August 2009 – Page 2 – Seabrooke Leckie

Summer’s bounty

Back in the winter my sister told me about an intriguing concept: Community Shared Agriculture, or CSA for short. I had never heard of CSA farms, and when she explained what they were, I was intrigued. Essentially each CSA farm is a small operation, growing enough food for a few dozen people, perhaps. At the beginning of the year they offer “shares” for sale. Interested persons can buy a share of the farm’s total produce for the year. During the season, every week or every two weeks, depending on the particular farm and the plan you buy into, you pick up a bag or basket brimming with fresh produce, picked that morning from your farmer’s fields. Most CSAs run from late June through October in our area, the harvest season for our short northern summers.

By buying in to a CSA farm you are essentially sharing, not only the produce, but also the risk the farmer takes in growing the food. If it happens to be a poor year for tomatoes (such as this year, our farmer was complaining that all the rain has caused a bad case of blight), the farmer isn’t on the hook for circumstances out of his control. You’re supporting your local farmer so that they can (hopefully) actually make a fair living at their work. In return, you get delicious freshly-picked fruits and veggies. Some CSAs also offer eggs or meat in their baskets. Most farms are also organically operated. Plus, by buying local you get fresher veggies than you would if they were flown/trucked in, and without having to burn any of the oil that transport necessarily uses.

I have been loving our CSA baskets, always excited to see what we get this week. For just Dan and I, there is always more food than we can get through in two weeks (our pickup schedule, since we only bought a half-share – a full-share picks up every week, and is designed for a family of four or five). It works out to about $100 a month, which is probably what I would be spending on produce at the grocery store in a month anyway. Admittedly, there is still the occasional item that you’ll need or want to buy from the store anyway, so that $100 isn’t all you’ll spend, but I still think it’s a good deal.

This week’s basket included everything you see above (except the red cabbage which I bought from our local grocery store, but does happen to be local produce as well – we got a cabbage in our previous basket, and it added colour to the photo, so I threw it in anyway). There is enough lettuce in that bag to last Dan and I for at least four salads. I’ve already used two tomatoes out of the bag on the right, soft, sweet heirloom varieties. Not shown is a bag of fingerling potatoes, which I’d put in a different spot and forgot to pull out for the photo. We ate half of them with dinner yesterday, deliciously soft and tender. We’ll be eating quite a few meals with zucchini over the next two weeks to get through those three veggies, and same with the green beans. I wish I could spread the bounty out across the whole year.

The other interesting thing about CSAs is quite often they include items that you’d never think to buy for yourself from the store, or sometimes can’t get at the store. For instance, in this photo is arugula, beside the green onions, something I would never have bought for myself. It also encourages you to try new things. My family can vouch for the fact that I was a sworn non-salad eater my whole life. This year I decided that we were getting so much salad greens, I should really make an effort to try to like it. Much to my surprise – I didn’t even have to try, it turned out I quite liked fresh salad! We’ve had other unusual items, such as garlic scapes (which I roasted and put in a chicken caesar salad), scallopini squash (which I stuffed and baked with fresh corn, tomatoes and basil), or spring garlic (like green onions with a garlicky flavour).

CSAs quite often grow heirloom or other unusual varieties of many vegetables. My sister is getting purple carrots in hers (did you know that carrots come in many colours, including red, yellow and purple in addition to the usual orange?), we’ve had a great selection of tomatoes and potatoes, and different squashes such as the scallopini.

In addition to our weekly baskets, we also signed up for a freezer share and a cellar share. As the names suggest, a freezer share is an extra boatload of produce intended to be frozen and stored for the winter months, and the cellar share is the same, only for your cold cellar. An example of the former might be broccoli, while the latter would be potatoes. It’s a great way to continue to enjoy locally-grown produce even through the cold winter months.

We have yet to pick up most of our winter share produce, but our farmer gave us the first of our freezer share items – 15 freshly-picked basil plants, which will make delicious pesto that can be frozen into ice cubes and thawed whenever one gets the urge for summer-fresh basil in the middle of winter. I’d never seen so much basil. Because the plants were pulled out with their roots still mostly intact, I put them in a pot with water and intend to actually plant a couple in pots to try to keep over the winter. I’ve also offered a couple to family members. The rest will be turned into pesto.

