Opening this Friday at the Harrison Center for the Arts in Indianapolis, Indiana is Food Con 2, an unconventional convention exploring the art and culture of food in Indiana.

I will be exhibiting art work in the main gallery featuring a guest appearance of 30 nearly extinct Marshall Strawberry plants in Marshall Strawberry, Now There are More. Check out the events page on the website for more programming including Food and the Machine, a collaborative work of performance and presentation by Butler University art and business students, and and Uncooking class! Please join us!

Food Con 2
Harrison Center for the Arts
1505 N. Delaware
Indianapolis, IN 46202

Friday, September 2
Reception 5pm-9pm

Actually I’m making tiny sculptures out of the vegetables in my garden.  Which is why I’ve been remiss in posting more sharecropper photos of late. Meanwhile both gardens, at home and the community garden are flourishing despite the extreme weather conditions sloppy wet spring and now a blast furnace. We had a nice garlic harvest, from cloves planted last fall, and our early peas were sweet and bountiful. Green beans are everywhere the eye can see these days of all varieties, while peppers and tomatoes are just starting to fruit. And oh yes basil–purple, thai, genovese and lime are growing wild, at least someone loves the heat. Good thing, used my last batch of pesto from last summer for lunch. Here are some photos, more to come next week.

Rain rain go away come again another day. Like maybe to relieve us from those 100 degree dog days of August! The rain has slowed us down a bit, washing away some of the seeds we planted last month. But other plants seem overjoyed in soppiness. Like these beautiful radishes, freshly picked,  in all shades of rose and lavender. I turned my good fortune into a lovely spring salad with mustard greens, baby lettuce, mizuna, spinach and bok choy flowers from the backyard dressed with a classic vinaigrette and tossed with some fresh chives and  sage.

Classic Vinaigrette with Fresh Herbs
adapted from Basic Vinaigrette Dressing,
Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom by Julia Child

1/ 2 tablespoon shallot or scallion, finely minced
1/ 2 tablespoon of Dijon mustard (Mary used Grey Poupon)
the juice of one lemon
1/ 2 tablespoon white or red wine vinegar
1/3  to 1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh herbs, any combination
Salt and freshly ground pepper (to taste)

Make a paste with the mustard, salt and shallot. Whisk in the lemon juice and vinegar, and then incorporate the oil, bit by bit to form a smooth emulsion. Add chopped fresh herbs, then pepper and salt to taste.

Should have occurred to me last spring when tiny lettuce seedlings sprung up seemingly from nowhere.  Well actually my lettuce plants from the previous fall went to seed and there you go. This year I also have spinach and mustard now well underway.  Seems there is such a thing as winter seeding. Certain plants can withstand the cold and then just come up when conditions are right in the spring. Advantages are an early crop and no need to start seedlings indoors. I will  purposefully experiment more this year, but for now,  pasta with fresh baby spinach and chives for lunch!

We started cabbage, onions, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, sorrel and strawberries, all cold weather tolerant plants inside a few weeks ago. Just a quick tip regarding indoor seed starting. You don’t need fancy pots or systems. Seed pots can be made of recycled cans, yogurt cups, egg cartons, egg shells, plastic bottles, toilet paper rolls or newspaper! Just remember to punch holes for drainage, follow the seed packet for planting depths as all seeds are different, use potting soil for indoor plants, not soil from outside and keep them moist.  Also, indoors seedlings need light and warmth to germinate, so place them in a sunny window or under grow lights.

Last week we transplanted quite a few into our community garden plots. We also direct seeded carrots, lettuce, beets and radishes.  The Farmers Almanac seed starting calendar is a fabulous tool to determine what to plant when.  Just enter in your city or zip code and it will return a growing chart for your zone. Our garlic, started last fall, weathered the winter and is coming in nicely.  More photos on flickr.

At home I removed the top inch of soil from my front porch pots, refilled with potting soil, amended with worm compost and planted  more peas, lettuce,  kale, chard, sweet peas, marigolds, and nasturtiums. I bought lots of flower seeds this year. Looking forward to beautiful colors.

