I've had a T-shirt for a while proclaiming that I'm an urban farmer. It's a cute notion, but until recently it's been mostly hyperbole. However, this has been such a crazy busy week for our garden/feed ourselves/be green project, and it's not even March yet! There's too much to make a full post about each happening, so here's a condensed (for me) version of the highlights.
- Today I got to say to my coworkers, "I have to go home for a bit. My worms arrived today." As much as I enjoyed the thoroughly confused looks on their faces, I'm even more excited about the reason we ordered worms in the first place - Vermicomposting! As you know, we live in a condo with no yard in which to start a conventional compost pile, and honestly I've never really seen one work that well, so we've gone the indoor route. A storebought Worm Factory 360 from Amazon, filled with shredded paper and some ordinary kitchen scraps (veggie skins, eggshells, tea and coffee grounds). We mail-ordered 1,000 red wriggler worms, which arrived today to start turning all that organic matter into awesome compost for use in our garden. The little guys looked a little peaked from their journey, but once we put them in the bin they (slowly) started to wiggle around. Hopefully soon they'll figure it out and start to nom some of their food. If you've ever seen one of those videos where they open up trash bags in landfills after 50 years and still find intact food scraps, you can imagine how exciting it is to be able to reroute that same organic matter to turn it into a fertilizer that can eventually help you grow your own food. Stacia is doing an awesome job chronicling it on her site, but I'm definitely excited too!
- The grow light seems to be working, so we have indoor crops in addition to our livestock on our little urban farm. It's not actually time to start any seedlings for transplant, but we didn't really want our first attempt to be one that we needed to count on. Why not start with a "dry run?" We have a ton of herb seeds, and we're bandying about the notion of keeping our grow light operational after the spring as an indoor herb garden, so last weekend we planted various herb seeds. So far we have sprouted basil, thyme, oregano and sage, and we're still waiting on rosemary, cilantro, and parsley - hurry up, you guys! At the moment, they're just little stems with two tiny leaves at the top but in another week they should be bigger, and maybe eventually we'll have plants right there in the kitchen that we can pull from while we cook! And with the knowledge of how we got our herbs to work, I feel a lot more confident for next week, when we're scheduled to start some broccoli.
- Last time, I mentioned that we would be growing dry beans for the first time this year. It's a fun idea, and we're excited about it, but realized that we have little to no experience actually using dry beans. If we're gonna grow it, we better darn well learn how to use it. And what's a safe place to start in the world of dry beans? Chili, of course! So we added a pot of vegetarian chili to our weekly meal plan. It was awesome, and actually will likely become our new baseline chili for future cooking... whenever we finish eating the current batch. You see, the recipe calls for 3 cups of cooked kidney beans and 1 1/2 cups of cooked black beans. We had no idea to how much dry beans grow in size when rehydrated, so we bought about that amount in dry beans, assuming we could use up any excess beans that might exist. Probably not the best assumption, since after we made the chili, we found ourselves with a total of 8 cups of leftover beans! They've gone into a follow-on double batch of the chili, but now we have 12 cups of chili in the fridge. It's starting to get repetitive, but I really like chili, and there are so many ways to prepare it. So far we've had chili on its own, chili cheese fries, and chili over baked potatoes. I have a feeling we're going to become the Bubba Gumps of chili before this is all over, but suffice it to say that we'll account better for bean growth with our garden crop. It's kind of amazing, really.
I'll be back with some full posts soon, plus I'll try to keep you updated with all that goes on on our urban homestead. If the whole season is as packed as this week, it will be quite the endeavor. Keep gardening on to victory!
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
It counts more than ever
Ah, February, you bright-eyed temptress. Rising out of the doldrums and gray cloak of winter, you arrive with an unexpected blast of sunshine, melting away the vestiges of months of frozen torpor. In a fit of carefree joy, we leave our coats at home, roll down car windows and bask in the glow of an early spring. Sure, if we were honest with ourselves, we'd admit that before long temperatures will plummet, another blanket of snow will likely fall, and we'll return to shivering under layers of blankets. But for now, we revel in our delusion, believing beyond belief that spring is finally here.
In the height of a false spring, for someone like me, it's a sudden reminder that the growing season will be here soon. That means time to plan, time to pore over seed catalogs, and time to fantasize about how this year will be the year that we really produce significant amounts of food. It's a time to realize that in this era of genetically modified frankenfoods and ever-increasing costs at the grocery store, growing the food you are able to is of higher import than ever before.
