Recently, CobraHead teamed up with Singing Rooster Coffee and Just Coffee to support rural development in Haiti. Singing Rooster has already been working with small farmers in rural Haiti. They bring Haitian grown coffee to the U.S. and work to get Haitian coffee (which is very good) established here. With the devastation in Port au Prince, many Haitians are returning to small towns and will likely be getting back to growing food. Through Singing Rooster, we are sending a lot of CobraHeads to Haiti to help with the gardening programs to be established there.

Of course, in the short term lots of emergency help is still needed. Partners in Health has a proven track record in this regard. Last week, we helped host a fundraiser in Austin for Better Future International-Haiti. DJ Chorizo Funk kept the spirits high.

CobraHead supports helping people grow their own food. It's part of our mission, and we are pretty sure that small-scale growing is actually the future of agriculture. We are happy that we can help in Haiti, and we are always looking for venues where we can share our gardening tools and expertise with others.

Yesterday I decided that it was time to empty the bottom tray of my worm bin and mix up some potting soil.

When I managed the greenhouse at the Tsyuhehkwa Center on the Oneida reservation I would make a potting mix that consisted primarily of one part worm castings to two parts sphagnum moss. I am now trying to avoid sphagnum and use coconut coir in this mix.

Here is the recipe that I used for this batch:

1/3 five gallon pail worm castings
2/3 five gallon pail coconut coir
1 quart expanded shale
Handful Azomite (a "rock dust" mineral powder)
2 TBS micorrhizal inoculants

First, I removed the castings from the bottom tray of my "Worm Factory." I only needed to fish out a couple of stray worms as most had already migrated upwards to the next bin. The castings were a little on the wet side. I should probably be adding more dry fibrous materials to the steady diet of coffee ground and tea leaves that I feed my worms.

Next, I broke off some of the coir from a large compressed block. The coir expands to about three times its volume when broken up and mixed with a little water. This particular coir had mostly long fibers. Coir that has been ground to a finer consistency is also available.

Coir Block

Moistened Coir

To this mix I added a quart of expanded shale. I used this because I happened to have it on hand. I could have also used coarse sand, bird's eye gravel, or decomposed granite. I also added some rock dust for trace minerals.

Expanded Shale

After reading Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis I decided to experiment with a micorrhizal inoculant. Some of these organisms may have already been present in the worm castings, but the particular inoculants that I used claimed to have twenty-five distinct species.

After a thorough mixing, I felt that the batch had too much coir (I don't think that it was done expanding when I added it). Luckily I had a small bag of purchased worm castings in the house that I added to fix the consistency.

I often add kelp meal to my potting soil as well as a small amount of granulated organic fertilizer. In my current system I water my vegetable transplants with liquid seaweed and occasionally fish emulsion, so I didn't feel the need for the added fertility. I would have also added some composted rice hulls if they would have been available to me.

When I worked with Bruce Blevins at Nokomis gardens, we would make different kinds of compost piles for different soil mixes. I don't have that luxury right now, but I have found the worm casting mix to give me good results.

Finished Mix

Souper Sunday has passed but it's still soup weather here. Actually soup weather lasts a long, long time in Wisconsin! Following is a recipe that I think came from 'Sundays at Moosewood' cookbook. I don't have a copy of the book so I can't be sure and as a well-worn family favorite the soup formula is mostly in my head.

Tomato, Lime, and Tortilla Soup (Sopa de Lima)

1-2 cups chopped onions 4 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed 3 T. vegetable oil 1-2 minced chiles (1 inch long) (or to taste) 2 teaspoons ground cumin seeds ½ tsp. dried oregano 3 ½ cups chopped fresh tomatoes* 3 cups vegetable stock 1/3 cup fresh lime juice** or to taste Salt to taste

Grated Monterrey Jack or Pepper Jack cheese Tortilla chips, crumbled Chopped fresh cilantro Chopped avocados

In a medium soup pot, sauté the onions and garlic in the oil until the onions are translucent. Add the chiles (I keep a bag of frozen Serrano peppers in the freezer), cumin, and oregano, and sauté for a few more minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and sprinkle with a little salt. Cover the pot and cook gently until the tomatoes begin to release their juices. Stir occasionally. This will take longer with winter tomatoes than with summer ones. Add the stock and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes. Add the lime juice and salt to taste.

Serve topped with grated cheese, avocados and crumbled tortilla chips. Garnish with finely chopped cilantro, if desired.

Notes: *Freezer tomatoes are fine. The only time I use fresh tomatoes is in the summer. I've even used leftover marinara sauce. **Go easy or by taste on the lime juice, depending upon the acidity of the tomatoes you may not need quite that much lime. You can also serve lime wedges and let everyone squeeze their own.

Garden Preserving Note: If I have time during the tomato harvest I will cook up the soup broth and freeze in one quart containers. Then it's winter fast food time – just thaw, heat and decorate!

It helps to have a plan. For business, for life in general, and certainly for growing plants to eat, planning gives you some control of the future. January is planning month for lots of northern gardeners. My planning includes going though several favorite seed catalogs and ordering seeds to replenish any in short supply in my seed inventory.

