Chinquapin Organic Gardens Spring 2010 Newsletter

• 2010 gardening season is now under way
• Welcome to the 2010 gardening season
• Cabbage: A Journey
• Tillers for hire
• You've got mail! A new way to talk to your fellow gardeners
• Spring Wildflower Symposium
• Write for this newsletter

2010 gardening season is now under way!

Chair's message: Welcome to the 2010 Chinquapin gardening season

Welcome to our new Chinquapin organic gardeners and hello again to our returning gardeners. We are back!

According to John Walsh, the city’s coordinator, we have approximately 150 garden plots. This year, 124 gardeners from last year have renewed and almost all remaining plots have been filled. That’s the good news. Now, whether you think of it as bad new or good news, there are over 150 potential gardeners on the waiting list. The point is, there is a lot of competition for the community garden plots in the city.

We know that City Council members who have participated in our annual picnics recognize the need for community gardening space. Some have traveled to Europe and have seen the community gardening culture there and are professing to open up more plots in the city. There are new plots being prepared at an Alexandria Housing and Redevelopment Authority project and there is talk of new plots at George Washington Middle School. Holmes Run and the Old Town garden plots adjacent to Jones Point Park are filled, with the latter being self run. There is talk about adding additional plots in areas surrounding the existing plots at Chinquapin, as was done just several years ago.

The bottom line is, for those who have managed to rent a plot, I am sure you realize that you have something precious and will do your best to maintain it in accordance with the Regulations, while being a good neighbor to your surrounding gardeners, as well as the park’s neighbors. In that light, the Chinquapin Organic Gardens Advisory Board, in association with John Walsh, will be monitoring all the plots to ascertain that they are used productively and maintained properly.

The Regulations, which you agreed to respect, allow for the plots to be taken back and rented to those on the waiting list. Remember that weeds will spread their seeds to your neighbor’s plot, causing them problems if you neglect that duty. Don’t forget the paths are joint responsibilities with your neighbors. Take turns and work out a maintenance schedule. Due to difficult city budgets, we cannot expect that the city will have the resources for continual path clearing. Don’t forget that if your plot size is more than you can handle, we welcome doubling up with some of those on the waiting list. Contact John Walsh to let him know of your interest. A partnering will be a good thing. Gardening is not an easy task, and it is time-consuming. Yet the fresh air and working with the land is often as rewarding as the fruits of our labors.

The year 2010 promises to be a challenging gardening year. It is April and we are not starting out with the most favorable weather. However, before we know it, it will be hot and blazing. What do we do? How do we prepare for extreme conditions? How can we till mud? Turn to your experienced gardeners and the Chinquapin mentors, who are listed on our Web site. I know that some of our hearty gardeners are out there working away.

Please review this Web site and volunteer to write articles for the Web site and newsletter. If you can help out, please step forward. This gardening experience is more than planting and harvesting. It is also a social experience. The gardening experience is feeling more and more like a family. It is a great way to meet neighbor gardeners. When you check the Web site, make sure you look at the photographs of last year’s 10th annual picnic. Let’s hope that our 11th will have even more participation. Just look at the good food. (Yum!) We would like to receive more recipes for the Web site as well.

I trust that we will have community work days again, where we invite all of our gardeners to pitch in and help. In the past, these have resulted in placing wood chips on the paths in order to control weeds and present tidy looking gardens to those using our parks.

I also trust that you will be willing to attend our Chinquapin Organic Gardens Advisory Board meetings to give input, and even hopefully become a part of the board. We meet for an hour once a month, generally on the third Tuesday, at T.C. Williams High School.

Project Discovery, a program that engages high school students in gardening at Chinquapin, continues to do well and expand. If you can lend a hand, please stop by their plots at the top of the gardens and offer to help.

On behalf of the Advisory Board, thank you! And looking forward to seeing you in the gardens!

— Marlin G. Lord, chair, and Kathryn A. Brown, vice chair, 703-836-2724

Cabbage: A Journey

By Jordan Wright

Consider the humble cabbage. After a soul-stirring dish of sarmale lovingly prepared by my Romanian acquaintance, Madame Pourchot, I thought long and hard on its cross-cultural worth. Sarmale are simple fare, cabbage rolls, stuffed with ground pork, beef or veal and rice then slow-cooked with tomatoes and herbs. A vegetarian version replaces the meat with carrots, mushrooms and Parmesan and loses nothing in tender sublimity. The pilgrimage-worthy menu began with Hungarian mushroom and potato soup cradling a dollop of sour cream, then latkes, crisp potato pancakes with applesauce on the side, then both the meat and vegetarian versions of sarmale and plenty of hearty oat bread and sweet butter. The meal was crowned with a fluffy rum-infused ginger marmalade bread pudding with sultanas.

