Have you been eyeing the scorched grass in your planting strip or side yard, envisioning something lush, but fretting about the labor involved? In fact, it is easy to convert grass to vegetables, herbs or other plants. And so worth it! Here are some steps to take:

(1) Evaluate your site. Before getting rid of your grass, consider what you want to plant and whether you have the appropriate growing conditions. Most vegetables, fruits and herbs will grow only in full sunlight but lettuce, cucumbers, peas and some other vegetables will accept partial sun. Roots of nearby trees may compete with your edibles for moisture; tree roots generally extend beyond the tree’s leaf canopy.

Also think about the water needs for your planned garden. Vegetables need consistent watering. If you plan on running an automatic drip watering system to your planting strip, it’s less disruptive to get it under your sidewalk before you have a lot of plants in the way. You may also want to have underground utility lines marked before you convert the plot so you don’t accidentally dig into them. The city’s Call-Before-You-Dig number is (800) 424-5555.

(2) Test your soil. Soil tests will tell you if your soil has nutrient deficiencies and also whether dangerous levels of heavy metals are present. On Queen Anne, there is a risk of lead in the soil from paint on older houses, so it’s a good practice to do a soil test before growing edibles. Knowing the pH and nutrients in your soil will also help you decide what kinds of fertilizer to use and which crops will grow best (for example, blueberries need a low pH). The University of Massachusetts tests soil for nutrients, lead and cadmium at very reasonable rates. There are also local labs that will test for other heavy metals, such as arsenic. King County has a link to a list of approved labs.

(3) Remove the grass: You can remove sod by digging it out, smothering it, killing it with an herbicide or tilling it under. We only recommend the first two methods. Herbicides can affect water quality and other plants, and tilling may leave pieces of weeds and grass in the soil that can resprout, as well as unearth weed seeds.

Dig it. Sod can be physically removed by using a garden spade or fork or by renting a sod cutter, which slices the sod into strips that can then be rolled up. For removing more than a small amount, the sod cutter saves work. I found it pretty easy to use once I got the hang of it. This method is physically harder than smothering, but the advantage is that you’re ready to plant immediately. Note that if you have a lot of weeds in your grass with deep taproots (e.g. dandelions), it’s possible some roots will remain behind and start growing. Also keep in mind that when you remove the sod, you’re removing organic matter with it. This can be replaced by adding compost or a topsoil mix.

(What do you with all that removed sod? You can make great compost from it, or post it on freecycle.org or craigslist.org — someone just might haul it away for you. It makes great fill for landscaping projects. Just don’t plan on throwing it in your clean green. According to the City of Seattle’s website, you can’t put more than 60 lbs into yard waste containers. You can, however, bring it to the dump for a fee.)

Or smother it. Alternatively, you can smother the grass by putting down layers of newspaper or cardboard and then covering it with a mulch such as compost. Over time, the newspaper and grass will decompose and earthworms will work the compost down into the soil. First, mow your lawn as low as you can. Make sure the newspaper uses soy-based ink and don’t use anything with shiny paper, e.g. magazines or advertising inserts, as they may contain heavy metals. If your grass has weeds in it, including weed grasses, use more newspaper (many sources recommend six sheets, but you may want to double or triple that). Grass and weeds will grow anywhere there is light, so make sure the newspaper sections overlap each other well and that the edges of the bed are covered. You may want to wet the newspaper and anchor it with rocks to prevent it from blowing away until the mulch is delivered.

You can have compost dumped directly on the parking strip, and then it’s easy to spread the pile out. (If you have multiple sections, ask the driver to dump a portion on each so you don’t need to cart it around in a wheelbarrow.) The minimum recommended depth for mulch is six inches, but putting down more than that will enable you to plant right away if your grass didn’t have a lot of weeds. You also may want to use more compost if your soil is compacted or rocky. If you had a lot of weeds, it’s better to wait several months for the grass and weeds to die down before planting, as creating any holes above the weeds will give them the light they need to grow.

