Sheri Becker, Author at United Tribes Technical College

UTTC Campus Garden

Sheri Becker — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:49:15 +0000

UTTC Campus Garden

Each year, Land Grant plants a campus garden. Garden produce is available to all UTTC community members. Check your email for updates on when and where you can pick up produce!

Wondering what to do with the vegetables in your produce basket? You can find recipes and nutrition information here!

Produce Baskets

What to Expect

Produce baskets are filled with crops that have been harvested from the campus garden. Produce varies each week.

Fresh Produce

Produce baskets are an easy way to incorporate fresh, healthy food into your diet.

Healthy Diet

We want it to be easy to start eating new foods. Below you will find recipes for some of our produce items.

Growing the Garden

The campus garden is managed by the Land Grant Department. Student interns assist with caring for and harvesting crops. Contact the Land Grant Department for information on how to become an intern!

Featured Produce

This week we are paying special attention to carrots and the many ways to prepare them!

Carrots

Carrots Recipes

Recipes and More

Not sure what to do with some of the produce in your bag? Check back weekly for new recipes!

Kale and Swiss Chard

Kale Swiss Chard Recipes

Zucchini

Zucchini Recipes

Bok Choy

Bok Choy More Recipes

Turnips

Turnips More Recipes

UTTC Campus Garden Gallery Images

Scroll through the below images to see what the Land Grant department and the student interns have been doing in the garden!

View the Land Grant Blog Page for More

UTTC’s Land Grant regularly posts updates on gardening, cooking, and agriculture resources for students and community members. Stay up to date by subscribing to the page today!

Click Here

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Traditional Gardening

Sheri Becker — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 18:47:38 +0000

Follow our post to learn more about traditional gardening practices from UTTC’s Agroecology Technician Robert Fox.

In his first video, Robert explains planting, organizing, and traditional harvesting practices.

Watch Robert’s video below, and stay tuned for more traditional gardening videos!

UTTC Campus Garden

by Sheri Becker | Aug 6, 2020 | Agriculture, Food & Nutrition, Lifeskills

UTTC Campus GardenEach year, Land Grant plants a campus garden. Garden produce is available to all UTTC community members. Check your email for updates on when and where you can pick up produce! Wondering what to do with the vegetables in your produce basket? You can...

Traditional Gardening

by Sheri Becker | Aug 5, 2020 | Agriculture, Food & Nutrition, Lifeskills

Follow our post to learn more about traditional gardening practices from UTTC's Agroecology Technician Robert Fox. In his first video, Robert explains planting, organizing, and traditional harvesting practices. Watch Robert's video below, and stay tuned for more...

All About Garlic

by Sheri Becker | Aug 3, 2020 | Agriculture, Food & Nutrition, Lifeskills

Garlic: From Scapes to Storage Garlic is one of the few plants with two harvest seasons. Garlic scapes are harvested in the spring to early summer. Garlic bulbs are harvested later in the summer, to early fall. What are Garlic Scapes?Garlic scapes are the stem and...

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All About Garlic

Sheri Becker — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 15:52:39 +0000

Garlic: From Scapes to Storage

Garlic is one of the few plants with two harvest seasons. Garlic scapes are harvested in the spring to early summer. Garlic bulbs are harvested later in the summer, to early fall.

What are Garlic Scapes?

Garlic scapes are the stem and flower bud of the hardneck galic plant. Hardneck garlic is typically grown in the northern US. Softneck garlic, or the type of garlic usually found in the grocery store, does not produce scapes.

Scapes are ready to harvest once they begin to coil, and resemble a long curly green bean. Harvesting scapes helps the garlic plant direct energy into growing the bulb, rather than growing the seed.

UTTC Agroecology Extension Educator Lindsey Aull explains Garlic Scapes, and how to harvest them.

Stay tuned for our next video! We will show you how to harvest garlic bulbs, and cure them for storage.

Return to Land Grant's Blog Page

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Student Gardening

Sheri Becker — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 17:49:33 +0000

One of UTTC’s criminal justice student living on campus planted a raised garden with the help of her daughters. The plants were provided by the Land Grant department. The family is excited to watch them grow and even more excited to eat fresh vegetables!

Plants provided by Land Grant

Helpers

Ready to Grow

Ready to start gardening on campus? If you are interested in starting a garden, contact the UTTC Extension Ag Educator, Lindsey Aull (laull@uttc.edu) for more information.

