Volume 9, Issue 10, October 2000
The Black Swamp Herb Socity, with Gardens at the Wood County Historical Center
Action Taken on Pond Plans
Motion by Jean Gamble
Seconded by Jody Carroll, August 28, 2000
“The Black Swamp Herb Society backs the concept of cleaning the two ice ponds. They also back the concepts of placing an aerating fountain in one pond, and putting in place a grating that will allow for water gardening in the summer and ice skating in the winter. It is understood that Wood County Park District will manage the ponds and that the Herb Society accepts no financial liability. However, the group will seek grant funding to help develop the project.”
The motion passed unanimously. A full forum of members was present.
Jean Gamble spoke with all three County Commissioners about the proposed plan and all responded with enthusiasm on Wood County Day. She followed up her conversation with handwritten notes to the Commissioners. They urged her to draw up a financial proposal for them to consider. The Herb Society is working closely with the Historic Center, the Wood County Park District and the Wood County Maintenance Department to do just that. Jean Gamble and Chris MacDonald are working to keep the lines of communication open. The National Guard may even get involved in cleaning the muck out of the bottom of the ponds. They need practice in using some heavy equipment and the ponds can provide the practice!
The BSHS has worked with the Site and Planning Committee which has drawn up a general plan for the entire “Poor Farm” site of 32 acres. From the beginning development of the Herb Garden areas and the ponds have been part of this long term fifty year plan. The challenge is to make a reality of these plans.
One of the exciting aspects about all this is the cooperation among many agencies and organizations all working together to improve the site. BSHS is providing the vision, and others are helping to make it a reality. I spoke with Wood County Administrator, Andrew Kalmar, about the high level of cooperation among the groups. We have a situation where success is only possible by communicating and cooperating and making best use of existing resources -such as County equipment and personnel.. Jean and Bob Gamble are planning on making a generous donation towards an aerating fountain in “our” pond. The county already owns a system that can be installed in the second pond! Again, we are sharing resources.
Those of you who attended Wood County Day in 1999 know that traffic and parking was truly a disaster. With the planning leadership of Ranger Greg Guntzman the problem was solved in 2000. BSHS wrote thank you letters to the Park District, the Sheriffs office and the Sentinel-Tribune praising the effort and its success. Governments are people and people need to know they are appreciated.
Cooking with Herbs
Cooking with Chemo
Many of us are dealing with loved ones undergoing chemotherapy and know that strange cravings develop. Here are variations on some “sour” recipes that help those cravings while providing good nutrition.
Cuban Black Bean Soup
An earlier “ham bone” version has appeared in these pages before. This is a vegetarian variation. The absolute key ingredient is a high quality dark balsamic vinegar.
1 pound dried black beans
6 cups of liquid
(Variation A – Canned supermarket vegetable juice with additional
water as needed. Variation B – Canned V-8 Vegetable juice Picante
Style with additional water as needed. Variation C – Canned V-8
Vegetable juice -Spicy Hot with additional water as needed.)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
3/4 cup chopped green pepper
6 cloves of chopped garlic
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can of
Variation A – Canned tomatoes
Variation B – Dei Fratelli Italian Style canned tomatoes
Variation C – Dei Fratelli Mexican style canned tomatoes
1 (4 1/2 ounce) can chopped chilies, undrained
1/2 cup dark balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons oregano
2 teaspoons thyme
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
Cover beans with water and bring to a boil. Rinse. Add vegetable juice and cook for 1 1/2 hours -check if additional water is needed. Lightly saute onions, green pepper and garlic in olive oil. Add them and remaining ingredients to the beans and cook for another 30 minutes or so. Cool. Put three quarters of the soup in a blender or food processor, puree and return to pan. Mix well. Serve with sour cream.
(The need and craving for spiciness varies – hence the three levels offered. Variation C is EXTREME.)
10 1.5 cup servings.
