Vegetable/fruit pulp in the Compost

A while ago I wrote about how I’m getting four, free, 5-gallon buckets of pressed fruit/vegetable pulp every week from Urban Remedy, a company that makes juices and salads. The pulp is quite wet, even though it’s been pressed for juice, and I have been asking for their ‘green’ pulp, which is a mixture of cucumbers, greens, and things like zucchini. I’ve been adding it to the compost pile in the chicken run for a few weeks now, and here are my findings.

First of all, the chickens don’t like the pulp that much - I mean, they pick at it, but they don’t go mad for it. However, they LOVE the exponential increase of bugs. They just stand there waiting while I turn it or knock the pile down, and then they go to town, as seen in the picture above. The new creature I’m seeing the most of is (I think) black soldier fly larvae. They are common compost and detritus eaters. The adults are excellent pollinators. The maggots are a high-protein, high-calcium livestock snack. Also, the larvae can really churn through compost, helping it to break down faster.

These are black soldier fly maggots

This cutie is called a ‘Friendly Cockroach’ - don’t worry, it’s not a pest like the big German or American ones are. This little guy is Mediterranean. The chickens find them delicious too. And when I turn the pile, there are so many tiny crawly things, the whole mass moves. It’s crazy. I’ve never seen so much life in my compost pile.

So all that is good! But, on the negative side, the pile is going to need more management from me in future. This big weekly dump of ‘green’ matter (i.e. rich in fertility) is doing a lot to ‘activate’ my pile, but efficient composting needs balance, i.e. carbon, to offset all that fertility. How do I know the pile needs more carbon? It smells like rot, the classic sign that it needs a good healthy dose of carbon to offset all that good green stuff. Unfortunately, I just don’t have a stockpile of carbon. I’ve been adding wood chips and sawdust from the chicken coop and run, along with coffee chaff, but that doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. I really need a bunch of straw or dried leaves. Soon, the leaves will begin to fall, and that will help - but meanwhile I need to rake out a bunch of magnolia leaves or something and mix them in the compost pile.

Also, the temperature of the pile is low, at 94-98 degrees. I really need it up in the 120-130 range. Carbon will help with that too, as well as more turning and mixing to allow the pile to aerate and receive more oxygen.

I do think the pile is shrinking faster than usual. I’ll let you know if I’m able to actually produce MORE compost with these additions, and how I’ve solved the carbon problem.

Dester Tomato

See the biggest tomatoes up there? Those gorgeous pink ones? Those are the variety Dester.

These are huge, pink beefsteak tomatoes. I’ve grown them in years past and never had much luck with them. But this year, wowsa! They are really stealing the show.

Here’s the blurb from Seed Savers: “Winner of SSE’s 2011 Tomato Tasting and runner-up in 2012. Donated to SSE by Missouri farmer Larry Pierce, who received his seeds from an Amish woman in Seymour, Missouri. She originally got her seeds from a doctor she worked for whose family had brought the seeds with them from Germany. Luscious pink beefsteaks weighing up to one pound. Indeterminate, 70-80 days from transplant.”

The reviews of this tomato are interesting. Folks have had good years and bad years with this one, although one woman said it’s her go-to tomato for best production every year. It seems to be disease resistant and hardy. Mine fruited once the temperatures got a little cooler and that wasn’t until early August, but it’s continued pumping out fruit even with higher temperatures since then.

Since it’s done so well this year, it’s earned a place in next year’s garden.

My posts have been shorter lately because we’ve had a Japanese exchange student staying with us. Our daughter is deeply into the Japanese language and culture, and when offered the opportunity to host a student, she jumped at it. It’s been a very interesting and fun experience. I was nervous because our home is so small (and with only one bathroom), but it’s all worked out fine. Nagisa is with us until Sunday, and then it’s back to Tokyo and her senior year of high school. We will miss her!

Adding to the time crunch is the fact that I started my semester this past Monday. I’m taking some classes that are very challenging for me (Statistics, Chemistry) and I’m quite anxious about my workload this term. However, I’m trying to approach them as I would any class, with an open mind and a willingness to learn something new. I’ve signed up for math tutoring just in case things start to kick my ass a little bit, so I’m feeling pretty secure…. for now anyway.

Stay tuned for a post regarding what I’ve noticed in the compost pile since I’ve been getting that fruit pulp every Friday. I’m waiting for some cooler weather to turn it over and really explore, but I’m suspecting that activity has increased!

Meanwhile, have any of you grown Dester tomatoes? If so, I’d love to know what kind of results you’ve been getting.

August cooking: Preserved Peppers and Pimento Cheese

With our recent heat, the peppers have started coming in. While the majority of the sweet peppers get eaten fresh, with excess going to the freezer (either just cut into strips, or roasted first), the rest need to be processed in some way (with the occasional hot pepper getting sliced into salads, etc).

I grew and made all my own paprika last year; the quality was so superior to anything I could buy in the store that I decided to do it every year. So today I am dehydrating paprika peppers for the plain variety. When I have a few more come in, I’ll smoke them, then dehydrate. I also dehydrate cayenne for my own ground spice, and make chili powder using all of the above as well as some other ingredients. I also make our own sriracha every year.

Tom is making pickled hot peppers today as well; these are then canned using the water-bath method and available through the next year for use in all kinds of things. Tom and Adam are particularly fond of any kind of pickle. I prefer the fermented kind and used a new recipe this year which I like a lot, substituting our own apple cider vinegar for the distilled kind. You can find that recipe HERE.