View the Land Grant Blog Page for More

UTTC’s Land Grant regularly posts updates on gardening, cooking, and agriculture resources for students and community members. Stay up to date by subscribing to the page today!

Click Here

The post Student Gardening appeared first on United Tribes Technical College.

Cooking with Mara: Pea-sto

Sheri Becker — Wed, 27 May 2020 19:12:21 +0000

Pea-sto

It’s like pesto, but with peas!

View Instructions

Inroduction

About this Recipe

Pesto is typically served with pasta. We took a twist on pesto and used ingredients that are less expensive and easier to find. Frozen peas work well for this recipe, but if you have access to fresh peas you can use those as well!

Serving pea-sto with whole wheat pasta makes this dish flavorful AND healthy. Whole wheat pasta includes the nutrient-rich portions of the wheat kernels that are not used in white pasta. Watch Mara’s video below for more info and step by step instructions.

Ingredients

1 package frozen peas
1/2 pound whole wheat pasta – cooked according to package directions
1 cup reserved pasta water
5oz package grated or shredded parmesan cheese
2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste

We will use the reserved pasta water to help the pea-sto bind when we blend.

Blanch peas and immediately place them in an ice bath to stop the cooking process.

Use a blender or food processor to mix ingredients – scrape the sides to get all the cheese and peas mixed together!

Step by Step Instructions

Step 1 – Blanch

Blanch peas by adding them to a pot of boiling water. Set a timer for 60 seconds. Strain peas and place in ice bath.

Step 2 – Pasta

Cook pasta according to package directions. Remember to save about 1 cup of water before straining the noodles!

Step 3 – Blend

Strain peas from the ice bath, and place about half of the peas into a food processor or blender. Add roughly half of the package of parmesan cheese (or about 1/3 cup) to the mixture. Include salt and pepper, and 2 Tbsp. of olive oil.

Step 4 – Heat

After the pea-sto is a smooth consistency, add pea-sto to drained noodles. Include the remaining peas, and start with about half of the cup of reserved pasta water. Mix well, and heat on stove over medium heat. Continue stirring until the mixture is heated through.

Step 5 – Serve

Serve pasta and pea-sto with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese on top. Enjoy!

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Cooking with Mara: Egg Muffin Bites

Sheri Becker — Wed, 27 May 2020 18:25:21 +0000

Egg Muffin Bites

Egg Muffin Bites are crustless mini-quiches. These easy to make bites are great for a grab-and-go breakfast. Check out Mara’s video below!

View Instructions

Inroduction

About this Recipe

Eggs come in all colors. The color of the shell does not influence nutritional value; different breeds of chickens lay different colors of eggs.

If you buy eggs at the store, you can choose from different sizes and grades of eggs. Many recipes that call for eggs are using large eggs (unless otherwise specified). The grade of the egg has to do with the shape of the yolk, and how much the white spreads when the egg is cracked.

For this recipe, we will be mixing the eggs (grade isn’t as important here). We used large eggs. Once made, these egg bites will keep well in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Be sure to cover the leftovers before putting them away!

Ingredients

4 large eggs
10 oz. frozen spinach
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. groud black pepper
2 Tbsp. finely chopped cilantro (optional)
Salsa or fresh tomatoes for topping

This recipe is VERY customizable! Use what you have available for spices and flavorings.

Adding chopped ham makes this a protein-rich breakfast. You can also use shredded or chopped lunchmeat.

Step by Step Instructions

Step 1

Preaheat oven to 375. Combine spinach and cheeses in a medium bowl – stir well.

Step 2

Add eggs, milk, and seasonings to bowl. Mix well.

Step 3

Add custom ingredients!

Step 4

Spoon mixture into greased muffin tin. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes (until tops are light brown).

Step 5

Let sit for 5 minutes. Add toppings and enjoy!

Watch Mara go through this recipe, or click this link to view it on YouTube.

The post Cooking with Mara: Egg Muffin Bites appeared first on United Tribes Technical College.

Growing a Garden

Sheri Becker — Mon, 04 May 2020 17:12:42 +0000

Growing a Garden from the Ground Up

Growing food and medicine connects us to ourselves, each other, our culture, and the earth in powerful and renewing ways. Gardening is for everyone—whether you’ve been growing one since you were young, or are about to start one for the first time.