Although this method is easier, it will take several months before you can fully plant. In addition, the depth of the planting strip will be much higher than it was. If you’re doing this in the fall for planting in the spring and not planting anything on top, there is a risk the rain will cause some erosion, especially on hills. This can be reduced by having a thinner layer of compost near the edges or if suitable for planting, by sowing a cover crop such as crimson clover.

Now you’re ready to plant! Stay tuned for Queen Anne “ripped strip” plant recommendations. If you would like to chat with a neighbor who has already ripped their strip, email us and we’ll put you in touch.

This summer the kids and I are making jam (raspberry, apricot, blueberry, and peach . . . so far!). We’re doing it the old-fashioned way, with no added pectin: just fruit, sugar and a whole lot of stirring. We use observation (does it gel on a cold saucer?) instead of a thermometer to judge its doneness.

We skim the foam, ladle the bubbling syrup into hot jars, cap them tightly and invert them, then after a few minutes, turn them right side up and listen for the ping, pong, ping of the successful seals.

Our son uses his best penmanship, if not spelling, on the labels (”apricot vannila” is featured in the photo). He and his sister carefully align the jars on the windowsill to admire.

Their delight in the process is surpassed only by their delight in the product, spread on buttered toast, glopped onto ice cream, or eaten straight off the spoon. They’ve invented an “Italian soda” using sparkling water and jam foam (too sweet for grown-ups).

How fortunate we are. Within an hour, we have wiped up the counters and turned to other activities.

While typing up a beloved aunt’s memoirs recently, I realized that I come from a long line of women who worked from sun up to sun down, and often beyond, growing, harvesting, and preparing food for their families, in addition to all of the other chores of tending to family and farm. Preserving food for the winter was a necessity, a stay against hunger. It was certainly not recreational.

If they didn’t plan ahead, and ran out of sugar or jars (as I’m wont to do), the fruit could go bad before the next trip to town. If they felt like blogging instead of making dinner, ordering pizza was not an option. Planning was essential. How little time they had just to themselves!

This summer as I practice that antique kitchen alchemy, I thank my mother, my grandmothers, my great-grandmothers, and all the women before them in a long chain of caring and lore. They bequeathed many skills to me that are no longer necessary for survival (or even for canning, e.g. paraffin). But their legacy of love is preserved. Generation after generation. Spoonful after spoonful.

Hey, it’s National Farmers’ Market Week! So get on out to your local farmers’ market this week. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend the Queen Anne Farmers’ Market on Thursday afternoon. Throughout King County, you have 33 farmers’ market choices. Anywhere in the country, you can find the farmers’ market closest to you at Local Harvest.

I haven’t yet planted a vegetable garden in our yard. I’ve only recently figured out, after some careful weekend observation, which 25 square feet of the front yard get enough sun for enough hours of the day that vegetables might thrive there. That little patch of brown lawn is now covered with potted tomato plants, which are flowering like crazy, and have even set some fruit.

Three — count ‘em! — of my yellow plum tomatoes are almost ripe. They’re smaller than I’d expected, but a gorgeous sunny yellow. I’m giving them a couple more days before I pluck them off the plant.

Although the tomatoes I’m growing haven’t yet produced much food, the tomato growers at the local farmers’ markets have boxes and boxes of gorgeous fruits. Luscious and juicy, these tomatoes don’t need much more than a slathering of balsamic vinegar and a scattering of fresh basil to enhance their slightly acidic sweetness.

Is it any wonder that I’d want to hang on to that taste into the winter? Last fall, I “put up” tomatoes for the first time. In September, I cooked pounds of perfectly ripe tomatoes into a rich tomato puree. (The one jar remaining on the basement shelf will be gone by the end of the week.) By mid October, the tomatoes arriving at the farmers’ markets were not quite ripe — abundant still, but harvested just shy of perfection. Too impatient to wait for them to ripen on a windowsill that might not be sunny, I went looking for some other way to preserve them, while intensifying their flavor — and it seems that all the food bloggers I read were slow-roasting tomatoes.

