"Big weigh-in" Spring/Summer wrap-up

Do you see that? Maybe you can't quite make it out...I'll help you out, It says Spring / Summer garden 511.68 lbs!!! WE DID IT! A~ and I set out this year to grow for 500 lbs and as of yesterday, we not only met, but exceeded that goal. With the days being pretty warm here, and the nights getting around freezing, even the plastic tarping wasn't helping the tomatoes to ripen as well as I'd hoped. (Although the cherry tomatoes are actually still producing.) That said, I decided that it was probably a good time to get out and harvest what was effectively the final harvest from the Spring and Summer garden.
A few of the tom's are still green and some not quite ripe, but all will be enjoyed in their own time. I honestly wasn't sure that we were actually going to be able to make the goal, this being the first year that we had ever aspired to even weigh all of our harvests. A~ on the other hand has seemingly turned into a pro harvest estimator; she said all along that we'd make it and what do you know, here we are.

The best part is, we're not even done completely yet. There's probably another couple of pounds on the cherry tomato, and I have fall planted spinach, beets and kohlrabi yet to harvest. Hopefully the weather will hold for a little longer to let them all bulk up a bit, but if not I have to say A~ and I are both pretty happy that we've been able to meet our goal.

So, what's next? A~'s already talking not doubling but tripling it next year. Um, does she realize that that's 1500 lbs??? Who am I to argue... I'm just the labor. I will say that the backyard expansion is already nearly done and should be by the end of the weekend. The next thing on the list is relocating the chickens for next year and then tilling up our "parking area" on the front side-yard of the house. You didn't think we'd just sit back and be satisfied did you?

Have a great weekend all.
P~

I've got Leather Britches!

Yeah, and their green and kinda slowly getting wrinkly and...oh wait, you didn't think I meant like actual "leather britches" did you? No no no no no... that's just not something that anyone would want to see!

What I'm talking about is green bean leather britches. Strings of green snap beans that are dried to preserve them for later use. It's one of the oldest ways of preserving food, and one I'm excited to see how it works out. Here's what they look like in my cold storage downstairs.
When A~ was out in West Virginia she spent some time talking with her mom about the kind of things we are doing out here; growing, harvesting and preserving food for instance. As they talked, T~ (that's her mom...) reminded her of stringing leather britches when she was little. A~ said it was like a little door to her past opened up and she could totally remember it and couldn't believe she had never remembered it on her own. I was intrigued, having never heard of it, so of course with the glut of beans we've had this year I had to at least give it a try.

Here's a detail of how the beans have been strung up to dry. I started one with a darning needle and a strong but thin string (I used crochet string.) through a thick bean, tied the string around it and then proceeded to string the beans through the center onto the string.
It's a lot like stringing cranberries or popcorn for garland. After stringing about three feet of beans, I doubled the strings over and tied them together. These I hung over the old curtain rod downstairs to dry.

After I did a little research, I found out that this kind of preservation of beans is a very common and very traditional method of preserving the harvest in Appalachia. If you have a few minutes, this is a very interesting read about some of the ways leather britches are cooked and some of the history of the Appalachian cooking and methods. These are the kind of gems of knowledge that are out there in the world around us, but are hidden in plain sight for the most part. But, if we take the time to ask questions and share about the things that we're working on, and then actually listen to their answers, I think we'd be surprised how much useful and traditional information is out there for us.

I'm so thankful for the great Appalachian heritage that A~ brings to our home. We'll certainly think of it fondly while we're warmed by a hot bowl of vegetable soup with leather britches on a cold night this winter. Just one more way to preserve, extend and make the most of the harvest.

Till tomorrow.
P~

100 Ft Diet and Harvest Keepers - Sauerkraut

At the beginning of September I wrote that I had decided to try my hand at making some homemade, very simple recipe, traditional Sauerkraut. That's it below, when I had just put it into the jar and crock. I only made a batch that called for 5 lbs of shredded cabbage and used some cabbage from our garden. Cabbage that was specifically planted with this idea in mind. Now I've never really been a huge sauerkraut eater; it's not something that we ate a lot of as I grew up, but I decided a few years back that it was something I wanted to "try again" and you know, I liked it. It wasn't something that I would get cravings for or anything but it was alright. So why make a concerted effort to grow cabbage, and make the stuff from scratch right? The answer is pretty simple actually. Because this is one of those foods that is easy to make, is very healthy, can be used as a condiment or as a main course dish and most importantly is a food that can be stored for long periods with simple methods making it a very good staple food to know how to make.
And now, a month and a week later, I have this. I jar with some slowly lacto-fermented cabbage, that when smelled is absolutely amazing! I now get why this stuff got to be so darned popular in the first place. The brine that developed around the cabbage is a slightly salty, almost kosher pickle tasting flavor and the cabbage itself still retains a lot of it's original texture, while being soft enough for us to know it's done. Here's a closeup.
I was worried about the liquid getting funky or moldy while it sat in the cold storage, but brine filled plastic bag that sealed the top off worked perfectly. That is absolutely the way to go by the way.

