How to build a lettuce table...the easy way.

A vintage desk...upcycled.

A Lettuce Table (or a “salad table”) is fairly easy to construct.  There are plenty of DIY sites and pages online where you can find instructions on how to build your own table out of lumber.

But an easy way to do it is to find an old table at a thrift store or a yard sale, or even one that is being thrown out at the side of the road, and then use that as your base.  If you find a desk with a large central drawer, you can remove the top from the desk and use the drawer as your planting area, placing soil directly in the drawer and sowing your seeds.  Or, you can flip the desk or table over and nail or screw a board to the bottom to hold your soil.

If you find a table without a drawer you can construct a simple box to fit on the top of the table.  Simply measure and cut the boards to fit the top of your table.  Then screw the boards together at the ends and fix it to the table top (I stapled landscaping plastic to the tabletop first).  You can paint the boards with blackboard paint for easy labeling purposes. 

This table has a simple box built and fixed to the top surface. 

Then fill the box with quality potting soil and decide what you would like to plant in your lettuce table.  It is very early now, so if you do not have UV lights and a greenhouse, or a nice warm place to put your lettuce table, it is best to wait until closer to spring to get started.  Your plants will need plenty of water!  They can benefit from a good organic fertilizer as well, and you can expect a nice harvest!

This is the start of one of our direct sow lettuce patches at Jones' Acre Homestead.

We are offering a CSA this Spring ad Summer! 

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What's the deal with GMOs?

 I live in an area that is in an Agriculture Land Preserve Program.  That means that there are signs that say “Forever and ever, preserved as agricultural land” all over and there is either corn or soy planted and there are horses, chickens and peacocks and peahens. It is a beautiful area. I am the only one on this vast stretch, though, who is concerned with growing organically, or who worries about non-GMO vegetables, fruits and herbs.  In fact, those who grow around here commercially swear that “You can’t find non-GMO corn anymore.”

I asked a neighbor once, in my ignorance “Why don’t those cornfields ever have weeds?”  Why do I have to put down paper and straw as mulch and y’all have nothing but dirt?”  He said: “That’s what happens when you try to do things organic.  We don’t have to worry about weeds.  We use GMO corn and we spray.”  This is why the realtor had to have a reverse osmosis water purifier installed in our house before we were allowed to move in to filter out the nitrates.

            I have heard a lot of grief about my 60 foot by 43 foot garden, because I work it by hand (not even by hoe, because I’m 100% disabled, and that hurts my back, so I sit and do it literally, by hand), because I don’t use anything but organic, home-made pesticide, and because I don’t use anything but organic fertilizer.  (I also grow “weird” things like collards, mustard greens and okra, which people around here don’t eat, and older things such as depression era dragon tongue beans.) I order heirloom seeds and non-GMO seeds so I know you can get them, so long as you look for them. 

My neighbors are pretty nice and supportive, and they appreciate a hard worker, although they see me out there working and shake their heads, because maybe they think I am working a bit too hard and maybe not as efficiently as I could be. They have offered me some of their corn.  It is good, but mine is sweeter by far. 

When I visited Hawaii after I got out of the Navy I read something about their anti-GMO laws.  That was my first introduction on the topic, actually.  I didn’t understand the issue at all, but I thought that people had a right to understand what their food was made of, and whether it was genetically modified in a lab.  Just like I felt like people had every right to know exactly what was in every container of food they picked up in a grocery store.

However, what exactly does “GMO” mean for a farmer?  And for the consumer?  So, first I learned that in Hawaii during the mid-1990’s a case of Papaya ringspot virus decimated the Papaya trees.  Genetically engineered papaya trees were developed with a gene from the ringspot virus to produce an immunization. Regulators in America and in Japan approved the genetically modified papaya and it reduced the amounts of pesticide required to fight the aphids that carried the virus.  So, in this example, we think, good: more papayas, more money for farmers, less pesticides used.  The lead developer Hawaii-born Dennis Gonsalves and his team were awarded the 2002 Humboldt Prize for the most significant contribution to US agriculture in five years.  Great.  Here is the issue: according to critics such as Jeffrey Smith it could harm people due to the protein produced by the new gene and no studies had been conducted.  That is pretty scary, right?  And to release such products to the market on a wide scale without testing them first, that seems to be a bad thing.  And here is another thing, now someone has patented and owns the seeds, so farmers can’t legally reproduce them and replant them on their own.⁴

The ban of GMOs that did stick in Hawaii was the one on taro, so that cross-pollination did not occur between GMO and non-GMO crops. That possibly had to more to do with the nature of taro for the natives of Hawaii, as it is sacred to their origin story.¹