In Ontario you can find a directory of your local CSA farms here. For other provinces or states you may have to do a bit of poking around, but there are lots out there. You might be able to find some local farms at the website Local Harvest, which has a large database of farms and farmers’ markets across the USA. This USDA site and this Ecobusiness site also have a few additional links to databases. A Google search for “community supported agriculture” or “community shared agriculture” along with your town and state/province will usually turn up CSA farms in your area. You can also try this site, this site, or this site.

Although some farmers may have extra produce they offer for sale at farmer’s markets or just from the farm itself, here in the north it’s too late this year to sign up for a share, in most cases. However, you can sign up for next year’s harvest in late winter in order to start enjoying fresh produce with the first crop next June (or May, or maybe even April depending on where you live and whether the farm has a greenhouse). If you’re lucky enough to live in milder climes, it might be possible to get fresh produce year round – for instance, this farm in Live Oak, Florida, has a winter veggie program.

Most farms offer their shareholders an opportunity to visit the farm and see the operations. They’re often willing to discuss the whats and hows of farming if you’re interested. Our farmer is a really nice, friendly guy. When I picked up my basket this week I probably spent about 20 minutes chatting with him. In addition to discussing farming particulars, we also talked about nature observations. Most farmers, especially small-farm farmers, are probably pretty in-tune with nature. Our farmer commented that since they lost their honey bee colony last winter and haven’t had them working the fields, he’s seen more native pollinators at his plants than he can remember, including bumblebees, sweat bees, mason bees – I was surprised to discover he knew there were so many types of bee! He knew the names of the birds on his farm, and allows 5-10 acres to lie fallow in any given year so the bobolinks have an undisturbed place to nest. His 6-year-old daughter collects caterpillars that they raise in their kitchen and keep the pupae in the fridge over the winter, bringing them out to emerge and be released next spring.

Getting to know your farmer really gives your veggies a personal feel. They’re not just a piece of fruit that you pick up from the store shelf – you know exactly where they were grown, by whom, and how. It’s the difference between buying a pie from the store and your mother making one in her kitchen – the personal ones always taste better.

(This just might qualify as my highest word:photo ratio in a post to date! Lots of good things to say.)

Recent News – Black Widow spider

Northern Black Widow by cotinis at Flickr, used under Creative Commons license — Northern Black Widow by cotinis at Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

A few days ago, Dan forwarded me an article from the Toronto Star. In case the link goes dead (as sometimes happens with online news articles) or you don’t want to click through, here’s a summary:

On July 28, a senior was working in her garden west of Toronto when she was bitten on her hand by a spider. She brushed the spider off, but very rapidly started suffering symptoms – excessive sweating, blurred vision, loss of muscular control. Her hand swelled up, and she was barely able to make it into the house to call her daughter, who in turn called an ambulance. By the time paramedics arrived, she was nearly paralyzed. After two weeks in the hospital, she’s regained use of most of her body, though her legs below the knees continue to lack feeling and she can’t yet walk.

The spider, although never found, was identified by its description and symptoms as a black widow. I suspect most Ontarians associate black widows with the arid southwest, such as Arizona, and would be surprised to hear of one in Ontario. They would be even more shocked, I bet, to learn that Ontario actually has a native species of black widow, the Northern Black Widow, Latrodectus variolus. Southern Black Widow spiders, L. mactans, do occasionally show up in Ontario in shipments of produce coming from these regions, but are extremely uncommon.

I had no idea that we had black widows in Ontario. Suddenly I feel less comfortable about using public outhouses… Generally, though, Northern Black Widows are of little concern. They tend to build very large, noticeable three-dimensional webs, usually in corners or crevices such as rotten stumps or stone walls. Unless you’re rooting around in or beside the web for some reason, you probably have little to worry about from these spiders, despite the strength of their venom. The dramatic symptoms of the woman in the news story are unusual, too, and most likely to occur in seniors, children, and individuals with venom allergies (eg., bee stings).

