In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

"Billy" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

Got my first zuch into the ground today. I had just finished planting
the pepper bed when I found my errant Corno di Toros (6). Now I either
plant fewer japlapeños or wait for the inevitable demise of some of my
other peppers (mostly Quadrato di Asti, which were trendy about 4 years
ago). I've started to lose some plants in small 6 packs that are out
side. They dry out so quickly. Rain coming in Tue. and part of Wed.,
after that we are into the high 80s and, for all intents and purposes,
summer. Still lots of gardening work to do, and I drag my digging board
with me everywhere.

Give my regards to your zuchs and tell them that I do promise to plant some
of their relatives next year.

Love the names of those peppers but I can't tell you any names of the ones I
planted other than Thai (small and hot) and 2 bigger and longer ones. I've
recently found a good Italian Seed producer though and intend to buy a lot
of seeds from them next year. But first I need to find an old Italian
gardener who can translate for me.

What's a 'digging board'? Anything like an Aborigianl digging stick? :-))

Naw, it's just a board to put down to stand on in the beds, so that I
don't compact the soil too much. I got big feet, but the board is
better;O)

Those Thai peppers, are they the ones that are called Dragon's Teeth? I
grew some a couple of years ago. They are nice and hot, and there always
seemed to be some on the bushes when I went looking for peppers. Most of
the peppers that I'm planting are sweet peppers. I've become addicted to
grilled red bell peppers from the garden. My sweety (Spanish/Mexican and
German/Roumanian descent) can't abide hot spicy. For me, the heat is
about right, if it makes me hiccup. So I've planted Quadrato di Asti
("square peppers from Asti"), Corno di Toro (bull's horns) for sautéing,
and a couple of new ones, just to see what they do. I saw Quadrato di
Asti in Carlos Petrini's book, "Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be
Good, Clean, And Fair".
http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Food-Nati...7829456/ref=sr
_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272299935&sr=1-1
Not the easiest read in the world, but some interesting stuff in there
about good food, and good dining.

When it comes to flavor in hot peppers, roasted jalapeños (6 plants) are
hard to beat, and for heat, habañeros and Scotch Bonnet (1-2) are where
it's at.

For translating names, you can always type in "translate, (name)" in
Google, or use their "app" Google translate on an iGoogle page. First
you have to select "add stuff" from the page, but the rest is easy.

Digging stick? Is that like a dibble? A stick that is pointy on one end
to make a hole to plant in? I had a really good one, made from an old
shovel handle, but it has gone missing, probably in the weeds I haven't
cleared yet (I make tea out of them). With the dinky little one I'm
using now, I sometimes have to wash some of the dirt off the roots to
get the plant to go in the hole.

Hope you got your firewood in.

G'day
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

In article ,
brooklyn1 wrote:

"FarmI" wrote:
"Steve B" wrote:
"Higgs Boson" wrote:

If a very occasional digression is so offensive to some,
why not just scroll past it rather than make a huge issue.

reply: Because the drama of the huge issue is more exciting for them than
using logic. I can not imagine what their every day lives must be like.

Now that is truly funny. The only contributions from you that show on my
screen are two posts which are both on this one subject. Your need to add
some drama to your own life seems to rate far higher than anything you have
to say on the subject of gardening.

'Zactly. Ever notice how those who preach learning are themselves the
mental midgets with the lowest IQs. Steve B. is the vacuum who
persistantly pestered folks for info about prepping a garden, erecting
a greenhouse, irrigation, etc. but never grew so much as a single
radish. Steve B. Fraud...

Ahhh, Spring and we're back in the garden ;O)
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

In article
,
Billy wrote:

In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

"Billy" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

Got my first zuch into the ground today. I had just finished planting
the pepper bed when I found my errant Corno di Toros (6). Now I either
plant fewer japlapeños or wait for the inevitable demise of some of my
other peppers (mostly Quadrato di Asti, which were trendy about 4 years
ago). I've started to lose some plants in small 6 packs that are out
side. They dry out so quickly. Rain coming in Tue. and part of Wed.,
after that we are into the high 80s and, for all intents and purposes,
summer. Still lots of gardening work to do, and I drag my digging board
with me everywhere.

Give my regards to your zuchs and tell them that I do promise to plant some
of their relatives next year.

Love the names of those peppers but I can't tell you any names of the ones
I
planted other than Thai (small and hot) and 2 bigger and longer ones. I've
recently found a good Italian Seed producer though and intend to buy a lot
of seeds from them next year. But first I need to find an old Italian
gardener who can translate for me.

