As our team continues to learn and act on what it means to be anti-racist, we feel called to consider the perspective and experiences of Black and Indigenous people and communities, both historically and in present day.
As a staff of white people, most of us have positive and pleasant memories of Fourth of July celebrations. Most of us also did not learn until much later in life that the phrase “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence did not actually mean ALL people. That same well-known document also refers to Indigenous people as “merciless Indian Savages”.
Not until 100 years after that first Independence Day in 1776 were some African American people granted freedom from enslavement. Countless Indigenous people were violently displaced from lands that were their home, or were murdered by those who colonized this continent that some know as North America, but so many still recognize as Turtle Island.
In the midst of a holiday weekend of national celebration, LCSG is committed to meditating on and learning about the many ways our country continues to perpetuate injustice, and the oppression of so many.
We look forward to the day when this nation is a place where all beings can thrive and we want to play an active role in bringing that to life.
The Edible Schoolyard Project recently sent out another email that echoed a lot of what our team has been feeling over the past few weeks.
Families may be wanting to talk about racism and the issues surrounding it, but aren’t sure how or where to start — this link will take you to the full message from Edible Schoolyard Project, which includes some questions and ideas for engaging in conversations with the young people in our lives. Even if you aren’t having conversations about racial injustice and the protests happening all over the world, the young people in your life are almost certainly aware of what’s going on to some degree, through social media and their friends.
“Instead, we are offering prompts for engaging your young people in processing and reflecting. The act of preparing and sharing a meal together creates the opportunity to engage organically in difficult or emotional conversations. Cooking for and with others can be an act of care, and holding space and time to eat together can bring comfort and deepen connections. If you are a parent or guardian, call a family meal. If you are an educator, hold a virtual meal/table discussion.
These prompts are in no way exhaustive or comprehensive. Rather, they are meant to provide a starting place for conversations and create openings for processing.”
Juneteenth (today) marks the anniversary of the day in 1865 when federal officials arrived in Texas to inform approximately 250,000 previously enslaved people there that they were finally free and to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, even though Emancipation had been declared more than two years prior to that day.
There are ongoing efforts to have the day designated as a federal holiday, and yet there are still so very many in this nation who are not familiar with it or have never heard of it at all.
The 13th Amendment may have been ratified more than a century ago, but it did not put an end to the oppression of Black people in many different forms, or to the systemic supremacy of whiteness.
For the first time since School Gardens started, we’ve been doing Online Produce Sales (instead of the in-person sales we’re so fond of and used to). Even though we probably won’t do it this way forever, we are pretty sure this information will be handy. We wanted to compile some resources about how to work with different kinds of produce in your kitchen as well as some recipe ideas.
Some of the recipes we’ve linked to are recipes we’ve actually made, and others are recipes that just sound really good to us. We’d love to hear about recipes you might know of for specific fruits or vegetables as well.
You can always send us an email at info at lcschoolgardens dot org
Pretty (delicious) Produce (Photo from LCSG)
This is also the first time that we’ve sold something we’re calling the Super Bag (aka The Bag of Abundance) which includes a variety of pre-selected produce all in one bag, for a set price each week. The contents of these “Super Bags” will change as the season progresses (and the price may increase as well based on contents), but right now they include:
A bag of Leafy Greens (hearty greens – kale, collards and/or chard)
A handful of other seasonal items – could include some of the following: snap peas, fava beans, rosemary, rhubarb, lemon balm, basil, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, berries, plums, potatoes, tomatoes and/or arugula
Recipes, info and tips
We may figure out a better way to organize this information at some point. If you use CTRL + F on your keyboard a box will pop up – you can type in a specific fruit or vegetable that you’re looking for and it will show you where that item shows up on this page.
Arugula
Wild Arugula (Photo from LCSG)
We’ve also been harvesting some incredibly beautiful arugula from one of our gardens…
Arugula has a slightly bitter, somewhat spicy flavor that goes well in salads (with walnuts, hazelnuts or almonds + pear or apple slices), to top a cooked pizza, mixed in with hot pasta just before serving, added to sandwiches, or eaten with peaches and hard cheese. So fancy!
