Seasonal Eating: Does it Matter?

I've always rather disliked folks who were legalistic about food. "Sorry, can't have flour, I'm gluten free right now." (I've been gluten free, for long periods of time, shouldn't I be more understanding?) "Sorry, can't have meat at the moment, I'm trying out vegetarianism." (I was a vegan for a year of my life, so should be more sympathetic, for sure.) "I'm off desserts, no sugar for me, do you know how bad sugar is for you?" (Yes, I do. And yes, you're probably right. Now go soak your head, you remarkable paragon of self-control.) 

And on and on. It makes cooking for people very difficult. And I have an enormously picky daughter, so I have had to figure out work-arounds for many years and several thousand meals. It makes going out to eat difficult too, as almost no one place can satisfy everyone's special food needs.

But I have a confession to make. I am one of those people.

It was made extremely clear to me the other night, out for dinner with friends. We were at a perfectly nice restaurant, and I was perfectly prepared to get off my high-food-horse for a night and enjoy myself. But one look at the menu, and I found myself climbing right back into the saddle. Wild Shrimp Scampi, with grape tomatoes? Dungeness crab cakes with a sliced cucumber salad? Pappardelle with cherry tomatoes, sweet basil, eggplant, and zucchini? Come on, now, I thought to myself. It's early April. Are we really eating 'Freshly prepared and artfully presented California cuisine" as the menu advertised? Ok, wild Pacific shrimp, that's good, that's fairly local, I'm ok with that. But grape tomatoes? Do you know when grape tomatoes ripen in my garden,a scant ten miles from this restaurant? They ripen at the end of June. We might be lucky to get a handful in mid-June. Dungeness crab cakes, sure, it's probably frozen crab meat, nothing wrong with that. But sliced cucumber salad? Those cucumbers are coming from Chile or Mexico for sure. And zucchini? I mean, who are we kidding, here?

I made the mistake of saying something out loud to our friends. These are folks that I adore, admire, and respect. But the answer I got was something along the lines of, "There's really no reason to beat yourself up about this. This food is readily available everywhere, anytime, and what does it matter if we eat it?" I was deep into my second gin and tonic (and I don't drink very often, so you can imagine I wasn't quite at my witty best), so I confusedly nodded and said a very weak, "yeah." Way to stand up for your beliefs, Elizabeth.

And yet, if I had been in my usual (ahem) clear state of mind, and been able to articulate my reasons for not eating this out-of-season (even in sunny California) food, wouldn't I just have made everyone at the table uncomfortable? Wouldn't I have become, yes, THAT person, the one with the lists of 'things I DO NOT EAT?" Wouldn't I have been putting my feelings off on to everyone else, and wouldn't they have felt guilty for eating whatever the hell they wanted to eat? Very likely, yes. And I don't want to be the bummer at the table. In fact, I'm a big proponent of zero shame when it comes to food. We've all been shamed enough in our lives, thank you very much, about what we do and do not eat; my companions do not need me to add to that. 

And yet.

What does it hurt if we don't eat seasonally?

In an article in the UK Guardian from 2014, the reporter wrote about the results from a 2000-person poll, conducted by the BBC. Out of those 2000 people, only 5% could say when a blackberry was ripe; 4% a plum. All this when 86% of the folks said they shop seasonally and think it's important. I think the results of a similar poll over here in the US would probably be even worse. 

But, how are we supposed to know when a strawberry is in season? I mean, really. They're available year-round in the grocery store. Even organic strawberries are in Whole Foods 365 days of the year. Cucumbers? Peppers? The same. And we all know those insipid pale tomatoes in the store in January can't possibly be good, but by golly, they're there if we must have them. Very few people grow their own food, or if they do, it might be limited to an apple or lemon tree, or a pot of herbs. How are our children supposed to know when it's time to eat blueberries? How do they learn these cycles if we don't teach them?

There are lots of reasons for eating seasonally, and knowledge of farms and of farm cycles is but one of them (though I would argue that it's more important now than ever, considering farming is a profession that most of us don't have any experience with, and might be the absolute most important one). Here are a few others.

1) Fruit and vegetables taste better, and are at the peak of their nutritional content, when picked and eaten ripe. It's no mistake that an August tomato, dripping with juice, satisfies on a level a January tomato cannot. It's full of itself, it is the very essence of what a tomato is supposed to be. The redder a tomato is, the more beta-carotene it contains. As a sweet pepper moves from green to red, it increases beta-carotene 11 times, and has 1.5 times the vitamin C. Most foods begin to lose nutrition immediately after harvesting. Spinach and green beans lose two-thirds of their vitamin C within a week after harvest, according to UC Davis. Think about that peach that has traveled from tropical climes to get to you: It's been picked before it was ripe, and even though it will soften on its week-long journey, it will not ripen further. Is that worth it? It's lost nutrition and never even had a chance at full flavor.