What's a 'digging board'? Anything like an Aborigianl digging stick? :-))

Naw, it's just a board to put down to stand on in the beds, so that I
don't compact the soil too much. I got big feet, but the board is
better;O)

Those Thai peppers, are they the ones that are called Dragon's Teeth? I
grew some a couple of years ago. They are nice and hot, and there always
seemed to be some on the bushes when I went looking for peppers. Most of
the peppers that I'm planting are sweet peppers. I've become addicted to
grilled red bell peppers from the garden. My sweety (Spanish/Mexican and
German/Roumanian descent) can't abide hot spicy. For me, the heat is
about right, if it makes me hiccup. So I've planted Quadrato di Asti
("square peppers from Asti"), Corno di Toro (bull's horns) for sautéing,
and a couple of new ones, just to see what they do. I saw Quadrato di
Asti in Carlos Petrini's book, "Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be
Good, Clean, And Fair".
http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Food-Nati...7829456/ref=sr
_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272299935&sr=1-1
Not the easiest read in the world, but some interesting stuff in there
about good food, and good dining.

When it comes to flavor in hot peppers, roasted jalapeños (6 plants) are
hard to beat, and for heat, habañeros and Scotch Bonnet (1-2) are where
it's at.

For translating names, you can always type in "translate, (name)" in
Google, or use their "app" Google translate on an iGoogle page. First
you have to select "add stuff" from the page, but the rest is easy.

Digging stick? Is that like a dibble? A stick that is pointy on one end
to make a hole to plant in? I had a really good one, made from an old
shovel handle, but it has gone missing, probably in the weeds I haven't
cleared yet (I make tea out of them). With the dinky little one I'm
using now, I sometimes have to wash some of the dirt off the roots to
get the plant to go in the hole.

Hope you got your firewood in.

G'day

Edible a book a review on my wish list.

Bill

Organic Farming¹s Guru


Excerpt from Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods.

Browse more recipes and articles from the book:
€ Sweet Corn Fritters
€ Egg Noodles with Fresh Spring Vegetables
€ Dr. Strangeleaf