A Light Exists in Spring

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.

-Emily Dickenson

On this day of love I tapped my first maple.  Is it me, or does that sound a bit naughty…  Happy Valentine’s Day!

Whew, finally caught up on photos from last season. Blessed is winter. As daylight begins to stretch out against the night from both ends, my garden dreams are stirring.  Matter of fact, just placed my seed orders this morning.  Here’s a taste of what’s coming…Moonshadow Hyacinth Beans, Chinese Red Noodle Beans, Early Purple Broccoli, Bull’s Blood Beets, White Whippoorwill Peas, Mascara Lettuce, French Breakfast Radishes, Irish Poet Tassel Flowers…beautiful and poetic.

My goal this year, is to deepen my knowledge of  the same two spaces, home and the Willie Streeter Community Garden, with the hopes of doubling or tripling my  yield.  So stay tuned for posts about seed starting, planting calendars, raised beds, hoops, rain barrels, composting, relay farming, extended season, irrigation, food preservation and bees!

I was awarded an Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship, supporting a whole year of travel and reasearch for my Tending a Difficult Hope project. Some of the topics will be urban ag related so i’ll be certain to cross-post. Or you can join in on Facebook so as not to miss anything.  Anyway, one area of study is beekeeping.  I’ve ordered a hive and will be picking up my nuc or nucleus colony in may.  Here in zone 6, despite the ice storm currently raging outside, it will be time to start cabbage seedlings soon, so tune in next week for a how-to. Meanwhile, summon your seeds!

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Fedco
Hudson Valley Seed Library
Native Seeds
Seed Savers Exchange
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Since I still have a lot to say about last summer in NYC, I will post a page to continue reflecting upon my hyper-urban gardening experiences there. Meanwhile, this summer I am sharecropping in Bloomington, Indiana where I live.

Last year one of my goals was to involve as many people as possible, so our farm was 17 growing spaces big, spanning all 5 Burroughs of the City.  Not knowing how much I could handle with such a large geographic distance between spaces, I kept each planting relatively small. This year, pared down to 2 locations, I’m experimenting with yield, portability, and shared responsibility.

Location number one is home. My landlord gave me permission to turn my yard into a micro farm. Since the soil is very hard, thin and full of tough tree roots, and the space somewhat shady, I decided to make full advantage of the sunny patio area by re-using the pots I sewed for Sharecropper NYC, and added a bunch more. What’s great about portable pots is that my soil investment can travel with me when I move someday.  But I’m also working on amending the soil in the rest of the yard by building up organic matter. Phase one is clearing the land with newspaper and straw. In the fall I’ll add dried leaves and compost and plan to build more beds in spring. I’m doing the same same on the side of the house.  On the front porch, I’m growing lots of greens–pretty and edible! Click here, here and here for photos.

The second space is the Willie Streeter Community Garden. My friends Sarah, Maria, Kerry and I each rented an organic extended-season plot for $25 (which includes water) and have consolidated our efforts. We share watering, weeding, planting, and re-planting tasks, cover vacations without the garden suffering, and keep each other company when managing chores. We’ll need to amend the soil much more heavily next year as some of our plants were a bit scrawny. We lost broccoli, eggplant, and squash to insects and extremes in weather patterns, but as you can see here, we had great success with the heirloom tomatoes, basil, onions and leeks!

2009 Post-season relfection: Our two biggest challenges in this space were extreme temperatures (concrete enclosure), and rats (so bold they come out in daylight and eat everything in sight, including tires!).  We decided on hot peppers hoping they would bypass spicy food, and it worked! I only found one pepper all season with a nibble taken out of it. Even though peppers thrive best in hot weather, we watered every sunny day, sometimes more than once. It’s essential with potted plants. They dry out very quickly.  Thanks again to Rachel, Georgia, Kevin, Jake, Valerie, Madeleine, Seth, Patty and Eli. We had a beautiful harvest and a wonderful time. More photos on Flickr and Facebook.