Cals.. 227, Prot.. 15 g. Chol 39 g. Fat 1.8g, Fiber 12.5 g.
Fruit Salad
Keys here are the fresh pineapple and strawberries and Mandarin Oranges in their own juices (or at most a very light syrup.) You want to preserve the tart/sour taste of the fruit. Proportions are variable.
1/2 Canteloupe – balled
1/2 Honeydew-balled
1 whole fresh pineapple cut up
1 pint blueberries
1 quart strawberries cut up – NOT sugared
4 kiwi fruit cut up
1 six ounce package of raspberries (if available)
1 small can of mandarin oranges in their own juice
Fresh leaves of spearmint used with abandon
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger
Toss all together and cover tightly and refrigerate for flavors to blend. Don’t eat the spearment leaves.
Very sour sour gummy bears are useful. Hint from Sandy Hayden and American Cancer Society.
Unspoiled of April’s rain, by August’s fire,
And incorrupt before October’s gold,
Green in December’s snow – such I desire
To be the memory of good friends of old:
Unchanged, unfearing, fragrant, as the semblance
Of Rosemary in my heart’s garden of remembrance.
– George P. Baker
Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Loaves
Roasted garlic studs this wholesome whole wheat bread for a savory loaf to accompany cheeses and meats. It is excellent toasted served as an ippetizer spread with a soft cheese and topped with sun-dried tomatoes.
2 packages active dry yeast
2 1/2 cups lukewarm water
2 cups stone-ground whole wheat flour
about 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
8 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
In a small bowl, sprinkle yeast into 1/2 cup of the water and let stand until dissolved and puff, about 10 minutes. In a bowl, place whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour and salt. Add remaining water, honey and 3 tabelspoons olive oil and mix with a heavy duty mixer untill well mixed. Mix in proofed yeast and 1 tablespoon Herb of the year 2000 of the rosemary. Gradually stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough; you may not need to use all the flour. Knead with mixer’s dough hook or transfer to a lightly floured board and knead by hand for 10 minutes. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled – about 1 1 /2 hours.
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Place garlic in a small baking dish, rub with 1/2 teaspoon oil and bake 30 minutes until soft; peel and cut cooled garlic into pieces. Add and mix remaining rosemary and 1 teaspoon olive oil. Punch down dough and transfer to a lightly floured board. Divide and shape into 2 oval loaves. Place loaves on a lightly oiled baking sheet. With a finger poke 8 holes in the top of each loaf and fill with garlic and herb mixture. Cover and let rise until doubled, 45-50 minutes. Brush with oil and bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes until browned. Should sound hollow when thumped. Cool on a rack.
From Cooking with Fresh Herbs by Lous Seibery Pappas
Alas, Rosemary is a Southern Belle
Safely hardy only to zone 7 Northern gardeners must forego dreams of rosemary hedges, or long established creeping varieties falling down walls in romantic and aromatic sweeps.
Zones 4 & five require a different approach. Rosemary becomes a container plant. It can spill from a hanging container. Tuscan Blue/ “Majorca Pink” and “Pinkie” are all fast growing rosemary cultivars that can tumble through a summer. The same cultivars make excellent topiaries and standards…which look like small or large green lillipops.
Rosemary can be trained as a dignfied “standard”’ or topiary with the idea of bringing the majestic beauty of the plant in for the winter. “Taking in” isn’t enough if you want to get through the long winter. Well before the first frost plants should be taken out of pots, roots pruned and plants repotted and left outside ready to be moved into greenhouse or garage at the first sign of frost. Plants must be “weaned” to house temperatures and humidities. Pots should be placed on drain pans filled with gravel and water. This can be done on a grand scale for an ancient tall standard or on a table top arrangement for a young topiary in training.
“I plant Rosemary all over the garden, so pleasant it is to know that at every few steps one may draw the kindly branchlets through one’s hand, and have the enjoyment of their incomparable incense: and I grow against walls, so that the sun may draw out is inexhaustible sweetness to greet me as I pass…”
– Gertrude Jekyll
“I must have saffron to colour the warden pies.”