Madame Pourchot served this simple yet elegant dinner…to over 30 guests whose eyes grew wide with amazement, with several pleading in earnest to be adopted by her, before the last fork was set down. Oh, yes, I was one of the potential adoptees!

There is a place for cabbage in nearly every culture. Syria calls cabbage rolls mihshi malfuf and uses lamb, seasoned with allspice, mint and pomegranate molasses. Ukranians call it holubtsi and top it with a cheesy béchamel sauce. In the late 14th century, the legendary chef Taillevent convinced King Charles V to eat his first cabbage – a matter of historical significance and recordation. One of France’s most traditional dishes showcases the earthy flavors of choucroute, the hearty Alsatian dish made with pork, duck, sausages and sauerkraut. Scented with bay leaves, caraway seeds and juniper berries and served with grainy pommery or tarragon mustard it is a peasant’s dish fit for a king.

Contemporary cooks can claim a working knowledge of Asian cabbages like bok choy and Napa. But sauerkraut can be traced back to Chinese “sour cabbage," cabbage soaked in rice wine in order to preserve it for the winter. Think Korean kimchi, with its infinite pickled varieties. Health magazine named it as one of its top five “world’s healthiest foods”.

From Lorenza de’ Medici’s cookbook, “The Renaissance of Italian Cooking” I found cabbage rolls from the Lombardy region called involtini di verza, from Marcella Hazan, salsicce col cavolo nero, sausages with black cabbage, though she translates that to red cabbage for the American cook. In the Tuscan region of Italy cavolo nero, the rare black cabbage or kale, is much preferred. It is a prehistoric wild plant. When the central stalk is harvested mini-black cabbages are produced on it resembling a corsage.

“Please to the Table – A Russian Cookbook,” by Anya Von Bremzen and John Welchman, describes Moldavian verza cu brinza, green cabbage baked with feta, and kislosladkaya krasnaya kapusta, a dish of sweet and sour red cabbage stewed in cherry vinegar with onions, cloves, apples and nutmeg…the perfect accompaniment to roast goose or pork.

To some the bouquet of cabbage cooking is anything but beckoning. Corned beef and cabbage comes to mind. But to others it harkens the origins of gastronomic civilization when meats were flung onto the fire and vegetables added in communal ritual to fill out the stewpot. Now ethno-botanical research has shed light on Bronze Age lake dwellers around Lake Zurich who ate cabbage.

Cabbage was thought to have originated in the Mediterranean regions where Egyptians raised altars to it, and Greeks and Romans believed it cured every disease from paralysis to pleurisy, including hangovers, a suggestion not to be ignored! In fact there are more myths and mysteries surrounding cabbages dating as far back as the third century B.C. Babies are said to have been found under the spreading leaves and we all know the fairy tale depictions of the stork in mailman’s cap, beak clamped down on a cloth sling wrapped around a newborn, and flying over the proverbial cabbage patch. Do Cabbage Patch Kids ring a bell?

Thomas Jefferson raised 22 varieties of cabbage in his magnificent gardens at Monticello. But his pride and joy was the Savoy cabbage. I’ll raise a toast to that! A more noble vegetable can hardly be found and I recommend it to the cook, as that is the preferred variety in Europe.

So enjoy your brassica oleracea capitata any way you prefer. One of my recipes, and the meat version of Madame Pourchot’s, follows.

CABBAGE AND GREEN APPLE SLAW

Chef Jordan Wright

1 ½ pounds of Savoy or green cabbage trimmed and shredded by knife into ¼ inch strips
2 Granny Smith apples, cored and thinly sliced or chopped
1 or more tablespoons of caraway seeds
1 cup of golden raisins or dried cranberries
¼ cup of chopped Italian flat leaf parsley
Sea salt and fresh cracked white pepper to taste

Make a vinaigrette of apple cider vinegar, honey and light olive oil or canola and a bit of lemon juice. Pour over slaw and refrigerate for an hour. Toss with parsley and serve cold with pork, duck, sausages or turkey.

MADAME POURCHOT’S SARMALE

1 large jar of pickled cabbage leaves * or one large head of cabbage plus one package of sauerkraut (half to place on the bottom of the pot and half over the top of the rolls)
1 pound each of ground pork, beef and veal from the farmers market
1 large onion, chopped
4 or more garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons each of thyme, oregano and parsley (less if using dried)
1 cup of rice, rinsed
2 tablespoons of Celtic salt
2 tablespoons of fresh cracked black pepper
1 large 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes or, in summer, three cups of fresh chopped tomatoes, peel and all

* Pickled cabbage leaves are sold at the Cosmopolitan Grill on Route 1 south of Old Town Alexandria or the Russian Gourmet in Reston, Rockville, McLean and Alexandria.

