Growing at the Speed of Life Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  PREFACE

  CHAPTER ONE - Why I Decided to Grow a Garden

  CHAPTER TWO - The Garden-to-Kitchen Connection

  CHAPTER THREE - My Need-to-Know List

  CHAPTER FOUR - Cooking Methods for Maximum Flavor and Nutrition

  CHAPTER FIVE - How to Grow, How to Cook

  Apple

  Artichoke - Cynara scolymus

  Arugula - Eruca vesicaria sativa (domestic)

  Asparagus - Asparagus officinalis

  Beans - Phaseolus spp.

  Beets and Beet Greens - Beta vulgaris esculenta

  Bok Choy - Brassica rapa var. chinesis

  Broccoli - Brassica oleracea var. italica

  Brussels Sprouts - Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera

  Cabbage - Brassica oleracea var. capitata

  Carrots - Daucus carota var.sativus

  Cauliflower - Brassica oleracea var. botrytis

  Celery - Apium graveolens var. dulce

  Chard - Beta vulgaris var. cicla

  Chickpeas - Cicer arietinum

  Chiles - Capsicumfrutescens

  Collards - Brassica oleracea var. acephala

  Corn - Zea mays var. rugosa

  Cucumber - Cucumis sativus

  Eggplant - Solanum melongena

  Fava Bean - Vicia faba

  Fennel - Foeniculum vulgare var. azoricum

  Garlic - Allium sativum

  Jerusalem Artichoke - Helianthus tuberosus

  Kale - Brassica oleracea var. acephala

  Kohlrabi - Brassica oleracea var. gongylodes

  Leek - Allium porrum

  Lemon - Citrus limon

  Lettuce - Lactuca sativa

  Mâche - Valerianella locusta

  Mustard Greens - Brassica juncea var. rugosa

  Napa Cabbage - Brassica rapa var. pekinensis

  New Zealand Spinach - Tetragonia tetragonioides

  Onion - Allium cepa

  Parsnip - Pastinaca sativa

  Peas - Pisum sativum

  Peppers - Capsicum annuum

  Potato - Solanum tuberosum

  Radish - Raphanus sativus

  Rhubarb - Rheum rhabarbarum

  Rutabaga - Brassica napus

  Spinach - Spinacea oleracea

  Squash (Summer) - Cucurbita pepo

  Squash (Winter) - Cucurbita maxima and C. moschata

  Strawberry - Fragaria vesca and F. virginiana

  Sweet Potato - Ipomoea batatas

  Tomato - Lycopersicon esculentum

  Turnip - Brassica rapa var. rapa

  The Herb Garden

  Basil - Ocimum basilicum

  Chive - Allium schoenoprasum and A. tuberosum (garlic chive)

  Cilantro - Coriandrum sativum

  Mint - Mentha suaveolens (apple mint); M. x gracilis (golden apple mint)

  Nasturtium and Edible Flowers - Tropaeolum majus

  Oregano - Origanum vulgare; O. × hirtum

  Parsley - Petroselinum crispum (curly leafed); Petroselinum crispum var. ...

  Rosemary - Rosmarinus officinalis

  Sage - Salvia officinalis

  Summer Savory - Satureja hortensis

  Tarragon - Artemisia dracunculus

  Thyme - Thymus vulgaris;T. citriodorius

  Basic Recipes

  Grains and Starches

  EPILOGUE

  APPENDIX - Damage Control

  REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

  INDEX

  A PERIGEE BOOK

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  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at

  the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for

  changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not

  assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  GROWING AT THE SPEED OF LIFE

  Copyright © 2011 by Kerr Corporation

  Illustrations by Sandy Silverthorne

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-47591-1

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  The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible

  for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not

  responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

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  Stand at the crossroads and look;

  ask for the ancient paths,

  ask where the good way is, and walk in it,

  and you will find rest for your souls.

  —JEREMIAH 6:16

  For Treena

  The one who shares my table and my bed, the absolute love of my life. She has chosen the path to wellness rather than going out on her genetic tide. It is to her that I dedicate my garden and this book with my ongoing love and care.

  And for Gracious Gardeners

  My present enthusiasm was made possible by my many newfound friends and neighbors, who shared their lifetimes of gardening experience with me.

  Please don’t let it stop there!