As was the case last year, we have available to us a single 8' x 16' plot of land at the Downtown Community Garden. And as was also the case last year, we plan to maximize the limited space we have to grow as much edible plant matter as it can support. That means planning ahead, charting out both the physical space as well as the time each crop takes to mature, and ensuring we have the seeds and the timeline to make the plan a reality. Many gardeners focus on tomatoes, others on one favorite crop, like garlic or peppers. In our garden we intend to grow no less than 17 distinct vegetables, so we needed to be sure we thought things through.
We also needed seeds. After reading a report online about the relationship between major seed suppliers and corporate agriculture giant Monsanto, I nearly knee-jerked us into buying all new seeds, to ensure no genetically modified varieties would take root in our garden. A little further research led to promises from Burpee and Ferry-Morse that they never supply GMO seeds, for as much as that's worth. We deliberated, and finally decided that we'd use up the remaining name-brand seeds, but replenish with heirloom varieties, in our case, from Seed Savers Exchange (located in Decorah, Iowa!). For 2011, our new heirloom seeds are Nebraska Wedding tomatoes, Black Valentine and Tiger Eye shell beans, Empress green beans, Chocolate Beauty bell pepper, and Amish Snap peas. Shell beans are an entirely new venture for this year, but as we strive to generally eat less meat, it's one that's exciting to set out on. And the new crops look gorgeous, too. Here's a shot of the Tiger Eye beans from www.seedsavers.org.
Now we wait for our order to arrive, and hurry up to get our seed-starter in place. While these beans are fine being simply planted in the ground, some other plants are not so amenable. From the calculations we made this weekend, our broccoli seeds need to be in a grow medium of some sort and under a grow light by the first or second week in March. Broccoli's a cold-weather crop, and it needs a headstart so it can be fairly sturdy during the first few months of outdoor growing season. Last year we sowed our broccoli in the ground in early May and our plants went to seed before we could eat any. That's not happening this year. We're researching our options for lights, and the countdown is on 'til first seeds hit dirt.
The rational-thinking center of my brain realizes that we are still a long way from spring's genuine arrival here in Iowa. But even as our Iowa Cubs head south for baseball's Spring Training, so too does Spring Planning and Spring Planting start to take shape at home. This is the time where the work goes in to transform simple vegetable patches to impressive Victory Gardens. Hope springs eternal, as they say. And while hope may be all we've grown yet in 2011, we're definitely prepared for the season. This one's gonna count.
In the height of a false spring, for someone like me, it's a sudden reminder that the growing season will be here soon. That means time to plan, time to pore over seed catalogs, and time to fantasize about how this year will be the year that we really produce significant amounts of food. It's a time to realize that in this era of genetically modified frankenfoods and ever-increasing costs at the grocery store, growing the food you are able to is of higher import than ever before.
As was the case last year, we have available to us a single 8' x 16' plot of land at the Downtown Community Garden. And as was also the case last year, we plan to maximize the limited space we have to grow as much edible plant matter as it can support. That means planning ahead, charting out both the physical space as well as the time each crop takes to mature, and ensuring we have the seeds and the timeline to make the plan a reality. Many gardeners focus on tomatoes, others on one favorite crop, like garlic or peppers. In our garden we intend to grow no less than 17 distinct vegetables, so we needed to be sure we thought things through.
We also needed seeds. After reading a report online about the relationship between major seed suppliers and corporate agriculture giant Monsanto, I nearly knee-jerked us into buying all new seeds, to ensure no genetically modified varieties would take root in our garden. A little further research led to promises from Burpee and Ferry-Morse that they never supply GMO seeds, for as much as that's worth. We deliberated, and finally decided that we'd use up the remaining name-brand seeds, but replenish with heirloom varieties, in our case, from Seed Savers Exchange (located in Decorah, Iowa!). For 2011, our new heirloom seeds are Nebraska Wedding tomatoes, Black Valentine and Tiger Eye shell beans, Empress green beans, Chocolate Beauty bell pepper, and Amish Snap peas. Shell beans are an entirely new venture for this year, but as we strive to generally eat less meat, it's one that's exciting to set out on. And the new crops look gorgeous, too. Here's a shot of the Tiger Eye beans from www.seedsavers.org.
