B
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
BETWEEN
THE ROWS
Sri Lankan Cuisine An Intriguing Cross Between Indian, Thai Food
WENDY SCHMIDT
Plants that
can make
soil better
“Dynamic accumulators” is one of
those complex terms. It simply means
that a particular plant is like a factory.
It takes chemicals that neither plants
nor animals can use, breaks them
down into useable active compounds
and elements that can be readily used
as is, or absorbed and recombined into
other compounds or in some cases
deposited in the soil.
An example of what a dynamic
accumulator does, is the way legumes
absorb nitrogen from the air and soil.
The plants accumulate nitrogen and
form it into nitrogen-rich compounds,
and store it in nodules on their roots
for their future use. When the plant
dies or is composed into the soil, the
nitrogen is available readily to other
plants because it has enriched the
soil. Another name for this process is
nitrogen fi xation.
Other plants break down or add
other enriching chemicals to the soil.
In some cases their roots reach down
where the chemical supply is richer
and access the chemicals for their own
use and ultimately enrich the soil by
breaking down the compounds to sim-
plify them so other plants can make
use of them.
As legumes accumulate nitrogen,
other plants accumulate other essen-
tial chemicals to use and eventually
improve your soil. Besides, the decom-
posing plants increase soil fertility and
organic matter making the soil looser
and aerated and turning it into humus.
Plants that accumulate very high
concentrations of chemicals are called
hyperaccumulators.
Plants have been used to prospect for
certain kinds of ore, since the plants so
closely match the content of the soil. If
you fi nd a hyperaccumulator of nickel,
you likely fi nd that plant growing in
soil rich in nickel ore.
Phosphate accumulators include
legumes such as alfalfa. When it is left
in the fi eld there is a slow improve-
ment in the soil’s phosphorus content.
Buckwheat and mustard improve
phosphorus levels as well as improving
soil tilth and drainage by adding fi ber
and improving moisture and nutrient
content of clay and sandy soil.
Bracken fern frees potassium for use
by other plants. Bracken ferns aver-
age 25% potassium and can contain as
much as 55%. Composted bracken is
an excellent addition to mulch or use
as a green manure.
Oak leaves are dynamic accumula-
tors of calcium. There are high levels
of calcium in oak leaves even when
the soil levels of calcium are barely
detectable. Lining seed fl ats with oak
leaves and egg shells gives plants a
head start. Even better is composting
oak leaves with some nitrogen fertilizer
and mixing the compost with soil in the
seed fl ats or in your landscape.
Other accumulators:
• Dandelion: sodium, silica, magne-
sium, calcium, potassium, phosphorus,
iron, and copper.
• Eastern bracken: potassium,
phosphorus, manganese, iron, copper,
and cobalt.
• Flax: calcium.
• Marigolds add phosphorus.
• Chicory adds calcium and potas-
sium.
• Comfrey adds six compounds.
• The weed spurge adds boron.
• Sarsaparilla adds iodine.
• Vetches add cobalt and copper.
• Mustard can add sulfur, while mul-
lein accumulates sulfur, iron, magne-
sium and potassium.
• Watercress fi xes sodium, fl uorine,
sulphur and fi ve others.
There is a huge chart of these accu-
mulators, all of which improve the soil.
If you have garden questions or com-
ments, please write to greengardencol-
umn@yahoo.com. Thanks for reading!
Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-TNS
A cross between Thai and Indian food, Sri Lankan beef and potato curry is fl avored with fresh curry leaves, ginger, cardamom
and a spicy Sri Lankan curry powder.
T ROPICAL T ASTES
mother, Jacintha, for instance, used ketchup
instead of tomatoes because coconut milk was
Mary Anne Mohanraj missed a lot of things hard to fi nd. But even adulterated, the foods
when she went off to college, but the thing
offered a comforting and familiar taste of
she was most homesick for was her mother’s their Tamil culture.
cooking.
Mohanraj remembers sitting in her dorm
When her parents immigrated to Connecti- room at the University of Chicago, so desper-
cut from Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1973, they
ately hungry for her mother’s beef and potato
brought with them their fi ery curries, coconut curry, that she begged for the recipe over the
sambols and countless rice dishes.
phone. Once in hand, “I made it over and over
Many of the recipes were adapted to
again,” she recalls, because that was the only
accommodate American ingredients. Her
way she could get to eat one.
By Gretchen McKay
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Back in the 1990s, Sri Lankan restaurants
were nonexistent even in ethnically diverse
cities like Chicago because the small number
of Sri Lankans who started arriving in the
United States in the mid-1950s tended to be
professionals. “There weren’t a lot of cooks
coming in to set up restaurants,” Mohanraj
notes. Also, the doctors and lawyers who
made a new home here usually pushed their
kids to go to college.
See Tropical/Page 2B
La Grande’s ghost signs — a scavenger hunt
By Ginny Mammen
Over the past few months I
have shared with you some of the
history of early La Grande and
its people as it was revealed to
me by the ghost signs appearing
throughout town. It has been a fun
meaningful journey for me and
I plan to continue even though I
won’t have any friendly ghosts to
guide me.
While sharing this information
I have provided you a map of sorts
for a scavenger hunt. During one
of these summer evenings I invite
you to take a walk or a drive to
look at the ghost signs up close and
personal. It would be exciting if one
that had eluded me would choose
to reveal itself to you.
So you won’t have to scramble
through a stack of old newspapers
or put you memory to a test I will
give you a guide to follow. For
about half of this hunt I would
suggest a nice walk around historic
downtown. Then for the other half
perhaps a drive would be better.
Walking directions
Start at the corner of Washing-
ton and Fourth with the Mary
Foley Building (1101-03 Washing-
ton). Walk along Fourth to the alley
and turn right where you will see
on the back wall of that building
a portion of the old Montgomery
Ward sign.
From the alley go onto the City
Hall parking lot to get a good
look at the Sweet’s Chocolate and
Conoco Oil sign on the side of the
Liberty Theatre (1010 Adams).
Walk through the parking lot
to Adams and cross over to Max
Square and look up to the top left
of the fi ve-story Foley Building
(corner of Adams and Chestnut)
to see the Rainier Beer and the
Eddy’s Bread sign. To see the “local
business” sign on the Foley Build-
ing, you will need to continue on
Fourth to Jefferson, turn right to
Chestnut and look at the top of the
alley side of the Foley Building.
See Signs/Page 2B