2) Fresh food is cheaper. When you pay for produce to be shipped from South America or Mexico, you are paying a premium for the cost of bringing it across the world to you. How much did that lamb from New Zealand really cost you? It's a fact that we can buy more, better, fresher produce if we just buy locally.

3) Eating fresh and local food reduces the energy needed to grow and transport it. Think of the environmental costs of eating beef from Argentina, instead of buying an animal that was raised in your county. Are you willing to have that footprint on your conscience, when the same item is so readily available here? For things that don't grow in your area, I could understand it - coffee, chocolate, bananas. But just because we want asparagus or an orange in July doesn't mean that we should be able to get it.

4) Things taste better when they are only available within a short window of time. Cherry season. Tomato season. Crab season. Oyster season. Corn season. Artichoke season. There's a reason we look forward to these times. Or, rather, there was once a reason. In my twenties, I dated a man who bought a pound of cherries every day during cherry season, and ate them constantly. His motto was, when they're here, eat them! and I remember thinking that was a very different way of eating. He's a doctor with the CDC, so I imagine his advice is good from a health standpoint. But even more, think of how good a fresh ripe cherry tastes, when we haven't had one for 10 or 11 months. A little delayed gratification is a good thing.

These are just a few reasons, and you may discover even more. I really don't want to be the bummer at your dinner table, and my goal isn't to make you feel bad about what you're eating. Rather, I'd just like us all to start thinking about it, rather than mindlessly consuming. How to know what's ripe in your area at what time? There's a neat website called Sustainable Food Table, which you can access here: just put in your state and the time of the year for which you're searching, and find what's ripe in your area. It's not infallible; it has no distinction between Northern and Southern CA, for instance, and there are things ripening in San Diego that are months away here. But it's a start. 

And, of course, the very best way to find out what's ripe locally is to visit your local farmers' markets. It'll be readily clear what's available to buy, and you may be surprised at the things you find. You might need to learn how to cook or prepare a new vegetable, like celeriac or rutabagas. (You know my philosophy on that, right? Lots of olive oil and salt, and a long slow roast, will improve almost any vegetable.) And that sounds like an adventure!

So enjoy, and have fun figuring out what grows in your area at what time. Who knows, you might be motivated to start a cold frame or two in the winter, just so you can have fresh arugula.

Weekly Walkthrough: Is it time to plant tomatoes out yet?

This week's walkthrough is a mish-mash of many different topics; please enjoy.

There's a lot of stuff blooming in the garden right now - would love to hear what's happening in your gardens, too!

Scarlet Flax, Linum grandiflorum rubrum

A Class Excursion to Alcatraz Island

My 'Weeds in the Urban Landscape' class meets every Wednesday morning, and each week, we travel to a new place in the Bay Area to study the weeds that grow there; some are coastal, some are inland, some have northern exposures, some southern, some are in sandy soil, some in clay, some in landfill. On Alcatraz, we had an opportunity to see weeds in pretty much every exposure, in pretty much every kind of soil. Alcatraz is just a bare rock rising out of the San Francisco Bay; when it was used as a military outpost during the Civil War, dirt was brought in to mobilize cannons, and to absorb the shock waves when they were fired. This dirt came from nearby Angel Island. Gardens were first planted by the military families who lived here, then by the inmates when Alcatraz was used as a prison, as well as by the families of the guards who also lived on the island. The prison was closed in 1963, and for years there was no official gardening program; however, in the last 15 years, a large volunteer corps has arisen to plant and tend the flowers on Alcatraz.

One of the 'official' gardens on Alcatraz, on the site of the old hospital. There are some historic roses planted here. as well as many native and exotic perennials and bulbs. Angel Island is in the background, on the right.

The weeds arrived here in the soil that was brought in, and by birds colonizing the island. There are many seagulls (California and Western) and cormorants (Brandt's and Pelagic) that nest here each year; I met an ornithologist whose job it is to study these birds, and we had a fascinating conversation about the mating and nesting habits of the gulls and cormorants, as well as the Black-Crowned Night Heron, Snowy Egrets, and Pigeon Guillemots that were all over the island. 

