Create a Living Wreath Made of Herbs for Holiday Meals

Living wreaths add beauty and fragrance to your home during the holidays. Harvest sprigs from the wreath to flavor your holiday meals.

To make a holiday wreath, begin with a metal wreath form. Wrap it in moistened sphagnum peat moss. Tuck 3"-5" herb plants into the wreath and secure with florist pins. Wrap with additional moss to hide roots.

Prepare a tray (large enough to hold the wreath) with a thin layer of soil over a 2" layer of moistened gravel. Lay the wreath flat on the tray in a sunny area. As the herbs grow, continue to secure them to the wreath. In about 4 weeks, your wreath will be sufficiently full to hang from a doorway. Take the wreath down after the big day and return it to the tray when the guests have gone home.

Herbs to grow for the holidays:

Creeping Thyme -- Excellent on everything from Turkey to roasted vegetables.
Rosemary -- Delicious on lamb, pork tenderloin, red meats, and vegetables.
Sage -- A must for traditional turkey and dressing.
Parsley -- Not just a garnish! I prefer the flavor of the flat leafed Italian
variety over curly parsley. Used in many sauce recipes, salads, and other vegetable dishes. Add finely chopped parsley and chives to green beans.
Tarragon -- Integral in French cuisine, Tarragon has a strong, slight licorice flavor. It's often used in butter base sauces and included in a rub for Turkey and Lamb.
Chives -- I love finely chopped chives in my mashed potatoes. They are also commonly used in vegetable dishes.
Mint -- Removes the gamey flavor from lamb.


Happy Holidays

Raw Foods Diet

Spencer and Sabrina Aird, Proprietors or The Grass Root Restaurants

On Sunday I drove 3 hours west to Lakeland to give an organic gardening workshop at a Raw Foods Restaurant, Grass Roots. Owned and operated by Spencer & Sabrina Aird, Grass Roots has a warm ambience with cinnamon and saffron painted walls, large arched windows, and upscale art.

The Airds have created a hub for the raw/organic foodies in Lakeland (they also have a restaurant in Tampa). Like the owners, workshop attendees were vibrant and excited about growing some of their own foods.

My mission on this trip, however, was to learn as much as I taught. A small part of me believes I would be healthier on a raw foods diet, but a bigger part of me stubbornly reminds myself of the years I have spent developing recipes for cooked meals. I wanted to know how those who partake in the raw foods lifestyle survive (happily) without lentils, brown rice, pasta, apple pie...what kind of life is that?

After the workshop, I signed books and surveyed the crowd for the best person to corner about her diet. Aha! There she was...last in line and wearing yoga clothes. She would tolerate my questions no matter how basic and annoying. She handed me a book to sign and I held onto it until my questions were answered.

Beans? I asked. How do you live without beans? I asked a million questions and she answered them all.  Thank you, Patricia!

It would be inaccurate to say raw foods dieters don't cook. Though it may not be over a hot stove, they spend more time preparing their food than the average person. They combine ground up nuts with other vegetables to make raw crackers, julienne zucchini to create "noodles", and substitute little known vegetables, such as Mameysa Pote, for those that would require cooking, such as sweet potato.

If I ever become a raw foodie, I promise it won't be tomorrow. But I am going to incorporate more raw foods into my cooking...for example, I'll add diced carrots and celery to my lentils after the lentils are cooked.

So--is a raw foods diet really any healthier than a cooked diet rich in vegetables and whole grains? See the Side Wiki for more information about this debate.

For more on growing your own food, visit The Gourmet Gardener.

Winterizing Fruit Trees

For deciduous fruit trees to break dormancy and produce flowers in spring, they must be winterized properly. The following guidelines on fertilization, watering, pruning, chill hours, and freeze protection will ensure your tree wakes from its winter slumber next spring.
Fertilization: It's time to wean your tree off its monthly fertilization schedule.  Reduce its feeding by half each time you feed until the end of fall. Do not fertilize again until spring.
Watering: Reduce waterings when the tree begins to go dormant. Soil should only be slightly moist throughout the winter period.
Pruning: Do not prune trees less than one year old. Any major pruning of older trees should be done during the dormancy period. See my book, Container Gardening for Health,  for detailed information and illustrations.
Chill Hours: Most deciduous fruit trees require a certain number of "chill hours," the number of hours the temperature drops below 50 deg. F,  in order to produce fruit.  Research the number of chill hours required for your tree variety and compare this number to the average chill hours received in your region. (Ideally, this should be done prior to buying a fruit tree.)
Freeze Protection: Though deciduous fruit trees require chill hours, it is important to keep the roots in containerized trees from freezing.  In most areas trees can overwinter in unheated garages or basements to protect them from hard freezes, but you still may need to wrap the containers in insulative material to prevent root death.  I'd like to hear from gardeners in USDA Zones 1-2B about root protection of containerized fruit trees in these areas. 

