Many schools have started to grow a school garden.  I have been so lucky to see some of them.  Here are two pictures of a wonderful garden in Smithers, B.C. at the Bulkley Valley Christian school, where I talked to the students about my book "Kids Who Grow Their Own Food."  These kids are becoming great gardeners already.

What a beautiful school garden.

Eggshell seed growing for kids. 

 Fun experiments for the family. 

Spring is the time to plant seeds for delicious fresh vegetables in the summer and fall.  Here's one easy way to give them a good start. 

The hole in the bottom of the empty eggshells is so water can drain. Place egg carton on a plastic tray.



Fill with a good all-purpose potting mix and place a seed in each eggshell starter.  Mark each shell with a label or write the seed choices on the carton lid.  Water well for the first few days and wait until the seeds sprout.

Water according to how dry the soil feels.  Don't overwater.  Different seeds have different germination times.   For example kale, peas and cucumbers sprout in a week or so while cabbages and beets take two weeks or more.

 When roots show through the hole or the seedling is big enough, carefully crush the eggshell and plant the seedling and the eggshell in a pot if it's still too cold to take it outside, or plant it in the garden if the weather has warmed.  Hardy plants like lettuce, peas, kale and cabbage can go outside quite early, but cold-sensitive plants like tomatoes, cucumbers and beans can't handle frost.




Sometimes it's fun to see the roots growing so, as an experiment, plant a seedling in a clear plastic container.  Make holes in the bottom.  Watch as the roots come up to the sides.  
The plants in this container (bean and corn) are for an experiment only.  Normally they would be planted out in the garden or in a large pot by the time they are this size.  Corn does not do well in a pot.  Good pot plants would be lettuce, green beans, beets, carrots, cucumbers and fruits such as strawberries.  Try this experiment and have fun eating the results.

growing winter beet greens indoors.

Have you ever taken a big beet from the garden and planted it in a pot?  Add a little soil, water it occasionally and it will grow leaves that you can pick and eat fresh.  

Here's a picture of an ugly big beet that is giving me fresh food from the plant right to the plate.  Who says ugly isn't beautiful.

The Berlin Wall, a novel for young people

The Berlin Wall, a novel for young people about a daring escape.

In Ann Alma's novel SKATEWAY TO FREEDOM eleven-year-old Josie escapes with her parents from East Germany to the west just before the Berlin Wall comes down.  Read this gripping story and learn more about the fall of the wall and the history around it.   A great read and a happy ending.  Also a great read for any skater.  Enjoy. 

Bees, honey and honeybees, mason bees and bumble bees too.

      There are all kinds of bees.  We need them to pollinate our flowers.  If we didn't have pollinating insects we would have almost no foods left to eat, since foods grow from seeds that grow into plants that bloom and thats' where the bees come in.  Seeds for next year's crop can't be made if bees don't do their job of taking pollen from flower to flower.  They do this while they get the sweet nectar.
     Honey bees make ... you guessed it, honey.
     In this area (Kootenays, B.C.) we have a number of honey bees, bumble bees and also the native mason bees.
Mason bees don't make honey for people.  but they are great pollinators.  
I have put my mason bees' nest box up for the season.  Any place that has hollows, like old tree trunks, are places where mason bees may build their nests.  We have to make sure we don't disrupt the bees while they work.

 

EASY  ACORN SQUASH,  CARROT,  COCONUT MILK, ONION AND CURRY SOUP  RECIPE 

for vegetarians, vegans or anyone who loves a thick and tasty soup

Remember the homegrown carrots I stored in a hole in the ground (earlier blog)?  I made soup with some of them, along with my homegrown acorn squash and onions.  The onions were small this year since I planted them too close to the cabbages which grew big and shaded them.  The squashes on the other hand had lots of sun and two plants (I planted four seeds and kept the two best seedlings) gave me 25 acorn squashes.  Amazing vegetables, squashes.  And they keep so well.  I just left this one (in the picture) on the floor in a spare bedroom where there is no heat and it still looks almost as good as when I harvested it in October!  
So, here we go for yummy soup. 

1 acorn squash, peeled and chopped into small squares.
3 carrots, peeled and sliced.
2 small onions, peeled and chopped.
2 sticks of celery (optional).
1/2 cup lentils, sorted and washed.
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon curry powder, or more to taste.
3 cups chicken broth (water for vegans) or more for a thinner soup.
1 cup coconut milk.
salt and pepper to taste.

Saute the onions in the olive oil.
Add the carrots, squash, (celery) and lentils.  Stir over medium heat for a few minutes.  Add the broth (or water) and spices.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes or until the lentils and squash are soft.  Add coconut milk.  Can be eaten as is or blended to a creamier soup.  

Great with rye crisps (and goat's cheese).

