BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

Chuck the Caterpillar. Part of the series “Fiend Garden Notes”

Photos and Story by Elizabeth Fiend

This is Chuck. He lives out back.
Chuck’s interests are eating bronze fennel and hiding from birds.
Chuck hopes to grow up and be just like his mother a beautiful Black Swallowtail butterfly.

I touched Chuck once. He was eating the fennel I was going to use for Mr. Fiends lunch. I moved Chuck over to a different fennel plant, one I could share. Touching Chuck was really super cool. He felt like no other thing I had ever touched. He was sort of marshmallow like. But he was alive! The way he felt stayed with me for several days. I wanted to touch him again. But I haven’t. I don’t want to stress him out. He already was going super still every time I took his picture.

Chuck will have a pretty interesting life. Having started out as an egg, he’s now a caterpillar. Soon he’ll be a pupa and then a butterfly!  WOWZER. Love, Elizabeth Fiend

Click to learn about a Swallowtail butterfly’s life cycle.

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3 GREAT HERBS 4 u 2 GRoW

Article and Photo BY ELIZABETH FIEND

SALAD BURNET makes an awesome home-grown herb because it’s practically evergreen. Do you realize the implications of this? Well, the pilgrims did when they brought it to America from its native Europe. It means you can grow something GREEN to eat practically year round, even in cold climates. It tastes yummy, like chicken. Oh, no that’s rattlesnake. Salad burnet is tangy with a hint of cucumber. It makes an attractive edging plant and is easy to grow.

PERENNIAL CHIVES is a must have herb not only for cooking but also for the garden as it’s a great companion plant which repels problem insects. In the Middle Ages chives were used to ward off evil spirits. Today we appreciate their high content of vitamins A, B and C plus the minerals iron, potassium and calcium. Like all alliums, chives reduce blood pressure. The purple flowers are edible and very good tasting. Sprinkle some snipped chive stalks and a crumbled chive flower over rice, or other food, and you’ll have a strikingly beautiful presentation of green and purple confetti.

FLAT-LEAF PARSLEY is a biennial herb that’s easy to start from seed. Parsley contains more vitamin C than an orange! Because if its high chlorophyll content, parsley gently clears toxins from the body thus combating inflammation and high blood pressure. The ancient Romans gave parsley to gladiators to promote their fighting skills.

TO GRoW Salad burnet and parsley are biennials, which means the plant has a two year lifecycle. They’ll grow like gangbusters the first year and you should harvest plenty. The next year they’ll “bolt” or “go-to-seed” producing flowers, than seeds and then they commit suicide. It’s a good idea to “deadhead” or pinch off the flower head and replant the seeds. Plant new seeds every year to ensure a steady supply of these nutritional powerhouses. Chives come in many varieties. I recommend a perennial chive which will live forever, giving you more bang for your buck. There are also flavors of chives like garlic chive (you can recognize it by its flat leaf). Buy plants or seeds. Reseed and make more plants as needed.

TO HARVEST For salad burnet and chives, simply cut off the stems about 1 inch from the ground. Parsley grows in individual stalks. Cut them right above a set of leaves. Always make sure to leave at least 1/3 of each plant intact. Best eaten fresh (not dried).

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Henry David Thoreau, Your Own Back Yard, and Global Warming

[Photo By: Elizabeth Fiend. Baby cardinal taking first flight, in my own backyard!]

Article Written By ELIZABETH FIEND

I’ve been reading Wild Fruits, an unfinished, recently published manuscript by American naturalist Henry David Thoreau. The book is a combination of diary and essay, chronicling the ways Thoreau spent his days and what he learned during the final years of his brief life. With each page I get more jealous, wishing I too could spend my day stalking a bee to find its hive and to learn what type of flower the bee drinks nectar from and how that affects the flavor of the honey.

Of all the things I love to do (and I love to do a LOT of things) observing nature is on the top of my list. Fantasizing how I could manage to spend my days doing what Thoreau did, I realized my main stumbling block is that I’m just not as big of a mooch as Thoreau. Sure, he worked some in his family’s pencil factory (in fact, he “invented” the modern clay-and-graphite pencil). But he also spent quite a lot of time not working, crashing at his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson’s house and living on, and off of, Emerson’s land.

I work full time at a library, not some of the time at a pencil factory. But still, I manage to spend quite a lot of time observing nature, especially the ecology of my South Philly back yard. There’s a lot going on outside, even in the midst of a large city. I actually start my observing while I’m still lying in bed each morning — If you listen to the sounds of the outdoors you can learn quite a lot, especially about the birds. In fact, I think I know more about what the birds in my ‘hood are up to than my human neighbors, whom I never see and don’t particularly want to hear.