Now we wait for our order to arrive, and hurry up to get our seed-starter in place. While these beans are fine being simply planted in the ground, some other plants are not so amenable. From the calculations we made this weekend, our broccoli seeds need to be in a grow medium of some sort and under a grow light by the first or second week in March. Broccoli's a cold-weather crop, and it needs a headstart so it can be fairly sturdy during the first few months of outdoor growing season. Last year we sowed our broccoli in the ground in early May and our plants went to seed before we could eat any. That's not happening this year. We're researching our options for lights, and the countdown is on 'til first seeds hit dirt.
The rational-thinking center of my brain realizes that we are still a long way from spring's genuine arrival here in Iowa. But even as our Iowa Cubs head south for baseball's Spring Training, so too does Spring Planning and Spring Planting start to take shape at home. This is the time where the work goes in to transform simple vegetable patches to impressive Victory Gardens. Hope springs eternal, as they say. And while hope may be all we've grown yet in 2011, we're definitely prepared for the season. This one's gonna count.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Filmfest 1933-1936
I'm running behind on posts as of late - it's been a full week since my last one. As such, and considering that it took me quite a while just to write the reviews of these five films, you're not getting a fun intro essay that ties them all together this time around. I was thinking the common thread was struggle, or fitting in, or something along those lines. Regardless, I didn't write it, but I did see five mostly awesome movies. I'm really enjoying things this time through, making a point to watch them because it makes me happy, not because it fills out some list. And given my propensity to make lists, that's a really good thing. Without further ado, here you go.
Movies 11-15
1933 - King Kong (#41) - A confession: I love Godzilla movies, as well as Ray Harryhausen animation, as seen in movies like Jason and the Argonauts. Perhaps it's childish of me, but put on virtually any movie that features a poorly-integrated giant beast jerkily moving around wrecking stuff, and I'm in. That said, I didn't much like King Kong the first time I saw it, and a second viewing didn't redeem it much. First, and most importantly, the animation was very cool. I especially enjoyed the periodic close-ups of Kong's face, where the stop-motion wriggling of brow, eyes, nose and mouth was oh, so gloriously cheesy. But that alone wasn't enough to save a repetitive, poorly acted and dull film. I'm sure you know the story, so I won't repeat it here, but suffice it to say that it featured a series of very long, very similar-to-one-another battles between Kong and other creatures on Skull Island. Then there's the capture by our hero, who apparently just left acting class for how to talk like a 1930's gangster stereotype. And no, he's not playing a gangster in this movie, he just apparently loves to talk in a nasal sneer, for every single line. I think King Kong is revered for a few iconic scenes, such as the impressive gate on Skull Island and the sequence on the Empire State Building. And those are great moments in filmmaking, but they're just moments in an otherwise rather tedious film.
2 tiki torches out of 5
1934 - It Happened One Night (#35) - A rather misleading title, since the movie takes place over many days, but it doesn't diminish much from a well put-together zany romantic comedy. Having now seen it twice, I recognize that it won't make you laugh out loud over multiple viewings, but it's cute and charming, sure to make you smile throughout. The film follows a now-standard formula for this genre, with two perfect opposites forced into a situation together, in this case a road trip from Florida to New York, first by bus: hence the original title Night Bus, and various other means later on. With Clark Gable as the wry and cynical newsman helping to transport the spoiled, rich Claudette Colbert, crazy situations are sure to result. As you can imagine, they start off despising one another, but somehow by the end of all they go through, they find that they just might be in love. Surprise! Okay, no big shock there, but it is worth watching for the snappy banter between the two. My favorite exchange is actually toward the end, between Gable and Colbert's character's father, as the father tries to find out if Gable is really in love. His response to the simple question, "Do you love her?" is just perfect. It's a fun little movie - I like it quite a bit.
4 night buses out of 5
1935 - Mutiny on the Bounty (#86) - Who doesn't love a good story about a nasty, mean sea captain putting his men through hell on a journey to the East Indies to pick up some breadfruit plants? Well, I wasn't quite sure if I would either, but this classic surprised me in some ways. In others, I was mildly disappointed, but overall it was a pretty good film. There are really only three important characters: the ill-tempered and cruel Captain Bligh, the obnoxiously chipper Midshipman Byam, and our hero the second officer (or thereabouts) Fletcher Christian. I loved the odiousness that Charles Laughton worked into every aspect, every moment of his Captain Bligh - the character is written to be hated and the viewer has no trouble doing just that. Fletcher Christian is a good everyman, duty-bound to his captain yet outraged over the treatment of the men, and conflicted by it all. But man, for a character designed to be sympathetic, Byam was just so eager and up all the time that I almost wanted Bligh to keelhaul him. That detracted from a mostly interesting story, based on true events. The action keeps you interested all the way through, up to the climax of the mutiny! And then the movie keeps going for something like 40 minutes. I understand that the story went on from there, but by the time things wrap up, it feels like a bit of a letdown. Up to the mutiny, and aside from Byam's overexuberance, it was enjoyable. A few tweaks could have made this great, but as it is, it's still a solid film to watch.