The Northern Black Widow is one of five widow spiders in North America, three of which are black (the other two are red and brown). Of the three blacks, it’s the most distinct, having a broken hourglass (as shown in the photo above). It ranges from Florida right up to southern Ontario. The Southern Black Widow actually makes it as far north as southern New York, as well, surprisingly. So much for being a spider of the arid southwest. A Western Black Widow, L. hesperus, ranges along the west coast from southern BC southward, and looks similar to the Southern.

Monday Miscellany

I haven’t done a Monday Miscellany in a little while, my schedule over the last month or so being a little disordered. I’m actually able not only to do a miscellany this week, but do it on the proper day (at least, it’s the proper day when I’m writing this; by the time most readers will see it, it will be Tuesday, but hey. I do my best.).

Today’s header image is of an American Copper, Lycaena phlaeas. With such extensive meadow habitat at our new home, I’ve been seeing quite a few species of butterfly that I hadn’t encountered before; this is one of them. It’s actually not an uncommon species, I just haven’t spent enough time in appropriate habitats. It’s an interesting species in that it’s got two very distinct populations, separated from each other by great distance. The eastern population ranges through much of the northeast from Nova Scotia to Missouri. The northwestern population is found mainly through the arctic, from Baffin Island to Alaska, and south through the Rocky Mountains as far as Wyoming. A few disjointed populations are also found in other alpine areas. It has been hypothesized that the eastern population was actually introduced, and only the northwestern population is native.

Here’s something else I’d never seen: a Monarch caterpillar. I’m not sure why these guys have eluded me, as there has always been milkweed around the areas I’ve frequented. When we moved in and saw the expanse of milkweed by the house, I figured it would be a Monarch butterfly haven. I expected to see dozens of Monarch caterpillars chowing down on the plants. I was therefore surprised to see very few adult butterflies, and no caterpillars at all, despite dedicated regular checks of the meadow. Dan located this one right at the edge of the pack as he was chaperoning Olly during the cat’s daily outdoor walk (which the cat has come to demand rather vociferously). He was thoughtful enough to come get me. The caterpillar was gone when I looked for him the next day.

The rainy, cool weather that we had for all of June and July now seems to be a thing of the past. The last couple of weeks have been hot and humid. We have no air conditioning in the house, so to try to combat the heat of the afternoon we open all the windows wide at night and close them again when we get up in the morning. As I was opening the windows one evening, I discovered this little guy clinging to the outside of the window. It’s a Gray Treefrog, although you can’t see much of his upperside. The yellow of the inner thighs is diagnostic of this species, as are the thick toe-pads that he’s using to cling to the window. I’m not sure why he was on the window, except perhaps to eat the insects that were drawn to the light. I turned the lights off when I went to bed; he was gone in the morning when I got up.

We’ve had Black-eyed Susans blooming all summer in our meadows. It’s funny that they’re so common here in eastern Ontario, where they were relatively scarce where I grew up in the Toronto area. I’ve enjoyed admiring them each time I go for a walk, and made an effort to capture them in the panorama I used in the new header image for the blog. This week I’ve noticed some are starting to fade. What interested me about this observation was the fact that the outer portion of the petals seemed to go first. Many flowers, including Black-eyed Susans, appear differently under UV light, and through eyes that can detect UV rays, such as those of insects. Most of the time the UV patterns aren’t obvious to our non-UV-detecting eyes. However, on these fading flowers you can see where the two areas of different UV reflectance are, with the central circle mostly intact, but the outer one well worn. Check out this photo over at Flickr for an example of how bees see Black-eyed Susans – the petals are actually bi-tone.

Back in the spring I bought myself a Cardinal Flower for my garden with a birthday gift certificate. They’re a native species usually associated with wet or damp areas. We had seen the occasional Cardinal Flower along the lakeshore near our previous house, and I’d become quite enamoured with them, so I snatched one up when I happened across them in a garden centre. I usually browse through the pots until I find one with multiple stems, if possible; the one I bought had four. I wasn’t expecting it to bloom this year, but to my surprise all four stems put up inflorescences. I guess all the rain we’ve had has really appealed to them. Three of the four stems were the gorgeous bright red that I had specifically bought them for, but when the fourth set of inflorescences began to open I was delighted to find that they were pinkish-white. Some research on the web suggests this is an uncommon, though not unusual, colour form. One website I found was selling the white form for twice the price of the usual red. Another website commented, with regards to the common name, “Flowers are very attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds, but not cardinals.” The “Cardinal” in the name, of course, refers to the colour, not the species it attracts.