What about corn, specifically? What did my neighbors mean when they said that “you can’t get a non-GMO corn” anymore?  Reading the article about genetically modified corn and those concerns that Hawaiian natives had about cross pollination made me wonder if it wasn’t a lack of resourcefulness that caused my neighbors to say such a thing, but rather a sense of alarm that perhaps all corn had cross pollinated at this point anyway, and it is all GMO corn.  Where I live, if my organic heirloom seeds have actually remained such until I planted them, my best bet may well be to NOT save my seeds, but to reorder each year from the certified organic, heirloom seed sellers, and replant that way, because I am sure that I will have cross-pollinated corn with all of the GMO corn in the vast fields that surround me.  So much for my beautiful 1850-era corn crib.

Some tests done showed that tumors developed on mice fed GMO corn may well have developed tumors anyway, and more studies should be done.⁴  So, to this point, really...the verdict is still out.  Studies are still being done, vast numbers of people are arguing against GMO’s, although their passion is greatly out of proportion with the amount of data that is available to support the argument against genetically modified/engineered plants and derived food.  I believe responsible research is mandatory and should continue.  In the meantime, I will be in my garden, planting my organic, non-GMO seeds and enjoying my “weird” ways.

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1.        Boyd, R. Genetically modified Hawaii. Retrieved August 28, 2016, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetically-modified-    hawaii/

2.     de Vendômois, J. S., Roullier, F., Cellier, D., & Séralini, G.-E. (2009a).  A comparison of the effects of Three GM corn varieties          on mammalian health. , 5(7), . Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793308/

3.       Di, J., By, P., Bondera, M., & Query, M. (2006). Hawaiian Papaya: GMO contaminated. Hawaii SEED, 1, . Retrieved from     http://hawaiiseed.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Papaya-Contamination-Report.pdf

4.       Harmon, A. (2014a, January 13). A lonely quest for facts on genetically modified crops. U.S. Retrieved from     http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html?_r=0

Southern Veggies...for everyone.

Okra blooms are surprisingly beautiful.

So, I live in Maryland, and I still grow things like my grandmother did.  I mean to say, I grow things that my neighbors don’t recognize.  I grow things like giant mustard greens that came from seed given to my grandmother from a Cherokee man she once knew.  I grow and collards and okra.  I grow depression era dragon tongue beans. I grow sweet silver queen corn that is a little different from that in the vast fields around me.  And I grow cotton, for the medicinal value of the root (and because the flowers and the bolls are so beautiful). 

I have had too much of some of these things, and I have offered them to neighbors, and to my surprise I have been asked “What do you do with it?” and my response was, looking over a beautiful crop of collards, “Well, you eat it.”  One neighbor came to look at my okra just to see what okra looks like.  I was more than a little surprised because it is a common ingredient in Maryland crab soup.  I haven’t had much luck convincing my neighbors to try any of these Southern delicacies, but I am very pleased that they grow well here (although, admittedly, my okra doesn’t grow to its vast 12 feet in height that it did back in North Carolina). 

Let me give you the low down on okra folks, it is good fried in cornmeal and pepper, it is good pickled (I love it hot!), it is good stewed or canned with tomatoes, it is good down in soups. It is a necessary component in gumbo.  It is good for you.  Okra has plenty of fiber, vitamins A, C and K, folate, and potassium and folks, it has plenty of calcium.  One cup of okra has 81 mg of calcium.   Not bad for a veggie with 0.2 grams of fat per cup.

Ideally, you pickle baby okra.  I had such a large crop I could hardly get out there fast enough, so I pickled some larger ones for myself.  They are good and hot!

Mustard greens are the spicy greens in my garden.  They are a little bitter, but they have a kick to them.  My grandmother sometimes boiled them with a bit of pork and a pinch of sugar.  I usually sautee them with another variety of greens (usually spinach), olive oil and garlic, and I put sea salt, pepper and a pinch of brown sugar in to offset the bitterness.  I sometimes mix them into a veggie-goulash of black beans, tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and okra and eat that up with some homemade hot sauce.  (I love that I can get all of this right from my garden!)  Mustard greens have an incredible amount of vitamins K and A, and have decent amounts of vitamins E and C, fiber, calcium and iron.

Collards are a staple in Southern cooking.  Collards and ham, collards and beans…usually with some pork mixed in and sometimes drowned in vinegar.  I cook collards on the side of a meat dish, sometimes with some pork mixed in and some onion or garlic, but I have never liked it with vinegar.  Collards have extremely high contents of vitamins A and K, and appreciable amounts of vitamin C, fiber, choline, calcium, potassium and folate.