After we took the kraut out of the jar and started warming it over the stove, the smell of it was making our mouths water. Add a beer boiled brat, some steamed dill potatoes and popovers and you've got yourself a German dinner extraordinaire!
The best part of it all was that we only used a little more that 1/4 of what I made, and better yet, I harvested a 6 lb cabbage tonight that's going to make more of this tasty stuff for the winter.

If you've never tried it, and even if your not traditionally a Kraut lover, I encourage you to give this very simple recipe a try. I have to verify it, but I believe it was just 3 tbsp of salt (pickling preferably) to each five lbs of cabbage. I used the Salt Lake salt that I made a couple of months back. It worked great and helped to make this a totally local food product! You add the salt to the cabbage in a large bowl and mix it with your hands well, then pack in a crock or the largest jar you have (food safe buckets are also supposed to work well in place of large crocks.) and cover the top with either a weighted plate, or better yet, a large brine filled bag. Let it sit in a cool (60-70 deg F) room for a few weeks, cleaning the cover off regularly and voila! Sauerkraut. Or better yet, go to your library and rent "The joy of pickling" and check out the many different recipes that they have in it.
Good luck, and go make some Kraut!
P~

Growing for 500!!

I got out into the garden this evening, and was able to bring in what was actually more food than I realized I had ready. After bringing it all in and seeing how much there was I realized I hadn't put up a good harvest picture for some time so why not now! And if I don't say so myself, didn't I set this shot up nicely? It's approx 42 lbs of food.
In the picture I have apples, green beans, Marketmore and Boston pickling cucumbers, jalapenos, San Marzano tomatoes and some volunteer Romas, ichiban Japanese eggplant, bell peppers and Swiss chard. Oh and let me throw this little tidbit it...that's only half the beans I pulled today. In total I picked 22 1/2 lbs of beans today! Is that crazy or what? Good thing we all love beans right? Guess what I'll be doing next week? Yep, canning. Speaking of that, anyone have a good recipe for applesauce? We actually gave almost 10 pounds of beans away to some friends of ours that are looking into growing their own for next year but we still have plenty. It really is a blessing to be able to share with friends and family when we have a bounty isn't it?

A~ and I talked at the beginning of this season, when we decided to make a concerted effort at weighing all of our food we really had no data to go by in guessing what we'd get out of it. Initially we guess we may be able to make it to 300 pounds. As the season progressed, we realized that it would most likely end up exceeding that. A~ has contended almost all along that we'd make it to 500 pounds, and right now it seems she may be right. After tonight's 42+ pound harvest we cracked a new ceiling by making it to 313 pounds! So now that it's in sight, we are definitely going to "grow for 500". It's not tons, not thousands, and not enough to sell or anything but we both really are blown away with what we've been able to bring in. In addition to the fact that we will now have some concrete data to gauge future harvests against, having real numbers to quantify our efforts to others has really been an unexpected benefit of the "Big Weigh-in". In my outreach efforts to get people around me excited about the idea of growing food at home, it really helps to have real numbers to present to them. It puts things in better perspective that just the old, "we got a ton of beans" or "we're knee deep in tomatoes". To be able to say that we have harvested over 300 lbs is a thing that everyone understands. If you haven't tracked what you've grown this year I adamantly suggest you look into it for next.

Well, I guess that about does it for tonight. I hope everyone's doing great and with that...I'll catch you tomorrow!
P~

The "Big weigh-in" Update.

Just an FYI. I finally updated the "Big weigh-in" tonight. total this year we have harvested 262 lbs of veggies and 233 eggs from the chickens.
I think realistically we're shooting for about 350-400 lbs for this year total. Not to bad if I do say so. I'll try to keep it posted more often.
P~

I promised

Ok, I promised a Harvest keepers post tonight, but it's gonna be a quick one. We were able to make some last minute plans tonight to go and hear T. Boone Pickens of "The Pickens Plan" speak to Utahns about the ideas that he has for resolving our nations energy crisis and moving us toward energy Independence. It was very interesting and I'll be posting on it as soon as I can, but right now I am t i r e d!!
And speaking of "can"...on to the harvest keeping post.
This year we've been trying to make sure that we put up any extras that we have from not only our garden harvests, but from our gleaning efforts and from the farmers market. We're pretty happy with the nice array that we're building in the pantry. (BTW, that's not everything. There's about twenty - thirty more can's of stuff down in the basement cold storage.) What you can't see to the left of the picture is pickles and some beets. All told I believe we counted 63 total jars of canned goods. Some are qts, some are pints, but all have been tallied on our new handy dandy record tracking system...Umm yeah, that's a regular school notebook but it works! As we have read and learned from a lot of books and many of the great blogs out there, we decided that we needed to keep track of what we have, or we may miss something later.
We are going to be beginning a similar tracking system for the dry goods in our basement as well as the stuff in our outside chest freezer.