Picture from the book KIDS WHO GROW THEIR OWN FOOD, facts, notes and helpful hints.

 

My wonderful ad from Gardens West.  

Salsa, Homegrown, Organic, recipe for kids, by kids.

Cale and Quinn’s easy salsa recipe

1  Take skin off 4 to 5 pounds ((2 kg) of large ripe tomatoes. If you put the tomatoes in boiling water for a few seconds and then carefully drop them into cold water the skins come off easily.

2  Take the cores out of the tomatoes and chop them up.

3  Chop up one large cooking onion.

4  Take the seeds out and chop up one green and one red pepper.


5  Chop up two, three or four hot peppers, depending on how hot you’d like the salsa to be.

6  Mince two or three cloves of garlic.

7  Put all these ingredients in a large pot.

8  Add:  
  • a small can of tomato paste,
  • 1 tablespoon salt,
  • 3/4 cup white vinegar,
  • 2 teaspoons paprika, and
  • 1/4 cup sugar

9  Bring everything to a boil and simmer for one hour or until it has reached the thickness you like. Stir from time to time. This makes a large batch of salsa that can be used as is or preserved in jars.



From Kids Who Grow Their Own Food, facts, notes and helpful hints.

521.

to check out this new book by award-winning author Ann Alma go to 
http://www.annalma.ca/books/KWGOF.html

pyrahi recipe: easy squash/pumpkin pyrahi.

PYRAHI RECIPE

Squash/pumpkin pyrahi kids can make.

The filling is best made the night before.

Wash hands.  Set the oven at 390°F

1. Cut medium-sized squash in half.  (Pumpkin can be used too, but it is runnier and therefore more difficult to make the first time.)

Scoop seeds out. Cover squash with tinfoil and bake for about 40 to 50 minutes or until done. ( the baking time depends on the size of the squash). When baking is done, remove squash from oven and let cool.

2.  Scoop the squash out of the rind and add 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons honey.

3.  Mash the squash until it's fine and put it in the fridge overnight.  (or at least for several hours.)

To make the pyrahi.

1.  Wash hands.  Set the oven for 400.

2.  Mix in a bowl 2 eggs and 1 1/4 cups (310 ml.) sour cream.

3.  In another bowl mix:

     2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

     1 tablespoon baking powder

     1/2 teaspoon baking soda

      1 teaspoon salt

4.  Grate 1/2 cup cold butter using a grater.  

5.  Mix the butter into the flour.  Rub the butter and flour mixture between your hands until the butter is totally mixed in and it's a fine, crumble mixture.  

6.  Add the sour cream and egg to the flour and mix into a ball.

7.  Spread 1/4 cup of flour on the counter and put the ball of dough on this.  Roll and knead the ball around in the flour until all the flour has been absorbed and the ball holds together.

8  Divide the dough in half.  Roll one half of the dough into a log about 12 inches (30 cm.) long.

9  Cut the log in half (6 inches/15 cm.) and then cut each half in half again.  Cut each piece in three so you end up with twelve equal pieces.  Do the same with the other half of the dough.  You will end up with twenty-four pieces altogether.

10.  Roll each piece into a little ball and roll it in some flour.  With a rolling pin flatten each ball into a round pancake.

11.  Put a spoonful of squash mixture on the first pancake.  Dip your fingers in flour (so they are not sticky) and take the top end of the pancake between your two thumbs and index fingers.  Pull the top of the pancake over the squash and pinch down firmly into a pleat.

12.  Take the next top section of the pancake and pinch it together.  Slowly close the pancake around the filling in about six or seven pleats.  Make sure you do not pinch so hard that the squash moves off the pancake, but hard enough that the pancake stays closed around the filling, with a bit of the squash peeping out.  For the last pinch close the pancake around the last of the squash.  You will end up with a dough pocket (pyrahi) enclosing the filling.

13.  Repeat numbers 11 and 12 for all twenty-four pyrahi.

14.  Put the pyrahi on cookie sheets and bake for fifteen to twenty minutes or until lightly browned.

15.  Eat with melted butter and a dollop of sour cream or yoghurt.  

From the book KIDS WHO GROW THEIR OWN FOOD, facts, notes and helpful hints. http://www.annalma.ca/books/KWGOF.html

Roasted pumpkin seeds 
&
 Happy pumpkin carving.

Benn, from the book Kids Who Grow Their Own Food, facts, notes and helpful hints, grew his own pumpkins for Halloween.  He made a Jack-o-lantern, and roasted the seeds.  The recipe is below.  Have a great and safe Halloween everyone. 

From Kids Who GROW Their Own FOOD.

  What to do when you have too many vegetables in the fall?  How to store them without a cold storage?  