It has been tradition to have “Asparagus Week” during Spring Garden Clubs each year; harvesting the fresh spears with students, mixing them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and sometimes some minced garlic and throwing them in the camp stove to roast for a bit. They’re usually served alongside freshly toasted bread with garlic butter. Each year we are delighted when students taste asparagus for the first time and proclaim just how much they love it. We usually aren’t surprised – it is really really delicious. Here’s a recipe that’s somewhat similar to our style of preparing asparagus at School Gardens.
Basilsure has a way of brightening a meal, and just the fragrance seems like it can sometimes brighten a day. There are so many ways to enjoy this herb, but pesto definitely has to be near the top of the list for us, along with Caprese salad.
We often make Caprese salad (on a toothpick!) as a snack for our annual September Volunteer Training. That’s a time of year when the basil and tomatoes are both pretty abundant.
This isn’t the specific recipe that we use, but it’s pretty darn close:
These light and fresh Caprese Sticks are a quick protein-packed snack! They’re colorful, flavorful and ready for summer. PREP TIME 10 minutes TOTAL TIME 10 minutes YIELD 24 STICKS
Ingredients
24 long toothpicks
8 ounces fresh Ciliegine mozzarella balls
24 cherry tomatoes (about 1 pint)
12 large basil leaves, cut in half (or 24 small leaves)
Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
Thread a mozzarella ball, basil leaf (cut in half if large), and a cherry tomato onto a toothpick. Repeat with remaining ingredients.
Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Notes Serve with a drizzle of olive oil or balsamic reduction for an easy and fresh appetizer platter.
Another dish that includes basil and often can include a lot of summertime freshness (cukes, tomatoes, peppers, onions) is an Italian salad called Panzanella. There are a whole lot of ways it can be made, but we’ll add a few versions here soon…
Snap peas are so delightfully crunchy and sweet in the early summer — and they are abundant in School Gardens during that season! We really like eating snap peas fresh (you can eat the pod and all!), added to a salad for some extra crunch, roasted with other veggies in the oven, or added to a batch of pesto.
Snap Pea Pesto Recipe adapted from https://www.lifeasastrawberry.com/5-minute-pea-pesto/ 2 cups fresh snap peas (the whole pod, w the “strings” and stems removed) 2 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly minced 1 tsp lemon juice 3/4 cup basil leaves 1/4 cup walnuts, pine nuts or almonds salt and pepper to taste 1/2 cup olive oil optional: 2 TBSP shredded hard cheese like parmesan or pecorino
1. Place snap peas, garlic, lemon juice, basil, walnuts (and cheese if you’re including it) into a food processor. Pulse a few times until everything is coarsely chopped.
2. While the food processor is running, slowly stream in olive oil and let the processor run until everything is incorporated into a smooth paste. Scrape down the sides of the food processor with a spatula and pulse one more time to incorporate those bits.
The pesto will be thinner than your usual basil pesto — this is because of the moisture content in the snap peas. Another way to make the recipe would be to roast your snap peas in the oven before including them.
Delicious on toast, mixed in with hot pasta, or used as the base for a salad dressing.
A salad that includes carrots and snap peas, with a dressing made of hoisin, lime juice and fresh ginger (if you don’t have hoisin on hand you could substitute soy sauce or miso paste, and powdered ginger could work in place of fresh) https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/carrot-sugar-snap-salad
Shiso plant (Photo from LCSG)This variety of shiso, called ‘Oriana’s Tia To’ is green on top and the underside of the leaves are a purple/crimson color. (Photo from LCSG)
In years past we have tried to grow shiso but have done so with donated seeds and often had some trouble with germination. This year our Horticultural Coordinator ordered shiso seeds from one of our favorite seed growers, Uprising Seeds in Bellingham, WA.
