On July 4^th, 2008, while their neighbors barbecued hot dogs and snacked on watermelon, Ashley and Chris Saleeba worked on a slightly more subversive Independence Day project: they dug out their front lawn and planted an edible garden.

In just one weekend, Ashley and Chris completely transformed their landscape. Gone was the weedy patch of grass, the lame shrubs, and the narrow, cracked sidewalk. In its place they planted an appealing edible garden that matched their modern aesthetic, fit their slow food values, and didn’t require spraying chemicals, spreading fertilizer pellets, or spending time behind a sputtering gas-powered mower.

What I love most about this garden is that even though it is full of edible plants, it doesn’t look like they have a farm in their front yard. The area to the left of the sidewalk features a keyhole design, with designated edible beds in the center. A mix of ornamental grasses, herbs, beneficial-insect attracting perennials like lavender and echinachea, strawberries and blueberries form a border around the vegetables. A gravel pathway divides the keyhole in half, neatly connecting the driveway with the sidewalk and the front porch. This smart addition makes it easy to cart groceries and baby gear (Ashley and Chris have an adorable baby, Lola) between the house and the car without trampling on plants or having to walk around the whole garden.

Ashley and Chris wanted their new garden to be more welcoming than their old landscape, so they remodeled the front porch and widened the sidewalk. On the north side of the yard Chris designed and built offset wooden panels lined with wire that peas, beans, squash, and tomatoes can scramble up in summer. These attractive trellises nicely delineate the yard’s boundary without seeming like a barrier. To help minimize water usage, Chris installed a drip irrigation system that runs off a timer.

When I visited this garden in December I was impressed with how nice it looked in the dead of winter. Alpine strawberries formed a pretty evergreen groundcover. Kale, bok choi and other greens filled the annual vegetable beds, crimson clover was germinating underneath the trellis panels, and neatly clipped lavender, ferns, and ornamental grasses added color and texture.

As you may have guessed, Chris and Ashley have some serious design chops. He has a Masters in Landscape Architecture and she is a graphic designer, and they just launched Fresh Digs: Edible Gardens with a Modern Attitude. They offer DIY kits for modern raised beds as well as the trellis panels, plus they create custom garden designs and sell cute garden accessories, including plant stakes. I can’t wait to see how their business unfolds, because if their own yard is any indication, they can help people reclaim their front yards and turn otherwise wasted space into a welcoming, productive extension of their homes.

On Sunday evening I was standing in the produce section of the supermarket staring at a bunch of organic Swiss chard. It cost $3.49 for six leaves. Really? You could plant a ten foot row of Swiss chard for less than that, I thought. So, I pushed my shopping cart over to the conventional side of the produce section. Regular Swiss chard also cost $3.49.

Normally buying a bunch of chard does not nudge my weekly grocery budget over the limit, but this isn’t a normal week. I am participating in the Hunger Action Challenge and spending nearly four dollars on six leaves of chard seemed extravagant when I only had 63.00 to spend for five days worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for Jon and I.

Food that we already have in our home is off limits for the challenge. This means we can’t touch the homegrown tomatoes and peppers in our freezer, the greens, herbs, and carrots in the garden, eggs from our chickens, and the homemade jam and chili sauce in the cupboard.

As people come together to think about hunger this week, we need to include access to garden space in the conversation. Vegetable gardening is so often seen as merely a hobby, but it is so much more than that. Vegetable gardening is a life skill—one that can provide an affordable source of ripe, fresh, seasonal, organic food for families of any income level.

History shows that gardening can be an important and feasible part of a secure, healthy, and sustainable food supply. During WWII the United States government recognized that homegrown food was an important way to ensure an adequate food supply, so they encouraged the planting of victory gardens at the local, state, and federal level.

In 1943 an estimated 20 million victory gardens were planted, producing 8 million tons of food, and an estimated 40% of all the fresh vegetables in the United States. The reason regular citizens were able to make such a dramatic contribution to the food supply was because the government recognized that urban agriculture was an essential component of the food system. And, more importantly, the government then created policies that provided extensive gardening education, that encouraged people to turn underutilized yards into food production gardens, and turned public lands into gardens for people who could not grow their own food at home.

The victory garden movement demonstrated that investing in gardening education and access can and should play a significant and profound role in improving food security.

Of course, gardens will not solve the hunger problem alone. We need to ensure that there are grocery stores in every neighborhood and that bus routes connect people to those stores. We need to bring farmer’s markets into underserved communities. We need to teach people how to cook in school. But we also need to ensure that every citizen has the opportunity to learn how to grow their own food and a space to do it.