  I have much to learn (and welcome learning) from everyone who has proven experience. If my newfound ideas are different from yours, then I really want to hear from you.

  Remember contribution to the common good beats criticism every time. And the common good is the good we can do in common.

  To contribute, please go to www.grahamkerr.com/speedoflife.

  —GK

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 
I owe my understanding of greenhouses to Charley Yaw. Charley Yaw passed me on to Scott Titus, who heads up the Center for Holistic Advanced Organic Studies (CHAOS)—and yes, he really does have a good sense of humor—from whom I got a new perspective on topsoil.

  Both Charley and Scott have become dear friends, and together with Deb Mitchell—a delightful master gardener/lecturer connected to Washington State University—I have a rich source of local knowledge and continual advice.

  While in the midst of reading twenty-four excellent reference books, from which I wanted to extract useful snippets of information to offer in this book, I came across Stephen Albert’s Kitchen Garden Grower’s Guide and his website, Harvest to Table (www.harvesttotable.com). Steve had already done my homework, having researched each plant comprehensively with the practiced eye of a true expert. My sketch pages for each plant were greatly aided by all his hard work.

  Sandy Silverthorne went beyond his usual cartoon whimsy and outlined all my plants with his customary economy of strokes. I love his work!

  The nutritional numbers have been through multiple layers of analysis, with a final pass under the eagle eye of my very long-term friend and culinary associate Suzanne Butler—or “Butters,” as I often call her. It’s as close as she ever gets to being saturated!

  Every word, indeed every keystroke, was the work of our personal, private, and confidential secretary, Wendy, and without her, our little world would be snow white blank pages, without a digital stroke in sight.

  Then there’s my dear friend John Duff, with whom I have created six books. I strayed for a season of three more literary efforts, and now I’m happily back in the fold and benefiting from his understanding of good food, good gardening, good books, and, as a result, the truly good life.

  PREFACE

  Let’s try starting this book with a mild confession. Until this year I’d never met a plant that I couldn’t kill. I was my very own herbicide.

  I now understand the problem. I never gave them a reasonable amount of my undivided attention. I even used to suggest that there was no point in going back to smell the flowers inasmuch as I had blown the petals off as I flew past on my way to who knows where!

  Almost all of this has now changed. I’m still very active, but I don’t leave my plants unattended. Now they don’t die (at least not from lack of attention). Not only do they survive, but they actually thrive! And here I am with my 29th book, written at the speed of this new inclusive life.

  I’m finding a new rhythm, with fewer fits and starts, a more even—almost predictable—adventure that is nonetheless filled with unexpected natural challenges and great joy from sharing the eventual harvest. May our kitchen gardens help us understand what it means to keep growing personally at the speed of life.

  Graham Kerr

  Nonsuch Cottage and Garden

  Mount Vernon, WA

  CHAPTER ONE

  Why I Decided to Grow a Garden

  For almost 60 years I have been running the final stretch of the relay race to put healthful food on the table, which means I was the last one to carry the baton of fresh fruits and vegetables, preparing them for the plate, which is the finish line. It’s not an uncommon role for most cooks, professional or otherwise.

  Another member of the team started the race by selecting and germinating the seeds. Another followed by preparing good soil and transplanting the vegetable “starts.” A third and fourth nurtured those plants through their maturity and got them to market to be handed over to me—the cook.

  In my long career as a gourmet/nutrition teacher, I have cooked just about everything that grows, but I’ve never grown a thing I’ve cooked. So what got me thinking about the earth-to-table process?

  You have to be from another planet not to have heard that a diet made up of mostly fruits and vegetables is a first-line defense against so many of the avoidable chronic diseases of our time, such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers. I’ve been looking at this issue in our own family since 1975, when the National Institutes of Health first introduced the “5 A Day” concept—the idea of consuming five or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day. In fact, I worked with the institutes to promote this initiative. But curiously, and disappointingly, as one set of records shows, the $24 million campaign resulted in an increase of only half a serving (from 3 to 3.5) among American consumers between 1975 and 2008.

  The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001-2006 (compared to NHANES 1988-1994) revealed the following for consumers aged 40-74: The number of those who even attempt the “5 A Day” concept has dropped from 42 percent to 26 percent, and at the same time the obesity rate has risen from 28 percent to 36 percent. Also, the engagement in exercise (12 times per month was used as the benchmark) has fallen from 53 percent to 43 percent.