The variety they grow is called Oriana’s Tia To and the description from their website reads:
Perilla frutescens An eye-catching plant notable for its beautiful color contrast of green leaf tops and vibrant purple leaf bottoms, with a pleasantly pungent aroma. This particular variety likely stems from the Vietnamese Tia To, although Chicago-area Paw Paw and Asian Pear farmer Oriana Kruszewski has let it self-sow on her farm for 20 years now, and its original provenance is lost to history. Eric and Erica loved the deep flavor and vivid color of Oriana’s shiso, but she had no seed, so they set a flowering bunch in a glass of water and matured seed on a Chicago windowsill. Oriana reports that it is excellent for making umeboshi, all kinds of pickles, and tea. A surprising hit in the heat of summer is fresh leaves brewed as a sun tea, lightly sweetened with honey and carbonated to make a shiso soda. The serrate leaves may be picked at any stage, and both flowers and leaves may be dried and used in tea. 2-3′ plants when grown outdoors, but reaching head height if left to mature in a greenhouse. And if you find, like we do, that your plants are overly abundant, the addition of them to a flower bouquet is as pleasing as it is fragrant!
We’re still learning new ways to use this beautiful herb, but we do know that it is sometimes called ‘Japanese mint’ or ‘perilla’. A Garden Friend recently shared this link with us after noticing our shiso plants when passing by the Northlake Garden one day.
Please let us know if you are familiar with this lovely herb and have some favorite ways to use it.
Grape Leaves
Grape leaves still on the vine (Photo from LCSG)
Recipe for Dolmas This is another delicious dish that has become a tradition to make for our annual Volunteer Tea. (Unfortunately because of covid regulations, the Volunteer Tea did not happen as normally scheduled. We’re hoping to still find a good way to honor and acknowledge the folks who have been helping out with keeping the gardens going through this strange season.) The recipe was passed along to us by a dear friend (and founder) of School Gardens, Dr. Lee Ann Gekas. We usually scale the recipe up in order to make about 150 dolmas, but the recipe below makes 40 – 50 instead.
Adapted from Adele Gowdy — Lebanese cook extraordinaire!
1 lb fresh grape leaves 1 cup uncooked short or medium grain rice 2 bunches parsley chopped 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas 2 tomatoes chopped 1/2 cup olive oil lemon juice from 1-2 lemons 3-4 cloves garlic 2 tsp salt 1 tsp allspice 1 yellow onion finely chopped can also add mint, and pine nuts or walnuts
Pour hot water over the fresh grape leaves and set aside for 10 minutes. Rinse and drain chickpeas well.
Rinse and drain rice well.
Saute garlic, onions in olive oil. Take off stove. Mix with rice, parsley, chickpeas, tomatoes, and nuts and/or mint if using them. Add salt, allspice and a bit more olive oil and mix well.
Stuff leaves with mixture – clip stems off with scissors; start with the shiny side of the leaf down (inside of the grape leaf is the inside of the dolma). Arrange in rows in a deep cooking pot. Add enough water or broth to cover the top of the dolmas. Place a round flat plate on top of dolmas then a glass jar of water on top of plate to prevent the rolls from loosening while cooking. Squeeze half a lemon’s juice over each layer, plus a few extra cloves of garlic for more flavor.
Simmer for 90 minutes. Check on amount of liquid part way through cooking to be sure it hasn’t all evaporated. Add more as needed.
Tips on harvesting grape leaves: Bigger is not better – 7 or 8” across is plenty big. Leaves should be light green, and very tender. The best are those below the new growth at the top of the plant and above those close to the grapes. Rule of thumb: count down three leaves from the new growth at the end of the vine, and pick the next 2 to 3 leaves, then move on to the next stem. Store covered in fridge. To prep for assembly, cover leaves with boiling water for 10 minutes.
Grape leaves are also used fresh in some pickle recipes to help pickles stay crunchy!
Lavender doesn’t just smell amazing and look beautiful, it can also be used in the kitchen! (Photo from LCSG)
Lavender is often grown as an ornamental, but really has so many uses! At LCSG we mainly grow “Grosso” and “Royal Purple”, but there are a few unnamed varieties growing in our gardens as well. Lavender is beautiful to look at and to smell, but it can also be used in cooking (in small amounts) and craft projects of course.