Alongside our driveway I have noticed a few of these plants. They grow with several broad leaves sprouting from the stem at the base, and a tall spike with small flowers up its entire length. I knew it was an orchid, but not what species; poking around online it appears it’s Helleborine, Epipactis helleborine. When we think orchid we tend to think of the flashy big-flowered things you can buy in pots in the grocery store. If we think of native orchids out in our woods, we usually think of ladyslippers. In actuality, though, there are dozens of native orchid species in North America. Ontario alone has more than 50 species of orchid growing wild. Many of them have smaller flowers and are less showy than their larger cousins the ladyslippers, but are nonetheless delightful. Helleborine is a non-native orchid. Its genus, Epipactis, is originally native to Europe, with no representatives native to North America. The first Helleborine was found in New York in 1879, likely spread from a parent plant planted outdoors somewhere some years earlier.

While visiting my parents this weekend, my mom commented that she’d observed some black beetles on a few of her daylily plants. When I investigated the plants myself I discovered that not only were there beetles on her daylilies, but the dead flower heads were absolutely crawling with them. The collapsed petals were so filled with the beetles that they were physically moving. I had seen these beetles before, once: while camping at a state park in Minnesota. I had sat down to eat my lunch (a sandwich from Subway) at a picnic table, and was very rapidly assaulted by a barrage of little black beetles wanting to get in on the action. I ate quickly. The beetles are, appropriately, called “picnic beetles”, and belong to the genus Glischrochilus. They’re attracted to sap and decaying fruit. I presume these flowers would fall in the latter category; with the temperatures so high, and the sun beating down on them, the dead flowers smelled strongly of fermentation.

These final beetles were found on some goldenrod in our meadows. I didn’t have to look hard to find them, though – both of these species appear to be particularly abundant right now. The orange ones are Pennsylvania Leatherwing, Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus, found commonly on goldenrod throughout the east. The members of this genus are all important in pollination and biological pest control, as many will eat aphids and other insects.

The black one is Black Blister Beetle (say that five times fast!), Epicauta pennsylvanica. It’s also frequently encountered on goldenrod in the autumn in eastern North America. Like all blister beetles, they exude chemicals that can burn and blister the skin. Apparently some species of Epicauta feed on grasses and crops as adults, and if baled with hay have been known to actually kill horses that ingest them.

Sunday snapshot: Hydro trouble

I spent much of the weekend away visiting my family, an enjoyable time socializing, dining out, and watching theatre. I returned mid-day today. No sooner had my sister (who had carpooled with me) and I stepped out of the car and begun collecting our things than we heard an abrupt, sharp and echoing bang. It was difficult to pinpoint, but I thought it sounded like it may have come from the hydro pole near our house that supports the line out to the road – and also happens to have a transformer. Dan confirmed from the house that the power had gone out the same moment, obviously a connection.

The hydro company was called. Fortunately, they have hard-working men on 24-hour standby for power-grid emergencies. They sent a truck out to assess the situation, and the crew noticed that the fuse at the road was open. I’m not sure what they did as they investigated it, but while they were down there, another loud crack and fizzle came from our pole. They confirmed that the transformer was blown.

It took two trucks and four crewmen to come out and replace it. Two gallant souls ventured up in the small baskets while two remained as ground crew. They were quick with their work, probably on-site no more than half an hour. The old transformer was taken down (the large green thing dangling beside the lower basket) and a new one installed. Almost five hours after the first startling bang, our appliances flickered back to life inside.

Their work completed, the brave and dependable hydro crews departed into the sunset with nary a backward glance, on to rescue the next damsel in distress.

If you can call it distress. I actually had quite a pleasant afternoon sitting on the screened porch, listening to the birds and insects, reading my book.