– The Winter’s Tale, iv, 3
Fennel
“There’s fennel for you and Columbines.”
– Hamlet, iv, 5
Fennel has been grown since ancient times when Greek athletes ate it for strength and improved performance. Its botanical name, Foeniculum, is derived from the Latin word foenum, or “hay.” With a delicate, elusive taste reminiscent of anise and parsley, the sweetly fragrant leaves of fennel transform vegetables, seafood, soups, salads, and other dishes into epicurean fare. Be sure to try fish grilled with fennel leaves surrounding it and the stalks tossed onto the fire. Use the stronger-flavored seeds of fennel with stews, sausages, vegetables, meats, pickles, breads, liqueurs, and desserts.
Eating a few fennel seeds before a meal will help curb your appetite, and chewing a few afterwards will aid digestion. Tea brewed from the leaves or seeds will serve the same purposes. Fennel leaves are high in calcium, iron, potassium, and vitamins A and C.
Fennel (Foeniculm vulagare) and Bronze Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Bronze Fennel’) are 15-16 in our Culinary Garden and we are advised to cut them down for the winter.
Potpourri
Former Black Swamp President Valerie Trudeau will be chairing the Great Lakes Herb Symbosium next July. We, as an organization, will be backing her in as many ways as possible.
We are being asked to provide the rereshments for the evening “after presentaion” coffee break at 8:15 pm on Tuesday, July 16. I agreed, but would like a motion to that effect next meeting.
We need to plan for a couple of shredder days – to chop up some of our existing compost and to take advantage of huge drifts of leaves that are in our future. Lack of green stuff such as grass clippings continue to plague us.
Garden chairmen need to continue to make lists of plants to be grown and ordered over this winter.
Thanks to all who helped at the Black Swamp Arts Festival and Wood County Day. Our rate of participaion continues to be extraordinarly high. Wonderful. Money making was not in our plans but we cleared $94 on Wood County Day.
Horse manure has been ordered as part of the garden bedding down process.
Our Community Workers are starting to open up a bed for a small Shakespearean Garden being planned by Jan Bingham. Help! with quotes and plants. We take great pride in the enthusiasm of former Community Workers who led family and friends on garden tours!
The afternoon and evening of our last meeting day was productive in both the garden and in food preparations for Old Home Christmas. Bag after bag of special blends were measured under the supervision of Kathy Hicks.
From the Library
No, this is not in our library, but maybe it should be in some of our home libraries as a reference book. The Breast Cancer Prevention Diet by Dr. Bob Arnot poses some interesting questions about diet, life styles and taking charge as much as possible. One of the frustrations of living in our self-conscious, instant expert, instant fad, instant answer, latest study world is that “answers and knowledge” do seem to change from month to month.
Butter was pronounced bad, margarines with the hydrogenated fats are now declared even worse; olive oil is our neutral friend and fish and flax oil can be our saviors.
Omega-3 fatty acids (found in flax seed oil and fish oil) are currently a woman’s best friend blocking excess bad estrogen, building up good cholesterol and suppressing the bad. Omega-6 fatty acids (found in margarine, mayonnaise and commercial salad dresses as well as safflower oil, corn oil, soybean oil, peanut oil and cottonseed oil) are considered prime villains. Omega-9 fatly acids (why do they count in three’s?? – just told I need a course in Organic Chemistiy) are found in olive oil and are considered neutral in its effect (Mediterranean diet.)
Arnot has charts showing foods that produce high (bad) and low insulin effects on the body. Hamburger buns, ice cream and potatoes can really get you. A Napales prickly pear cactus may be hard to find, but barley, kidney beans and peaches (all good) most of us can handle.
What about soy? It can be considered controversial. The Asian diet style can be looked at as complicated or simple. A lot depends on the herbs used!
