FARM

Farm to table restaurants are incredibly popular right now. You've probably heard of Oleana, Blue Hill, Manresa—places that have their own dedicated farmers and farms. And there are plenty of restaurants on the Cape partnering with local growers to get as much fresh food as possible onto their plates. But here's a new one: last summer, Chatham Bars Inn bought its own farm.

It cost $1.7 million. You might recognize the place as the old Fran's Farm. It's on Route 6a in Brewster—they did u-pick berries in season. The berry plants are still there, and the little pasture and the barn, not to mention two 25' by 50' hoophouses and two 35' by 100' heated greenhouses. But this year, the farm will be growing food for the chefs at the Inn's two restaurants.

What you see up there are micro-sunflower shoots. Farm supervisor Lucas Dinwiddie and farm manager Jaime Fuqua started growing micros in January in one of the greenhouses—they're the first crop moving from the farm to the kitchens. This summer (outside!) they plan to plant fava beans and other legumes as specialty crops and to help improve soil quality, along with one hoophouse full of tomatoes and basil and another with tight, Eliot Coleman-style beds. Later on, those plantings will be replaced with winter greens. 

The farm is 7.7 acres, but right now only about 3 acres are cleared. The farm has its work cut out for it. The plan is to eventually fully supply the restaurants, have a farm stand at the farm itself, maybe do a few farmers' markets, have a children's garden, and do some community outreach dinners and events. 

It's an expensive plan—both in terms of labor and time. I asked Dinwiddie and Fuqua if they thought the farm could become self-sustaining economically, and they had an interesting answer. They said they knew the farm wouldn't make money in the first few years. It's for profit, they explained, but not in the sense of a net cash gain in your pocket. If you're a resort and you're already paying top dollar for top quality food, your dollar goes a lot further when you're spending it at your own farm. It's about traceability, and it's about quality.

I know a lot of restaurants and chefs who are buying locally on a smaller and more diversified scale. They're buying farm fresh veggies, meats, cheeses—you name it. But they're not buying the farm. 

What do you all think? Does this model work here, with our sandy soil and pricey land? Are there other challenges? Or are there particular reasons it works? I'd love to hear.

And finally, a recipe from Joseph Ellia of the Chatham Bars Inn Tavern for goat cheese pizza with sunflower sprouts. Enjoy...

GOAT CHEESE PIZZA

If you've never had a micro-green, you should try them. The flavors are incredibly intense, and a little goes a long way. The sunflower micros I tried at the farm were very fresh, but also nutty. They pair well with goat cheese, and the truffle honey adds a little earthiness.

1 12-inch pizza dough
1 ounce olive oil
1/4 cup grated mozzarella
9 thin slices pear
2 ounces crumbled goat cheese
1/8 cup toasted pine nuts
2 ounces sunflower sprouts
1/2 ounce truffle honey

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Roll out the pizza dough and place it on a baking sheet. Brush the dough with olive oil, then sprinkle on the grated mozzarella. Place the pear slices evenly around the pizza, then top with the goat cheese. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is nicely melted. Take the pizza out of the oven and let if rest for five minutes. Finally, sprinkle it with the pine nuts, sunflower sprouts, and a drizzle of honey. Serve hot.

WINTER INSPIRATION // liz

Isn't this lettuce gorgeous? I bought it at the Brunswick Winter Farmers Market a few weeks ago. I also bought kale, spinach, and chard. Onions, garlic, and leeks. Potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, whole-wheat flour, navy beans, and some freshly pressed cider. Oh, and some knockout tomatillo salsa too! All of it grown right here in midcoast Maine. 

Not so long ago, it wasn't this easy to find fresh local food all winter long. It's amazing what our farmers bring to market now, thanks to hoop houses, improved storage facilities, and a ton of hard work. Even on the coldest and snowiest Saturdays, they've supplied us with amazing greens and so much more. Six River Farm in Bowdoinham, for example, brings as many as 25 different crops to the winter market. By mid-February, when the challenge of growing and harvesting greens reaches its peak, that number drops to about 18. These are remarkable numbers; we live in planting zone 5b, where the annual extreme cold temperature is regularly as low as minus 10 or minus 15 degrees!

The farmers are accomplishing this, in part, with a combination of unheated hoop houses and, inside them, row covers on their crops. If you're interested in doing some four-season gardening yourself, check out one of Eliot Coleman's books on the subject: The Winter Harvest Handbook or Four-Season Harvest.

The photos here (thanks, Jan!) are just a small sampling of what you can find at the Brunswick winter market. There's also seafood, poultry, beef, and lamb; eggs and dairy, including great artisanal cheeses; baked goods, spices, and locally roasted coffee; beautiful crafts; and foot-stompin' live music. You can even get your knives sharpened! 

If you think eating locally in winter is pie-in-the-sky impossible, please think again. We are fortunate beyond words to have such amazing farmers in Maine. And more winter markets are popping up every year; the Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association currently lists 28, in 13 of our 16 counties. The Brunswick market is open every Saturday, 9:00 A.M. to 12:30 P.M, from mid-November through April. See you there!