Unbidden beauty from neglect

Neither Dan nor I are lawn-mowers, and I mean this in both the philosophical and physical senses of the word. Our lawn-tending philosophy is generally to let it grow long and wild. Mowing is a lot of work, just to produce a sterile (or nearly) habitat. We can appreciate lawns around gardens, say, or a small patch to play with the dog or kids, but these large expanses that most people keep, especially when they’re rural homes, just seem silly. It’s primarily a North American thing. I was told once that the lawn evolved out of the “American Dream”, from poor folks looking at the rich and their mansions with expansive manicured lawns, and desiring a manicured lawn of their own and everything the lawn represented. Whether or not that’s actually true, lawns have certainly become the culturally accepted standard, with bylaws in many towns and cities prohibiting you from not mowing your law and instead letting it go weedy.

dandelion — Common Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale

But even if we desired a lawn (which we don’t), we’re unable to tend it ourselves anyway, as we don’t own a lawn-mower. Our landlord had requested that we keep the lawn mowed, but it’s really the responsibility of a neighbour down the street, to whom she’d given her riding mower after her husband died. They’ve been neighbours many years, and he agreed to come by and cut her lawn for her as thank-you for the machine.

Black-eyed Susan in lawn — Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta

He cut the grass the week we moved in, but we hadn’t seen him since, which was a little over a month. A month is forever from a weed’s perspective. The lawn sprouted and got quite long and shaggy. Plants that had been chopped into submission for the earlier part of the summer now sprung into action to take advantage of the absence of the blades. Within a month we had numerous wildflowers blooming in amongst the grass. Yesterday afternoon, after admiring them for about a week, I decided to take my camera and document what all was flowering in the lawn. I must have had a premonition, because within a few hours the neighbour showed up with the mower to trim it all back.

Common Plantain and White Clover — Common Plantain, Plantago major, and White Clover, Trifolium repens

I counted 20 species of flowers growing in what is usually lawn. A couple of them were garden escapees, flowers that had seeded themselves and had managed to survive even with the regular abuse. Most of them, though, weren’t cultivated plants. Many of them are introduced species that excel at thriving in adverse conditions. A few of them, however, such as the Black-eyed Susan or the yarrow, are hardy native species.

Low Hop Clover, Trifolium campestre, common everywhere

I had done this experiment before, last year. We’d let the lawn, such as it was, go wild at the lake house, again partially because we didn’t own a mower ourselves to tend it, and partially because we preferred it that way anyway. That inventory took place about two weeks later than this one did. I only tallied 15 species of flower blooming in that lawn. It’s interesting to observe the difference in species composition between the two, and I’m curious whether that’s more likely due to timing or surrounding habitat (since the lake house was surrounded mostly by forest, and this house is set in primarily meadow).

lawn19 — Possibly Sulphur Cinquefoil, Potentilla recta

In fact, only five of the 15 tallied last year made an appearance in this year’s lawn. This one happens to be one of them. I didn’t know what it was, and apparently I didn’t know last year, either. I got a new wildflower guide for my birthday this year, and based on that I might suggest Sulphur Cinquefoil, Potentilla recta, or a closely related species. It’s not all that uncommon. It’s funny how there can be species you see all the time, and you recognize as being something you’ve seen before, and yet you have no idea what these very common species actually are. I find a number of wildflowers fall into this category.

Of course, even better than enjoying the flowers in the lawn, is seeing the critters that visit the flowers in the lawn. Here, an unidentified species of true bug climbs about the flower head of an English Plantain, Plantago lanceolata. As the name suggests, it’s an introduction originally native to Europe. The good thing about many introduced species, though, is that quite often they’re readily adopted into our local food chains, so at least if they’re taking up space they’re still providing some value to the wildlife. My flower guide notes that the seeds of English Plantain are often eaten by birds, and their leaves are favoured by rabbits.

Ever wonder what might sprout up in your lawn if you left it unmowed for a little while? Even if you originally bought your lawn as sod, as long as you haven’t been applying weed-killer to it there’s a pretty good chance that there are some hardy wildflower seeds sitting in the soil at the roots of the grass, waiting for an opportunity to sprout and grow. If you have a section of lawn where the neighbours can’t see or won’t complain, it might be interesting to try the experiment yourself.

lawn17 — Shepherd's Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris

My guide notes Shepherd’s Purse is “probably a European native but is now found all over the world.” The spring leaves can be eaten as salad greens, and the seeds, collected and dried in the fall, can be used as seasoning in cooking (the plant is part of the mustard family, so they have a peppery mustardy taste).

