Grow Your Own Scrumptious Fungus

Matt Demmon over at Little House Farm is once again offering his most-fascinating mushroom class. Learn how to grow and get tips on preserving and cooking up your own delicious fungi, and enter a world of tasty beauty with Matt as your guide.

To whet your appetite, read my interview with Matt from last year and then check out his mouth-watering recipe below!

Backyard Mushrooming

Sunday, April 11th

12pm - 3pm

Little House Farm

$50 for class; $70 to take home your own log

Call Matt at 734-255-2783 or email to register

Hurry! Class size is limited.

Quick and Easy Mushrooms with Cream Sauce ala Little House Farm

8 oz. fresh mushrooms or 2 oz. dried mushrooms (reconstituted in water first)

1/2 of a small onion

3 tablespoons of butter

2 tablespoons of flour (can be a combination of millet, amaranth, buckwheat and/or teff for those hankering after gluten-free)

1 cup milk or half and half

Salt and pepper to taste

Pasta of your choice

Saute the mushrooms in the butter for about five minutes, and then add the onion. Continue sauteing until the onion is golden brown. Stir in the flour and continue stirring until the flour smells roasted and changes color. Add the milk or half and half while stirring constantly until it comes to a simmer and begins to thicken. Salt and pepper to taste and serve over a pasta of your choice.

Pondering Potato Varieties with Royer Held

Gardening can be tremendously satisfying, especially when growing vegetables and herbs for your own table. Recently, Project Grow talked with Royer Held, an heirloom enthusiast, about potatoes and sweet potatoes. In the first part of our conversation, Royer shared what got him started growing tubers and why he's kept on growing them. Here in the second part, he offers advice for the grower on choosing a variety that's right for you and your garden.

PG: Are some varieties better for storing, eating, baking, or eating immediately?

RH: Potato varieties differ in starch content and this is what makes them appropriate for different uses. Baking potatoes have a high starch content while my Bolivians and fingerling potatoes have a lower starch content, which make them better for boiling. There is nothing better to eat than a "new" potato: one freshly dug or one snuck out from under a growing plant before the main harvest.

PG: What do you advise a grower when looking for a variety?

RH: Consider how you like to cook your potatoes. Many of the garden catalogs that sell potatoes make suggestions for types that are suitable for particular types of cooking.

In addition to starch content, I would consider early, mid and late season potato varieties. My Bolivian potatoes are late season. That means they tie up garden space until frost. You could grow early season potatoes and follow that crop with greens, daikon, or a cool growing crop to get more out of your garden. A first time grower should select any variety that is commonly grown in your part of the country.

PG: Why are sweet potatoes often grown using slips?

RH: I suspect that growing sweet potatoes from slips is a matter of convenience and a way to reduce cost. It is truly amazing how quickly a slip without roots gets established in the garden. Sweet potatoes root along their stems quite easily, and most of the time the slips have roots already started. Sweet potatoes seldom flower at this lattitude so we don't see seed. If you were to grow sweet potatoes from seed you would have a new variety just like you do when you grow potatoes from seed. This happens quite often in tropical lattitudes, which helps account for the large number of commercial varieties available.

PG: What's the difference broadly speaking (I don't want to give away your whole class!) between using potato seeds, seed potatoes, and slips?

RH: When you use seed potatoes or slips you are growing exactly the same plant and genetic material that produced the seed potato or slip. This assures that you are growing exactly the same thing you grew the year before, or that you are growing exactly the variety that you want. When you grow any plant from seed, you are getting a brand new genetic combination that may or may not reflect the characteristics of its parents. This is where new varieties come from. To me, growing things from seed is far more exciting than simply accepting someone else's idea about what I should be growing!

PG: Is there a particular trick to successfully growing potatoes and sweet potatoes? Is there something you do to always ensure success?

RH: Both of these plants (the potato and the sweet potato) are quite tough. If they weren't, they wouldn't be as widely cultivated as they are. Like any garden vegetable, the key to success lies in the quality of the soil in which the plants are grown. All gardeners should be paying attention to developing and maintaining a healthy soil. As long as you do that, you can grow anything.