I also had a question the other night about "what are dilly beans" and my mouth hit the floor as I thought "hmm, there only like, the greatest way to put up beans!". But here you go, you know who you are, here are what dilly beans are.

"How do you make them?" That was the question from Meadowlark the other day. Here is the recipe:
cook beans for 10 minutes. (approximately two pounds)
Into approx. 5 sterilized pint jars, place 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes. 2/3 garlic cloves, and 1/2 tsp dried dill.
Separately boil 3 cups vinegar and 3 cups water with 4 tsp salt.
After boiling beans, pack them into jars and cover with the boiling liquid.
At this point you will need to put on the rings and lids and boil the bean jars.
I'm sorry but I don't have the times available for water bath canning but if you Google it, you will find the answer I'm sure.

And finally, I leave you with this thought.
"Happy vegetables come from Happy farmers" ...Be happy!
P~

2008 Garden update - Aug 4th

The update for today is...drum roll please... onions.
This was the first year I have ever planted onions and overall I am happy with the results and will definitely grow them again. I learned a few things along the way too. For instance, onions like to have very soft soil. I grew two different varieties a red and a yellow (sorry I can't remember the exact varieties.) and spread them out throughout different parts of the garden as a natural deterrent to some pest insects. This allowed me to see how they performed in different areas and I can say for sure that the onions in my raised beds overall performed much better.
I also think that the raised beds, because they are a higher quality soil, hold more water and release it more consistently allowing the onions to grow better.
The other thing that I learned is that you need to be patient when the onions start to look like they are done. I ruined about 6 or so of them by pulling them too early. Since I haven't ever grown them, I didn't know exactly what to look for as a sign of being mature so of course like everything else I experimented. Again, be patient. When the majority of the tops have fallen over, looking like some animal crept through your prized onion bed and knocked them all over, then wait a couple more days just to be sure. Then, what I did, was to gently pull the onion loose from the ground, but not all the way out. I left them to sit on the soil in the same way that I see the onions at the local farms sit. I left them to lay there during what were 95-103 deg days for about a week. After that I pulled them and laid them in my over size (3' x 2') garden sieve.
And here we were today after another few days. The onions had dried well and the papers on the outside were crackly and dry but the stalks were still semi pliable. I figured this to be the best time for me to try my hand at an onion braid. It's not as easy as you'd think it is.
So, whatya think? Not too bad for a first timer huh? There's actually two braids of the red onion but the second one was too short to put a good loop on the end so I laid in it front with the extras that I couldn't braid. So I bet your thinking how much? What's the poundage man...don't leave us hanging!! I'm proud to say we hit exactly 25 pounds between the two varieties. Oh yeah, and guess what that means? We're over 100 lbs for this year!!! Better yet, with the other things that we've taken in the last few days we're now over 125 lbs. This weekend should knock me up a few more pounds too with harvesting...oops, look at the time, my it's getting late, I'll have to get back with you on that one *grin*.
Hope all your gardens are growing well.
Grow on!!
P~

About the big weigh-in 2008 (record system)