One of our favorite ways to enjoy lavender is in this recipe for Lavender Shortbread:
Lavender Shortbread
Ingredients
2 tsp dried lavender, and 2 tsp fresh lavender (this recipe only calls for the dried but I added the fresh to give it more of a kick)
2 Tablespoons minced mint leaves
3 sticks (3/4 pound) salted butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 cups all purpose flour
Directions
Finely mince the lavender
Mix together the butter, sugar, mint and lavender until combined and spread around the bowl.
Add the vanilla and mix just until it disappears.
Add flour to the bowl, and mix together until a dough ball forms.
Roll the dough out on a baking mat about 1/2″ thick, then cut desired shapes. Squares, rectangles, and circles all work well. You can also just roll little balls and squish them lightly as a shortcut.
Place the cookies on a sheet tray, and refrigerate for 1 hour
Preheat oven to 350F.
Bake the cookies for 20-25 minutes, until the cookies are lightly golden brown on the edges.
If you’d rather not eat your lavender, you could use it to craft this neat project: Lavender Wands.
If you’d rather not get fancy, you can also just bundle your lavender tightly with a ribbon or rubber band and suspend it from a hook or string in a warm location with good airflow where it can dry. Lavender maintains its fragrance for a very, very long time.
Fava beans are usually a springtime treat. They are often grown as a cover crop in the fall or winter. Cover crops are plants that help replenish the soil and keep it from washing away and/or adds nutrients that have been used up by other plants or crops. Not only are the beans edible, but the flowers and leaves are as well.
Ground cherries are a student favorite in the School Gardens. These cute little fruits from the tomato family come individually “wrapped” in their own papery husk, similar to the husk of a tomatillo.
Ground cherries are also known as “husk cherries”. The variety that we grew this year at LCSG is called “Aunt Molly’s” and the seeds came from Fedco Seeds.
This article from Smithsonian Magazine has some great information and includes a few recipes for using your Ground Cherries. It should be known that they are also just really delicious fresh out of the husk.
Racism doesn’t just impact our food system in the U.S. — our entire food economy was designed to perpetuate racial inequities, and continues to do so. Even though our food system was built through the labor of enslaved Black people on land stolen from Indigenous people groups, white Americans have always been — and continue to be — more likely to own land and to benefit from the wealth that land generates.
There is a long legacy of unfair laws that have prohibited non-white people from owning land. According to the USDA 2012 Census of Agriculture, of the 2.1 million farmers in the U.S., only 8% are farmers of color and only half of that 8% own land. As Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm pointed out in a Civil Eats article from 2018, “If African-American people [had been] paid $20 per week for our agricultural labor rather than being enslaved, we would have trillions in the bank today.”
Most U.S. farm-workers and food production workers are people of color; the average hourly pay for the people who physically grow and harvest a majority of our food in the U.S. is below $12/hr. Poverty leads to food insecurity, which is tied to a whole host of health disparities and chronic diseases. Ironically, a majority of those who work directly with food in the fields or in restaurants also experience some of the highest rates of food insecurity.
Our team has been learning together about the history and present day issues of racism within our country’s food system. We are also looking for tangible ways we can support Black farmers and other farmers of color, and organizations that champion a just and equitable food system.
It is a drop in the bucket of actions we still need to take, and learning that we still want and need to do, but proceeds from this week’s LCSG Produce Sale will go to the Black Food Sovereignty Council & Coalition. From their donation page: “The Black Food Sovereignty Coalition (BFSC) serves as a collaboration hub for Black and Brown communities to confront the systemic barriers that make food, place, and economic opportunities inaccessible to us.” One of their projects is ‘Grandma’s Hands’, and it “seeks to pass on Black cultural food traditions to the next generation”. Please read more about BFSC’s work by visiting their website, and if you are able please give: https://blackfoodnw.org/donate/
Would you like to do more learning on this subject, or find more Black-led food organizations in the U.S. to support? Check out these articles from Civil Eats:
We don’t believe it’s a controversial thing to say. It’s not a way of saying that other people or lives matter less, it’s a way to say out loud what we want to see: for Black lives TO matter, to everyone. And in our world, that is not yet a reality.