Organic Farming¹s Guru
Scott Chaskey and His Quail Hill Farm

It was lunchtime in a little café in Amagansett, New York, a few years
back and the actor Alec Baldwin, now a star of 30 Rock, was sitting
across from organic farmer Scott Chaskey. A woman hesitantly approached
the two men in the booth, recognition lighting her face. She looked from
the actor with the contagious smile to the bearded farmer then breathed,
³Aren¹t you . . . Scott Chaskey?² That¹s how a very close friend of
Scott¹s tells the story.
Chaskey, the director of Quail Hill Farm, one of the oldest CSA farms in
the country, is almost instantly identifiable by his bushy,
flaxen-softened white beard. ³My wife has never seen me without the
beard,² he grins. When Megan and Scott, both studying abroad, met in
London in 1978, the beard was red.
Driving along Deep Lane by the farm you often see the bearded and
lean-framed Chaskey silhouetted against the light, driving his tractor
along the top of the hill. You easily spot him among the thousand people
attending the January Northeast Organic Farmers Association conference
in upstate New York. He¹s board president of the 1,700-member group.
He¹s everywhere, mentoring growers on organic farms, coaching five farm
apprentices, teaching in local elementary schools, guiding children¹s
hands as they learn to seed, and touring graduate students over Quail
Hill fields. At last July¹s potluck supper in the apple orchard, yes,
there was the soft-spoken, bearded farmer reading one of his poems, for,
as his passport indicates, his profession is ³farmer-poet.²
While he may look like he stepped out of a nineteenth-century
daguerreotype, Chaskey personifies the new breed of highly educated,
highly motivated farmers who are leading America¹s Community Supported
Agriculture movement. ³Farming is my passion,² says Chaskey, who
received a master¹s in writing from Antioch University and studied for
two years at Oxford University.
In the early 1980s, Scott and Megan married and moved to Mousehole,
Cornwall, on the English coast. There he heard of the Cliff Meadows on
the south-facing slope, known locally as ³the earliest ground in
Britain,² which once grew the first new potatoes and first daffodils
sent to Covent Garden. Soon, an old Cornish farmer was tutoring him in
an ancient understanding of organics and soil. It fits Scott¹s persona
that he managed to rent Cliff Meadows land to farm, bought an acre he
still owns, and single-handedly built a frame house. The Cornishman
visited daily. Scott learned.
He and Megan, an accomplished flutist, traveled with the first of their
three children to Amagansett in 1989 for an extended visit. There they
attended a meeting of a CSA to which Megan¹s parents belonged.
Unexpectedly, Chaskey found himself planting the first crops for Quail
Hill Farm, which would open in spring 1990 as a CSA project of Peconic
Land Trust.
In Amagansett his passion for protecting the soil‹its structure, its
health, the life that thrives in it‹grew. It took him several years to
nurture the land back to vitality. He began to teach everyone who would
listen‹CSA members, schoolchildren, chefs, other farmers‹about the
critical need to save diversified organic seeds and the need to farm
sustainably. ³I don¹t think anyone realizes how central education is to
what we do,² he says.
There is his other passion, writing and poetry. His second book of
nonfiction, Seed Time, its title from a Wordsworth poem, is about the
relationship between farming and writing. ³It follows a seed from its
development until it blossoms and goes back to seed, just as a writer
needs seed time,² says his literary agent, the former editor Paul
Bresnick. A charter member of Quail Hill, Bresnick says, ³I¹d always
admired the letters Scott wrote to farm members, which always began with
some beautiful writing about nature, about land, about wildlife.² Almost
a decade ago, Bresnick, now in a new career as a literary agent,
persuaded Scott to write a book inspired by the newsletters, This Common
Ground‹Seasons on an Organic Farm.
Though the well-reviewed book speaks of nature, fifty-eight-year-old
Chaskey doesn¹t consider himself primarily a nature poet, though he
supposes many do. His real subject is ³the mystery of self and others in
relationship to the world. The big picture.²
Chaskey reflects on his time at Oxford. ³I had a reader¹s card at the
Bodleian Library, the Bodleian,² he says, his voice still rising in
amazement. ³It¹s an unusual thing to stay active as a writer and to
teach without being an academic. So while I¹ve done some teaching, I¹ve
been lucky enough to have a whole different profession, working
out-of-doors. . . . Writing a poem requires a lot of space, more space
for me than writing prose.²
³Space from people?² a visitor questions.
³Space‹whatever Œspace¹ means. It also involves silence, and more time
than I¹ve had available for years.² Then, ³The solitude of the back
field . . . that can be a very inspirational place, the back field,
alone seeding in the earth.²
While the five-foot-nine poet may run short of time, time reshaped is
one of the bonuses the more than 200 harvest-share members receive along
with produce. As you head down the sandy path to the little farm stall,
your intention is to fill several sacks with vegetables‹ in August:
onions, peppers, red fingerlings, fennel‹quickly harvest some jade beans
and eggplant from the fields, and dash off . You take only a few steps
past the wild blackberry bushes and milkweed when you feel your breath
let go as the mystique of the oasis Chaskey has nurtured in the midst of
prime Hamptons real estate takes hold.
³When you walk into Quail Hill, you walk out of a nine-to-five business
time frame into seasonal time,² says Kristi Hood, chef-owner of the
nearby Springs General Store. Like many members, she has contributed
recipes to two editions of the Quail Hill Farm Cookbook. It is a
sophisticated primer on preparing the diverse variety of vegetables a
CSA grows. Says Hood, ³Scott is very much in sync with the land. He
extends his love into the land, his love into what he grows. He is a