  Nothing about these numbers is good news for our nation’s future health. But please notice that the fruit and vegetable decline is way ahead of the rest by at least 6 percent.

  Now that might seem to be a pretty boring statistic, but the way it hit me was far from boring. Any greater release of energy, and I would have gone into orbit.

  For my small part in the “5 A Day” program—I had done nearly 500 newscasts on the subject—I saw consumption go from only 3 servings to 3.5 servings. I took this personally, even though I was far from the only one urging folks to consume more.

  Why was this happening? And what more could be done to achieve the needed 300 percent increase to between 9 and 11 servings a day that most experts (according to the OmniHeart Study) believe to be the amount needed to truly make a difference in diabetes, heart disease, and of course obesity?

  I decided to go back to the starting line and begin to run the whole race by doing something entirely new. During my earlier TV career as the Galloping Gourmet, I was awarded the Broken Wooden Spoon by Weight Watchers International. The company described me as public enemy number one to all those making healthy choices.

  Clearly, in the 1,000 new TV programs we’ve made since 1987, we have changed—and Weight Watchers did eventually send me an unbroken spoon! However, even those changes had not made the adjustments that our modern world now needs.

  I wondered if I could help others to reach these goals with a little sweat equity in my own backyard and enthusiastically pass my experiences on.

  The home that my wife, Treena, and I built and moved into in April 2001 is situated with views facing to the west and south over the fabulous Skagit Valley, one of the most productive agricultural delta valleys in the world, just halfway between Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia. The design of the house was inspired by our love of boats—it’s a mere 1,400-square-foot “cabin” that uses its limited space in much the same way as a maritime architect might have designed it. Called Nonsuch Cottage, after a small sailboat we once owned (and, purely coincidentally, after the infamously overembellished castle built by King Henry VIII in the south of England), our cottage sits on an acre of land that falls off rapidly to the west, giving us up to 16 hours of sunshine on our south side in midsummer. For the longest time, we lived with a south lawn that gradually became a sea of dandelions. (Had I only known that springtime organic dandelions can fetch $7 a pound at market I might have entered the earth-to-table race sooner!)

  I’ve always loved the word serendipity—it sounds like something a hairdresser might do to create one of those finger-in-a-light-socket hairstyles. In our case, it was First Lady Michelle Obama putting spade to turf on the White House lawn—yes, it was the south lawn!

  Surely it was serendipity that had me plunge my spade into our south lawn within days of the First Lady? And now there are two southern lawn kitchen gardens—and there I believe any comparisons should cease!

  Our plans called for three styles, or types, of gardens, all edible. Along one of our docks (there’s that nautical influence again), we would grow each separately in a container called an EarthBox.

  The second proje
ct, for which we’d join the food race in selecting and germinating seeds, came in the shape of a greenhouse. We watched in awe as a great local company with a worldwide reach (Charley’s Greenhouses) raised our 16×8-foot structure in just 7 hours! Here we would get a head start on the short Pacific Northwest growing season and, we hoped, grow vegetables all year round.

  Our final and most labor-intensive garden would be a tenth of an acre of raised beds for peas, beans, chard, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, carrots, parsnips, and a whole raft of lettuce busily keeping down the weeds among the red beets and summer and winter squash—all in all, more than 30 plants under the supervision and care of a man with absolutely no prior experience!

  While it wasn’t completely clear to me what impact the experience of creating this garden would have on my life, my neighbors, and even, to a small but vital degree, our community, I recognized early on that I would want to share the lessons learned. And so I started to document my year with the kitchen garden in a series of short videos, since television had always been my most compelling platform when it came to proselytizing about food and well-being—and now even more so since the Internet has provided us with a whole new community of viewers (many of whom have only the vague recollections of their parents recounting the tales of The Galloping Gourmet from the 1970s). Gradually it occurred to me that there would be a book in all this. And it became my intention that this book would not only be of value to the armchair gardener but also serve as an introduction to gardening for the person who had the wherewithal to pick up a spade and dig into his or her own version of the south lawn, be it a few square yards in a suburban backyard, a couple of pots on a balcony in the city, or an acre or so in the country.