Introduction to the Guide

This guide lists and describes some basic steps of establishing a new garden on a patch of lawn or other piece of land. Not all may be relevant to your situation so take what is useful to you, and most importantly, enjoy your gardening journey!



Site Selection



Steps Before You Dig

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Digging Your Garden

View the Guide as a PDF

At UTTC, we are fortunate to have a wide diversity of cultures represented on campus, many that practice traditional knowledge around food and gardening. For some, referencing those practices, including talking to family and elders can be a great place to start for finding a good spot to grow food, medicine, and flowers.

Site Selection

Many factors go into selecting where to establish your garden. Spending time looking at some of these different variables before digging can contribute greatly to the success of your garden over time.

Here’s a 1st year garden that had been turf grass just a few months prior. This site gets full sun until about noon, then partial sun until early evening, at which point it becomes full shade. Not a full sun location, but a productive garden nonetheless.

Sunny

When choosing a spot to garden, full sun is best, although not always available. Take a day or two to watch how the sun crosses your yard, keeping in mind trees that may leaf out later in the season. Try to choose a spot that is completely or mostly sunny, for most of the day. Sites that are south or west facing tend to be hotter and dryer over the course of the season can be great for crops like tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. Spots that are partially shaded
shouldn’t be discounted, just realize they might not be as productive as sunnier locations.

Soil

If you have a choice in between different soil types in your yard, look for loamy soils—not sandy, not clay or silt, but somewhere in between. Soils with a loamy texture have the ability to drain water through the soil profile, but not too quickly, and also hold onto fertility either naturally present or added. Loamy soils are widely distributed throughout ND, more than likely soil quality will not be a major issue in your garden site selection. If you are interested in detailed information about the soil where you are going to garden, check out the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Web tool, Web Soil Survey. Although not completely user friendly, with a nationwide inventory of soil information, it’s still a great resource.

Web Soil Survey

Access to Water

Access to water for irrigating your garden should be factored into your location. As a rule of thumb, your garden should get about 1” of precipitation per week, whether from rain or irrigation. If you are overhead watering, consider setting out a container in the garden to measure how much water is being put down during a given time period. Rain gauges are great, but buckets work too.

Where Does Water Flow

If your yard or potential garden spot has any kind of grade or slope, consider if you will have any issues with soil erosion or washout during intense rainstorms, so typical of summers in the Northern Plains. Natural water pathways during dry times might not be obvious or stand out, so take a minute to step back and see if the area you are looking at is part of a larger swale where water might collect or sit, or slope where it might run off.

Another way water flows, particularly in urban landscapes is off of buildings. If you are siting a garden next to the wall of a building, look up to see where and how rainfall will drain off of the roofline and consider how that might impact your garden positively or negatively.

Availability

Not to be overlooked, sometimes the best garden space is the one that’s available! Especially in urban environments, it can be hard to find space that meets all of the components listed above, and we simply go with what’s available and might work.

Current Ground Cover

Consider what is currently growing in the spot you’d like to garden. Is it turf grass, annual weeds, perennial bindweed, or quackgrass? Each of these scenarios requires different treatment to get it into shape for a garden.

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Easiest

Annual weeds, if small enough can just be worked into the soil when you dig or till. Pigweed or amaranth, and lamb’s quarters are a couple examples of annual weeds that can be easily worked into the soil when prepping your garden space.

Ok

Turfgrass—a lawn intentionally seeded with lawn mix can usually be dug up and eliminated without too many future problems. Might require some initial raking during digging/ tilling to remove. Root systems tend to be relatively shallow and non-invasive.

Requires Planning/Work

Quackgrass or perennial bindweed, really any perennial weed with spreading rhizomes can be hard to get rid of in the short term. Some plants are adapted to reproduce through lateral shoots in addition to making seedheads—quackgrass is one of the most common. This adaptation makes these plants extremely competitive and persistent, since even a small section of rhizome can produce above ground growth. Covering with black plastic a year in advance can be a way to weaken the plants, and is some cases, eliminate them completely without the use of chemicals. If this is your only spot available for gardening this season, consider the use of landscape fabric or other plastic mulch to keep the majority of ground covered to keep them from dominating your garden space. Spending time raking and picking rhizomes out of the spot when digging is also an option, however very time consuming.

Check out this resource with more information on biology and organic management of quick grass Outsmarting Quickgrass.

