Ed's Corner

Garden Power

Our cooking instructor, Eva Szigeti, shares her thoughts on the importance of gardening, as well as a recipe for a delicious post-gardening snack.

Dirty hands, wet boots, a speckle of mud on the face, stones and seeds in the pocket, a basket of fresh vegetables in hand: this is a child coming from the garden. Looking messy and a little tired, but sporting a face that glows with satisfaction.
 
Most children are drawn to gardens and are happy to spend some time in these cultivated slices of nature. By adding a little bit of age-appropriate guidance, our gardens can become great informal outdoor classrooms. Gardens serve many purposes and they can provide space for various activities for our children.
 
Gardening is a great hobby. Those who don’t garden yet and need an excuse to start, will easily find one (or more) reasons to do so. Gardening is of course an extremely practical hobby: a gardener grows food.  But there is more. Having a garden benefits our kids, gardening is therapeutic, and growing your own food is environmentally responsible (as opposed to buying produce shipped from faraway places). To work in the garden means to exercise. Then let’s consider the health benefits of eating very fresh organic vegetables, etc. The list could go on and on.
 
Gardening has been part of my life since my early years. No matter how small, I have always had a garden or at least several pots of herbs and flowers to satisfy my need to grow plants. When my children were young, they had no choice but to accompany me to the garden. They did not mind. Equipped with small shovels, they never got tired of digging. Children are naturally attracted to dirt. Letting a young child explore the soil and look for worms is a good introductory garden activity. Water is another favorite. Watering never disappoints a child. Small watering cans are best for young children, while older kids can usually be trusted with the hose.



If you encounter a reluctant young gardener, he or she may be lured to the garden with the promise of a fresh snack. Few could resist a freshly picked strawberry, sweet tender carrot, or the first cherry tomato of the season.
 
The physical work in the garden engages the muscles. The garden environment engages kids’ senses and imaginations. It inspires curiosity and provides space for exploration and magic. The garden is the meeting place of the strivings of humans and the work of nature. We humans don't always get our way. We are not always in control.  So we cultivate patience, perseverance, we figure out plan B, we learn to compromise.  Entering a garden, children are stepping away from the world of technology and from instant gratification. Here they need to wait, be persistent, and take responsibility. They are operating in the real world, where actions have real consequences.
 

Gardening is sometimes hard work, but from caring comes satisfaction, sense of purpose, and achievement. It builds self-esteem and teaches how to work with nature. In the microcosm of the garden, the children observe the cycle of life first hand. They learn to understand not only where food comes from, but also what it takes to grow it. They acquire a very useful life skill: how to grow food and provide for themselves. It is empowering. Young gardeners also learn to taste the difference between quality fresh produce and veggies from the supermarket. Their bodies will start craving food that is fresh and nutritious.

“I don’t like the ones from the store, but these are good.” This is a statement often heard during snacking in the garden. It is a hopeful statement. It shows the power of seemingly small things. It reinforces my belief that our gardens can help us raise thriving children.



For an easy post-gardening snack recipe, click here!
 

Give a Click!

Help the Pfeiffer Center get considered for a major grant to expand Neighbor to Neighbor!

Visit www.pfeifferkids.org, and please vote for our project every day through May 12.

Listening to the Land

Chuck Stead, our beloved camp storyteller, recounts a day spent coping with the floods of spring and learning an important lesson.

After the winter thaw, there come spring showers. They are gentle and deceptive and very inviting. The thing is, the earth is still saturated with a soaking from melted winter thaw, and spring showers have no place to go but over land, downhill. By the third week in the month, vernal ponds and freshets emerge all across the woodlands and eventually make their way into neighborhoods, flooding yards and seeping into basements. This is the soaking that brings forth a celebration of life, but it can also undermine the concrete and stone beneath our houses.

Uncle Mal had us kids (Me, Ricky Cramshaw, and Cindy Maloney) climb into the back of his International Pick-Up truck, where we found three red rubber buckets and three oversized sponges. He told us we were on a mission of good will and that we were to be rewarded with ice cream at Hagedorn’s Soda Shop. We drove down Fourth Street, over the Thruway Bridge, across the railroad tracks, and onwards to Suffern. We sat against the back of the cab and waved at the people driving behind us, as we watched the red buckets roll around in the truck bed. As you drive into the Village of Suffern, the road wraps around Nordkoff Mountain, takes you under an over pass, up Wayne Avenue, and under another over pass. Each time we drove under one of these, we looked up and watched the pigeons sail about just under the massive steel girders. The air along the road was a sweet mixture of early spring fragrance laced with concrete dust and a dank iron odor. Uncle Mal pulled the truck into a short yard that had a steep driveway dropping off toward Lake Antrim. We climbed out of the truck and found we were at the home of Mrs. Sutherland. Mal handed us each one of the buckets and one of the big sponges. We then followed him to the front door where he knocked twice and then opened the door and called out her name, “Mrs. Sutherland, we’re here!”

She came from the back room kitchen. She was a smallish woman who looked as if she didn’t want company. She was shaking her head and staring at us. I could not guess her age as she seemed older to look at but was younger to listen to. She said, “Oh, now look at this crew. What are they up to?”

Uncle Mal said, “We’re going to take a look at that big puddle in the basement and figure out where it’s coming from.”

She looked up at Mal and said, “Oh now I can’t have these kids getting all dirty down there in that old basement.”

