November 2009 Archives

An important component of the kind of life I want to have on my dacha is food. I want to grow, cook, and eat delicious wholesome foods. My husband and I do a lot of cooking, but we also love to go out to eat at NYC's amazing restaurants (like Dirt Candy, S'nice, and Bark) so I don't insist that everything we put in our mouths be homemade. But we do try to eat things that are minimally processed, and the rule of thumb is that we don't eat much that we couldn't make ourselves. So it was in that spirit that I bought a bag of dried soybeans the other day and set out to make my own tofu!

Making tofu is way easier than I ever thought; it's pretty much the same process as making cheese: you make soymilk, coagulate it with a mineral, spoon the curds into a mold and put a weight on it for a few hours to press out the whey.

Good step-by-step tutorials are available all over the internet, especially here, here and here. For coagulant I used gypsum which I bought from Brooklyn Homebrew (a funny little store inside a brownstone that I will definitely be visiting again!). I don't have a tofu press or any muslin bags-- I used my medium-sized wire mesh strainer, an old (clean) pillowcase and a can of beans and it worked out just fine. Next up on the soyfoods docket will be my favorite-- tempeh-- I just have to learn more about live mold cultivation first!

Absolutely nothing says "home" like fresh baked bread! The cold weather has finally made it acceptable to turn on the oven again, and this winter I predict many and various loaves will cool on our dacha's hearth. I'm new enough to bread baking that yeast sometimes misbehaves, and I still haven't made what I consider to be a perfect loaf- crusty on the outside- smooth and airy on the inside-- full of flavor! But these two were a good start. Once I stopped being afraid of salt, the flavor of all my savory baked goods improved dramatically (go figure). Maybe if I find a free Saturday I'll even take this thrilling-sounding class I read about recently in an airplane magazine.

After years of eyeing friends' weekly fresh vegetable deliveries with envy, last spring I joined a CSA (the Flatbush Farm Share) with a friend of mine at work. It is pretty much the first time in my life that I've ever even come close to eating seasonally, and that aspect alone was thrilling. Then there is the fact that everything came from a farm that's less than 100 miles from my house. Not to mention that it's economically smart- the same bounty of goods at the farmers' market each week would probably have cost twice as much, and according to one price comparison our CSA share was also less expensive than a regular supermarket. And the veggies were tasty and fresh, and every week we got at least one thing that I had never even heard of before (garlic scapes?! mizuno?!) And yes, all you skeptics out there, we got lots of kale--and it was delicious!

The most challenging thing about the CSA was learning to plan a menu around the food that we had in our house. My husband and I love to cook, and make a point of doing it at least two or three evenings even in the busiest weeks, but our MO in the past had always been to make a vague menu plan and then let ourselves get inspired by what we ran into at the farmers' market or grocery store. The CSA didn't provide all the food we were going to eat in a week so we were still going to the market, but we really had to practice frugality and thoughtfulness in our cooking and shopping so that we didn't find ourselves the night before CSA pickup day with a fridge still full of veggies. But what an exciting challenge! The best part is that the bounty gave us a chance to practice putting some food up for the winter. Our freezer is currently holding a few different soups as well made with CSA veggies as well as some frozen peaches, we made kim chee with a napa cabbage windfall, and even have a couple of jars of strawberry preserves. We also have a few winter squash living in a closet, and hopefully those will just keep to be used as we like.

The season is over now, and I will admit that it has been fun to shop and plan meals free from the urgent need to find a use for a mountain of fresh vegetables. But we'll be joining up again next year and I'm already squirreling away those kale recipes...

Urban Dacha and my apartment itself are important elements in my self-designed farming education curriculum. The blog gives me a forum to document the relative successes and failures of the various experiments I'm conducting, and pushes me to do more and deeper research into the history, politics, and practicality of growing food and being an ecological steward. But there is another resource for learning that I have only begun to tap- the vast wealth of knowledge of seasoned farmers as well as those who have more recently made the transition to a more rural life that I am preparing for.

Happily, just an hour's drive from the urban dacha is the Stone Barns Center For Food and Agriculture where, this December, I will be attending the Second Annual Young Farmers Conference. Last year's conference brought together experts, greenhorns, and curious cityfolk for two days of learning and community. (I like to think of myself as somewhere in between "greenhorn" and "city slicker" but I suspect the conference will remind me how much of an absolute novice I am at most of this stuff!) I'll be attending lectures on creating permaculture systems, raising livestock, marketing to low-income populations, beekeeping, and more! I'm looking forward to gaining some new skills and knowledge, and especially to spending a couple of days getting to know people who are as excited as I am about building homes and communities that are more fulfilling and more connected.

Last spring my husband and I bought an Aerogarden with an herb kit. The basil went gangbusters- we were making pesto until october and it only stopped then because we were away from home for 3 weeks getting married and shut they system down to clean it out. The dill, thyme, and mint did OK as well.

I like the aerogarden fine. It's very easy to use. You just add pre-planted sponges, fill the reservoir with water, add the nutrient pellets that come with the herb kit, and tell the timer what kind of plants you're growing. The lights turn on and off automatically and all you have to do is harvest the plants and refill the water reservoir when it gets low. So easy it doesn't even feel like gardening-- which for me is a real drawback. I want to feel like I'm working and learning and developing skills and putting forth effort to bring my dacha into being!