All of this stuff is worth a try, don’t be scared! They taste great, and they're good for you to boot.

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*Always check with your primary healthcare physician prior to vastly changing your diet, and check with him/her to be sure that there are no contraindications.  It should also be noted that I am an herbalist, not a nutritionist/dietitian and cannot make suggestions as to changes in personal diet plans.  Please consult your personal nutritionist/dietitian for further information.

References

Foundation, T. G. M. (2001). Mustard greens. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=93

Nast, C. (2014a). Okra, raw nutrition facts & calories. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2497/2

Nast, C. (2014b). Collards, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt nutrition facts & calories. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2411/2

The Clan. The Tribe. The Family. My Inheritance.

We washed the dishes by hand and talked and listened to one another, the women, and laughed.  I heard about recipes and canning and superstition.  And when it was done we went out on the porch where the night was vast and endless with possibility and the crickets chirped and the peepers called out and we talked more and I listened.  Sometimes my uncle and my grandfather would get out guitars and singing would start up.  Sometimes I would hear about how things used to be, when my grandfather was young, or when my grandmother was young.  How it was in the fourties, or in the Great Depression.  Or I would hear stories about the twenties when my great grandmother and my great aunt where there.  I would hear ghost stories and tales about growing up on farms in the south, and stories about surviving the Civil War, and Reconstruction.  I would stare out into the darkness, and try to see as far as I could see and dangle my skinny legs off of the porch, swatting at mosquitoes, breathing in the smell of honeysuckle and wisteria, and listening to the maple leaves rustling in the night breeze, knowing I was going to climb that tree higher than all the boys one day (And I did!).

In the mornings I would get up early and my grandmother and grandfather would already be out in the garden together, sweat pouring down their faces, and I awoke with a sense of great excitement with the possibility that the day afforded.  The clotheslines were already full of sheets for me to run through, and pillows were out to sun, and I would grab a basket to see what vegetables or fruits I could help to gather. I would eat grapes until I was sick.  I would pick cherries too early and eat them tart.  If he had time, my grandfather might walk me in the woods to show me herbs or animal tracks, hunt for pawpaws or mayapples, or show me the old Indian Dam in the Creek, or split open honey locust pods for me.  He could speak to animals, whistle at the birds and fool them into coming right to him, as if he was a bird himself,  I had seen him talk to a rabbit and coax it to hop right up to him. He was magic. 

My Grandmother might show me different herbs in her gardens and tell me what they were good for and what her Granny used them for.  Or she would point out a writing spider and tell me if it wrote my name I might die, and I would let them crawl on my hands, unafraid.  She would tell me the use of every plant under the sun and the name of it.  If there wasn’t any time for these things, maybe we would have to shuck corn, string beans, or gather and crack pecans on the porch swings all afternoon or if they were just too busy with things I couldn’t help with, I was on my own.  Then I would explore the woods, fields and neighboring properties all day, with my grandmother shouting after me “Don’t you be out in the heat of the day!” or “It’s coming up a storm!”

My grandmother canned so much food the dining room table would bow in the middle, due to the weight.  My grandfather would find something to build in the workshop, because it would get so hot in the house.  There were two refrigerators and two chest freezers.  My grandfather hunted and fished. 

This is what I thought life was supposed to be, and when I went to my mom’s house, or anywhere else. I assumed we had just strayed from this, and we were meant to find our way back.  My grandparents worked together to be as self sufficient as they could be, and I understood by all the stories I heard as a child that hard times come and go, and they will, but family stays and you stick together.  You make your family and you are fiercely loyal and you are a team, a tribe, a clan.  You work hard together and you make your way through whatever, and you do it naturally and you do it yourselves. 

My grandmother is still alive, though, she lives in a retirement community now.  I lived in her house with my husband and my sons for a few years when we moved back to North Carolina when he got out of the Army, and I was able to take my children to explore those woods and revive the gardens (though not to the vast extent that they grew when I was a child!).   I sat with them on the porch and told them some of the stories I remember from my childhood, and visited my grandmother every Monday, to re-thread her sewing machine, as although she is blind now, she still insists on sewing.  My sons all got to climb that maple tree.

Now I am in Maryland, and call my grandmother once a week or so.  I have become a Master Herbalist and a Homesteader.  I raise chickens and ducks, and grow most of my own vegetables and herbs.  I’m intent on raising and growing more.  I’m happiest working in the gardens and the woods.  I can hunt and fish and wildcraft.  My grandmother sent me home with her quilts and freezers and sewing machines.  I have inherited a clan, tribe, and family life philosophy that is loving, self sufficient, sustainable, and fiercely loyal. 

You want to be a part of my tribe.

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