Molly roasts tomato halves cut side up, for 4-6 hours, with coriander and sea salt, Kalyn for 9-11 hours, cut side down, with fennel and other herbs; the list goes on. The variables are herbs used and hours in the oven; the constants olive oil and low heat. After reading lots of blog posts and recipes, this is what I did:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Slice tomatoes in half lengthwise, and arrange cut side up on a baking sheet. Using a pastry brush, lightly coat cut sides of tomatoes with olive oil. Sprinkle tomatoes with ground coriander and, if you wish, a little salt. (I did one batch with salt, the following six without.) Roast the tomatoes for 8-10 hours. This timing is ideal for overnight roasting; I put the tomatoes in the oven around 10 p.m., and take them out, perfectly done, the next morning.

A couple of these tomatoes and slivers of good, sharp cheese are the perfect topping for a toasted piece of chewy sourdough bread. Thinly sliced, they add a bright, fruity note to an earthy green lentil soup. But my favorite way so far of eating them (other than straight from the oven) is in a simple, quick, but delicious pasta.

Put some pasta on to boil. While it’s cooking, chop up a few overnight tomatoes and a handful of flat-leaf parsley. Strip the leaves off a couple of sprigs of thyme. Combine the tomatoes and herbs in a bowl, and splash in a little balsamic vinegar. Grate some nice Parmesan cheese. When the pasta is cooked to your liking, drain it, then return to the pan. Toss with a healthy glug of good olive oil. Mix in the tomato-herb-vinegar mixture. Sprinkle on the parmesan cheese, and grind some black pepper on top.

Yum.

It may seem a bit early yet for canning or roasting tomatoes, but that all depends on how large a supply you want to have on hand to tide you over from this tomato season to the next. This year, I’m not going to wait until September to start preserving some summer for winter’s cold, rainy nights.

Hi, my name is Anne and here is what is happening in my Queen Anne veggie garden (a ripped strip) this week.

I recently planted vegetable seeds for late fall, winter and spring harvest. I’ve found it’s actually easier to grow vegetables in the fall than in the spring, since after mid-September, no watering is necessary. As a bonus, many of the fall/winter vegetables I grow are ornamental, so they add life to the garden at a time of year when most plants are in decline.

You can still start some vegetables from seeds in late July or early August. Territorial Seed has a handy chart about when to sow. I also use Seattle Tilth’s Maritime Northwest Garden Guide, which has slightly different dates. Or instead of seeds, you can buy transplants in August or September — just make sure you save some space in your garden for them now.

Here are some plants I’m growing that could be started now:

Kale: This year I’m growing Lacinato kale, which is a beautiful blue-green plant with narrow leaves. In the supermarket, this is often called Dinosaur, Tuscan or Black kale. I’m also trying a new variety from Territorial Seed, called Red Chidori, which it describes as a frilly, dark red kale with “extra deep red central foliage”. Except when we’ve had sudden cold snaps in December, kale survives the winter without any special protection. It’s sweeter after a frost.

Swiss Chard: The varieties with colored stems are the most attractive, although Fordhook Giant (a variety with white stems and large leaves) is the most tolerant of wet, cold weather. Bright Lights, often called rainbow Swiss chard at the store, produces plants with pink, red, orange, yellow or white stems. If you prefer certain colors, you can plant more thickly and thin out the unwanted colors. There are also single-colored varieties such as Orange Fantasia, Pink Lipstick, Rhubarb and Golden Swiss. Swiss chard will sometimes die back in December or January, but some plants will revive and grow new leaves when the light levels and temperatures increase.

Kohlrabi: This plant is like a turnip, except the edible portion is above ground and the flavor is sweeter. It can be eaten raw or cooked. I grow Kolribi, which is a purple variety. Looking like a mass of purple spaceships with leaves, it’s always a topic of conversation in the garden. Most sources recommend harvesting kohlrabi by Christmas, but I often leave some of mine in the ground through early winter.

What’s going on in your garden this week? Drop us a line!

Come get your totes at the QA Farmers Market today. Each tote will be offered as a “gift with minimum $25 donation” to raise funds for our market and garden projects.