That said, sweet potatoes and potatoes should not be supplied with extra nitrogen. That will cause both types of plants to produce foliage rather than tubers. Potatoes and sweet potatoes also benefit from mulch. They both like even soil moisture and do not like to dry out until the end of the season.

When harvesting both regular and sweet potatoes take care not to injure the potatoes. Sweet potatoes that have been bruised, scraped, or otherwise injured are more likely to rot in storage. The same is true to a lesser degree with potatoes.

Want to find out more? Check back here for the third and final installment about saving potato seeds, and don't forget to read how it all began. Sign up for Potato Seeds, Seed Potatoes, and Sweet Potato Slips to talk to Royer in person, and take the Project Grow Potato Pledge!

Potato Seeds, Seed Potatoes, and Sweet Potato Slips

Saturday, April 10th

10am - 11:30am

Leslie Science and Nature Center

1831 Traver Road

Ann Arbor, MI

734-996-3169

Pondering the Potato

An unsung hero of the vegetable world is the potato. Often berated as a carb carrying fiend, the potato is really a source of great culinary delights and nutrition. Not to mention, it's got a fascinating history. Project Grow (PG) interviewed Royer Held (RH) about his passion for the potato, and his upcoming class on growing potatoes in the garden. Read this first part of the interview where we talk about the potatoes he grows and the spark that got him to grow his first tuber.

PG: I was aware of your interest in heirloom tomatoes and peppers, but not potatoes and sweet potatoes. What sparked your interest in this group?

RH: I first started growing my own potatoes about twenty years ago. I was eager to try some of the varieties offered by a mail order business that had close to 100 different kinds. I ended up growing a number of fingerlings and some other varieties that sounded interesting.

I grew them off and on, but my interest took off twelve years ago when my daughter went to Bolivia as an exchange student. She came back talking about all the different kinds of potatoes that were available in Bolivia. She said some tasted like bananas, and some were orange. I started looking for a way that I could try some.

About eight years ago I found that the USDA Seed Bank had hundreds of Bolivian potato varieties in their collection. I submitted an application and received ten different varieties that I've been growing ever since.

PG: What appeals to you about potatoes and sweet potatoes? Do you like both crops for the same or for different reasons?

RH: Both potatoes and sweet potatoes are highly nutritious and easily grown in your garden. If you grow them yourself, you have access to hundreds if not thousands of varieties you can't get in the grocery store. Potatoes are easier to grow and better suited to Michigan's cooler summers.

Ever since I received the Bolivian potato seed I have been growing Bolivian potatoes in my garden. I would have to say that I have a fondness for them that is somewhat irrational. Since each potato you grow from seed is unique, each time you raise a potato from seed (as opposed to from a tuber or seed potato) you get a new variety. I have been growing potatoes from seed ever since I got the first batch of seed from the USDA. At this point, I don't know how many different varieties I currently have. Each year I collect seed from plants that produce fruit, so theoretically I could produce 1,000's of new potato varieties if I had enough space to grow them.

I got inspired to try sweet potatoes reading about them in the Sandhill Preservation Catalogproduced by Glen Drowns. Glen grows sweet potatoes in Iowa. I figured if it can be done in Iowa, we should be able to do it here. If you choose early season sweet potatoes you can get a decent crop. It's fun to try an assortment because they have different flavors and textures, just like potatoes.

PG: What's special about heirloom potatoes?

RH: Variety is the spice of life. Commercial growers are not growing heirloom potato varieties in large quantities. Since potato varieties must be grown from tubers each year this makes it hard to keep them going. Will Bonsal who is the curator of the potato collection maintained by Seed Savers Exchange is having a tough time keeping all of the potatoes in his collection from going extinct. Home gardeners should step up and take on this responsibility because they are the ultimate beneficiaries of the preservation of these varieties.

Hungry for more information? Check back for the next installment where we talk with Royer about the varieties he grows, and some specifics about growing potatoes and sweet potatoes. Better yet, register for his class, and take the Project Grow Potato Pledge and get yourself growing!

