South Shore and Madrona!

December 5, 2012!

Harvesting Brussel Sprouts!

Freshly harvested leeks

Beautiful cauliflower, ready to pick!

IslandWood welcomed South Shore and Madrona Elementary this week! With the help of their fabulous students, we harvested and made a delicious snack with Chef Chris using the following home grown ingredients:

• Brussel sprouts
• Leeks
• Kale
• Cauliflower
• Parsley
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Peppermint
• Lemon Balm
• Lemon Verbena

 We made a delicious vegetable saute, fresh tea, and garnish of herbs and fresh grated cheese...yum!

Prepping our veggies

Saute it up!

 

Decorate our plates, and enjoy!

December 4th, 2012

What are we still able to harvest outside in the garden this week?

Leeks, Kale, and Celery

• Leeks 
• Celery
• Kale
• Chard
• Artichokes
• Potatoes
• Brussel Sprouts
• Broccoli
• Sorrel
• Chives
• Herbs: rosemary, oregano, peppermint, lemon balm, thyme, sage, parsley
• Sunchokes
• Collards
• Turnips
• Parsnips

Fresh Sorrel in our Garden! After a fresh rain, the sorrel (Rumex acetosa) a perennial herb, looks so green, and happy. As always, it is delicious right out of the garden. Have you tried sorrel before?



 

Colder weather is on the horizon, and we are getting prepared in the garden! Some plants do poorly in cold weather (around or below freezing), but what to do if they live outside? We can put some remay on them!

Remay is a spun-bonded polyester fabric that acts as a "plant blanket" if you will. It comes in different sizes and weights, just like blankets we use. The thicker the fabric, the more protection it offers. It allows for rain and water to penetrate to the plants, although it can shade some light. Remay also protects plants from pests and wind, and is used to shelter baby plants while they first take hold. Overall, when other plants freeze in the open air, the remay-ed plants have no frost and have a better chance of making it through the cold temperatures.

This is what the garden looks like this week.....some beautiful crops like leeks, celery, and kale doing great in the colder weather. We put remay on the chard, and over some of our herbs. Hopefully, they will stay nice and warm!

Cozy Chard

The Honeybee Lowdown

Thanks to our former lead Garden Educator Scott Brinton, we acquired a new group of friends at the IslandWood garden that arrived in May 2012......a new colony of honeybees! They are a great addition to help keep the garden healthy, pollinated, and perhaps will even bring some delicious local honey. We are so grateful and happy to have them! They live here inside these boxes, and have been tougher to spot lately. Why? Because they like to stay warm and cozy inside when it is cold!

Matt Schmidt, one of our amazing kitchen staff members, is our beekeeper and he helps keep the bees happy as well as educates our IslandWood staff about the benefits and care of bees.


Why are honeybees important to a garden?

~Bees play very important roles in the ecosystem of a garden, farm, or any area with plants in need of pollination! These little creatures are responsible for the pollination of many flowers, fruits, and vegetables such as zucchini. Not only are they important, but are considered the number one pollinators for food crop plants, and other flowering plants as well!


What is pollination?

~Pollination is the movement of pollen from flower to flower by pollinators such as bees, birds, bats, butterflies, other animals, and wind. This pollen transfer allows for the fertilization and successful seed and fruit production of many plants, including over 1,000 different species used by humans for food or other uses. Honeybees accumulate pollen on their hind legs, as seen in this picture and transfer it to another flower. So cool!!



To experience pollinators in a way never seen before, check out this video by photographer Louis Schwartzberg. It shows the diversity, importance, and utter beauty of pollinators....

The Hidden Beauty of Pollination

What are the uses of honey?
~Honey is not only delicious, it can also serve medicinal purposes. It carries anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties, making it a natural and healthy addition to our diet.

You don't need to have your own bee colony to help pollinate your garden. You can actually grow certain plants, and create the right habitat to attract bees to you! To learn more about this, check out the following link:

http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/

Soil to Snack!

What is it like to grow and harvest your own food? How about to cook with your own, home grown food? Well, the Soil to Snack (STS) program at IslandWood can show you! STS is a collaboration of our amazing kitchen Chef Chris Agnew, and garden educators Jen Prodzinski, and Emily Owens. Some students participating in the School Overnight Program will have the opportunity to experience Soil to Snack, where they will harvest food crops and herbs from our own garden, and prepare a beautiful gourmet snack with Chef Chris in the kitchen. 