This year, inspired by the phenomenal numbers of food production generated by the Dervaes family of Path To Freedom, (who would have ever thought 6000 lbs of food could be produced on 1/10 acre?) A~ and I decided to establish for ourselves a baseline of what we are and could be producing, weight-wise, of food from our little yard. So with that in mind we decided to keep records of every bit of food that we pull from our ground this year. A blogger I admire for their record keeping prowess is Farm Mom and I hoped to be as effective with ours. Although this is our first year keeping records, and they probably aren't as thorough as some, I think they're working out well so I thought I'd go into how we're doing the tracking of production for what I'm calling the "Big Weigh-in" for 2008 before getting into the actual numbers.
What we have for our process is two parts. The messy, dirty notebook above is where we write our day to day information in as it comes out of the yard. We can amend it multiple times a day and leave notes to ourselves if we need to. After we've collected a bit of "data", I transfer the information over to a permanent record book. In this book I have a daily total calculated in oz.'s, a running total in oz's, and a running total of lbs. At the top there's a small note space where I can leave notes to myself about things like the 9lbs of apricots that we harvested that weren't from our garden so they don't go in the actual records. I'm also keeping track of the total numbers of eggs that our chickens lay in this spot.
I think this will be an important tool to us in the future, and actually has proven helpful already in some unexpected ways. For instance, one of my neighbors who had been thinking of starting a garden for himself this year, was so impressed by just the early quantities of lettuces, peas and strawberries that he actually got on it and got his garden started for the summer. It was in this that I found that keeping track and establishing these concrete numbers of production don't just help me to keep track of what we've been able to accomplish. It helps to quantify to others what is possible. Just as I was so impressed by PTF's 6000 lbs of food, so too has my meager 80+ lbs to date, impressed others. It's just an added benefit.
The other main gain from keeping these kinds of records is that we'll be able to look back at the particulars of when different crops came to production and how long they produced and to what degree. I think in the future I'd like to start keeping more information relative to environmental circumstances too, like the daily highs/lows, and precip. totals (what little we get in the summer.) It will be just another asset to help me progress toward greater productivity as well as in my outreach efforts to get others growing for the future!
If your not already, I encourage you to start keeping records for yourself. It's fun to watch and track the numbers as they grow, and who knows, maybe you'll be growing for 10,000 yourself soon.
Updated production numbers to come.
P~

Independence Day Garden Love

It's Independence day here in the U.S. and we have, by in large, evolved to a point where we call it the 4th of July, but it is much more. The 4th of July is a date, a marker, not an event. Today is Independence day. On this day in 1776 the Second continental congress of the colonies of America adopted the document that is known as our Declaration of Independence. It was a revolutionary action. It declared to the world that the people of the colonies were prepared to "dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another". They also declared that "when a long train of abuses and usurpation's, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism" "...it is their right, it is their duty..." to throw it off.

Aren't we slowly being reduced to reliance on the "despotic" (read: single authority of either an individual or tightly knit group,) system of industrial food? Where is our declaration of Independence? Is it in the books we read? Perhaps to a degree. Is it in the things we talk about, discuss or espouse? Again, to a certain degree, but not completely. I think the greatest declaration of our Independence is one that can only come from out labors and our actions. Let us be judged by our fruits so to speak.

Beets, Kohlrabi, Carrots, Collard Greens and Potatoes from the garden.

Here is my declaration of Independence. It may not be as loud as others cry, but it grows every year. I declare that I will challenge the norm, take back my freedom and learn from my ancestors. Farmer ~D of the "Path to Freedom" has said many times to the effect that the greatest revolution we can conduct is to grow our own food. I agree.

It's work, sure, but a labor of love I would say. Every year it grows, and every year my declaration is louder. My wife is my partner, and more and more she begins to get into the dirt more with me. I think this year the garden had a little of our love rub off on it. Don't believe? check this out. If this isn't a sure sign of a little garden love, I don't know what is.

For those of you in the U.S. I encourage you to read the Declaration of Independence's if you haven't recently. For that matter, I guess I would encourage any lover of Freedom to take a minute to read it. Happy Independence day folks, I hope it was a great one for you. If your not from the U.S., well, happy Independence day to you anyway.
Till tomorrow.
P~

2008 Garden update - June 26

OK this will be a quick one. I just wanted to document the harvest from tonight because there were a couple of firsts. Of course there was more strawberries Tonight was just under 2 lbs. I seem to have underestimated their production for the year. Tonight I re-tallied them and am already over 14 1/4 lbs and still harvesting. So much for 12 lbs huh? But who's complaining? Not I! I also pulled 2 lbs of shelling peas tonight. After shelling they were just under 1 lb and oh man how sweet they are!
On the pea front I also got a few of the sugar snaps tonight. I've harvested these one other time so far this season, but really they are just now coming on. I should get a bunch more this weekend. Anyone ever freeze these? Advice? I would hate to freeze some and have them be terrible when I take them out.
And tonight's firsts... TaDa! Carrot, beet and potatoes. And the story behind them is this...
The carrots, I pulled because I noticed a slight rust forming on the leaves and didn't want it to spread, so I pulled them and was surprised at their size already. The beet was a surprise to me too. I didn't think that they were that ready to be pulled. I was pulling a weed from the patch, and sat the top of the beet peaking out and realized it was a good sized one so I of course had to pull it. Again, I need advice from you, my "master mind group", on ways to serve fresh beets. I love the greens sauteed, or in a salad, but I have little experience with cooking them. I can find some recipes I'm sure, but hey, you all are easily as well versed as anywhere I would search so I thought I'd inquire.