Before you Dig

Call 811 – Be safe when you dig. Call 811 several days before you dig–locators will mark utility lines free of charge, usually with in a couple days of calling. No need to wonder about hitting gas line, and no job to small—just call. Call 811

Measure and Stake Out – Deciding how big of a space you’d like to garden is a personal choice, and likely depends on how much space you have. Whatever the dimensions, whether it’s a square, circle or other shape, measure and mark before you start digging. It’s easy to get off track when you’re tiling or digging and you may end up with a garden that doesn’t match what you initially planned.

Digging Your Garden

You can dig by hand, machine, or choose no-till gardning.

By Hand with Spading Fork

Digging your garden with a spading fork is one of the most labor intensive ways to establish a garden, but it is also one of the most accessible for smaller areas. If you don’t already own one, a spading fork can be purchased at most hardware stores for around $30.

Simply put, you should be able to dig a garden almost anywhere with this tool.

Hand Digging

Established lawns will likely come out in clumps.

Hand Digging

Clumps can be shook out and set aside.

Digging by Machine

If you have access to a rototiller, working up your garden space can be a bit less labor intensive, and is one of the more common methods of establishing a space. Many rental or hardware centers offer hourly rentals of rototillers, or you might find one to use by asking neighbors and friends. Particularly if you live in a rural community, asking around might be one of the best ways to track down a rototiller.

Not Digging (No-Till)

No-till gardening is becoming increasingly popular, and involves laying down layers of mulch, compost, and other material to a depth that plants will grow in. There are numerous online videos and resources on this method. Here are a few to start with:

Resource 1

Resource 2

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Cooking with Mara: Energy Bites

Sheri Becker — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 20:47:31 +0000

Energy Bites

Energy bites are a quick and easy way to get a healthy snack when you’re on the go. Check out Mara’s video below!

View Instructions

Inroduction

About this Recipe

When buying peanut butter, it’s always a good idea to check the ingredient list. Many brands use a LOT of sugar in their PB (don’t be fooled by the word ‘natrual’ on the front).

Buying peanut butter without extra oil or sugar means you may have to stir the butter in the jar before you use it. Natural peanut butter will naturally separate with oil on the top and the solids on the bottom!

Ingredients

1 cup quick oats
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup honey

Customize it!

1/4 cup chocolate chips, OR
1/2 cup trail mix, OR
1/2 cup Crasins, OR
other nuts or dried fruit you have!

Use Quick Oats (not steel cut). Quick Oats do not need to be cooked before adding them to the recipe.

Creamy or Crunchy Peanut Butter works, whichever you prefer!

Mara Customized her recipe with 1/2 cup of trail mix and 1/4 cup of chocolate chips. You can use whatever you have in your cupboard.

Step by Step Instructions

Step 1

Add quick oats and honey to medium mixing bowl.

Step 2

Spoon peanut butter into bowl. If using natural peanut butter, remember to stir the separated oil and butter together before adding!

Step 3

Add custom ingredients!

Step 4

Mix ingredients well. Form bite-sized balls (roughly 1-2 inches).

Step 5

Place bites on a wax-lined (this makes for easy clean-up) sheet. Freeze for 30 minutes to set. Remove from freezer and enjoy!

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Spring Gardening

Sheri Becker — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 19:49:24 +0000

Thinking about growing a garden for the first time? Expanding your current space?

Check out these three local options for getting a community garden space for the season. Sign-ups are happening now and in the coming weeks, so get in touch soon to secure a plot.

Bismarck Parks & Recreation

Community gardens and orchards

$15 for 10 x 10 plot

Click Here

Mandan Parks District/ Morton County Extension

Email karla.meikle@ndsu.edu for information.

$25 + $25 refundable deposit

Click Here

Burleigh County Extension

Community gardens

$30 for 20 x 20 plot

Click Here

Upcoming Land Grant Garden Events and Information:

Vegetables grown at the Dragonfly Garden will be available again this season for the UTTC Community as well as plant starts for your home garden. Stay tuned for details on availability and pick-up.

Weekly spring gardening info session via Zoom with Land Grant staff. Brief informal discussion on seasonal garden topic followed by Q & A on any gardening question you may have. Wednesdays at 11:00 A.M., starting Wed., April 22nd.

Look for coming resources on starting a garden for the first time at your house or rental.

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