I also start looking at what is going to be planted where. In January, I print out two new charts for my south and north garden beds and start to pencil in the plan of crops and their locations. The charts go back to 1986, but it's really the last seven years I care about. I use previous years' charts to help maintain a rotation that I took from Eliot Coleman's book, The New Organic Grower.

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Not a heck of a lot blooming in Wisconsin in January, but this lipstick vine in our sun room has been putting out a fair bit of color lately. This isn't the only blooming plant in the house right now, but it was the only one worth photographing.

Now head on over to May Dreams Gardens, the home of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. There you can find bloom day submissions from all over the country and many places outside the country, too!

About a year ago I set up a worm composting system using the Worm Factory. I was pretty excited about it at the time, and I decided to name it Phil (each individual worm is also named Phil). Because I've read that vermicomposting can take a while to really get going, I was careful not to overfeed Phil during the first few months. I don't think I even added a second tray until two or three months had passed.

When July rolled around, the creator of the Worm Factory offered to let me try their new model, and I happily agreed to trial it.

The new Worm Factory is designed to allow better air to flow through the system. The bottom tray now sits on a booster that creates an air gap all the way around the bottom of the tray, and the lid now sits above the top tray rather than inside of it. I was told I could simply take the old trays and stack them in the new system, but I wanted the tray colors to match.

Transferring Phil into his new digs was also a good opportunity to check on the composting process. Aside from a few paper scraps and minor food chunks like eggshells, the bottom tray was ready to harvest (note to self: do a better job of crushing eggshells before feeding them to Phil). I kept the tray going, though, mostly because I was too lazy to empty it out right then.

Fast forward to January 2010, when I finally got around to harvesting some worm castings (I'm skipping a few months where Phil developed a fruit fly problem, and I left him alone for a while – I now make sure to microwave the scraps I feed him to kill any fruit fly eggs).

I moved the bottom tray to the top of the system and left the lid off. I also stirred the castings and kept the light on to encourage the worms to migrate down to the tray below. I left it like that for about a day or so, hoping that the castings might dry out a bit before I took them out to store them. They were still quite moist when I transferred them to a big bowl, though.

We'll probably mix the castings with potting soil and use the mix for our indoor potted plants, most of which are in dire need of transplanting at the moment.

Phil's fly problem has cleared up, and he seems to be chugging along just fine for the time being. I think this year I'll make it a goal to ramp up production and really put Phil to work.

No black eyed peas for us New Year's Day. This larder has capucijners. Capucijner (pronounced cap-you-sigh-ner according to the Fedco catalogue) peas are one of the richest and most complex soup peas we have cooked with. We've been saving seeds that we think we purchased from Johnny's Seeds about 20 years ago. We're not sure because they don't have them in their catalogue any more but this Dutch heirloom purple podded pea (pisum satisvum) is obtainable from several sources under various aliases such as Blue Podded, Dutch Grey, Blauwschokkers and Pois A Cross Violette. Legend has it that this pea was named after the Capuchin Monks who developed it during the 1500's. Apparently the shape of the pea along with the color – an olive darkening to brown – looked like the cowl of the robes that the Monks wore at that time. (Cappuccino coffee is also derived from Capuchin but we won't go there!)

Here's a picture of this past year's peas (lighter color) and the darker version (the older the seeds get the darker they get) from the harvest of a year ago:

When cooked, these peas stay whole and form their own gravy. They make a great meatless soup because they have a stand-alone flavor. Of course the usual onions, garlic, salt & pepper are de rigueur for all my soup pots. The rest of the ingredients depend on what's on hand in the refrigerator or freezer. Hot peppers and fresh herbs such as cilantro are always nice additions along with carrots, celery, squash and other soup vegetables. (This time I used onions, garlic, one dried hot pepper poked with a fork, 1 cup chopped butternut squash, a handful of chopped cilantro, pinch of sage leaves, 1 tsp. salt, 20 grinds of pepper & 1 T. Liquid Aminos.)

Capucijner peas can take a long time to soften when cooking the long slow method (overnight soaking and simmering all day). I've dug out my pressure cooker for a faster version. Here's the method: Cover about 2 cups dried peas with water by about 2 inches over the top of the peas. Then pressure cook at 15 pounds for about 20 minutes. Let the pressure drop down naturally. While this is happening prepare the rest of the ingredients. When you can safely remove the lid add everything else plus more water (if necessary) and pressure cook for another 20 minutes. Let pressure down naturally. Check the doneness of the peas and adjust the seasonings. (Please read directions for your own pressure cooker. If using split peas they can clog the vent.)

Start a new tradition. Dig out the pressure cooker and rattle those pots and pans, it's capucijner pea soup for dinner tonight!

Last month as I spotted some plants growing out of my compost piles, I was reminded of a fun course that I took at the University of Texas with Dr. William Doolittle called Environment, Development and Food Production. Professor Doolittle introduced us to Edgar Anderson and the idea of Dump Heaps and the Origin of Agriculture.