Now, the potatoes. I have been noticing a slowly developing blight on some of the potato plants that I have in the pots. I didn't know if the plants were healthy below ground, dry or wet, or if they were even beginning to develop potatoes at all. So... I dumped the worst looking pot and checked it out. The soil in the pot seemed to be a bit hard although seeming perfectly damp. Maybe I'll take some pics of them either tomorrow or Saturday and see if any of you potato growers have any suggestions.

Hope all your gardens are doing well, as well as yourselves and your families.

Till tomorrow.

P~

2008 Garden update - strawberries and greens

I thought a little garden update was in order in case you all thought maybe I had stopped growing things and just talked about it now. As many of you have noticed this is the season of the berry, and for now that means strawberries! And what strawberries they have been!

The picture above is one that I pulled from last week. It's of the first small harvest that I brought in. It was modest to be sure, I believe it was a little over 8 oz. (I've been weighing everything that I bring in this year. Totals aren't huge, yet, but their picking up now.)
By the end of the week, I started getting bigger harvests everyday. The last couple of days I have brought in a full pound of strawberries every day. As of tonight, I have harvested almost 9.5 lbs. Pretty good I'd say for a patch that's only 10' x 3'. And it hasn't slowed yet! I should pass at least 12 lbs. Now granted, in the bigger picture 12 lbs isn't a massive haul, but I'm pretty pleased about it. We eat some, have smoothies, but freeze much of them for later. We like to have strawberries in the winter too you know.
The other biggie that's been coming in very well this year has been the greens. The picture above is a little selection of Kale and Collards that I remembered to take a picture of. This is the first year that I've grown either of them, but I've been really enjoying them. I've also had a good bit of beet greens that I planted early this year. I've never been able to get a good harvest of any of the greens (other than chard that is) but this year I seemed to be a bit more organized and got them in the ground at the right time of year. Just another bit of the learning curve coming around.
Another green that I've been really pleased with this year has been my spinach. I've tried to get it to grow for the last couple of years and although I managed to get a little, it always seemed to bolt before I really enjoyed it. This year I was able to take advantage of a bit of a cooler micro climate in our yard and have had a boom year for it. It is bolting now, but I think I'll try another planting there and see if I can get another harvest before planting for a fall crop.

So far so good I'd say. Now I'll be focusing on bringing in peas, and some onions, while my zucchini's finish growing up, those will be in before we know it.

How's things in your neck of the woods?

P~

Back in Time

OK, since I've been ridiculously funkilicious lately and have, nearly entirely, slacked off on all but the poor me posts, allow me to travel back in time a bit. (Duh, no I'm not really gonna go back in time, just bear with me here.) In the next few posts I'm going to try to catch up on all the positive and interesting things that have been going on here in the last couple of weeks, updates on the 100 foot diet, how the garden is coming along and some of the pics that I've been filling my cameras memory card with over the last little while. So yeah, I think I can effectively say I'm about to be traveling back in time... won't you join me?

If I go back the farthest, it would have to be this:
This was a photo of a very local meal that was somehow ignored on my camera card since the end of May, go figure?. It's the wild asparagus that I harvested locally and some baby greens from the garden. The rice dish is not local (Unless you count the Walmart that's within walking distance? No? dang!) but the bread is homemade and delicious.
Stay tuned...more to come.
P~

100 ft Diet - Garden Update 2008

Just another garden harvest update from this weekend. Again I am very happy to say that the spinach is doing very well. I harvested this batch Saturday morning. This time I decided to split it up into two different groupings for measurement and packaging.

The bunch on top is the larger, fuller leaves that I think will be better served with a little steaming, or maybe sauteed in some butter with garlic. The other bunch on the bottom are the baby spinach greens that I'll use alone in spinach salads, or added to regular micro greens salad. (Not pictured, but I also harvested a good size bunch of that as well.)

We also had a bunch of our early sown radishes come in this weekend. They are really a treat. Don't they just shout out fresh with the bright red color and full greens. I love radishes. We have been making regular weigh ins of the produce that we've brought in so far, and hope to keep it up throughout the year. We don't have a harvest goal Per Se, but we do want to establish a base line of sorts so that we know what we're bringing in, and can plan better next year.
Anyone else out there bothering to weigh in and keep a record of your harvests?

P~

100ft Diet, Garden Update 2008

The first harvest of the new Season is in!