lovely, spacey, delightful man.² You sense this personality in his
cookbook introduction.
In 1988, Chaskey was intent on nourishing his beloved soil, not a social
community. It quickly became obvious that a very social community was
growing alongside the vegetables, and in winter, when land lay silent
under ground cover, its friendships deepened.
³The extraordinary thing about this Community Supported Agriculture
movement,² says Chaskey, ³is that it came out of a need that many people
had to re-create community. It¹s reached so many. I never had any
calculation in the beginning of trying to create something like this.
But it¹s how it¹s spun out basically.² Twice monthly, Chaskey broadcasts
his thoughts on this ³broad community‹of the soils, of people, of
animals² on WLIU, the local NPR station.
Those Scott touches support his community as it interacts with the
outside community. There are occasional classes, perhaps on canning or
bees. In the apple orchard there is a community pancake breakfast and a
gala fund-raising dinner with 150 sitting at a single, long, candlelit,
white-clothed table. Top local chefs prepare these meals, clearly
volunteering their time with enthusiasm.
Scott is a singular man. There is a palpable chemistry that draws others
to him, perhaps because he is so soft-spoken and seems accessible,
perhaps because his passions are so visible. That is why he connects as
a teacher.
He often arrives in East End classrooms with packets of seeds, soil mix,
compost, worm casings. At East Hampton¹s independent Ross School,
students receive a hands-on understanding of the importance of nature¹s
cycles. After meals students walk into a narrow passageway and scrape
their plates into compost bins. Twice a week these scraps are carted to
Quail Hill¹s compost heap. ³When the Ross kids come out to plant in the
spring they see their compost is part of nourishing the soil. Then they
help plant the crops that they eat at school. So it¹s the whole cycle.²
In addition to farming more than 275 varieties of produce, herbs, and
flowers on 6 acres for the CSA, the farm grows crops on another 24 for
schools and restaurants, and shepherds 120 more for Quail Hill¹s
Preserve.
Chaskey has inspired many with his local, seasonal message. Joe
Realmuto, executive chef at the top East Hampton restaurant Nick and
Toni¹s, says, ³Fifteen years ago, Scott gave us gardening lessons on
what to grow, when to grow. He¹s an artist so in touch with the earth.²
On nearby land preserved by the Land Trust, Chaskey set up tents for
inner-city children from Camp Erutan (nature spelled backward) to camp
overlooking Gardiners Bay and to learn to finger Quail Hill soil. Says
Chaskey, ³Start-up CSAs come here‹one a year for ten years‹with their
list of questions. They help us seed; we give or sell them the
transplants.² When Scott arrived he found only one other organic farm,
The Green Thumb, on Long Island¹s South Fork. There are now several
dozen on Long Island¹s East End. Chaskey has mentored most.
³There is something very grounding and centered about Scott¹s
perspective on the world around us,² says Fred Lee, a North Fork organic
grower and owner of Sang Lee Farms in Peconic. ³His poetry dovetails and
complements his farming. There are times I think, ŒI can¹t do this.¹
Seeing how stable and competent Scott seems to be adds to my confidence,
[and I realize,] yes, it can be done!²
Scott¹s influence, passion, and efforts to teach both growers and
consumers about saving diverse organic seeds and expanding sustainable
agriculture to rebuild soil extend throughout the Northeast. He¹s been
on the NOFA board for ten years, its president for two. Board member
Elizabeth Henderson of Peacework Farm speaks of the power of Chaskey¹s
soft-spoken delivery and how he overcame earlier animus. ³Under Scott¹s
leadership there¹s cooperation and negotiation rather than hidden
agendas and secret plotting against each other.² He¹s also a board
member of Vermont¹s Center for Whole Communities.
Despite his deep roots in the organic community, Chaskey is a
questioning soul. ³What is my view of current organic standards?² he
asks. ³I guess you can tell because we¹re not certified, although Quail
Hill grows organically. We¹re choosing at Quail Hill not to be
certified, even though I¹m on the board of NOFA New York, which is a
certifier. What I don¹t support is the attempts at manipulation by big
business.² What he strongly supports is certification for the many dairy
farmers whom NOFA is helping transition to organic operation and
teaching consumers about the virtues of organic milk.
For Chaskey, the bottom line for agriculture across the land and in the
solitude of the back field is sustainability. ³It takes nature 700 years
to build one inch of topsoil. The world¹s six-inch layer of topsoil upon
which all agriculture depends is endangered by intensive industrial
farming.² He hopes to revive an ³effective NOFA organic seed program
that connected farmers and consumers with the importance of maintaining
a viable, diverse organic seed supply.²
Tomatoes illustrate what Chaskey means about diversity. He actively
disliked tomatoes until the mid- 1990s, when a farm member insisted he
plant seeds she had saved from an amazing tomato she¹d tasted in New
Jersey.
³Hated tomatoes. Why? Because I had never tasted a tomato,² he said. He
knew only bland, industrial impersonators.
Scott grew out Terri Stein¹s seeds, barely believing their flavor.
Today, Quail Hill holds a popular community tomato tasting. Some 250
adults and children vote on bite-size samples of the forty-plus
varieties Quail Hill now grows‹Matt¹s Wild Cherry, Pruden¹s Purple,
Brandywines, Juane Flamme, Green Zebras. You look down the row of wooden
tables and you recognize the man sampling top-ranked Sungolds, the man
in the blue-checkered shirt with the contagious smile.
Geraldine Pluenneke has written for Newsday, the International Herald
Tribune, and other publications, and is writing a book on recovering
America¹s lost flavors and nutrients. She lives in Montauk, New York,
and frequents Quail Hill Farm.