Phenology — derived from the Greek word phainomai, to appear or come into view — is the study of the seasonal timing of life-cycle events. As the seasons change, so do the actions and characteristics of living things. Phenology is mostly concerned with firsts: the first day the maple trees bud-out in spring, or the first day they begin to show fall color. It is a very, very old science, older than the word science.

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Article and Photos by ELIZABETH FIEND

Although there’s still a chill in the air and a bit of winter to come, if you want to do a garden this year, start now. That’s right. The key to gardening is to be on top of everything. Gardening is based around the weather and the weather waits for no man — or woman.

You probably have a growing mound of garden catalogs by now. A few arrive in my mailbox every day.

Overwhelming! If you don’t have catalogs, try buying a mail-order plant ONE time, and you’ll be flooded with garden catalogs for the rest of your life.

What I do is just thin out from the very beginning. If you try to look through every single catalog, you’ll be paralyzed by too many options. So you must weed out from the start.

Divide the catalogs into categories like flowers, seeds, landscaping, accessories. I grow a lot of soft fruit, so I set aside catalogs that sell fruit as well.

After you’ve divided the catalogs into categories, start with the Buy Local philosophy. Sure, buying local helps dollars grow in your own neighborhood economy, but there’s another overriding reason why this is a good idea. Buying a plant from a nursery located in an area that has the same ecology as where you plan to plant the plant is some extra insurance that it will grow happily in your yard. Yes, that plant from the nursery in New Mexico is gorgeous but face it, it’s just not going to take root around here even if the phrase “hardy enough for colder climates” is tossed about in the catalog’s description.

I live in Philadelphia and there are some big nurseries right here in my state of Pennsylvania: Burpee’s, The Cook’s Garden among them. You can’t get much more local than that. Plus by buying local, you’ll be kinder to the environment by saving fossil fuel with a shorter transport to your garden. There is one major downside to the buy local thing when it comes to mail order. The Feds. When you make a snail mail or Internet purchase from a company located in your home state, yikes, you’re going to be charged sales tax. Still, I do it.

Of course, not all the plants I desire can be obtained from Pennsylvania nurseries. So I move out geographically, just not too far. Ohio is looking pretty good to me this year and I’ve ordered my plants from Bluestone Perennials out of Madison; my seeds from Cook’s Garden, Warminster, PA.

You know about the hardiness zones right?

The hardiness zone, or just zone, was developed by the United States Department of Agriculture. Zones are based on the average annual minimum temperature over a five-year span. Numbers are assigned and graphed, they make undulating bands across the map, much like you see on a weather forecast map. Zone 1 is the coldest, here in Pennsylvania, we’re Zone 6. (Yeah, the zone thing is starting to get a little thorny right now due to global warming, but we won’t get into that today.)

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Nature in the City

When the Sharp Shinned hawks are hanging in my, South Philly / Italian Market, backyard I can’t tear my eyes off them!

But I guess a pigeon wing in the peach tree is the down side.

Photo by Elizabeth Fiend

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I try to grow enough food in my garden to share with the birds, insects and animals. It’s really worth it! I stumbled across this berry eating party over the weekend when I was clearing out some weeds way, way in the back of the garden. I’m not too worried about this one eating too much, because I think he’s already stuffed (har, har).

 Photo by: Elizabeth Fiend

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A BERRY GOOD LIFE

Posting and photos by: Elizabeth Fiend

Now that we’re both over 50, everyone asks ‘How do the Fiends stay so youthful looking?” It’s living the good life, which in our book includes eating plenty of colorful, fresh fruit and vegetables.

In the summer we get the freshest fruit by growing our own. Amazing, but we grow the above raspberries, blue berries and black raspberries in our city backyard smack dab in the center of South Philly — yeah the same hood Rocky once beat-up meat in.

Berries are loaded with antioxidants and they taste good, two reasons why we eat them every chance we can. According to Lisa Turner in Better Nutrition “Few fruits have quite the provocative allure, the fragile charm or the nutrients of berries. They’re full of fiber, minerals and vitamins, and loaded with healing antioxidants. Blueberries, raspberries and blackberries are rich in proanthocyanidins, antioxidants that can help prevent cancer and heart disease. Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries contain ellagic acid, a plant compound that combats carcinogens. Blueberries also appear to delay the onset of age-related loss of cognitive function.” [Following is an article describing exactly what antioxidants are and why you need them.]

It’s actually quite easy to grow berries and I recommend it if you have the space and desire. We’ve had the red raspberries for a few years, but this year is our first crop of black raspberries. There were many cultivars to choose from when I purchased my plants — the biggest berry, the earliest to bear fruit, the juiciest. Hard to decide, so I let fate have a hand and got the plant named Allen, even spelled the same way Mr. Fiend spells his name. It was a good choice –it’s big, early and juicy.