Oh sure I pulled some carrots out that overwintered in the garden, but this is fresh 2008 vintage tastiness. Not only that but it's the first time that I've grown mesclun and I'm very happy with it so far. About half of the bag is pure mesclun mix from under the pea plant trellises, The other half is a mix of baby spinach and arugula. I also was able to harvest some radishes (not pictured) that were very tasty as well. The grand total for the weigh in... drum roll please...
A whopping 14oz. :)
Honestly though, we are planning on keeping a running total this year of the amounts of food that we are able to produce from our yard. IT will kick in quite a bit once the cukes and zucchinis start to mature, but for now, I'm pretty pleased.
In years passed I've had a tough time growing spinach in our climate. We tend to go from cold early spring to hot late spring very abruptly and it tends to send the spinach's, actually all greens, bolting. This year, I am trying Straw mulch to help keep the moisture in, and the soil cooler. So far so good. I actually have seen a significant increase in a couple of plants since I mulched them. I did however, notice a breakout of small mite-ish bugs on some lettuces that I transplanted with straw around them. I don't know if the straw caused it or what, but I hit them with a bit of Diatomaceous Earth and it seems to be keeping the plants healthy. In case your unfamiliar with D.E., it is a natural mined mineral made up of the dried shells of ancient sea creatures. It works as an effective organic pest control for small pests like aphids, spiders, mites, etc. It also contains many trace minerals that are beneficial to the soil so it's a win win situation.

I am planning to go in depth into a gardening topic this week spurred on by a regular reader and fellow blogger. She's having a bit of a time with the learning curve associated with the Square Foot Garden method. I initially started my garden using this method as well but, as with so many of the things I do, I took the things that I found to be useful, and left the rest; even of those that I kept I modified to suit my needs and available supplies/budget. So I thought I'd go into a couple of the cheap workarounds and generally outline my philosophy regarding this system. What I'd like to hear from you is this. If you have used the SFG method, or are currently, what are your opinions of it? What issues have you had and how have you solved them, or are they even solved? I know I'm not the only "freelance" square footer out there, come on, chime in.
P~

Garden Update (100 ft Diet)

Holy Crap, it's been a week since I posted last?? I'm so sorry for the intermission. I am almost done with the major stuff that I've had going on, but not quite. In the Next two days I will be installing the fence (I know now why people pay to set fence posts.) and wrapping that project up, Then on Saturday we're having some family and friends together for my three boys baptism. Faith is something we've always been open and honest about, but have never pushed on them and recently they made a joint decision that they all wanted to be baptised together. As if that weren't enough, all this will come together on A~'s birthday, and they will be confirmed as members of the church on our anniversary... go figure? What a blessing it will be.

Amidst all this chaos, I have been managing to keep relatively on top of the garden, and it has finally begun to really come into it's own. I didn't initially decide to participate in "The Growing Challenge" because, well honestly it's so hard to keep up with all the challenges, but I think I may participate in it after all since I really have a lot of new stuff going on this year, that applies to it. I thought I'd share some pics and updates.
My Cabbages that I planted early this year and had covered as a test did really well through the cold spring that we've had.
New crop this year. I tried Kale for the first time last year when it was too late in the season to grow it. I'll probably grow a late season crop too to see how long I can keep it bearing through the winter.
New crop this year. Grew up with pickled beets, and tried the greens for the first time from a farmer at the F-Market last year, very tasty.
New crop this year. I've never eaten it, but it looks so interesting and I have a co-worker that always had it growing up and loved it, so what the heck.
New(ish) crop this year. Bush beans. I've never grown a bush variety, but thought they would be a good determinant crop for our canning program this year.
New crop this year. Never grown onions, but we've planted approx. 150 starts this year. Some will be tested as storage onions, others will be chopped and frozen for quick recipes.
Rhubarb... what can I say, I love it. I'm trying out more companion planting this year, this is a good one. Broccoli, onions and rhubarb. They are all said to be complimentary, so again, what the heck.
Peas. Not a new crop but definitely a new method. I am using a sort of A-frame technique that I am trying out this year. It seems to be catching on too, three neighbors of mine going down the street have "adopted" my technique. (Hope it works.) I also have mesclun planted under the A-Frames. The idea is that the peas should shade the tender greens as the summer sun get progressively hotter.
This is my early, baby spinach, and radishes. Almost there, I should be eating this stuff this weekend.
Arugula (Rocket). This one took a little doing for me to like. It is definitely a "have with..." not a "have alone..." and gives a earthy, peppery flavor to salads and such, I want to try arugula pesto this year.
And of course the Apple blossom special... What can I say?
Finally, our dwarf cherry tree. This is the smallest tree we have, and last year it only yielded a couple of cherries. The big story here is that I think I have managed to beat a very high aphid infestation organically. Last year every time I walked by this tree, I inspected and removed any aphid heavy leaves and discarded. By the end of the summer it seemed to have beaten it. I hope for this year to be much better.