For More Information on Growing Organic Fruit Trees in Containers, check out my book, Container Gardening for Health: The 12 Most Important Fruits and Vegetables for Your Organic Garden

Understanding the "Dirty Dozen"

Excerpt from "Container Gardening for Health: The 12 Most Important Fruits and Vegetables for Your Organic Garden" ISBN: 0978629329.
...In 1988, The National Research Council was commissioned by the U.S. Con-
gress to study issues concerning pesticides in the diets of infants and children using USDA/FDA data .
The results of this study are published in a 372 page book, Pesticides in the Diets
of Infants and Children(ISBN:0309048753).  The study concludes that children are uniquely suscep-
tible to health problems from exposure to toxic pesticides because of their rapid
growth. Infants and children also consume greater quantities of certain foods as
a proportion of body weight. This leads to greater exposure to some pesticides.4
The problem with pesticides is that the quantity of a vegetable your child eats
may exceed government expectations. Anyone who has children knows they go
through phases where they will only eat one food or one group of foods. Since the
government is not in your dining room calculating how many pounds of straw-
berries your tot has eaten this week, they cannot tell you if she has consumed
too much of a certain pesticide. The government can tell you what foods have
chemical residue even after they have been washed and prepared for eating. In
fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the US Food and Drug Adminis-
tration conducted nearly 43,000 tests on produce samples from 2000–2004.
The Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org) analyzed this data and created a “simula-
tion of thousands of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets...” Their study
showed “that people can lower their pesticide exposure by almost 90 percent by
avoiding the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the
least contaminated instead.”5 They nicknamed this list of foods “the dirty dozen.”
As of June 2007, the dirty dozen is as follows:
Rank Fruit or Veggie Score Page number
in this book
1 Peaches
2 Apples
3 Sweet Bell Peppers
4 Celery
5 Nectarines
6 Strawberries
7 Cherries
8 Lettuce
9 Grapes, Imported
10 Pears
11 Spinach
12 Potatoes
The list has changed slightly since this book was published -- Kale has moved to the top 12 and spinach has moved down slightly, but all the fruits and vegetables above still remain high on the list.
At The Gourmet Gardener, we don't believe you should have to limit these healthy fruits and vegetables in your diets. Instead, select foods your family commonly eats on the Dirty Dozen list and grow them organically. Use this book as a guide to growing healthy fruits and vegetables in containers and small spaces.
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September/October Schedule

If you are interested in attending a book discussion or workshop, you are welcome to attend the following:

September 22  2PM  Book Signing 

Safety Harbor Library, Safety Harbor Florida

http://www.cityofsafetyharbor.com/index.aspx?nid=60

September 26  9 AM - 2 PM Book Sales/Signing

Organic Morning

Native Nurseries, Tallahassee FL

http://arguelles.tripod.com/NativeNurseries.html

October 10 and 11  Speaking Engagement and Booth Exhibit #937

Green Festival, Washington DC

http://www.greenfestivals.org/washington-dc/

To Schedule a Workshop, Discussion, or Book Signing:

386-362-9089

gginfo@windstream.net

Recipe Potato and Watercress Soup

My Family Loved this Recipe. Try it!

Preheat oven to 350 Deg. F

Dice:
1 White Onion (Small to Medium)
2 Carrots (Large)
1 Russet Potato (Large)
4 Stalks Celery (or use celery leaf if you prefer)


In an oven proof pan with a tight fitting lid, saute the above in 1 TB butter and 2 TB Olive Oil for 5 Minutes. (Add each vegetable consecutively, one minute after each addition.)

Add 1/4 c soup stock. (If you don't have homemade stock, use College Inn White Wine & Thyme.)

Cover pan and place in oven for 10 minutes.

Return pan to stove top.

Add 2 Cups trimmed, chopped Watercress and 3 3/4 cups stock. Simmer 5 Minutes.

Add 1 Cup heavy cream, 1 TB red pepper flakes. Stir.

Add 1 Tsp. lemon juice.

Cook 5 more minutes.

Enjoy. Serves 4.

Want to grow your own organic vegetables, but don't have the space or time to grow a large garden?
Check out my book: Container Gardening for Health: The 12 Most Important Fruits and Vegetables for Your Organic Garden

Fall Color in Florida

Florida is a unique mix of natives and transplants. I am talking about people at this moment, not plants. Like non-native plants, some argue the "transplants" from our north should be classified as "invasives," but I like the mix of colors, heritage, growing habits, etc. Transplants add pizzaz to this people garden we call Florida.

During the fall season, though, I hear our friends from the north lament the loss of autumn color. They are happy to be in Florida during the winter, but autumn is another story. While it is true most of Florida's trees don't turn the brilliant orange, red, and yellow colors our northern neighbors flaunt, we can bring color to our porches, patios, and balconies through container vegetable gardens.

Lettuce pots, for example, need not be all green. Add Bright Lights Swiss Chard and Nasturtiums to your lettuce pots for brilliant orange and yellow color through most of the winter months. Outredgous lettuce will add a splash of red to your pot of "greens". Seeds source: Johnny's Seeds