This is an amazing opportunity for students and adults alike to experience what it is like to harvest fresh local food and prepare it with creativity, love, and care. We hope to help students gain an appreciation and understanding of farm to table, and learn ways to incorporate local, or homegrown food into their lives and/or communities. And best of all......it is delicious!! 

McDonald and Cedar Valley!

November 28, 2012

We welcomed McDonald Elementary, and Cedar Valley Community School to Soil to Snack this week and made ourselves some delicious, fresh food! We harvested kale, tea herbs, a pumpkin, and leeks from the garden and created:

• Kale-bobs with pumpkin puree or goat cheese filling
• Pumpkin pie
• Fresh tea with peppermint, lemon balm, and stevia
• Pumpkin seeds
• Mini mushroom pizzas

Yum!!!

Prepping the kale

In the oven!

Roasted Pumpkin!

Scooping for Puree

Mini Pumpkin Pies!

Kale Chips Recipe

Kale-bobs!

These are similar to the beloved kale chip, just wrapped and put onto a skewer. Once they are cooked nice and crispy, you can fill them with delicious fillings like fresh pumpkin puree, or an herbed goat cheese. Savory or sweet, take your pick!

• Kale leaves (any variety will work, you can even mix them), and remove the ribs
• ~2 Tbsp Olive oil
• Salt

Heat the oven to 300 degrees, and place kale-bobs on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with olive oil and salt, and bake until crispy. Enjoy!

Up here in the Pacific Northwest, and in the IslandWood garden, we love our seasons! The changes they bring alter the types of food crops we harvest, our water supply, the appearance of the garden, plant productivity, and they also influence the dormancy of our garden plants and flowers. Even the bees take a break from the cold, wet environment and hunker down in their hives!

People also change their appearance during the different seasons. Think of what you would wear if it were snowing, raining, or was a bright sunshiny day? So what does the garden look like now? What food is available to eat in different seasons? Check back here to see the changing faces of our garden!

The garden on Nov 21, 2012!

November 21, 2012

As of today, we are still harvesting tomatoes in the greenhouse! However, we are at the end of our tomato season, and don't expect to harvest too much longer. Lots of chocolate cherries, sun golds, and Oregon stars. Here is a photo of our small, but beautiful harvest:

Tomatoes!

Are you growing anything in your home, school, or community? If so, drop us a line and let us know what's growing for you!

November 19, 2012

Well, today has been one of the wettest days to date this fall! The coming of winter is ever present, and the plants are feeling it too. Some crops are suited well for this time of year, and are still growing in the garden. These crops include:

Brussel Sprouts!!

• chard  
• kale
• sunchokes
• broccoli
• many herbs such as peppermint, lemon balm, rosemary, parsley and oregano
• sorrel
• turnips
• parsnips
• collards
• leeks
• comfrey
• carrots
• lettuce
• celery
• brussel sprouts (like it cool!)
• radishes

Baby Carrots!

Luckily, we have a fantastic greenhouse to keep some plants cozy and warm during the fall and winter. This allows us to keep growing certain crops that wouldn't make it outside in the cold, harsher environment. We also can utilize this warm environment to plant new seeds, and grow plant starts to create our plant nursery. Some things we are growing in the greenhouse now are:

• baby carrots
• tomatoes
• peppers
• stevia
• butterhead lettuce
• snow pea starts
• austrian pea cover crop
• pac choi greens

Thoreau Elementary!

We had a visit from Thoreau Elementary School, and were lucky enough to plant some seeds with some of their great students. We have been carefully caring for the Oregon snow pea seeds that they so kindly planted for us during their visit. They are doing great, and sprouting up a storm. Check them out, and thank you Thoreau students for visiting the garden!


Oregon snow peas:
Scientific name: Pisum sativum
Common names: Oregon Sugar Pod Pea, Oregon Snow Pea, Oregon Giant Pea.

Mature Snow Peas

A cool season crop, it is a hardy annual (surviving just one growing season) and is one of our nation's most popular pea varieties! However, if trying to grow in late fall and winter, they need to  be in a greenhouse.
Flavor: Tender and succulent, with a sweet flavor.