When Good Plants Go Bad

There is a little, well sometimes little, plant that most homeowners love to hate. And it started out as a garden plant which escaped and naturalized. Every part of this plant is edible. It is used to make salad, wine, coffee and as a salve. Its root can even be dried, powered and used for medicine or chopped and eaten. The flowers can be fried and eaten, too. Here are some more clues. It first came to North America with European settlers, as an early spring green.

Its prolific seed capability, its fast maturation and its amazingly long tap root make it hard to get rid of. It can be virtually indestructible. If you get rid of it on your lawn, your neighbor's lawn or a lawn a couple miles away will happily re-seed your weed-free lawn.

I think you have an idea of what I'm talking about now, so I'll tell you. It is the dandelion. Yes. the dandelion. Originally brought as a salad plant. Thanks a lot folks - couldn't we have just stuck with lettuce? The dandelion is a very good cautionary tale of why exotics or plants from other places can be such a not good idea. The intentions were arguably good. North America really didn't have lettuce or edible greens. So Europeans brought them. And they're fairly healthy for us, so what's the beef?

photo by williac

The problem is that dandelions adapted too well to their "new" home. There are not the same
environmental factors here that control their growth over there in Europe. I can say, I
didn't see one dandelion over there. Even in the so called "wild" spaces. Really they were
more "untended" but that's a different story.

So back to how to get rid of them. That's what you came for, isn't it? Well, this is one
plant I've never actually tried to get rid of. Not the answer you expected, is it?
Dandelions have so completely naturalized, that to me they are like dock, mullein or
violets. They're expected in the landscape. I'll warrant though that I don't like them
actually in my garden, even though I don't mind them in my so-called lawn.

When you have dandelions in places you don't want, the trick is to dig them up completely.
You have to get the whole taproot. And you better do it BEFORE they go to seed. Otherwise,
just forget it. Of course, if you're having folks over to tour your garden, you'll want them
out anyway. There is a perfect tool for digging them up. I think it looks like a flattened
forked tongue, but you probably have your own ideas. It's called a dandelion weeder and you can get them just about anywhere. If you don't feel like spending money, a fork works pretty well, too.

If you can't dig them up, then you can slice off the top portion of the dandelion and as much of the taproot as possible up two inches. That'll at least give it a pause before it comes back.
Some people swear by regular severe lawn cutting, but this is not good for the grass and the
dandelion adapts by flowering sooner when the plant is below the cut level. Smart little
weed isn't it?

Of course, you want to take off the flower heads before they go to seed. A bonus there is that you can take them in, wash them off and pan fry them in butter with some diced onion, maybe a little salt and pepper. Yum. You may not care then that you have dandelions. I warn you, though, if you start eating them, they'll be harder to find in your yard.

For further reading on this subject check out these links:

http://www.gardenguides.com/plants/info/weeds/dandelion.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandelion

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/d/dandel08.html

Smile and Wave

photo by GlennFleishman

When the Open Air Market opened this April, the first Saturday was not great. In fact, I was the only one there and it was drizzling. It was also a bit airish. I set up and stayed, so that people would know I was planning to be there on a regular basis. I think I even sold something. That day began my unofficial smile and wave campaign here in Ashland City. I felt the compulsion to smile and wave at every car passing my small stand.

I remembered how in Cordele, GA, where I lived in my 'tweens, that everyone was always friendly whether they actually knew your name or not. "Hey, Howya doin'?" was the most common greeting. It was delivered with the air of utmost familiarity and friendship everywhere in that small town. I also remember how different that felt than how it felt where I was born, a big metropolitan area. I became friendlier and in the process relaxed. The relaxation led to an unintentional kindness. I certainly wasn't taught at earlier age to be nice to strangers.

This act became so reflexive that when I went to college in a different large metro area, I was astounded to be approached by the "spices of life" everywhere I went. It wasn't until I realized it was the friendliness I brought with me from Georgia that was attractive, that I stopped. I did not want to be the target of unwelcome attention, so I reacquainted myself with the rules of big city life - don't smile, don't make eye contact, stay in your bubble. The kindness that I habitually exhibited began to disappear. I became bitter, cynical, unfriendly. To my Southern self, I became rude. I was anonymous in the crowd. I considered it necessary survival tactics. What exasperated the situation was that I actually enjoy being friendly. It's easier for one thing and it's less stressful.

I moved to a neighborhood that was close-knit and began to meet my neighbors. Soon I could walk down the street and greet nearly everyone I passed. And we were kind to one another. We collected cans for the man who made his living from them. We looked out for each other's houses and vehicles. We fed each other's animals and we checked on the sick and elderly regularly. One day, I was at Mrs. R's taking coffee with her and Marie, when the subject of tenants came up. Nearly all of us were tenants, but the comment was made that the tenants who were not from the neighborhood did not take care of the property they were renting. I asked if the tenants were known. Had anyone ever visited them? No. They're not from this country. We wouldn't talk to them. Then very logically and naively, I asked (I had to - it's in my nature) Well, then how do you know the place was a mess? It was explained to me that people like that always lived in filth. It was clear to me that the unkindness and prejudice in this situation arose from the relative anonymity of the newcomers. Nobody got to know anyone else and certainly there was no greeting going on between relative strangers.