Yarrow cultivar — Rogue cultivated yarrow

The plant that garden yarrows are derived from is Achillea millefolium, and is native throughout much of the northern hemisphere. Apparently starlings will use it in their nests, which has been shown to reduce nest parasites. There are quite a number of cultivars developed, from the “wild-type” white to yellow to red to mauve. Yarrow is an especially hardy perennial. I bought one back in the spring, a red cultivar with yellow centres, and when I took it to the checkout the salesperson said, “There’s a one-year guarantee on all perennials, if they don’t return next year bring in your receipt for a refund.” Then she laughed. “Not that you’ll need it for this one.”

Different from Low Hop Clover, above, the species is also a European introduction – in fact, all of the yellow clovers found in eastern North America are. I couldn’t find any reference to why it was called “hop clover”, at least in a quick search. I wonder if it bears some properties similar to hops.

One patch of lawn was filled with an assortment of wildflowers. In this group are wild yarrow (the white flowers), a Red Clover, Trifolium pratense, a red cultivar of the garden plant Bachelor’s Button (I think), and Heal-all, Prunella vulgaris.

There are a number of yellow hawkweeds in Ontario. I did a post about hawkweeds last year, and mentioned Yellow Hawkweed, Hieracium caespitosum, but I don’t think this is that species. However, I don’t know which one it actually is, they can be tricky to tell apart.

lawn9 — Johnny Jump-ups on the loose, and a Red Clover

Johnny Jump-ups have to be one of the most tenacious of garden plants. It takes them no time at all to escape the confines of the garden borders that you’ve carefully laid out, and start gallavanting all over the lawn. You may not notice if you mow your lawn regularly, but leave it for a couple of weeks and you’ll start seeing little purple-and-yellow flowers peeking out from the grass.

Northern Bedstraw — Star Chickweed, Stellaria pubera

Out in our meadows there are dense mats of this flower, Star Chickweed, which seems to habitually co-occur with vetch. It’s recognizable by its deeply-cleft petals, which makes it look like it has ten narrow petals rather than just five cleft ones.

lawn7 — Alsike Clover, Trifolium hybridum

Different from Red Clover, Alsike Clover has pinkish outer flowers and whitish inner ones. Another introduction, apparently the specific name “hybridum” has nothing to do with it actually being a hybrid (which it’s not), but probably more likely refers to the dual tones of the flower heads.

Common Ragweed is a species familiar to anyone who suffers from hay fever. It’s a sneaky plant, its green flowers subtle enough that it manages to set up goldenrod to take the fall for the misery it inflicts upon the innocent. It’s a very competitive, invasive weed, but happens to be native, which is a little surprising – we’re so used to thinking of our invasive species as exotics.

This family seems to give me some trouble. A member of the buttercup family, so many of them seem to have similar toothy leaves and yellow flowers. I thought the fact that the petals on this one were widely separated might give me an edge, but no luck.

Edit: I’ve been corrected by someone far wiser and more knowledgeable about plants than I, Tom of Ohio Nature. He suggests it’s a member of the Rosaceae family, possibly an agrimony species, Agrimonia sp, and comments that he’s not aware of any Ranunculaceae that bloom so late in the season. Thanks, Tom!

Second Edit: More comments pour in! The identification suggested for the plant is Norwegian Cinqfoil, Potentilla norvegica, which looks like a good match.

lawn5 — Grass, probably Timothy, Phleum pratense

Timothy is a common pasture grass, recognizable by its fuzzy, narrow spikes of flowers. It’s commonly used in hay production, and the seeds are enjoyed by birds and other wild animals. P. pratense is introduced, but Mountain Timothy, P. alpinum, is native to North America.

Not to be confused with “sorrel”, which is another group of plants, Yellow Wood Sorrel belongs to the same genus (Oxalis) as the clovers you can buy at the grocery store at St. Patrick’s Day – not to be confused with the clovers I’ve shown in the lawn, above, which are a different genus again. Confused? The origins of Yellow Wood Sorrel are uncertain as it’s now found around the globe, but are thought to be North America.