Real Tomatoes

Real Tomatoes

Real Tomatoes © 2008

This is what real produce looks like – it isn’t perfectly round, without a blemish or bump. It isn’t rated on consistency and each fruit doesn’t have to look like its neighbor. It’s real food. Organic and picked at it’s peak. No traveling 1,000 miles in a refrigerated car. Simply packed in a crate and taken about 6 miles to the market. Very yummy! You really can taste the difference.

Farmers’ Market, Madison Wisconsin

Heirloom Gardening

Polish Heritage Garden

Polish Heritage Garden © 2008

I love gardens. All kinds of gardens. Flower gardens, community gardens, Japanese gardens. And a recent visit to Old World Wisconsin sparked an interest in yet another type of garden – the heirloom garden.

It was a perfect summer’s day when I went exploring a few weeks ago. Old World is a great place to go when you want to both get in a little outdoor exercise and visit a museum. Though there is tram service to the various areas, I chose to walk the paths and managed to add nearly 4 miles to my pocket pedometer. And I discovered my favorite parts were outside, too – the thirteen heirloom gardens that sported colorful flowers and vegetables, and looked like paintings right out of the 19th Century. All of the gardens in the museum are typical of those found in the historical period from the 1850s through the 1890s.

German Heirloom Garden

German Heirloom Garden © 2008

Heirloom gardens use only plants that are cultivars that were commonly grown before large scale agricultural practices were introduced. These vegetable plants have kept their traits through open-pollination and the fruits are propagated by grafts and cuttings. These varieties are becoming less prevalent because plants are now chosen for their consistency, their hardiness to tolerate shipping and storage, and their tolerance to drought or pests. Though these qualities are desirable when growing food is a huge agri-business, these plants are not the best nutritionally nor do they taste the finest.

The gardeners at Old World also use farming techniques from the time period. If it wasn’t done in the late 19th century, it isn’t done in these plots either.

In the last decade, the heirloom gardening movement has been increasing. The gardens at Old World Wisconsin provide some mighty incentive. The vegetables and fruits I sampled tasted great.

Artesian Waters

Artesian Springs on Rustic Road 84

Artesian Springs on Rustic Road 84 © 2008

Wisconsin has a set of 107 roads covering 600 miles throughout the state designated at Rustic Roads.

Rustic Road 84 is in Jefferson County, southwest of Madison. It is only a little over 2 miles long and ffollows the wandering Bark River. One of its features is a natural artesian drinking fountain located about midway between Rock River Road and County Highway N.

The water is bubbling forcefully out of a jerry-rigged metal pipe – cold, clear, refreshing. I wished we had brought a couple of empty gallon jugs to fill. Next time I head to that area I’m coming home with some Wisconsin spring drinking water.

Prairie Grasses in Wisconsin

Say the word “prairie” and many people visualize Laura Ingalls in her log cabin or rolling wagons crossing open prairie land, the wagons filled with settlers on their way out West in search for a better life. But I’m thinking most really have no idea of what a prairie looks like up close.

Sure, most know there are lots of sunflowers and yellow goldenrod wildflowers and some tall grass, but ever give thought to the hundreds of varieties of grasses that make up the tall grass and short grass prairie lands. Obvious, right?

Well, maybe not so obvious at all. It’s easy to overlook grasses. I mean, it’s just grass, right?  So let me show you just how different a few of these grasses really are.

Side Oats Grama Grass

Side Oats Grama Grass © 2008

This prairie grass is found in the high prairies in southern Wisconsin and extends to central Wisconsin in fewer numbers. It’s one of my favorite grasses to look for – I love the purply-blue fruits hanging in a row like someone pinned them on a clothesline.

When buffalo roamed the region, this was their main source of food. It’s an easy grass to identify – all those oats are hanging off to one “side”. So it is side oats grama grass. Grama is from gramen, the Latin word meaning grass.  1 1/2 to 3 feet tall.

Indian Grass

Indian Grass © 2008

Before agriculture and tended crops developed, Indian grass was second only to big blue-stem grass as the most important plant in the tall grass prairie, both in its numbers and in its nutritional content.

It is extremely drought resistant because of it’s extensive deep root system – typical of the prairie plants. The frequent prairie fires do not damage these grasses – they are highly adapted to the burns. This grass was one of the taller one,  usually standing 6 to 9 feet tall.

Canada Wild-Rye Grass

Canada Wild-Rye Grass © 2008

This is one of the most important grasses in the tall grass prairie. It acts as a nurse crop for prairie seedlings early in the growing season before it declines as the warm season grasses mature. Canada Wild-rye Grass grows 2 to 5 feet tall and forms a loose sod. Native Americans used the seed for food, as did a multitude of large and small animals.

The grasses had other uses besides as food.They were used as fuels, and also the fibers were woven into mats for internal walls in small cabins, window coverings, and floor coverings.

Sunflower, Opening

Sunflower, Opening

Sunflower © 2008

My garden looks a little bedraggled – except for the glorious sunflowers. Hoping I can watch them dance until frost comes to visit.