3 tall ships out of 5
1935 - A Night at the Opera (#85) - As you know, I love the Marx Brothers. At the same time, I cannot stand opera, at least as far as I even understand it. So what happens when I watch a movie combining the two? As it turns out, I like it quite a bit. I just let the opera be the framework for the crazy antics of the brothers, and it ends up being a lot of fun. That said, there are long operatic song numbers in the movie, and I typically end up fast-forwarding through them to get back to the story. The story, insofar as there is one, surrounds the well-meaning but bumbling Marx Brothers trying to help a friend break into the opera and get the girl he loves, while antagonizing the bullying star of the show and trying to swindle the rich widow out of her money. As in Duck Soup, that's but a vehicle for hilarious situations, including classics like the stateroom of the cruise ship, the three aviators, a contract dispute, and a scene where a detective thinks he's found the three brothers hiding out at Groucho's apartment. These are all great, laugh-out-loud moments, and definitely make the film worth watching. The only downside is the excess opera singing, and an ending that gets maybe just a bit too frenetic. I don't love this one as much as Duck Soup, but it's a must-see for any fan of the Marx Bros. and it makes me laugh every time.
4 opera masks out of 5
1936 - Modern Times (#78) - This film is the reason I thought I really liked Charlie Chaplin, until I saw his other movies and ended up unimpressed. Despite what others say about the beauty of City Lights, I think this is his best work, at times beautiful, tragic, touching, sad, and hilarious. The Tramp here is at his most lovable, an innocent man simply trying to work, but consistently tossed aside by the efficiencies of the modern world. Along the way, he meets and falls for a young street urchin, with whom he wants only to start a decent life with. Their struggles to get by are poignant for an era of depression, perhaps equally so today, but through it all they get by with their love for one another. It truly is moving, and yet at the same time, it is a really funny comedy. For as much as the tramp tries to do good in life, something outrageous always seems to come up. As a corporate worker today, I had to laugh at the ridiculous-but-maybe-not-so-much idea of the worker feeding machine, and the insanity that occurs while he's in jail is almost too much to believe. Finally, though this is mostly a silent film, one of the last sequences features Chaplin working as a singing waiter, with uproarious results. Those are my favorite scenes, but through it all you have the classic Chaplin, hopefully trying to make the best of it. It's a great movie - a definite keeper.
5 gear cogs out of 5
Movies 11-15
1933 - King Kong (#41) - A confession: I love Godzilla movies, as well as Ray Harryhausen animation, as seen in movies like Jason and the Argonauts. Perhaps it's childish of me, but put on virtually any movie that features a poorly-integrated giant beast jerkily moving around wrecking stuff, and I'm in. That said, I didn't much like King Kong the first time I saw it, and a second viewing didn't redeem it much. First, and most importantly, the animation was very cool. I especially enjoyed the periodic close-ups of Kong's face, where the stop-motion wriggling of brow, eyes, nose and mouth was oh, so gloriously cheesy. But that alone wasn't enough to save a repetitive, poorly acted and dull film. I'm sure you know the story, so I won't repeat it here, but suffice it to say that it featured a series of very long, very similar-to-one-another battles between Kong and other creatures on Skull Island. Then there's the capture by our hero, who apparently just left acting class for how to talk like a 1930's gangster stereotype. And no, he's not playing a gangster in this movie, he just apparently loves to talk in a nasal sneer, for every single line. I think King Kong is revered for a few iconic scenes, such as the impressive gate on Skull Island and the sequence on the Empire State Building. And those are great moments in filmmaking, but they're just moments in an otherwise rather tedious film.