$63.00

That’s the maximum food stamp benefit a 2-person family is allocated each week in Seattle. While food assistance is designed to supplement a family’s food budget, many people don’t have enough money to buy extra food and cover rent, childcare, transportation, and other basic living costs as well.

Next week United Way of King County is sponsoring a Hunger Action Week to bring attention to the issue of hunger here at home. Jon and I typically spend more than twice the food assistance budget on groceries alone, but next week we will limit our purchases to $63.00 and forgo eating at restaurants. Our goal is to not only stay within the budget, but also prepare meals that are healthy and delicious.

As we prepare for this challenge I can’t help but think back to my time in Cuba last summer. What impressed me most about Cubans was not their ability to live without—which they certainly do—but how they manage to make do with what they have. I’m going to keep that spirit in mind as I draw up our menu and shopping list.

If you’d like to take part in Hunger Action Week, please visit United Way’s website and take the challenge!

Several other Seattle food bloggers are also taking part in the challenge, including A Conscious Feast, Savory Sweet Life, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, Family.Friendly.Food.

I think I will label this jelly Honey Lemon Goodness.

Or maybe Honey Lemon Jelly of Joy.

Or perhaps Damn! I Made Some Good Jelly!

Last evening I tackled my first challenge in the Tigress Can Jam: citrus. I considered making marmalade, but I don’t really like marmalade all that much. But I do like honey. And lemon. Especially when stirred together in Earl Grey tea.  So I chose to make the Honey Lemon Jam from Mary Anne Dragan’s most excellent book Well Preserved: Small Batch Preserving for the New Cook, which my friend Mari gave me at Christmas.

To date my only foray into canning has been with fruit jams and chili sauce. Jelly made me nervous. What if my jelly didn’t gel? To get over my jelly phobia I read up on getting a “good gel” and it seems that all the experts, including Ms. Dragan, agree that cooking jelly until it reaches 220 degrees F on a candy thermometer is the foolproof way to test for gel.

I am happy to report this method works like a charm! My jelly tastes fantastic and it has a very satisfying wiggle when heaped on a spoon. This morning I spread it over a scone, but I think it would taste even better sandwiched between two shortbread cookies. Does anyone have a good shortbread recipe? Perhaps one that is flavored with Early Grey tea? If so, do tell!

Honey Lemon Jam

Adapted from Well Preserved (3rd Edition): Small Batch Preserving for the New Cook by Mary Anne Dragan

I really love lemon, so I upped the amount of zest called for in the original recipe and I also used a local blackberry honey because I prefer a stronger honey taste (Ms. Dragan recommends using a lighter colored honey).

You’ll Need:

3 or 4 eight-ounce canning jars, lids, and rings

2 cups honey

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1/2 cup water

1 3-ounce package liquid pectin

Instructions:

Stir the honey, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and water together in a heavy bottomed pan. Bring the honey mixture to a boil over medium heat. Stir in the pectin. Continue stirring until the mixture comes to a boil that cannot be stirred down. At this point, place a candy thermometer into the liquid (make sure it does not touch the bottom).

Continue to stir until the jelly reaches 220 degrees F. Then, remove the pan from the heat, give the jelly a good stir, and skim off any foam. Fill jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Wipe rims, seal, and process in boiling water for 5 minutes.

I highly recommend Well Preserved (3rd Edition): Small Batch Preserving for the New Cook. Mary Anne Dragan’s easy-to-follow directions demystify the canning process and she clearly explains the differences between jams, jellies, preserves, fruit conserves, and butters (as well as pickles, relishes, and chutneys). The book is available from Amazon for $24.95.

I love ground beetles. They are kind of like little living tanks that deploy during the night and lay waste to slug eggs, snails, potato beetles, and cutworms.

There are nearly 2500 different species of ground beetles in North America. Most ground beetles do good work, as evidenced by the common names of some beetle species; my favorites being caterpillar hunter (Calosoma scrutator) and eastern snail eater (Scaphinotus elevatus). If you follow these three simple rules, it is easy enough to encourage them to live in your garden:

Don’t use insecticides. Ever. Insecticides, even organic ones like pyrethrum and rotenone, can kill ground beetles and other beneficial insects, which upsets the predator/prey balance in your garden. Attracting a diverse range of beneficial insects is a much better pest control strategy!

Mulch. Ground beetles like to hideout underneath rocks, leaf litter, and woody debris—so adding a nice layer of wood chips or shredded leaves to ornamental garden beds and pathways provides plenty of habitat.