Mal said, “Maybe you can’t, but I can!” Before she could protest he pushed his way past her and had us follow him into the kitchen, through a door and down a set of plank steps. We arrived in a basement that was walled in concrete and stone and only partially floored in concrete, with the rest being the dirt. Half the floor was covered in water which was the color of cocoa. Mal took up a mop and bucket with a double roller ringer on it that was sitting at the edge of the big puddle. He started sloshing it around, soaking up the cocoa colored water and ringing it out into the bucket, which he quickly filled. He told us to wait until he got most of the water out and then we were to sponge up the rest. He dumped out four buckets full of water before we could get started. He had us pat the floor water with the sponge, which caused the water to soak quickly.
 
Mal went back upstairs to talk with Mrs. Sutherland while we, down on our knees, continued our work. We kept getting little bits of grit, stones, and sand soaked up with the water, and our bucket mixture looked darker than the water Mal had mopped up. It was hard, dirty work, but it didn’t take all that long. Mal came clamoring back down the plank steps and was very pleased to see that we had completed the task. He then got down on his own knees and studied a seam in the floor right along the edge of the concrete. He pulled out a flashlight from his baggy trousers and scrutinized the seam with the light beam. He looked back at us and said, “That’s where it’s coming through. Only thing to do is seal off the rest of this floor.”   

We went outside and dumped our buckets while Uncle Mal explained what he had discovered to Mrs. Sutherland, who was now smoking a cigarette by her back door. She thanked us and told us we were good workers. We walked back to the truck, and I noticed that down the narrow driveway there was an old open garage that was full of interesting looking stuff. But it was time to go. We climbed back into the truck and Mal rode us into the town.

At Hagedorn’s I ordered Vanilla, Ricky order Chocolate, and Cindy got Strawberry. Uncle Mal got a cup of coffee and drank it without any milk in it. He told us that Mrs. Sutherland’s husband had passed away and that he and a couple of fellows were going to fix up her basement, because it leaked every spring and sometimes again in the summer. I said I didn’t think Ricky, Cindy, and I had been of much help and Mal said, “Well what do you want me to do, take the ice cream back?”

Ricky said, “No!”

Cindy said, “All’s we did was sponge up some water and you probably could have done it faster than us anyway.”
           
Mal thought about this and nodded, “Well, maybe I could’ve…” he said. He sipped his coffee and then said to us, “But you see, you kids got to learn something about the old ways. You see, we’re a people of the land. And we act according to what the land is doing. It’s cold and freezes and we got to cope with it; it gets warm and floods and we got to cope with that. And some people, they don’t cope as well as others. So you got to pay attention to the land and it will tell you when you need to go out and help those who need the help. You see, it ain’t us against the land, it’s just us listening to what the land has got to tell us.”

We finished our ice dream and uncle Mal paid the bill. He turned around on his swivel stools and he said, “The world is changing and I think the old way of listening to the land is being forgotten.”

And even though we really had no idea what he was talking about, we promised him that we would never forget it. Mostly I think we promised this because the ice cream was good.  
 

You Must've Heard - It's Garlic Mustard!

Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is a very versatile food plant, which can be found at almost any time of the year, from mid-winter to the height of the summer. The flavor isn't very strong during the winter and early spring months, but it still has a bite. The fall yields the strongest flavor.
 
The roots are a good substitute for horse radish. I cut them up and put them into a blender or a food processor along with some vinegar, water, salt and a little sugar. Then I puree them until I have a fairly smooth paste. The result can be used much the same as regular horse radish. It has a similar flavor, whilst being less spicy.  
 

In April and May, the plants bush up and begin flowering. This is the best time to harvest the leaves. The fresh young leaves can be eaten raw. They have the flavor of garlic with a mustard after taste. They make a spicy/garlicky addition to a mixed green salad. They are good boiled, sautéed, or added to a stir fry. I have a friend who dries the leaves, crumbles them up fine and sprinkles them as a condiment over his steaks. 
 

Lightly sautéed or steamed, the young pre-blossoming plants taste remarkably similar to Broccoli Rabe, but they are not as stringy.
 
The large basal leaves are ideal for making Garlic Mustard chips - crisp, melt-in-the-mouth snacks, that are always a big hit at parties. I brush the leaves lightly on both sides with oil, sprinkle them with sea salt, and put them on a tray in a 275^o F oven for 4 or 5 minutes; then serve them fresh.
 

The open flowers make a perfect garnish or salad ingredient. After the flowers die away, then come the seed pods. By the end of May, some of the green pods will turn brown and split to reveal their dark brown elongated seeds. June is mustard seeding month, where you can walk along the hedgerows gathering handfuls of seeds. 
 

Much like common mustard, the ground seeds of Garlic Mustard can be used as a spicy condiment, which can be sprinkled over food or made into a paste. You can also toast them like sesame seeds and sprinkle them over food.

Upcoming Events

Open Houses

If you're interested in camp and haven't had a chance to visit us yet, stop by for an open house! We’ll take you on a tour of camp, give you a full picture of what we do and why we do it, and answer your questions about the ins and outs of camp.

Our remaining spring open houses will be on Sunday, April 23rd and Saturday, May 13th. Stop by any time between 1 and 4 pm. You'll find us in the Lower School Building of Green Meadow Waldorf School at 307 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977
 

Wild Edibles Public Program

This coming Sunday, April 23rd, from 12 to 1 pm, join us for our free public program, Wild Edibles Foraging!

We will venture on a vernal voyage into our campus environs to discover what’s growing wild and edible in our area. We’ll learn how to identify these edibles, their names, properties, tastes, and their uses in cooking. Early spring should yield a bounty of tender flora. Join us for a fun, investigative feast from the earth. We'll meet at the Lower School Building of Green Meadow Waldorf School.

Happy Earth Day!

Upcoming Open Houses