This story brings me up to Ashland City, another smallish tight knit community. One thing I like about Ashland City is that it is a small town and I could get to know everyone if I wanted to. But something puzzled me about this place in Tennessee. I rather expected it would be somewhat like Georgia where everyone would say Hello to each other and give a friendly nod. Nope. Not really. I used to joke that this was a little bit of New England plopped into the South. Keep to yourself. Really. Please.

This allows all kinds of gossip. I have witnessed first hand, how word spreads around town about this, that and the other. How people bear 20 and 30 year old grudges over high school gossip. What we need is a little more kindness and a little more community. One of the roles of local farmer is to bolster community. It may be unintentional but nonetheless, people meet each other at the market and they begin to talk. More folks will stop in and check out your vegetables if you smile and say, Hello. More than that, I learn what food the community needs and what difficulties some people might be having. All the various kindnesses that were paid to me over the years, can be paid forward to others.

Paying kindness forward is not a new concept to me and it doesn't appear to be exclusive to my upbringing, although that is certainly where I learned it. Check out this Zen Habits post on paying kindness forward. This idea drives the food giveaways and various neighborhood assistances that go between us in a small town. It is the old way of farming. We all help each other, without a ledger to keep track, because we are paying forward. We are not lending a hand, we are giving a hand. And there is a difference. A loan becomes a debt which must be returned to the lender. A gift becomes the property of the recipient who can re-gift it to someone else. And it all starts with a smile and wave. A friendly hello. If we don't know each other, it is hard to be kind. We don't know. We have no information. In the absence of information, the mind fills in the blanks. And the gossip spreads without basis.

The first step is to smile and wave. Ask how the person is doing, and listen to their answer. Take the kindnesses given to you and pay them forward. Mule Shoe Farm will be at the Open Air Market this Saturday (unless there are sick children) and I will be smiling and waving at the passing cars, just like always. Stop in and say Hi. We'll talk and build up our community through mutual kindnesses.

The Best Museum Food I Ever Had

photo by bcmom

The year the American Indian Museum opened on the Mall in Washington, D.C., I missed the inaugural pow wow because I was teaching. Then I took students to Washington in December for a leadership conference. Again I missed the museum trip because of scheduling issues and because I was the only one really interested in going. A few weeks later, we traveled to the DC area to visit my parents. Then I finally got to go to the museum.

As we wandered through four floors of culturally appropriate architecture, artworks that we had only seen in books and small traveling cart displays that allowed you to hold replicas of our ancestors' material culture, the hunger struck. It was cold outside and we had been travelling, so I was terribly hungry. Typically I pass on museum food, because it is overpriced and not necessarily that good. But my mother was buying. She had heard that they had some interesting dishes there. The theme in this restaurant is foods native to the American continents. The menu featured things as diverse as buffalo and elk burgers to tortillas to local freshwater fish. Then I saw it - turkey with cranberries and squash, I think. I believe there was also corn involved but I don't exactly remember. The cranberries stand out.

I have long been a fan of cranberries. I'm not big on sweet drinks and I find the tartness of the cranberry quite refreshing. When I worked at a bar, I used to mix my own non-alcoholic beverage featuring a glass filled with ice, cranberry juice and a splash of lemix. Better than water on a busy night, though much more expensive.

Related Reading

I checked out Wikipedia for nutritional information and here is a summary of what I found out. Cranberries contain plenty of potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, lutein and zeaxanthum. The most common native food storage method before refrigeration, was drying. Cranberries can be stored easily in the winter because of the cold temperatures and they can be dried in the sun. Once cranberries are dried, they could be mixed with dry meat and suet or bear fat and nuts to create pemmican - high energy road food. Talk about nutrition. Something like that would ward off rickets in the winter and many other vitamin deficiencies that were common prior to the 20th century.

Potassium helps maintain fluid and electrolyte balances in the body. Diets high in potassium can ward off hypertension. Vitamin C can ward off colds and help maintain energy and overall good health. A lack of vitamin A can lead to a variety of defects in vision, including night blindness and corneal drying. Lutein and zeaxanthum are important for warding off diseases like macular degeneration. Lack of these two nutrients also leads to pale dry skin.

Oh yeah, back to the museum restaurant. Let me say that the turkey dinner was fabulous. The best I've ever had. I talked about how good it was for at least a year. If you ever get to Washington, D.C. visit the Museum of the American Indian and try out the delicious food in their restaurant.