2 tiki torches out of 5
1934 - It Happened One Night (#35) - A rather misleading title, since the movie takes place over many days, but it doesn't diminish much from a well put-together zany romantic comedy. Having now seen it twice, I recognize that it won't make you laugh out loud over multiple viewings, but it's cute and charming, sure to make you smile throughout. The film follows a now-standard formula for this genre, with two perfect opposites forced into a situation together, in this case a road trip from Florida to New York, first by bus: hence the original title Night Bus, and various other means later on. With Clark Gable as the wry and cynical newsman helping to transport the spoiled, rich Claudette Colbert, crazy situations are sure to result. As you can imagine, they start off despising one another, but somehow by the end of all they go through, they find that they just might be in love. Surprise! Okay, no big shock there, but it is worth watching for the snappy banter between the two. My favorite exchange is actually toward the end, between Gable and Colbert's character's father, as the father tries to find out if Gable is really in love. His response to the simple question, "Do you love her?" is just perfect. It's a fun little movie - I like it quite a bit.
4 night buses out of 5
1935 - Mutiny on the Bounty (#86) - Who doesn't love a good story about a nasty, mean sea captain putting his men through hell on a journey to the East Indies to pick up some breadfruit plants? Well, I wasn't quite sure if I would either, but this classic surprised me in some ways. In others, I was mildly disappointed, but overall it was a pretty good film. There are really only three important characters: the ill-tempered and cruel Captain Bligh, the obnoxiously chipper Midshipman Byam, and our hero the second officer (or thereabouts) Fletcher Christian. I loved the odiousness that Charles Laughton worked into every aspect, every moment of his Captain Bligh - the character is written to be hated and the viewer has no trouble doing just that. Fletcher Christian is a good everyman, duty-bound to his captain yet outraged over the treatment of the men, and conflicted by it all. But man, for a character designed to be sympathetic, Byam was just so eager and up all the time that I almost wanted Bligh to keelhaul him. That detracted from a mostly interesting story, based on true events. The action keeps you interested all the way through, up to the climax of the mutiny! And then the movie keeps going for something like 40 minutes. I understand that the story went on from there, but by the time things wrap up, it feels like a bit of a letdown. Up to the mutiny, and aside from Byam's overexuberance, it was enjoyable. A few tweaks could have made this great, but as it is, it's still a solid film to watch.
3 tall ships out of 5
1935 - A Night at the Opera (#85) - As you know, I love the Marx Brothers. At the same time, I cannot stand opera, at least as far as I even understand it. So what happens when I watch a movie combining the two? As it turns out, I like it quite a bit. I just let the opera be the framework for the crazy antics of the brothers, and it ends up being a lot of fun. That said, there are long operatic song numbers in the movie, and I typically end up fast-forwarding through them to get back to the story. The story, insofar as there is one, surrounds the well-meaning but bumbling Marx Brothers trying to help a friend break into the opera and get the girl he loves, while antagonizing the bullying star of the show and trying to swindle the rich widow out of her money. As in Duck Soup, that's but a vehicle for hilarious situations, including classics like the stateroom of the cruise ship, the three aviators, a contract dispute, and a scene where a detective thinks he's found the three brothers hiding out at Groucho's apartment. These are all great, laugh-out-loud moments, and definitely make the film worth watching. The only downside is the excess opera singing, and an ending that gets maybe just a bit too frenetic. I don't love this one as much as Duck Soup, but it's a must-see for any fan of the Marx Bros. and it makes me laugh every time.
4 opera masks out of 5
1936 - Modern Times (#78) - This film is the reason I thought I really liked Charlie Chaplin, until I saw his other movies and ended up unimpressed. Despite what others say about the beauty of City Lights, I think this is his best work, at times beautiful, tragic, touching, sad, and hilarious. The Tramp here is at his most lovable, an innocent man simply trying to work, but consistently tossed aside by the efficiencies of the modern world. Along the way, he meets and falls for a young street urchin, with whom he wants only to start a decent life with. Their struggles to get by are poignant for an era of depression, perhaps equally so today, but through it all they get by with their love for one another. It truly is moving, and yet at the same time, it is a really funny comedy. For as much as the tramp tries to do good in life, something outrageous always seems to come up. As a corporate worker today, I had to laugh at the ridiculous-but-maybe-not-so-much idea of the worker feeding machine, and the insanity that occurs while he's in jail is almost too much to believe. Finally, though this is mostly a silent film, one of the last sequences features Chaplin working as a singing waiter, with uproarious results. Those are my favorite scenes, but through it all you have the classic Chaplin, hopefully trying to make the best of it. It's a great movie - a definite keeper.
5 gear cogs out of 5
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