6 Friday, April 21, 2017brooklintowncrier.com Plant-Based Eating by Sheree Nicholson What's Your Food Source? In recent weeks, quite a few people have told me plant-based eating is too expensive. That's one of the myths about plant based eating along with a lot of misconceptions. Absolutely, eating healthy is more expensive than eating highly processed packaged foods like soup and rice mixes. If you compare the price of a can of soup with one of Farm Boy's great store-made soups, the better quality food is far more expensive. But you get what you pay for. Canned condensed soups are laden with salt and monosodium glutamate and are basically nutritionally poor over-processed food. Eating plant-based costs less if you stay away from processed "mock" meats and cheeses and expensive pre-made frozen vegan meals. These processed vegan foods will have your grocery bill soaring in no time. To keep your costs down, buy items such as brown rice and quinoa in bulk. I buy mine at Costco for a much better price than at local stores. Organic vegetable co-ops are great if you like to buy organic. Dried legumes can cut down the price of canned ones. Just cook up a large batch and freeze them in smaller batches for chili, soups, and hummus. Eat home-cooked foods as often as possible, buy in bulk, and enjoy seasonal fruits and veggies. Freeze whatever you can for soups, smoothies and vegetable broths. Not only will you save money but you will also have a better connection to your food. The whole farm-to-table movement is about knowing the source of your food and being grateful for it. My favorite thing to freeze is overripe bananas. They make a great ice cream-like dessert and, when added to a smoothie or protein shake, make it thick and creamy. Here's an amazing smoothie recipe that has hemp seeds in it. They're a great source of perfect protein and contain a 3:1 balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. I like to make these types of smoothies for breakfast or for a post-workout snack and it's significantly less expensive than buying protein powders or heading into the local smoothie shop after a workout. I make them the night before and store them in mason jars for a fast breakfast or snack. Hemp Seed Smoothie 1 frozen banana 1 chopped orange 3 tbsp hemp seeds 5 raw (unsalted) almonds ¾ cup water (or skip the 5 raw almonds and replace the water with ¾ almond milk) Pinch of cinnamon Dash of almond (or vanilla) extract Place all the ingredients in a high speed blender and blend until creamy Sheree's Hack: Save all your vegetable ends and peels in the freezer for making vegetable broth one rainy day. Spring Joy, Except For Pond Gunk Blooming in Brooklin By Ken Brown It's starting, the crazy wonderful season gardeners both love and hate. We love it because the sun is shining, the soil is warming and spring activities can finally begin. We hate it because, well, spring activities can finally begin. All of them, all at once. My rule: always begin by planting things which need to start growing. While they're getting started, I can attend to the non-growing activities. Here's the worst job in my yard. I have three ponds, all a great delight. The fish provide a wonderful attraction for grandchildren who can't wait to feed them. Did you know goldfish can be trained to come to the edge of the pond when the grandkids arrive? The water lilies and other pond plants are starting to grow. However, every few years one of those ponds needs to be cleaned out. The pond gunk There's quite an accumulation of gunk at the bottom and plants have grown so large that there's insufficient room for them. I throw in the extra pump and start emptying the lower pond. One upside is I was able to use this fertile water to irrigate the grass seed I'd sown the previous day. Once the water level has sufficiently subsided, it's time to don rubber boots, climb in, attempt to catch the fish, then lift out and chop up the plants. The lilies must be chopped up to make them small enough to lift out and there are hunks of them to be dried and added to the compost. When disturbed, the gunk releases a noxious gas which makes for a long and unpleasant afternoon. But the clear water and happy fish are almost worth it. One of the other ponds probably needs it, too, but it won't happen next year. It takes at least two years to forget how much "fun" it was. I could just fill in the ponds and plant petunias, but what joy would that bring? The asparagus is starting to grow, teasing me with the thought of that first meal from the garden. We've actually eaten our first salad from the container of mesclun mix planted a few weeks ago. It resides in the cold frame and is producing some delicious baby greens. Planting time A few more days till it's ideal planting time. The soil is drying out more rapidly than I thought since March was such a winter month. I'm watching for when the soil in the top garden is dry and friable enough to plant. It's so easy to be over anxious and plant in soggy soil. If I do it, the peas just lay there and rot. The little transplants of cool season vegetables such as pak choi, lettuce, Chinese cabbage, kohl rabi and others are growing well under the lights and will move to the cold frame this week in anticipation of moving to the soil during the last week of April. With many happy things going on, it's sad that we have to keep an eye on our emerging lilies. The dastardly red lily beetle emerges from the soil along with the lilies and I need to keep my needle-nose pliers handy to catch these little disasters. It's all part of spending many enjoyable hours in the garden as spring seduces us from our skis and fireplaces. NOTE: Entering the horticulture classes at the Brooklin Spring Fair is a great opportunity to show your best gardening efforts. You must pre-register before April 27 by going to the Brooklin Spring Fair website (brooklinspringfair.com) and looking in the home craft section for the available classes.