They are made of durable, washable canvas, and can pack a lot of produce!

Jenny, Marilynn, Nancie and Donna will be working the booth today, so come by and say hello.

We had hoped to have our beautiful red (rhubarb, actually) totes at the market booth this week. Alas, screenprinter Nick Baker of Maple Leaf Printing was detoured by a sudden trip to California, interfering with our July 10 delivery date. Nick has promised to print at least a partial run this coming weekend, so we’ll have totes at the meeting next week. Be the first on your block to get one! And like Paul Revere, spread the word (no midnight ride necessary).

What: Good Neighbor Garden Meeting
When: Wednesday, June 16, at 7 pm
Where: Good Neighbor Garden, 1901 First Ave W
Why: Planning for Harvest and Beyond

The first item on the agenda (after admiring the totes, of course) is to celebrate our successes. In a few short months, we have:

1. Designed, built, filled, planted and maintained a flourishing community garden
2. Formed a great group of volunteers and subject matter experts
3. Produced a logo, website, flyers, sign, and tote bags
4. Raised over $2,000 in donations
5. Applied for a grant from Yahoo
6. Secured a nonprofit kitchen for surplus produce
7. Inspired two “ripped strip” gardens on Queen Anne

Please bring your ideas. Someone suggested using the community center kitchen for a canning party and/or class. Are you interested?

This evening as the farmers market got ready to close, Donna and I went from stall to stall with two 20-gallon Rubbermaid bins, asking the farmers to donate any surplus produce they didn’t want to take home. Within minutes our bins were laden with broccoli, carrots, lettuces, kale, chard, onions, herbs, heirloom tomatoes, apples and apriums.

We lugged the heavy bins into Donna’s car and drove eight blocks west to Seattle Children’s Home, where chef Hollie greeted us in the parking lot. Hollie has the responsibility of cooking three healthful meals each day to 20 resident children and 10 adult staff at the lockdown facility.

Like many children’s charities, SCH operates on a thin budget. But cheap food is not what helps troubled kids, particularly those on meds, to get well.

“Wow!” said Hollie when she peeked in the bins. “This is great. You know, a lot of our kids come from homes where nobody really cooked for them. They got hot dogs. But this, this is real food.”

A warm thank you to the farmers who donated the produce.

Hollie has promised to share her experiences (What did she make? What did the kids eat?), and we’ll post them here on the blog.

If you are interested in gathering and delivering the produce each week between 7 and 7:30 pm, you can sign up at the market booth on Thursdays or email me (with your dates) and I’ll do it for you: julie.whitehorn@gmail.com. We are all set for July but are looking for volunteers in August and September.

A week of warmer than usual weather convinced the tomatoes that it was safe to start setting fruit. There are only a half dozen or so tiny green tomatoes on the five plants in our sunny southernmost bed, but they’re a start.

This tomato-in-waiting is a Valencia. It will grow in size substantially, and turn a gorgeous golden orange as it ripens.

These wee fruits are Sweet 100’s, a classic red cherry tomato. They’re already close to mature size; now they need a few weeks of sunshine to turn them rich red and delicious.

The other starts and seeds that we’ve planted in the garden are slowly getting going. In a fine display of phototropism, they’re leaning hard toward the available sunlight.

We knew when we started the garden that this site was rather, umm, sunshine challenged. It’s fascinating to see the plants responding exactly the way that my science textbook suggested they would. Let’s hope they get enough light, now that summer is really here, to produce some tasty food for us to share.

If you haven’t staffed the booth at the Thursday QA Farmers Market yet, you are missing out on a uniquely entertaining view of our little village here on the hill. By 2:30 pm, the farmers are arriving in their trucks and vans. Within minutes, a double row of canopies (black, white, green, red) blooms in the McClure MIddle School parking lot. Our unflappable, sweet-mannered market manager, Judy Kirkhuff, is everywhere at once: directing traffic, welcoming newcomers, making signs, and predicting weather and crops. [click to continue…]