Seagulls nesting in an abandoned yard, and in the ruins of the guard's cottages; looking south to the San Francisco skyline, and part of the Bay Bridge

Snowy Egrets nesting in trees and bushes, with a view west to the Golden Gate in the distance. The egrets made the funniest noises; sort of a cross between an angry cat and a kid grumbling. At one point we were able to get within three feet of nesting colonies.

Not the best picture; I was on top of a cliff looking down at the edge of the island. These cormorants are making nests, can you see the brown piles? Cormorants find a new mate every year and nest in a new place; seagulls mate for life, spend most of their lives away from each other, and come together every year in the same place to build a nest and raise chicks.

There were a lot of distractions on the island, but we came to study weeds and make a revised weed list for the naturalists in charge, so that's what we did. We took the first boat out to the island, with the rangers and workers and volunteers, at the crack of dawn. This was lovely because we were able to have some time alone there before the hoards of tourists descended. The last time I visited Alcatraz, I was in my early twenties, and I was more interested in the prison and the stories there, rather than the external natural communities. On this visit, we did not go inside any buildings, as our time was focused outdoors.

Since I've been taking this weeds class, I've developed new eyes. I've always noticed things that other folks haven't, when I'm on hikes or out in the wild, but now I am even more aware of the little things. There's so much to see in the micro world. However there was one thing that was very obvious right away, in a macro way - the pro-Native-American graffiti all over the island. Either I hadn't seen it in my previous trips, or it has been done in the last twenty years.

We spent the lion's share of our time on the island making a current list of all the weed species, both native and exotic. We were able to find and categorize over 100! We wandered around the island for hours, talking about plants; we had a lot of tourists stop to listen and ask what we were studying. Then they'd move away, disappointed. Why study weeds? I can totally understand this opinion. But I have grown to have a new respect for weeds, and how and why they behave the ways they do. Scrappy. That's what they are. 

However I'd have to say that the planned and tended gardens really were more fun to look at, and we spent a lot of time talking about those as well. What was so terrific about all these gardens was the setting. All these old, crumbling facades, with brilliant flowers set against them. The juxtaposition of old and new was what really made this place beautiful. And then, of course, the location and the background of the bay and the surrounding hills and communities. Man-made vs. nature. 

a classmate looking north towards Angel Island

It was also very gratifying to see native bees all over the flowers. That means that they are nesting there. I only saw one honeybee - who knows from how far away that bee came? I didn't see any feral honeybee hives on the island, but I suppose there could be one in a tree or in an old building. I doubt the folks in charge would leave a feral bee nest in a place that gets millions of tourists visiting, though. Doesn't matter, the native bees do an excellent job here pollinating the flowers.

It was a fabulous trip. Not so fun on the boat ride back, with about a thousand other people; where we had been able to roam all over the ship on the way over, even in front of the captain's deck with our face to the wind and the Bay, now we were jammed check-by-jowl with a many-languaged humanity. I suppose that has its own rewards, but I was pooped and glad to get off that boat at Pier 33, only to then face traffic all the way home. One of the things about spending so much time in nature, outdoors, is how awful you feel when you're trapped in a vehicle, on a bridge, in crawling traffic. I kept thinking about a seagull I had seen on the island, perched in an agave blossom, high above the human activity milling about below.

My midterms are over, and I'm officially on spring break. Time to turn my thoughts to the home turf. It's still not time to plant the summer garden; temperatures remain in the 40's in our yard at night. However I can start to do more planning, and get the truckload of compost delivered and added to the beds. I'd like to get all my term papers done over the next week too, as well as hike in the nearby hills and see which native wildflowers are blooming. I've definitely felt that I haven't been very home-and-hearth focused, though, so I need to get some stuff done around the house and spend some time with my children, whether they want to or not. :) 

April Planting List

Here is your planting list for April, if you live in zone 9. The Master Gardeners recommend that you start your cucumber seeds indoors; I have never done this myself, rather seeding directly into the garden soil. However they always take a long while to germinate and get started, and I'm not ready to directly plant into the raised beds anyway, so I'm going to try to start them indoors this year. I've planted six pickling cucumber seeds and six slicers. I'll let you know how they come along.

Hope you're in the garden, enjoying a beautiful April day! Happy planting!