Posting this now could come across as “jumping on the bandwagon”. We share here as a way to make it clear where we stand as an organization – we want to see an end to violence being enacted on Black people by an unjust system, an end to police brutality, and we want to actively participate in ending those things. There is also a great deal of systemic racism and inequity within the food system and farming, and if we value the work we already do in School Gardens, we need to make those issues a more intentional part.
We’re not as far along as we ought to be; we should have said it out loud years ago, instead of waiting until after David McAtee, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Sean Reed, and far too many precious lives were violently ended.
It’s not enough anymore to just NOT be racist; we’re working on what it actually means to be an organization and people who are actively anti-racist.
We know this work of learning and unlearning is difficult, uncomfortable and sometimes painful. We also know that it is deeply important and those challenging feelings are so small compared to the actual pain and suffering that racism causes. Here are just a few of the resources we’ve been learning from lately:
Some of you may have noticed we recently ran out of materials to assemble trellises for the snap pea porch pots. We’ve still been sharing those container gardens but y’all will need to get creative with your own trellis-building!
Yum! Cascadia Snap Peas freshly-harvested from a school garden
If you have any circular metal tomato cages around, those are just right for trellising snap peas in a bigger pot (they also work well for cucumbers and other vining plants – not just tomatoes!). They often are available in some fun colors, too.
Metal tomato cage
Here’s a great photo from One Hundred Dollars A Month of a tomato cage being used as a snap pea trellis. They’ve gone the route of flipping theirs upside down, but that leaves some pretty pokey bits sticking out and in our experience it works just as well right-side up. (Don’t get confused if you visit their site and see gardening tips – they live in Maine so the climate and seasons are somewhat different than ours in the Pacific NW.)
These peas are growing in pots with tomato cages for trellising
This Pea Tripod Tutorial from Seattle Urban Farm Company is pretty simple and could be done with smaller/shorter sticks fairly easily, to make it fit into a container garden.
Finished pea tripod from Seattle Urban Farm Company tutorial
**This post has been updated as of 5/12/20 to reflect changes to pick up schedule on Fridays, and how long ordering will be available for the week.**
You might be thinking to yourself – how does an online Plant Sale work? – and we definitely understand your curiosity about that!
Please read all the way through before visiting the shop and placing a plant order
We’re excited to offer plant sales online this year, and hope this new format might allow more folks to take home our lovingly-grown plants than ever before.
We’ll operate a no-contact pick up process over the course of several weeks, which is really different from the one-day in-person Plant Sale from previous years!
The online Plant Sale kicked off 5/6/20. **Each week the “shop” will open Wed 5 pm – Thurs 11:59 pm, or it will close when we’ve received 80 orders for the week (whichever comes first).** Different plants will become available as they are ready and healthy enough to sell – here is the list of all the plants we will have at some point during the course of the online Plant Sale:
We will not be doing any in-person/on-site orders; please do all of your ordering online through the website. We will be unable to make any changes to your order during pick up – if there are changes you need made to your order prior to pick up, please text/call 360-200-8918. Changes to your order may result in your pick up time/date being rescheduled.
We realize not everyone is able to pay via credit card or other online routes, so if you have no other option than cash or check please reach out to us before placing your order so we can make the necessary arrangements.
EBT/SNAP We are also able to take EBT as payment for edible plants. Since we will be doing a majority of the orders online with credit card and no-contact pick up, we will need to make special arrangements for any transactions that involve EBT. Instead of ordering online, please contact us if this option is something you’re interested in. We want to make this work, and though it may not be particularly graceful yet, we will do our best to figure it out.
We ask and encourage everyone to use their best judgment and limit the numbers of plants they order so more of our community members are able to participate in growing their own food.