I also experimented making my own pimento cheese today. Last year I was reminded of this southern delicacy and decided to grow pimentos precisely for the purpose of making it. I spent a good deal of time researching different recipes; it seems that every town in the south has its own regional spin. I finally went with a recipe from Sean Brock, author of the southern cookbook Heritage. I liked it because it included pickles and brine, of which we always have quite a lot (see note above). I tweaked it a little, using homemade sriracha rather than generic hot sauce, pickled sour cucumbers rather than ramps or bread ‘n butter, eliminating both ground peppers and the sugar. I also processed it in the food processor after mixing it by hand and not liking the lumpy texture. And, well, I’d say it’s okay. I’ll eat it in sandwiches this week (I have to brown bag it M-Th) or as a dip for veg, but I want to make it differently next time. I want it thicker, not so runny (too much brine). It is also a little too salty (depends on your pickles, I guess). I definitely want the ratio of peppers to cheese to be higher - it should be mostly pepper, in my opinion.

This recipe included both sharp cheddar and cream cheese. I’m wondering if I used cultured cream cheese and no cheddar cheese, if I’d like it better. Maybe I’d just prefer a sort of roasted pepper cream cheese thing. But then, is that even pimento cheese?

So I’d like to ask you guys, how do you make it? I know we have some southerners on here (Linda, I’m looking at you!). I grew up in MD, ostensibly the south, and yet I never had this as a youth.

Here’s an interesting article about why pimento cheese is considered a southern dish, even though it turns out that it was born in New York City. I like the suggestion at the end to bake it with sausage (and maybe bread crumbs) as a sort of casserole. What do you think?

Lucid Gem Tomatoes

Like many of the Wild Boar Farms tomatoes, these start out green with purple shoulders, ripening to a beautiful orange color on the bottom and a dark red/purple color on the top. I’ve noticed that many of the tomatoes from this breeder ripen later than others, which I think has something to do with the dark shoulders. It takes a LONG time to get results on these plants, but when you do - whoa mama. They are really, really beautiful. Check out the inside of this one.

Looks like a stained glass window, doesn’t it?

I’m slicing these up for a Caprese salad tonight, and they sure look amazing on the plate. I mean, they taste great too; all of the tomatoes from this breeder have a nice sweet/tart balance, and they are all meaty. And that’s what’s really important, right? But the beauty of them really blows me away. It’s like an extra little gift.

I don’t know Brad Gates, this breeder, personally, but I have to imagine that he is just delighting himself at this point. Like, how much more gorgeous can tomatoes get? And his delight is rubbing off on me.

The only downside is that, since they are hybrid varieties, you can’t save seed. I mean, you could I guess, but there’s no telling what they’ll be like - they won’t necessarily come true. But I still think it’s worth it to buy one or two varieties each year, save the leftover seed carefully, and use the rest up the next two years. Just for the delight and beauty!

Letting Go

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about letting go. We’ve had a lot of milestones here in the past few months which are putting this issue front and center for me. Our daughter, 16 and a junior in high school this year, got her drivers’ license earlier this month. Our son, 17 and a senior in high school this year, got his first job, which is in a little French bakery near here. We’re all looking at colleges, SAT tests are being scheduled, school shirts labeled SENIOR have been distributed. This morning, after I took what will possibly be the last ‘first day of school’ photo of the kids together, they hopped in their car and took off. No more school dropoffs and pickups for me. It feels like one more way I’m letting go.

Maybe parenting is just one long series of letting go. The first time you leave them with a sitter. The first time you take them to preschool. The first time they go to sleep-away camp. The first time you leave them at home alone for an hour. Etc etc etc, all culminating in them leaving for college. I used to scoff at people who worried about this stage, and now I’m in the thick of it. Trust me when I say I am no longer scoffing. It is a true adjustment and the feelings about it start long before the actual event. I mean, I’ve got a year before I have to deal with any big-time letting go. And actually, maybe it’s a form of protection that we start feeling the angst of it early on - hopefully that means no tears on the actual day and the adjustment will already have happened. A friend and classmate of mine, who has a son going to Boston for college this year, said to me, “I hardly saw him senior year. And it helped prepare me for this day. Well, that and therapy.”

I don’t start classes until Monday, which means I have some overly-contemplative time to fill. I did some more letting go this morning by removing 16 tomato plants that were looking very sickly, and replanting that space with edamame and more cover crops. The tomatoes were basically done producing, and since they were diseased, I thought it best to take them out and put them in this week’s green bin for pickup. I still have 16 beefsteak tomato plants, and nine very productive cherry tomato plants. So we won’t be lacking harvest potential anytime soon. I’m also making the first batch of summer salsa, as I have enough Jalapeno and Anaheim chilies to make it worthwhile. I always use the recipe from an old Ball Blue Book, and we love it.

It’s hard to think about things changing. Our Augusts are usually on the cool side, with temps in the 80’s for most of the month, and then the heat comes roaring back in September. Bu so far this year, August has been quite hot. We can’t count on ‘the usual’ any more. We have to expect changes and become resilient as gardeners and farmers. I’m reading tons of hopeful stories about farmers changing the way they farm, or changing crops entirely, or thinking differently about the idea of a ‘farm’ (one story I read was of a midwest farmer who traded acres of grain for acres of solar panels). Patterns are not patterns so much anymore. We’re going to have to learn to live with the uncertainty and let go of the ways in which we ‘used’ to do things. Maybe your plant palette will have to change, or you’ll have to move things around to account for more/less heat, more/less rain. Maybe gardening, like parenting, is just a series of letting go.