  I dig a hole, about 60 cm. (2 feet) x 60 cm. x 45 cm. deep.  I dump a layer of potatoes, a layer of beets, a layer of carrots and a layer of parsnips into the hole.  I cover the hole with the soil I dug out, put a board on top and heap up straw left from mulching.  Now the vegetables are stored for winter.  
  Where I live it's too difficult to dig up a few carrots during the winter because we have lots of snow.  So I put a tall stake by the hole so I can find it during the winter.    

Here you see the hole when I am still filling it.


The smaller beet tops are great for eating in your favorite vegetable dish.

This is what grew in my garden shed this summer.  Friends said I should get rid of it, but wasps are good for pollinating and they help with insect control.  This is the nest of a paper wasp.  
It started as a tiny nest but ended up to be about 35 cm. from top to bottom.  Now the wasps have gone, since we already had a frost here.  Wasps live only for a year, except the queen.  She will build a new nest next year.  
For more about paper wasps, the magazines  Gardens West, Gardens Central and Gardens East have a great article on it.  Go to  http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=c72643729204be7292d82041a&id=c93476f3d2&e=%5BUNIQID%5D 

canning plums

The bear stayed away from my fruit trees this year so I got boxes full of tree-ripened, juicy plums.  I canned them without any extra water or sugar.  I simply washed the plums, took out the pits, crammed as many as I could, skins and all, into jars, leaving an inch of space at the top, and processed them.
This winter when the snow flies they will be great just as they are, or in a pie or fruit crumble.  Yummmmm!!!
Benn, from the book KIDS WHO GROW THEIR OWN FOOD, facts, notes and helpful hints, made plum jam with his extra plums.  A great idea as well.  
Have you ever canned fruit?  Try it some time.  It's quite simple.  Just Google canning fruits.    

Fall is on its way and heavy sunflower heads are ready for picking.  Earlier on in the growing season bees pollinated the flowers so the seeds could grow. 

Cale and Quinn's sunflowers are so huge, they cut them up with an axe and a saw.  They dry the flower heads and eat the seeds.  The small heads go to the birds in the the winter.  They save some of the seeds to plant next spring. 

   Roasted sunflower seeds.  
Spread hulled, raw sunflower seeds on an oiled cookie sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and cumin.  Roast in preheated oven at 325 for 5 minutes.  Turn seeds.  Roast for another 5 minutes.  Eat warm.
  

Winlaw Fall Fair

Slocan Valley's Winlaw Fall Fair is only two weeks away.  Many of the residents of the valley have a tradition of growing foods.  Even with the recent oil spill in the valley, organic growers prepare to enter their best produce into the day-long fair.
Bradley, from the book KIDS WHO GROW THEIR OWN FOOD, facts, notes and helpful hints, entered everything from vegetables to eggs to canning.  He won a pocketful of ribbons.
Have you ever thought about growing food and entering it into a fair.  It's lots of fun.  Give it a try next year.

                                                                    Here are two pictures of parts of pages from the book.

Doukhobors' pyrahi and salsa recipes.

This is Cale, one of the kids from the book, making salsa. 

With tomatoes, peppers and many other vegetables at their best and plentiful, it's a great time to make squash pyrahi (squash pockets) or tomato and pepper salsa.  A great recipe for salsa is found on page 52 of"KIDS WHO GROW THEIR OWN FOOD, facts, notes and helpful hints."  

 Pyrahi is another recipe from the book (page 59-60).  These pockets can hold squash or potato and onions, or peas, carrots, all kinds of vegetables.  They are nice with sour cream and melted butter.  

fruit or vegetable: nasturtium

 
Nasturtium, fruit or vegetable?
How do we know if the part of a plant we eat is a fruit or a vegetable?  With tree fruit it's easy to tell.  But with crops in the garden it's trickier.  

A fruit is the part of the plant that is a flower that then grows a seed, or seeds.  So cucumbers are fruit, as are pumpkins, squashes, olives, etc.  

Vegetables are parts of a plant that we eat that don't have seeds.  Some examples of vegetables are cabbages, carrots, (which is a root), chard, spinach, lettuce.

The nasturtium in the picture above shows the fruit and vegetable parts clearly.  We can eat the sweet flower as fruit or to decorate a salad or cake.  We can eat the leaves as a vegetable in a salad or to give a sandwich a nice, peppery taste.  The flower and leaf come from the same plant but they have very different tastes.  One is a fruit and the other is a vegetable.  

Have you tried a nasturtium leaf or flower?  (Make sure it hasn't been sprayed.) 

You can read more about foods in "Kids Who Grow Their Own Food, facts, notes and helpful hints"

Woodpeckers.

Have you ever found holes in trees?  In some cases they are made by woodpeckers.  In these pictures a pileated woodpecker was at work, finding grub to eat.  When a woodpecker taps a tree for food the tree is usually already under stress.