Mix these ingredients together for the first stage.

Stuff into pickled cabbage leaves (or you can make your own). Take about a tablespoon of the mixture and place it into the cabbage leaf. Wrap the leaf around the filling, turning in the sides as you roll up, and place tightly together into a deep pot that has been prepared with oil and a layer of shredded cabbage and chopped bacon or ham. Line them up around the pot in layers. When you are done cover with additional shredded cabbage or sauerkraut (the sourer the better) and ½ cup of oil and bacon or ham and peppercorns, oregano and thyme. Cover and boil for two hours over low to medium heat.

Taste one and, if the rice is done, add the tomatoes and simmer over low heat, or in the oven without a lid, until the top caramelizes. Serve with sour cream or plain, thick yogurt.

Sarmale are the traditional dish for all holidays, especially Christmas. According to Madame Pourchot, the smaller the sarma the more skilled you are as a cook! “Poftat buna!” she says, Romanian for bon appetit!

For questions, comments or additional recipes contact Jordan@WhiskandQuill.com or visit www.WhiskandQuill.com.

Reprinted with permission from The Georgetowner/Downtowner, December 2009

Tillers for hire, 2010 gardening season

Looking for help with the weeds in your plot? For a fee, a tilling service will come to your plot and help you out.*

John Schilling, who is at 703-901-1969, told us he is offering his services this year. Also, two people have left notes on the bulletin board in the gardens offering their services: Bob T., 703-819-4044, and Willie, 571-245-9410.

(Both Dave and Carl, who you may have used for tilling in the past, declined to be listed in the newsletter this year.)

*Does not imply endorsement by the City of Alexandria nor the Chinquapin Organic Gardens Advisory Board. Individual gardeners contract with tillers at their own risk.

You’ve got mail! A new way to talk to your fellow gardeners

Have you ever wanted to leave a message for your neighbor telling her or him how beautiful those irises are? Or perhaps you just remembered where you got that special tool she or he was asking about? There is an easy way to relay those messages.

Just attach a small container that can be resealed to any garden stake. Plastic almond jars or diet drink powders work well. Write with an indelible pen (like a sharpie) on the container “open for message” and “return to plot XX”.

Let’s see who can create the most decorative mailbox. The picture with this article shows one you can borrow from my plot until you get your own made.

Happy gardening!

— Cindy Engelhart, AB3

Spring Wildflower Symposium: The art and science of nature

Article courtesy Wintergreen Nature Foundation via Bill Hohe

There is no place like the Blue Ridge Mountains in springtime. From the calls and colorful flights of migrating wood warblers that are easily seen in the infant foliage to the stunning carpets of lilies, orchids and hundreds of other wildflower species, a walk in the woods is guaranteed to soothe one’s soul.

The Wintergreen Nature Foundation at Wintergreen Resort has its headquarters nestled high in the shadow of Devil’s Knob mountain with over 30 miles of hiking trail that passes through the region’s most ancient and beautiful ecosystems. Nature Foundation staff and volunteers joined by nationally renowned scientists and artists shall gather on May 14-16 to welcome beginners and challenge veteran students of the natural world.

Regional artists will be on hand to share their work and offer workshops with nature and wildflower themes. Speakers shall include experts from the Commonwealth who work with Virginia’s rare plants along with researchers who are studying  surprising new concepts that show fern species  may be the forests oldest plants.  Both short and extended hikes are certain  to visit natural wildflower gardens that showcase the best of springtime bloom.

Other short venues such as Geology of Virginia’s Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Valley shall be presented from scenic overlooks and waterfalls. Participants shall also be offered options of an early arrival all day hike with experts and a BYOB (bring your own mountain bike) excursion during the last day. For those who are hiking handicapped, some workshop programs shall be held in easily accessible areas and numerous art and science classroom programs will be offered on both Saturday and Sunday.

For gardeners, the event offers workshops on harvesting and breaking dormancy of wildflower seeds and how to grow ferns from spores. The Nature Foundation does its own research on plant propagation and native plants grown from local seed collection and carefully taken cuttings will be offered for sale. For more information, call the Wintergreen Nature Foundation at 434-325-8169 to ask for a brochure.

Volunteer to write an article for this newsletter!

This newsletter is produced and written by volunteers who garden at Chinquapin Organic Gardens. New writers are welcome! If you’d like to contribute an article to the newsletter, e-mail Michele Late, newsletter editor, or call 703-575-9412.