Well, That's about it folks. I have a bunch of pics of the front yard too. I'll try to get those up tomorrow night. I haven't even begun planting heavily in my main beds either so that ought to go on this week or weekend as well.
As for now, well, I'm beat! I'm going to bed. Hope your all well, and thanks for the patience.
P~
Tomorrow, AsparagusFest '08 begins!!

In Vitro Meat and a Food Crisis

In the little bit of news that I catch in between songs on the radio over the last few days, I've heard about something being called In Vitro Meat (Really? Can't anyone come up with something more...appetizing to call it?) that is supposed to help solve the problem of the planet's desire for meat based proteins. Then I heard about something that I knew was coming down the pike, the global food crisis. Allow me a moment to rant will you ?

Is it just me or does anyone else find it crazy that in a time when we are beginning to learn about how having our global economy and by proxy global food supply inextricably linked together may not in fact be an optimal situation. When the monoculture of our food supply in it's current state is not only not sustainable, but is a precariously balanced thing that could, at the least bit of blight or infestation, collapse and send not only us but the global populations into a further culinary tailspin. That at this time there would be people sitting down to have a serious discussion of how to "manufacture" the flesh of animals, in a petri dish for human consumption?! If companies like Monsanto are already being allowed to patent an organism (seeds and plants), then certainly you have to know that whatever company is able to meet the challenge being, at least in part, sponsored by PETA will be the patent holding, protein supplying, Soylentesque company that will be supplying most of our food. That is madness people!
We need to diversify and decentralize. We as consumers, and I mean that literally as in "we who consume food", need to begin to take responsibility for more of our own diet. If we are able to provide ourselves with even two or three meals a week from our own own land then not only will we be reducing our dependence of foreign oil and foreign foods, but we will be freeing up the foods that we were consuming for those in need of anything to eat. As for the In Vitro meat, it just can't be a good thing. We can't replicate an egg, how are we going to replicate a chicken? We need to consume less meat. That's really all I can say about it. Note: I did not say NONE, just LESS. We would not only be doing the environment and the food crisis some good, we would certainly be doing ourselves some good. I know my waistline agrees.

The more people we can get to at least begin to understand this the better. Share your passion for growing with your friends and associates. Help others to build their passion for it and learn from them, and you'll probably come away a better person not to mention gardener to boot.
P~

Bags-O-Flour and food storage

I posted a while back about Food Storage. It's something that is very important to us. We are not yet to a point where we could go without commercial stores, but we are moving that direction. I'm not talking about being free of them for everyday needs, although we are certainly reducing our dependence on them, I'm talking instead about getting to a point where if there were a catastrophe, or food shortage, or monumental rise in food costs for a prolonged period we would be less impacted than we would if we were like every "normal" family out there. I don't want to scare anyone, and honestly I'm not scared myself, but I am cautiously pessimistic. That is to say I don't have enough faith in the current economy and global stability to not hedge my bets.

One of the primary things that goes hand in hand with having food storage is eating it. If you store a basement full of whole wheat, beans, rice, oats, etc. but you live daily on wonder bread, take-out and Big Gulps, your setting yourself up for failure in my opinion. We eat a lot of the foods that we store on or in our regular diet. Beans and rice are regular dishes around our house and many of the other foods like oats, flour, sugar and the like are of course regular additions to almost everything. We spent a little time with a borrowed wheat grinder this weekend grinding about 40 lbs of whole wheat flour that A~ will be starting to incorporate more into our diet as well. We placed it into 10 one-gallon zip lock bags and are going to store it in the chest freezer for later use. This is not the optimal way to use your flour just for the record. It will have some minor nutritive loss from sitting ground rather that grinding fresh, but it will be minor, and since we don't yet have our own grinder, we are at the mercy of the kindness of our neighbor.

Another component to this food storage formula will be a our 100ft diet. That's right, the garden! What better activity can we all incorporate in our homes than some sort of freedom garden. Grow things that you know your family will eat through the year, and preserve what you can for later. Try a couple of new plants too, but in limited quantities. Biodiversity is a necessity in a healthy garden, but you don't want to take up a lot of your growing space with something that you may not like. Particularly if your on a small suburban lot such as ours. Next year you can expand if you like it enough.

I began this post with a little bit of doom and gloom; a necessity, I thought, to make my point. I hope you get the point that yeah there may be some instability in the world, and yeah there's a good chance it'll get worse before it gets better. But this blog isn't about the bad things that might happen, it's about the possibilities that we CAN make happen. It's about making the possibilities...Realities. They won't happen overnight, but they will come if we decide that they will, and truly believe in them. One thing is certain though. Do nothing, and you will get exactly that in return.