Checkerbloom (Sidalcea malvaeflora) with lavender blossoms

Combating Depression Naturally

The summer after Adam started treatment for leukemia, when he was two years old, and Kate barely one, I started having terrible dreams. Every single night, I'd wake up terrified after dreaming of the kids dying in horrible ways. One night we'd all be walking through an ice cave, having to make our way across a slick wooden bridge, and one of them would slip and fall into a crevasse. The next night we'd be boating on a lake, one of them would lean over to look at something, fall into the water, and get trapped and drown under the boat. This happened every night. My days were already filled with real-life terror; I didn't need my nights to be filled with it too, though I understood my brain was processing our new reality of hospitals and chemotherapy. Eventually I saw a doctor, and she sent me to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed me with depression. This started me on drug therapy which was part of my life for many years. It's easy to say, "Of course you were depressed! look at what was going on in your life!" but it was really more than that. Looking back, it was easy to see that I had been suffering with depression since I was in my late teens; it just hadn't come to light until the whole leukemia mess began.

Clematis in our garden

The medicine helped a lot, and I spent many years trying different therapies along with a few different medications. I figured I would be taking medicine every day for the rest of my life.

Then about five years ago, I was at a dinner with a group of moms that I had known for a while - our children had gone to preschool together. (We still get together every few months.) Somehow the topic of medication came up, and it turned out that every single one of us was on one anti-depressant or another. This struck me as strange. I started discreetly asking around, and it became clear that most of the women I knew were in treatment for depression or anxiety, which was astounding to me.

Dichelostemma capitatum (common name, Blue Dicks), in Briones

Now, before I go further into this subject, I want to make it clear that I think medication can be a very good thing. I have two kids whose lives have been either quite literally saved, or have become much better, with medication. Kate takes an anti-depressant for her anxiety and depression and it has improved her life immensely. I would never say that medication has no place in the treatment of mental disorders. I'm not a doctor, after all. However, for me, something about those informal statistics that I had collected made me very suspicious of the overuse of depression diagnoses and treatments. And I decided to do a little experiment.

a California poppy in our garden

I decided to go off my medication. 

I did this without telling my doctor, which was idiotic. The side effects of withdrawal were not pleasant; I was dizzy every day for nearly a year, despite having tapered down the medicine very gradually before stopping it altogether. However I was clever about three things that I decided to take action on at the same time: Eat a diet high in whole, nutrient-dense foods, without worrying about calorie counting (something I have done all my life, with varying success); exercise as often as possible, in the great outdoors rather than in a gym; and try to get a decent amount of sunshine every day. I had read that these three things are natural anti-depressants, and I figured that adding them might just work.

Cattle grazing in Briones amongst native and exotic grasses, and native buttercups

Again, let me stress that I am not a doctor and I am not suggesting that anyone else just go off medication. BUT: For me, it totally worked. I haven't taken any anti-depressants for five years. 

It's not always perfect. It can be tricky in winter; if it's very rainy, or very dark and cold, I do struggle a bit. Spring has become my new favorite season because I know the sun will be abundant and that automatically helps me feel good. And when I do count calories, as I am doing now, I have to be very careful to get as much nutrient-dense food in my diet as possible; if I eat too much junk, I start to feel very bad indeed. And if I slack off, and don't get outside in some way every day, I really notice my mood slipping. So I have to treat these three things just like I treated my medication, as a daily dose. I have to be somewhat religious about them.

About a third of our big, beautiful tomato starts

But as long as I keep up with those things, it really does work. I realized yesterday that I am in a very good place at the moment. I'm in school, studying subjects that interest me, rather than working in a job that is emotionally draining; I'm getting outdoors every day, either in the garden or in the open spaces, and getting plenty of physical exercise; my diet is very dialed in, and Tom and I have both shed quite a few pounds recently; and all of this combines to make me a much happier person. I'm busy, yes, and managing everything can be difficult, but I'm enjoying myself too. And that is such a good thing.

An artichoke has appeared in one of our plants, hooray!

I say all this just to encourage anyone who has a history of anxiety or depression, or struggles with health problems of any kind, that this might be a 'prescription' to help you, too. There are times in our lives when we must take medication in order to keep on going. I have friends that will always be on anti-depressants. That's ok, that's good, thank heavens for modern medicine. However, anything can be improved by the addition of nutritious food, daily walking, and some sunshine. It certainly can't hurt, and might really help. It's such a beautiful time to get outdoors here in California, too. The wildflowers are out in full force and the sun doesn't yet have the power to completely sap our energy, as it will in the 100 degree days of high summer. And have you seen the studies about the benefits of digging in the dirt, cultivating a garden? See here, and here, and here for more about that. And here for information on how having your hands in the soil helps your immune system. Google 'the health benefits of gardening' and see how much information you find.

Not to mention that the addition of a market garden right outside your back door can make it a lot easier to eat healthful foods. 

Beautiful California Oaks

So why not get up and go outside right this very minute? :)