Potato Seeds, Seed Potatoes, and Sweet Potato Slips

Saturday, April 10th

10am - 11:30am

Leslie Science and Nature Center

1831 Traver Road

Ann Arbor, MI

734-996-3169

Ann Arbor Eggs

A reader raised a great question about Ann Arbor eggs. If you don't want (or your neighbors are a bit hesitant to agree to let you have) chickens in your backyard, is it possible to get your hands on some neighborhood eggs?

Here are a couple things that might be helpful resources.

Ann Arbor Chickens are on Facebook. Post the question to the group. Might I also suggest also offering a trade as a bit of a carrot? For example, if you've got a garden offer some veggies or better yet to clean out the coop in the spring and haul off the manure for your garden! (Take a look at the Project Grow Facebook page while you're there, too!)

Ann Arbor City Chickens is a web site dedicated to, well, Ann Arbor City Chickens. Check them out for ideas, some reference materials, and ideas for supplies.

Peruse the Ann Arbor (including the Westside Market!) and Ypsilanti Farmers Markets and look for community eggs. There's an ever-growing list of producers present, so it's worth investigating.

And now I'm hoping for ideas from all of you! Any leads on getting your hands on neighborhood eggs? Got neighborhood eggs you want to share? Give a shout and let us know!

Upcoming Class Reminder!

Potato Seeds, Sweet Potatoes, and Sweet Potato Slips

Saturday, April 10

10am - 11:30am

Leslie House at Leslie Science Center

Heirloom Tomatoes and Peppers

Saturday, April 17

10am - 11:30am

Leslie House at Leslie Science Center

Take Project Grow's Potato Pledge and Plant a Row for the Hungry

While planning this years garden - whether electronically or using pen and paper - don't forget to plant a row for the hungry. It's not difficult (what's one more row, really?) and can provide fresh food that can make a world of difference for a neighbor in the community.

And Project Grow and Downtown Home and Garden are making it even easier! Take our Potato Pledge and pick up two pounds of seed potatoes from Downtown Home and Garden on April 17th and get growing! Potatoes are easy and satisfying to grow, and are a favorite staple of food banks everywhere.

Potato Pledge

1. Find the Project Grow Potato Pledge Form at Downtown Home and Garden, the Ann Arbor Public Library - Downtown Branch, the People's Food Coop, and Whole Foods. (Take the upcoming class Potato Seeds, Seed Potatoes, and Sweet Potato Slips on Saturday, April 10th and pick up the form there, too!)

2. Bring the Pledge to Downtown Home and Garden on Saturday, April 17th to "Potato Alley" behind the store (enter at Liberty Street and exit via Washington Street), and turn that paper into two pounds of beautiful seed potatoes ready for planting.

3. Plant those potatoes! Without a doubt our Project Grow heirloom devotee, Royer Held, will offer some of the best insight on growing potatoes to be found during "Potato Seeds, Seed Potatoes, and Sweet Potatoes" on Saturday, April 10th. (Well-timed for Potato Pledgers so sign-up now!)

4. Harvest in late summer or early fall. Details on collection dates, times, and places can be found at this blog, our newsletter, and via email.

Fall Bulb Planning Now or Any Excuse to Get Outside

Put those Spring blues at bay for the moment and head out the door. This terrific idea about planning now for fall bulb planting is absolutely the perfect excuse to get out into the yard and to work. No digging or uncovering or planting - all a bit risky for the chilly days still in store for us - but some excellent fun!

Savor Seva: Not Just a Benefit for Your Tastebuds

Looking for someone to talk over that garden plan with? Hankering for a taste of Spring? Or just looking for a great meal at one of Ann Arbor's great restaurants?

Then come on out and join fellow gardeners and gardening enthusiasts on Monday, March 29th to compare notes over some of Ann Arbor's best vegetarian fare at Seva Restaurant. And remember, twenty-percent of the evening's proceeds will benefit Project Grow Community Gardens!

Savor Seva

Monday, March 29th

5pm - 9pm

Seva Restaurant

314 East Liberty

Ann Arbor

734-662-1111

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