This whole process may take a little more cooperation and patience than usual from our staff as well as our community to keep everyone safe and healthy, not only as we work out the hiccups in our new system but as we maintain physical distancing to the best of our abilities. With that in mind…
ORDER FULFILLMENT & PICK UP Orders will be filled and ready for no-contact pick up at The Northlake Garden,2210 Olympia Way, Longview, WA 98632 on Friday afternoons, based on the first letter of your last name.
**Times listed below may have changed since the first week of the sale – please take a second look:
Last Name A – F: 1:00 – 1:45
Last Name G – L: 1:45 – 2:30
**Last Name M – R: 2:30 – 3:00
**Last Name S – Z: 3:00 – 3:30
If the specified time/window does not work for you, please contact us at 360-200-8918 to make other arrangements
When you arrive at your designated time on Friday, please pull up to the curb closest to the Northlake Garden (along Olympia Way), facing Ocean Beach Hwy and remain in your vehicle.
Have your order number and last name ready to provide to a School Garden Team Member, or **better yet (if it is possible for you) already have it clearly displayed in your passenger side window when you arrive**. If you are unable to make it to your scheduled pick up time please contact us at the phone number above as soon as possible.
We have a limited number of boxes (cardboard or otherwise) available, so if you’d like a container for your plants please plan to bring your own.
We will maintain 6-foot physical distancing for the safety of our staff and customers and we ask that you wait until we set your order next to your vehicle prior to getting out and loading it.
If you need some assistance with loading your order, please let us know!
Please stay home if you are sick or have been in contact with anyone who is sick. Ask someone who you haven’t been in close contact with to pick up your order, or get in touch with us for no-contact delivery: email info@lcschoolgardens.org or call/text 360-200-8918
Ways that we’ll be staying safe:
Our staff will wash their hands regularly; we’ll have hand-washing stations set up to make this easy.
Staff will wear face masks and clean garden gloves to avoid the spread of germs when touching plant pots and trays.
Often-touched surfaces will be cleaned and sanitized frequently.
Bird’s Eye View Map & Brief Directions for Plant Sale Pick Up from Northlake Garden
COMMUNITY In these challenging times, we know that many of us can’t afford to purchase plants. That’s just a reality for a lot more folks than usual, so please reach out if you are in need of plants and cannot pay for them at this time. We want to do what we can to make sure as many folks in our community as possible have access to food they can grow in the coming months. Email info@lcschoolgardens.org or call/text 360-200-8918
Do you have an abundance of resources and can help cover some of the cost of plants for families or folks in need? Donate here and write in the description “Gift Plants” and we will continue to share plants with the community as long as we have them available.
GIVING CREDIT! THANK YOU to our friends at Tilth Alliance in Seattle, WA for all their help with the process of getting our Plant Sale online, and the wording to share. We hope that their recent (annual) Edible Plant Sale was a huge success!
On the morning of February 7 and 8, we will offer, as we have for many years, our School Garden Volunteer Training. If you are interested in helping out with our local Longview/Kelso school gardens, or are developing a program in your school or community, this class is for you!
These identical classes run from 9:00 to 12:30 – choose Friday 2/7 or Saturday 2/8.
Both classes take place at Northlake Elementary and are free as always. Register here for all classes.
On those same two days, in the afternoon, we are offering a Gardening 101 class on Friday 2/7 from 1:30pm to 3pm.
The class on Saturday 2/8 is Pruning 101 and runs from 1:30 to 3:00pm.
In both classes we will do some learning in the classroom and then head out to the orchard to do some hands-on work.
Both classes take place at Northlake Elementary and are free of charge. Register here for all classes.
Register here for the Volunteer Training and/or Gardening Workshops in February 2020
Join us for live music, a special dinner featuring school gardens’ produce and local food, fresh apple cider, local and regional beverages.
Lower Columbia School Gardens invites you to our annual Fall Gathering,
to celebrate our accomplishments and sustain this good work into the
future. Come and enjoy the best food, beverages, and company this season
has to offer.
Thank you to Fall Gathering event sponsors The Kirchner Foundation, Fibre Federal Credit Union, The Futcher Group, and the Law Office of Meredith
Long.
/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/20110520090148ground-cherries-400x298.jpg)