FRUIT FACT:  How can you tell the difference between black raspberries and blackberries? A black raspberry when picked will have a hollow center, just like a red raspberry (see photo above). Blackberries hold on to their cores when picked. And, yes, I’m growing blackberries too. They’re just beginning to flower and will bear fruit in about a month, coinciding with the figs.

By Jeanie Lerche Davis.   Source: WebMD Feature.   Reviewed by Charlotte Grayson Mathis, MD.

An apple slice turns brown. Fish becomes rancid. A cut on your skin is raw and inflamed. All of these result from a natural process called oxidation. It happens to all cells in nature, including the ones in your body.

To help your body protect itself from the rigors of oxidation, Mother Nature provides thousands of different antioxidants in various amounts in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes. When your body needs to put up its best defense, especially true in today’s environment, antioxidants are crucial to your health.

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EVEN ALICE LIKED THE TEA
A Primer on Homemade Tea Blends written by Elizabeth Fiend

Recently BiG TeA PaRtY threw a Sustainable Living “Tea Party” at Playa Del Fuego (an East Coast Burning Man) - hundreds of people stopped by to read our posters and share their own ideas on sustainability. Our homegrown and home-blended wormwood iced tea was a hit. Many asked for the recipe and how-to for homemade herbal iced teas. Here’s the low down:

I grow my own herbs, if you have some earth I recommend this sustainable pastime. Gardening and growing some of your own food (and beverages!) is a rewarding endeavor. Otherwise, dried herbs are available for sale on the internet.

GROWING HERBS:

•    Herbs are easy to grow. Know your climate and soil — choose plants accordingly. Herbs will be perennial (long lasting), annual (just one season) and sometimes in-between like biannual and short lived perennials.

•    Make sure you really know what you’re growing because you’ll be ingesting these plants. Purchase plants and seeds from reliable dealers. Often, plants will be mislabeled at lesser garden centers.
•    In my experience it’s best to purchase perennials as plants; annuals are usually cheaper to grow from seed.

HARVESTING AND DRYING HERBS:
•    When possible, harvest herbs on a dry day in the morning to get the most impact from the plants natural flavoring – their oils.
•    Always leave at least one third of the plant intact when harvesting (except annuals, eat it all as frost approaches as it’s going to die soon anyway).
•    Since my herbs are home grown and I don’t use any chemicals in my yard, I don’t wash my herbs (as drying them is the goal) instead I dust off any dirt with my fingers and inspect for dead bugs, feathers etc. which I remove.
•    Tie the herbs in small bundles and hang them upside down in a dry and aerated location away from direct light until they’re dry.

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First Lady’s Organic Garden Concerns Chemical Firms

Source: TheHill.com      Written By Jim Snyder      Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

Michelle Obama planted an organic garden to promote fruits and vegetables as part of a healthy diet, but some chemical companies are worried it may plant a seed of doubt in consumers’ minds about conventionally grown crops.

“Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical,” the Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) wrote the first lady last month a few days after she and fifth-graders from a local elementary school planted the White House Kitchen Garden.

The garden is designed to produce fresh fruits and vegetables for the first family and White House staff and guests. The garden itself doesn’t give the group heartburn. The letter also congratulates the first lady “on recognizing the importance of agriculture to America!”

But MACA, which represents agribusinesses like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont Crop Protection, is rather less thrilled about the fact that no chemicals will be used to grow the crops. The group is worried that the decision may give consumers the wrong impression about conventionally grown food.

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Obamas ready to start a White House garden

First Lady Plants Vegetable Garden on White House Lawn

Source: Chicago Tribune       

Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

By Rebecca Cole

This year, the vegetables served at the White House will be as locally grown as possible — right on the South Lawn.

After a campaign by gardeners and sustainable food activists, the First Family has decided to dig up part of the White House grounds for a vegetable garden. In a ceremony Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama and local elementary school students will break ground for the project.

It’s part of the first lady’s promotion of healthy food for her daughters, Malia and Sasha, as well as for the nation. But like many parents, the Obamas have had mixed results: Michelle Obama recently said a version of “creamless” creamed spinach by White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford still was a bit too “green” for the kids.

More than 100,000 people asked the president to plant a garden on the White House lawn, according to Kitchen Gardeners International, a coalition of gardeners whose mission is to inspire and teach people to grow their own food. The group’s Eat the View campaign to plant “high-impact gardens in high-profile places” specifically urged the First Family to plant an edible garden within the first 100 days of the Obama administration.

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