A few months ago we took a class with htink in diy home hydroponics taught by Lee Mandell and since then a really fun looking 5-gallon single plant aquaponic system has been sitting, dry and empty, in our home office. No more! Back from the wedding and with no other big projects (except my, ahem, job) to get in my way, I headed to Lowes this past weekend to get the remaining supplies to grow my own indoor hydroponic tomato plant. I'm also going to try to create my own seed set-ups and nutrient mixes for the aerogarden so that it feels a little more hands-on.

Here are my supplies, all ready to be put together, based mostly on Lee's class as well as guidance from a new book, Hydroponics for the Home Gardener by Stewart Kenyon:

1. An opaque 5-gallon bucket with a hole drilled in it.

2. 1 medium white fluorescent lighting tube with housing

3. 1 refrigerator bulb (to make sure the little tomato is getting enough red-spectrum light)

4. A timer box as well as a nice long cord to plug the lights in to the wall

5. A couple of hooks for suspending the light housing above the plant

6. An aquarium filter and hose for oxygenation

7. Liquid nutrients

8. Terra cotta balls

Found at a garden supply shop in Bay Ridge: A few expanding pellets of starter medium for the seeds

Still to find: Tomato seeds

I already have nutrients that I bought on the internet, so I'm just going to put the whole shebang together and see if I can get something to start growing. And just for your reference, including the class with Lee the total cost so far for this little tomato plant is approximately $175. Here's hoping those are some damn good tomatoes!!

My husband and I live in an apartment and don't have a shred of outdoor space to call our own-- not even a fire escape! It has been a real challenge for me to explore and develop farming and gardening skills that are directly at odds with my daily life. One solution I've been exploring is indoor hydroponics. Sure, it's problematic, primarily because in order to get herbs or veggies to grow indoors you have to provide them with about 18 hours per day of artificial sunlight which for us means pulling energy from the grid. The growing medium for hydroponics is good old-fashioned tap water, and we have to add a nutrient cocktail to that so that the plants are getting the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium they need to grow.

For me hydroponics are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, this is soooooo not the "natural" farming I aspire to where the sun and rain and good soil bring forth a bounty of vegetables under the gentle guidance of wise Farmer Brown. It doesn't feel right. I don't get dirty and I feel more like a scientist or electrician than a farmer while I'm doing it. But the fact of the matter is that planning and engineering plant nutrition, light requirements and acidity not to mention a host of other factors is by no means limited to hydroponics. A farmer's job in large part consists of monitoring the conditions in which seeds are planted and begin to grow in order to maximize yield and minimize waste. Traditional soil farmers and gardeners may not be paying for a light source but they're certainly using fertilizer and testing soil. Which brings me to:

Farming Lesson #1: Growing things is science.

So, okay, wiring up a fluorescent grow-light system may not give me that "worked all day in the fields" feeling, but it does give me a chance to hone useful skills. Not to mention the fact that hydroponics are gaining recognition as an important alternative farming method, particularly in regions that have little rainfall, because growing with root systems directly in water counter-intuitively uses LESS water than other soil irrigation methods. There is also continuing research into the idea of using hydroponic growing systems to reclaim greywater while producing food at the same time.

It's not my ideal situation- I want land and space to plant! But for now I am learning what I can from hydroponics. See the next post for detailed information about the hydroponic systems I'm getting familiar with.

In Russia and many of the countries that were once a part of the Soviet Union families live most of the year in cement-block apartment buildings on streets called "proletariat" or "independence" or "republic" in run-down cities with names like "industry" or "lenintown". But in addition to that city home, many still keep a bit of land on the outskirts of town. This small plot, probably a fraction of an acre for the average family, will typically be used to grow fruits and vegetables that supplement the family's food budget. This is the dacha.

The dachas I have known are part of a miniature neighborhood, with a hundred or more small plots arranged in a grid. The streets here are called "plum" or "carrot" and the small huts lay abandoned for most of the year, many having neither electricity nor running water. A few lone souls might make a visit now and then during the long dark winter to check on their property, ensuring that everything is in order under the snow and ice-- this is Siberia after all. In the spring and summer, the dachas come alive. Families come out for the day to plant and water their gardens. Young adults bring vodka and other supplies and party there, roasting shashlik over open coals after clearing out the brambles and old dead husks left over from the last harvest of fall. Grandmothers in sunhats and multi-layered sweaters tend the cucumbers, potatoes, berries and fruits that will be pickled or jammed or stored in root cellars to sustain their family through the winter and protect against unexpected financial or political disaster.

Keeping a dacha and making it grow from seed is hard work but it's also, at its best, a joyful incarnation of community that may very well just be impossible in an urban setting. It means something different to be a neighbor on the dacha, and days are ordered according to different, older priorities-- the late afternoon light slants through the fruit trees warming the backs of children and women and men as they sing ancient songs and sling thier gardening tools with the peaceful assurance that they are following in the footsteps of countless generations. OKAY! I admit that's too rosy-- the dacha is about subsistence and financial security-- but the byproduct truly is the opportunity to connect and work and think. You get your hands dirty, and maybe it gets frustrating and exhausting sometimes, but it's you and your family and your neighbors digging in the dirt side by side.

I live in New York City, where space is at a premium. I don't have a fire escape- much less an acre of fertile land to call my own. So I'm trying to create that sense of self-sufficiency, connection with growth and season, neighborliness and hard work with a light heart here in my apartment and my little Brooklyn community. Welcome! Pick up a shovel or some seeds and dig in!