Hyacynth Bean Flower

In his 1952 book Plants, Man and Life, Edgar Anderson devotes a chapter to the idea that early humans may have developed agriculture via the dump heap. First he distinguishes between "closed" and "open" habitats. In a closed habitat, such as a mountaintop, only certain plants thrive. Plants from other environments tend to fare poorly if they grow at all in closed environment. Gardens are a relatively open environment in that plants from a wide array of different environments can survive and even thrive within their confines.

The dump heap is an even more open environment. Imagine left over plant parts, along with some of their seeds being constantly thrown into a fertile pile of waste material. Says Anderson, "species which had never intermingled might do so there, and the open habitat of the dump heap would have been a more likely niche in which strange new mongrels could survive than any which had been there before man came along."

Brassica flower

Even if this tomato had managed to produce fruit before the first frost I probably wouldn't have eaten them as it is growing out of a separate compost pile that I maintain for dog waste.

I have often seen squash grow out of a compost pile. Anderson notes that squash, along with beans and amaranth are likely candidates to have originated in dump heaps. Burdock, stinging nettle and Jerusalem artichokes tend to take over Noel's compost piles in Wisconsin. All are weedy plants. However they are not only edible, but also extremely nutritious. According to Anderson, "the history of weeds is the history of man." I look forward to seeing what weeds pop up next in the compost.

Border         Digging        Spading          Manure
 Fork             Fork             Fork               Fork

I'm surprised at how few people in the general population of gardeners truly know how useful a good fork can be. Doing all your digging using a spade or shovel is often not the best way to approach the task.

For most garden and landscape tasks that require breaking or cutting earth, a fork is the better tool to choose. In actuality, for many gardening and landscaping jobs you really need both a fork and a spade or shovel. In tandem they make the work a lot easier.

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Since we're still in the resurgence year of Julia Child I thought I'd wind up the year with one of my many versions of her recipe for Gratin Dauphinois or Scalloped Potatoes with Milk, Cheese, and a Pinch of Garlic. I say many because I hadn't opened the book in years for these exact ingredients since I started making scalloped potatoes this way. And usually the recipe is doubled for my 10 x 15 inch pan since it makes a great potluck dish.

2 lbs. potatoes (6 to 7 cups when sliced) – up to half of this could be sweet potatoes

425 degree oven – Bake 30 minutes or until done – this time it took 45 minutes

A fireproof baking-dish about 10 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep

½ clove unpeeled garlic (plus lots of sliced garlic mixed in with the potatoes

4 Tb butter (Julia used a lot of butter but I don't think it's necessary except for greasing the pan

1 tsp salt (or to taste – I used about ½ tsp)

1/8 tsp pepper

1 cup (4 ounces) grated Swiss cheese (or sharp cheddar)

1 cup boiling milk (may use half and half if you like)

This adaptation includes sliced sweet potatoes mixed with your favorite 'regular' potatoes which these days can be red, white or blue or ??? and lots of sliced garlic. After greasing the pan and smearing it with a garlic half, make two layers of potatoes, garlic slices, and sharp cheddar cheese alternately. Pour on the hot milk or cream ( I also squeezed a clove of garlic and added it to the liquid) and set the dish in the upper third of a 425 degree oven for around 30 minutes. It may take longer if you get heavy handed with the potatoes which is easy to do, or if you double the recipe.

Usually I cover the dish for the first half of the baking, especially with the bigger pan, so the potatoes don't get overly browned. It's also important to use a sharp or well flavored cheese if you want the cheese flavor to shine through. The milder cheeses get lost in the shuffle. This is not a soupy dish since most, if not all, of the liquid is absorbed into the potatoes.

My summer version uses freshly chopped garden tomatoes for the liquid. On occasion I've added mushrooms. This is a good basic recipe amenable to alterations of all sorts! Bon Appetite!

Brighten your holiday table with the 'other' green vegetable – greens of all colors. The greens I've enjoyed the most recently are the seared collard greens at the Eldorado Grill in Madison, Wisconsin. Admittedly I haven't eaten collards too many times, they just weren't on the menu when growing up in Minnesota. If you want to try the exact recipe check it out in the 'Eldorado Grill Southwestern Cuisine Cookbook' by Kevin Tubb, owner of this superb restaurant.

For a simplified way to get your seared greens to the table get out your favorite vinaigrette dressing, whether bottled or homemade. Try one made with seasoned rice vinegar or oil and tamari. Heat up your heavy duty cast iron frying pan or wok, chop your favorite greens or combination thereof and toss them with the dressing as if you were going to serve a big salad. Include a hot pepper if you like a little extra bite – a whole one, dried or not, with holes poked in it works well. When the pan is hot add the dressed greens and sear the flavor right into them. Stir frequently and cook for 5-10 minutes or until softened the way you like them. Try not to overcook or the pleasing bright green will turn to olive drab and so goes the fresh flavor.

Red Russian Kale

We happen to frequently use Red Russian kale since Noel has it growing like a weed in the garden. (Note in the pictures that the garden beds have already been blanketed with leaves for the winter.)

Lacinato Kale

This year we planted lacinato kale (received from a friend) for the first time though with its bumpy leaves we at first thought it was savoy cabbage. (Thanks, Geoff, for helping us figure it out before it was too late!) Sometimes it pays to label your plants but then we like nice surprises in the garden.