--

³That means on average 18 veterans commit suicide
each day."
Five of those veterans are under our care at VA.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/01/
12/2010-01-12_army_suicide_.html#ixzz0m7nSNTq8

In article ,
Bill who putters wrote:

Excerpt from Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods.

Browse more recipes and articles from the book:
€ Sweet Corn Fritters
€ Egg Noodles with Fresh Spring Vegetables
€ Dr. Strangeleaf

Organic Farming¹s Guru
Scott Chaskey and His Quail Hill Farm

Thanks for the review. Fortunately, it was just released a week ago, so
it will be awhile before my library gets it, if ever, with all the
budget cuts (I can say that, right?).

We need books like this to bind us together in such a big world. Normal
people enjoying the normal pleasures of food.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

"Steve B" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
"Steve B" wrote in message
"Higgs Boson" wrote in message

If a very occasional digression is so offensive to some,
why not just scroll past it rather than make a huge issue.

P.

Persephone

reply: Because the drama of the huge issue is more exciting for them
than using logic. I can not imagine what their every day lives must
be like.

Steve

Now that is truly funny. The only contributions from you that show on my
screen are two posts which are both on this one subject. Your need to
add some drama to your own life seems to rate far higher than anything
you have to say on the subject of gardening.

New here, huh?

LOL. Nice try but you're only fooling yourself.

"Billy" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

What's a 'digging board'? Anything like an Aborigianl digging stick?
:-))

Naw, it's just a board to put down to stand on in the beds, so that I
don't compact the soil too much. I got big feet, but the board is
better;O)

Ah right - with you now.

Those Thai peppers, are they the ones that are called Dragon's Teeth?

No name at all other than Thai chili - the lack of names really irritates
me, especially the use of commercial names as opposed to botanical names.

I
grew some a couple of years ago. They are nice and hot, and there always
seemed to be some on the bushes when I went looking for peppers. Most of
the peppers that I'm planting are sweet peppers. I've become addicted to
grilled red bell peppers from the garden. My sweety (Spanish/Mexican and
German/Roumanian descent) can't abide hot spicy.

Well I have some sympathy there. I love Indian food but not the sort that
blows one's brains out from the heat.

For me, the heat is
about right, if it makes me hiccup.

That sounds way too hot to me.

For translating names, you can always type in "translate, (name)" in
Google, or use their "app" Google translate on an iGoogle page. First
you have to select "add stuff" from the page, but the rest is easy.

That's a good idea. Thanks for that.

Digging stick? Is that like a dibble? A stick that is pointy on one end
to make a hole to plant in?

It's a stout stick with a pointy end but for digging to get at something not
to plant something. Aboriginas were hunter gatherers not farmers.

I had a really good one, made from an old
shovel handle, but it has gone missing, probably in the weeds I haven't
cleared yet (I make tea out of them). With the dinky little one I'm
using now, I sometimes have to wash some of the dirt off the roots to
get the plant to go in the hole.

Hope you got your firewood in.

LOL. Not my job. I've got the kindling in so that's the bit I have to
worry about. :-))

In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

No name at all other than Thai chili - the lack of names really irritates
me, especially the use of commercial names as opposed to botanical names.

http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/store/search-results.php

Bill

--

³That means on average 18 veterans commit suicide
each day."
Five of those veterans are under our care at VA.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/01/
12/2010-01-12_army_suicide_.html#ixzz0m7nSNTq8

In article ,
"Steve B" wrote:

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
u...
"Steve B" wrote in message
"Higgs Boson" wrote in message

If a very occasional digression is so offensive to some,
why not just scroll past it rather than make a huge issue.

P.

Persephone

reply: Because the drama of the huge issue is more exciting for them
than using logic. I can not imagine what their every day lives must be
like.

Steve

Now that is truly funny. The only contributions from you that show on my
screen are two posts which are both on this one subject. Your need to add
some drama to your own life seems to rate far higher than anything you
have to say on the subject of gardening.

New here, huh? I have posted here for a very long time. But I have been
away, because of illness, winter, hospitalization, making a website and
kicking that off, traveling, and writing a book. You shall see me here
quite a bit now that the weather is good.

Welcome to the group. I hope your future posts are also more informative
than this one.

Steve

Funny post ;O)
FarmI was posting here when I showed up 3 years ago.
Good luck with your recovery ;O))
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

"Bill who putters" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

No name at all other than Thai chili - the lack of names really irritates
me, especially the use of commercial names as opposed to botanical names.

http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/store/search-results.php

Sadly I can't make any use of that source at all because of quarantine
restrictions. :-(( They have some interested stuff though.