Gift Horse in the Mouth
In the interest of being good gardeners and caretakers of our plants we sometimes worry about changes.
Case in point: the spent mushroom compost offered to our group by Ida Dahlberg, who has used her compost from husband and Campbell’s Soup in a happy and productive way. Dr. Robert Nuss of Penn State in Kitchen Gardener advises: “It is best to think of mushroom material as a soil additive because of its 80% or higher organic content, rather than as a complete garden soil.”
Jean Gamble and Frances Brent have been playing detectives and this is a recent e-mail sent to Dr. Nuss.
“The Black Swamp Herb Society keeps a series of formal and informal herb gardens behind the Wood County Historical Center (the Old “Poor Farm”) in Ohio. One of our members, Ida Dahlberg, whose husband is a Project Manager for Campbell’s in Napoleon, OH, has offered us a truck load of spent mushroom compost. She says she and local growers have used the compost to good effect and no harm. We are frankly worried. We are on a major local garden tour next June and don’t want to kill out the gardens!
“We have been in contact with our Ohio State Extension agent Craig Everett, who in turn has been in contact with Dr. Watson of Ohio State who sent the following message:
“‘What you really have to watch out for in this kind of compost is the soluble salt level. It can be very high. It should not be more than 3 mmhos/cm, preferably around 2. I have seen some 10 to 20 times this high. Have a lab run the electrical conductivity test (i.e. soluble salt test) on it. The pH will probably be okay. The soluble salt compost can kill plants REAL fast.’
“I read your recent reply to an inquiry about mushroom mulch in Kitchen Gardener. You too emphasize the salt problem. Our scheme was to have the compost delivered and let it age over a Wood County winter with the idea of applying it in the spring. Would this be sufficient to leech the salts? How would we know?
“Any insights, advice, strategies or suggestions would be welcome.
“Frances Brent,
“President, Black Swamp Herb Society”
Jean has obtained a kit and a form to have such testing done. ($42). I have not yet heard from Dr. Nuss. Ida, we do appreciate your offered gift, even if this “gift horse” is getting a full dental exam. Stay tuned.
From the Chicken Coop
Well, we are an add-on, but that is better than nothing. The firm doing the major rennovations on the Lunatic House will be taking on the Chicken Coop as well. (They are late starting the Lunatic House so..)
It turns out our pruners etc. we have been searching for are still there. Just in the “gardening box” rather in the buckets and walls we have been checking. Won’t it be wonderful when all is done and things have their own place?
Calendar of Events
(Published here for historical purposes.)
Monday, October 23, 7 pm gather in the garden or the meeting room, depending on individual mood and outside weather conditions. Program is at 8. Cinda Davis is coming back to talk some more about butterflies. This will be a working evening with a variety of stations set up to work on Christmas Projects. We will have equipment, but it is always good to bring a favorite pair of scissors, or glue gun or needle and thread.
You may bring your own projects to work on, and can perhaps find some followers to join you. This is a chance to build up handicraft skills, depending on your choice of activity.
Tender Perennials
Our big bay trees, the lemon grass, the sweet olive, the big rosemary, the curry plant always pose a worry this time of year. We have to get them safely under cover before frost and who has the truck to do it? New member Shelly Sabo and husband Mike gave us a hand this year, and all the above are safely in the greenhouse at Lavender Blue Herb Farm on River Rd.
Foreign Invasions
Some weeds are more invasive and problematical than others because they tend to displace native plants. Some of the culprits you have no doubt noticed.
Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) – You see this everywhere! It is a biennial herb. It begins as a rosette of leaves in the first year, overwinters as a green rosette of leaves, flowers and fruits in the second year. Flowers are four petaled and white and grow in cluster on top of the stem. Plants have triangular, sharply-toothed leaves and grow up to 4 feet. The abundant seeds are viable up to seven years. (To be continued)
