DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:
This summer brought a surge of food recalls, raising questions about why our produce could be making us sick. The cost of groceries has also been a hot topic. One way people can take a little more control of their food is to grow their own. I have a deck garden, and I wanted to learn more about the possibilities for fall planting season.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING)
ELLIOTT: Recently plowed cornfields crunch underfoot as I walk onto Terp Farm, part of the University of Maryland. Terp is short for terrapins, a kind of turtle. That's the school's mascot.
GUY KILPATRIC: Yeah. It was harvested with a combine last week.
ELLIOTT: I meet farm manager Guy Kilpatric, who tells me the vegetables grown here are used in the student cafeterias and the campus food bank.
What do you have growing right now?
KILPATRIC: The things that we're planting right now would be broccoli, collard greens, beets, radishes. I have a crop of Swiss chard. And those will be the crops that are more adapted to the cold temperatures, and we'll be able to harvest them throughout the remainder of the semester.
ELLIOTT: It's a bright and breezy day on the farm. We make our way to something that looks like a greenhouse, but I learn it's what's called a high tunnel. It has roll-up walls so they can get the tractor inside. There we find rows of Swiss chard, a deep-green, leafy vegetable that tolerates cool weather.
KILPATRIC: And so if you've ever had beets, you kind of know they have that earthy flavor. And Swiss chard can also have that earthy flavor. But it's an incredibly nutritious green, and it's really easy to dress it up with other things to add more flavor to it. You know, a lot of the other vegetables that we're growing out here right now would be great to throw all together with Swiss chard for a saute. You can add that garlic, you know? You could add some peppers.
ELLIOTT: Maybe a little cream.
KILPATRIC: Exactly. You know, and then put that in your pasta, you know? So that's why I like this crop. And it's just so beautiful too. It just - you know, it's so springy. Like, you can hear how, like, crisp it is when we pick it.
ELLIOTT: OK. I'm going to give it a little taste now.
(SOUNDBITE OF SWISS CHARD CRUNCHING)
ELLIOTT: Mm. Very good. Kind of a little sharpness to it. Would be good in a salad.
Kilpatric says they're about to harvest fall crops, like sweet potatoes and carrots, and are finishing out the heartier summer vegetables now.
KILPATRIC: I've got students out there harvesting peppers right now. We can go speak to them.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLANTS RUSTLING)
ELLIOTT: In a nearby field, senior Hannah Camacho (ph) is knee-deep picking poblano peppers with a classmate.
HANNAH CAMACHO: Trying not to break any leaves or anything, and we're harvesting the ripest ones.
ELLIOTT: How much have you gotten so far?
CAMACHO: We got - so this is about a basket, and then we probably have about two baskets each.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: Yeah. We each got two.
ELLIOTT: The bioengineering student wants to go into sustainable farming. But even if you don't aspire to be a professional, Kilpatric says there are some simple ways for you to take more control of your family's food supply.
KILPATRIC: I mean, certainly, there's so much that you can do with home gardening that's both, you know, creating a more food secure situation for yourself or your family, but also, there's all these other tertiary benefits, right? Like, it really is satisfying to, like, grow your own food, you know?
It's interesting the way that our food system has been built, you know, that there's - that we expect certain products at any time, and lettuce is an example of that. It's such a massively produced crop. It's also a tricky crop to grow at home. So, you know, maybe looking for alternatives like growing Swiss chard, which one plant will continue to provide for months and months and months, that you can easily plant this in a pot and have it be on your patio. It's cold tolerant. You're going to be able to harvest that from fall probably well into the summer.
ELLIOTT: And Guy Kilpatric from the University of Maryland's Terp Farm says don't forget the garlic. He says it's one of the easiest crops to grow, and the time to plant is now. By next summer, you'll be making pesto for everyone. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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