CherylKatz.org

I’m a little late to this party, but I think the new farmers’ market in City Heights is important and I hope that San Diegans will go out to support it.

It’s a block south of University, on Wightman between 43rd and Fairmount. This can’t be too far from Red Sea (Ethiopian Restaurant). It’s a brand new, itty bity farmers’ market with only 11 vendors to start with, but I feel hopeful that if people show enough demand, more vendors will come!

For those of us not living in SD, City Heights is a low-income neighborhood. Residents there do not have much if any access to fresh food (let alone local or organic.) Just having a farmers’ market will be a huge opportunity for City Heights residents to get real food.

The remarkable thing is that this farmers’ market is going to accept food stamps and WIC coupons. This means that people formerly buying food at convenience stores because of the dearth of decent markets can now get the kinds of foods everyone should be eating. (That fresh foods are as much a luxury as they are is criminal; everyone should be able to eat food that resembles food, not packaged crap.) On top of that, food stamp and WIC customers of the market in City Heights will have their purchases matched dollar for dollar up to $10, so their stamps and coupons will go much farther than at a supermarket or convenience store.

I am so excited by this, so excited for City Heights residents. Please, please, if you can go support the baby farmers’ market! I wish I’d been able to on Saturday, but I plan to go this weekend.

Here’s the link to the SignOnSanDiego article:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080604/news_1m4farm.html

Between putting in some elbow grease in my garden over this weekend and scouring the farmers’ market for fresh organic produce, I am positively foaming at the mouth with anxiety to get my garden under way for the spring and summer!

I had to take out the giant clippers and hack away at some big weeds (BIG, as in nearly as tall as I am, and even wider than I am in wingspan) to clear out the main body of the garden. I dug up as much weed-root as I could, but those suckers run deep; I imagine I’ll be fighting them for years to come.

I removed the green onions, which, unharvested from last year, have gone to flower. I picked off heaps of jalapeño peppers from last year and snipped a bunch of dead branches, and I’m hoping the jalapeño plant comes to new life.

I’m having a mint calamity. Last year my father in law and I planted an innocent-looking little spearmint plant in one cell of a cinder block. It flourished moderately well last year, but let’s say that at best I was less than impressed with its performance. Well, it clearly took the winter to work on its weaknesses, because not only has it come up on all sides OUTside that cinder block, it has ducked under the fence and bushed out on the dog-run side of the fence in the back yard.

Luckily it hasn’t taken much of a toll on the Wild Marjoram that lives in the cell next door. That, too, seems to be thriving, despite what I consider to be its unfortunate location. I plan to take clippings of the Marjoram, Oregano Greek and Rosemary and attempt to propagate them in pots to be raised on the front or side porch. Then I can move them indoors for the winter, along with the two new Basil plants I adopted today. (Last year’s basil died over the winter.)

Speaking of the Basil, you should know that I put those two new plants in window boxes this evening, and Sami helped me with soil management.  Sure, she got more on the side porch than in the planters, but she had a blast doing it and I’m glad we could work together on something.  I don’t think the Italian Basil plant appreciated having a cup of soil plopped on top of its leaves, but it did appreciate when I bailed it out and went on to water it.  I wish I could have taken photos of Sami with my trowel in one hand and a small flower pot in the other, but alas I was even dirtier than she was.

Meanwhile, back in mint management, I uprooted as much of it as I could, and took a few well-rooted sprigs to plant in a pot on the driveway. (Ha HA, take that, contained herb. See if you can root through concrete!) As far as the one in the back yard is concerned, I’ll just snip it wherever I see it and hope for the best. I’m mildly afraid it’ll slowly take over and kill everything in my garden, but hopefully I can get my tomatoes raised fast enough and they’ll be resource-intensive enough to keep the mint at bay. I know this isn’t a reasonable hope, but it is my hope nonetheless. I’m advised that I also can spray parts of the plant with white vinegar to get it to die back a little bit.

What else, what else? My lemon tree looks like it’ll be bearing fruit soon, which is exciting. Sami loves to eat lemons. It’s just about the oddest thing I’ve ever seen - hand her a slice of lemon and she will suck it dry. No pucker-face or anything. So I’m definitely looking forward to more citrus happiness.

Also, Ben has approved the acquisition and implantation of an avocado tree. I’m hoping to find one at a nursery that is bearing fruit or is near to bearing fruit, since bringing a tree up from seed to fruit-bearing can take 5 to 13 (!!) years. And I simply do not want to wait that long for fresh, organic yummy avocados to be growing on my property if I don’t have to wait that long.

In short, I’m gearing up to replant my garden and biting my nails with some anxiety since this will be the first year that I’m in charge of everything. My mother in law assures me that if I kill something I can always go buy a new one, which is true. But I’m hoping to get through planting with no casualties. We’ll see how it goes.

I dragged myself and Sami to the Farmers’ Market this morning, despite the overflowing gutters on every street corner.

The rain wasn’t all that hard, and had started to lighten up before we headed home. I had brought my raincoat to throw over the stroller in case its standard shade wasn’t enough, but Sami fared just fine, bundled up in her coat and shielded by the stroller. I had an umbrella but didn’t do quite so well. My pants were soaked half way up to my knees.

In any case, I discovered that I am deeply in love with pink lady apples. I bought them from a vendor of organic produce (shock! gasp! at the farmers’ market!) but while I remember what they looked like and where they were located, I couldn’t tell you the name of any one vendor from another. In any case, I tried these apples, and gave Sami a sliver as well. She chucked hers to the footrest of her stroller and grunted for my chunk. We traded. And we both gave the Pink Lady our stamp of approval. I’m a big fan of Golden Delicious apples and these are like GDs +1.  Incidentally, ours did not appear to be branded in any way, other than the name being used as the variety, contrary to what the link above might suggest.
Jen found possibly the largest, sweetest unripe-looking grapefruit on the face of the earth, and we each bought 3 for $2. When I run out of the 20 lb box of Costco oranges (at a rate of 2 oranges a day, that will be, like, three weeks from now?) I plan to buy the 20 lb bag from that same vendor. Fresh, local organic oranges are so much better!

I picked up a bag of crimini mushrooms, whose purpose has yet to appear to me in a vision, though I’m seeing maybe a mushroom risotto-style barley dish. I’ve really been into barley and quinoa lately.

Finally, I stocked up on the frozen tamales Ben and I love. They’re hand made and fresh, but kept frozen for longer shelf life. Which suits us just fine. Ben likes easy foods for office lunches, and I just frankly love tamales.

Ah, farmers’ market. Not only do you count as a single serving of daily physical activity, but I have a sneaking suspicion that buying my food from your vendors will help me along my health and fitness goals….