Nostalgia can be one of my weak points, especially when looking at pictures and such from years ago, garden pictures in particular. I have taken on a few garden projects in Wilmington over the last decade, some for myself, some for other people, on rented, donated and abandoned land. Each project was unique in its perspective and scope, from community based plots to market gardens. This series of posts will be a short retrospective on the three projects that I have been able to find pictures of.

Six years ago, myself and handful of others - probably half the entire anarchist community in Wilmington at the time - set out to transform a grassy parking lot on the corner of 4th and Castle into a small garden. In my personal time line this was pre-Kristin, pre-Noel and Danielle, back when most of my time was spent in community activism or traveling to protests and direct actions or working an office job.

Prior to this garden idea, some other folks had tried to get a farm stand going on the property to resell local produce. That didn’t get far. Another person had just ended their organic food buying club, distributing the bi-weekly shares out of the building on the property.

We had ideas for the building too, all of which never happened. We wanted to have a community radio station, an infoshop, a coffee shop, and on and on. Every idea had some road block, everything from zoning to the FCC to generating enough money to actually buy the books we wanted to distribute in the infoshop. So we focused on the small plot of soil presented to us.

This garden was a chance to get some literal roots established among the concrete and asphalt and toxic soil. The land was basically donated to us along with the ability to use the building on the property to store tools, seeds and pots. The project was simple - turn the grass into garden beds and distribute the food that grew to all the participants.

Big ideas came and went, the ground was tilled, manure and compost spread, buckets collected, compost bins constructed, beds outlined. The work didn’t take long as long as people showed up. And they did, at first, but folks gradually moved away from the garden after the first year.

The first year was prep work and cover crops, kind of boring, tedious work if your vision was in instantly harvesting squash and beans. I guess my vision was a bit longer, so I stayed with it. It became more and more a solo effort during the winter.

The second year we planted a bunch of annual vegetables and some fruit trees. I had met Kristin by this point, and the garden became one of our first projects together. Other folks came and went, contributing a few hours here and there which we would write down in a log book.

Year three was the final year of the garden. The owners of the place had rented the building out to some people who did car detailing. The renters wanted the garden for parking the cars as they cleaned them. The renters were also pilfering the garden during the days we didn’t stop by, cutting the flowers and picking the peppers and tomatoes. This was discouraging in itself, but returning the garden to a parking lot after three years of work was very aggravating. I don’t know how long the garden would have lasted. I do know that it would have gotten better and better as I learned more and more about what was going on in that particular dirt.

Today there are few signs that the garden was ever there. I can’t even really look at the place when I pass by, but I have always hoped that some of the veggies went feral, messing up the parking lot…

A lot did come from this project. I ended up running a organic produce buying club for a few years and also started up a traveling infoshop that I took to shows and community events for about four years. I also learned a lot about building soil and starting from scratch, things that will help as the projects get bigger.

Cabbage is in season, and I am trying to figure out new ways to use the vegetable. Chinese cabbage is somewhat easier to use than head cabbage and often it is quicker to work with. This is a fast way to make a head of bok choy disappear. It isn’t a new way to use cabbage by any means, but most folks don’t usually use bok choy when making a coleslaw.

1 - Chop one large head of bok choy (about four or so unpacked cups worth) into pieces and strips. Add carrot, onion, radish, fruit or anything else that you like in coleslaw.

2 - Stir in one tablespoon of the vinegar of your choice. Add two or three tablespoons of mayonnaise or salad dressing. Add one teaspoon of salt and a bit of mustard.

3 - Mix and your done. The most time consuming part of the process is washing and chopping the bok choy.

Warning: this stuff is very addictive. Kristin and I ate almost the whole bowl in one sitting. Be warned…

Confessionals are somewhat easy for me to write; they make up a lot of what I write in my zine Quitter. I take the concept of Cricket Bread very seriously, but I have found that there are certain food items that I am gravitating back to. These foods are well out of the 100 mile range.

The first is goat butter. I have been unable to find a source of local goat milk or local goat butter. So I bought a couple packages of Meyenberg goat butter from the co-op. This butter comes all the way from California. The food miles are pretty dense on that one.

The second is bread. The discipline I need to make my own bread is pretty lacking. After working, bike commuting and then making a from-scratch meal, I don’t yet have what it takes to get into making bread. When Stoneground Bakery closed I was at a loss. The freezer cache emptied quickly, and I had to buy some packaged bread. It sounds weird but it really takes less effort to go out and dumpster a bag of bagels than it does to bake bread three times a week. Call it a weakness or laziness or whatever. Add to that several failed attempts at making bread, and I am a broken local bread eater. It is not that I don’t have the stomach for effort. It is just that six months into this project I have not been able to break this chain and just make it happen.

Bread is a staple for me. It just has to be here, readily accessible and ready to eat. I was trying to set up a routine in the bread world. For now it will have to be from the dumpster or from the shelf. I consider this a failure on my part since I have covered most every other staple with a local source. If I can’t find it or make it I move on…except for bread.

Well, those are the two things. They are a pretty unsubstantial two things, but they are things I cannot live without at the moment. That is my confession…

I have made enough chunky apple sauce from bruised and scavenged apples to last until spring. This Thanksgiving I used the apple sauce as the filling for a quick pie.

Last week my friend Mike gave me the recipe for the crust, and so I present my first from-scratch apple pie.

1 - Start by making the apple sauce.

2 - The crust is pretty straight forward. Mix two cups of flour with one teaspoon of salt and two-thirds cup of butter. I used goat butter, which can give the pie kind of a goaty flavor but I like it.

3 - When the dough starts to have a flaky texture and about half the pieces are pea-sized, start adding ice water in tablespoon increments. Don’t add any more than five tablespoons of water.

4 - Form the dough into a ball.

5 - Roll the dough out on wax paper. No wax paper? Just sprinkle some flour on a cutting board or countertop to avoid sticking. I started with a roller but ended up just using my hands to flatten the dough.

6 - Use half of the dough to line a nine inch pie pan.

7 - Add a bit of flour, no more than a tablespoon, to your apple sauce to thicken it up.

8 - Pour enough sauce into the pie dish to get it almost to the top of the dish. Add some honey to the top of the filling.

9 - Use the other half of the dough to cover the pie. I did the lattice top. Sprinkle with cinnamon if you have it.

10 - Bake at 450 degrees for ten minutes then reduce heat to 350 and bake for another forty minutes or until browned.

Crust recipe is from Mike and is adapted from Cooking Southern Vegetarian Style.