Plant ground covers. Low growing plants, including edibles like sage, savory, thyme, and strawberries also provide shelter for ground beetles.

The wonderful beetle letterpress note card pictured up top is printed on bamboo paper by Smock—a Syracuse, New York print shop. Today and tomorrow (January 20 and 21) Smock will be donating 100% of the proceeds from their Everyday line (which includes the beetle note cards) to the Doctor’s Without Borders Haiti Relief program. I hope you’ll join me in supporting this benefit by stocking up on gift, thank-you, and note cards.

I thought I’d follow up last week’s post on cute seed packets that you can buy with a pattern for ones you can make with scrapbook paper. Erin Vale—a graphic designer and DIY maven based in Indiana—dreamed up this fun project idea and (lucky us!) created a simple pattern that you can download and then print on the backside of scrapbook paper.

You can leave the packets plain or print off sticker labels and affix them wherever you like on the packet. For this project, Erin designed stickers that say, “Love is the seed of all hope.” A perfect sentiment for a wedding—or a Valentine’s Day gift!

Territorial Seed, Johnny’s Select Seed, and Seed Savers Exchange all sell seed by the ounce, which means you can order in bulk and fill up the seed packets to give as gifts or trade with friends. Some fun vegetable varieties to consider for Valentine’s Day include ‘Sweet Hearts’ tomato, ‘Sweet Valentine’ lettuce, ‘Hearts of Gold’ melon and ‘Tendersweet’ cabbage. In the flower category Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist), Polygonum (Kiss-Me-Over-The-Gardens-Gate) and ‘Falling in Love’ poppies would be fun, too! Of course, if you’re not a fan of Valentine’s Day, you might be interested in the heirloom bean ‘Black Valentine.’

Thanks so much to Erin for sharing her idea! To download the free pattern for the seed packets and the stickers, please visit her website, Vale Design. And be sure to check out her Etsy shop, Finch and Hawk Paper Goods. She has all sorts of adorable handmade products, including recipe cards, gift tags, and favor boxes.

Yesterday I got to meet the food writers Jane and Michael Stern!

Okay, so meet is probably a strong word. They were being interviewed on NPR the hour before my weekly garden radio show with Greg Rabourn and Marty Wingate. So when their interview ended I was in the hallway and I smiled at them. Alas, words failed me. All I could think to say was, “Oh my gosh, I loved your column in Gourmet and was crushed when the magazine closed.” Which is pretty lame. So I just stood there grinning and mute.

Oh well! Even though we didn’t actually get to chat, I did come home and listen to the podcast of their interview. And it confirmed what I already knew: the Sterns have the coolest job ever. They eat their way across the United States, searching out the best little diners and local restaurants and then writing about them. Although Gourmet is no more, you can still read about their latest finds on the website Roadfood, pick up one of their books (I’m partial to 500 Things to Eat Before It Is Too Late) and listen to them on Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s radio program The Splendid Table.

To listen to the Sterns interview on Seattle’s NPR station KUOW 94.9, just click here. If you’d like to listen into the gardening call-in show that I am lucky enough to be apart of, click here. You can stream past gardening shows or download the podcast. Yesterday we talked about succession planting!

I am a sucker for good package design in general. But when a cute package contains heirloom seeds, I cannot resist. These “art packs” are sold by the Hudson Valley Seed Library, a non-profit based in Accord, New York that offers (mostly) locally grown and regionally adapted seed varieties. Each seed packet in the series is designed by a New York-region artist to celebrate the beauty of heirloom seeds. The Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper packets are printed with vegetable based inks—and while they are recyclable, or even compostable, I think they belong in a picture frame more than the paper bin

The Hudson Valley Seed Library was started by Doug Muller and Ken Greene, two young farmers with a dream of creating an “accessible and affordable source of regionally-adapted seeds that is maintained by a community of caring gardeners.” They sell seeds grown on the seed library’s farm and by other local farmers and gardeners, but they also encourage people to save their own seed and share it. If you pay $20 to become a member of the seed library, you get discounts on seed packs and events and 10 packets of plainly packaged seed of your choice. Best of all, members who save seeds can return them to the seed library in exchange for a discount on the following season’s membership fee. If you’re a novice seed saver, no worries. The seed library offers classes, workshops, and information on seed saving.

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Last year was kind of a whirlwind. As I watched the Space Needle light up like a sparkler on New Year’s Eve, I couldn’t quite believe that it was 2010. But it is indeed a new year and I have spent quite a bit of time considering what I want to do in my garden and kitchen in the weeks and months ahead.

Here are a few things I have up my sleeve:

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