Be well all. Tomorrow should be a very good post for you chicken lovers out there. Ooooo... the suspense...Till then.

P~

Food Storage guide. - A fairly comprehensive guide to starting a family food storage program.

2008 Garden Activity Journal

In an effort to share my progress in the garden this year, I added a new section to the right side tool bar, appropriately just below the 100 foot diet logo. The new section is called the 2008 Garden Activity Journal. I have listed the name of the edible plants that I have put in the ground so far, and the dates that they were planted. I also placed "NEW" next to the few of them that are first time additions to the garden; there will be more NEW additions to come for sure.

My wife and I also talked about taking a page from the Path to Freedom play book and keeping a record of the number of lbs of food we are able to produce at home. I'll create some sort of banner for this to also go in the toolbar. Has any one else thought about doing that for this growing season, or have you done it in the past? I thought I might call it something like "Weighing in for change" or "Weighing in for choice". Any ideas?

Have a great day all.

P~

2008 Garden update

After church this afternoon, we came home and spent a pretty relaxing most of the afternoon around the house. The kids of course ran right outside to skateboard and I, of course, off to deal with some gardening. I planted a bunch of seed that had germinated into some re-used 6 pack planters that I held over from last year. If you buy perennials, don't just rip the containers apart, you can keep them for the next years plantings. They nest inside each other too so they take up very little space.

The existing garden that is being held over from last year consists of 6 raised beds and part of the back property line planter bed. Together this all totalled 282 sqFt. This year we are increasing this by prepping and using a formerly unused area next to back of the house, as well as by using the remaining piece of the back property line planter bed. The total sqFt being added is 112, bringing the total of dedicated planting beds to 394 sqFt (78.8 sqFt per person.) This is for the dedicated planting beds. In addition to these, we will be planting other edibles around the decorative beds in the front yard as well. This is a pretty big deal here in suburbia, but I think our neighbors have gotten in the habit of stopping by when they see us in the yard to see what new stuff we have going on around the house, so I hate to disappoint.(we do not have a fenced yard and we are on a corner lot so it's pretty regular to see us in the yard.) To the front yard beds we plan to add all of our edible/aromatic herbs such as basil, rosemary, thyme, lavender etc. as well as some new garden items that should work well in the front such as tall flowering okra, edible flowers such as Johnny jump-ups, pansies and nasturtiums and we plan to add some "tufts" of carrots here and there to fill in the gaps with their greenery and who knows, maybe surprise a neighbor kid with a summer carrot from the front yard. (By the way, neighbor kids are a great way to break the ice about talking gardening and home food production. You'd be surprised at how excited moms get seeing their kids excited about eating veggies.)

Tonight I got a few cool season plants into the ground. I planted a 4-pack of cabbage that I picked up at the nursery late last week on a whim, I don't know if they'll make it or not based on the weather swings, but I have some seeds sprouting indoors that certainly will. I also planted a few rows of beets, some head and romaine lettuce, a single row of arugula (rocket) and sowed some mesclun under the A-framed pea trellises I talked about a couple of days ago. The idea with that is that right now while the peas are just sprouting, the weather is cool enough to let the mesclun get full sun. Later when the peas have grown up the trellising, they will leave just enough shaded area under them to keep the tender greens shaded and cool. It's another hunch, I'll keep you posted.

Finally I wanted to state something just for the record. My wife, although a excellent homemaker, chef, baker, etc, etc, is not particularly big on the outside. More particularly she just doesn't like dirt. This is of course the polar opposite to me who on any given day has some form of dirt wedged under my nails or in my shoes, or in my hair (what hair I have that is.) by the end of the day. She does her best and to her credit is always right there with me working her butt off, wearing elbow length gloves, to make our goals a reality outside. She just doesn't love it like I do. Anyway, that said, I have to say that she is one of the main reasons for us having a successful garden at all. I am a dreamer, a planner, an envisioner extraordinaire; but a "get on with it and get it done" type... not so much. This is where we compliment each other. She'll drive me nuts with her lists, and schedules and her "HONEY, you have to get this done if we're going to ____." but you know what? That's what gets the job done. If it wasn't for her ability to see the big picture, I'd never get things planted in time, I'd forget to water for a couple of days or who knows what else. I wanted to get that out there for the record. This year looks to be shaping up to be a great summer, and likely it'll be because she got me moving when I was slacking about.

(Oh man, I'm gonna hear about that admission forever.)

P~

100ft diet update

This post was a little late getting put up as I got sidetracked telling My Story of Food last week. This was one of the meals that we had last week. I loved it, and wanted to share. I think I raved enough about A~'s homemade buns last week to her that she made them again this week. They really are so good. It's no wonder shy our kids look at us funny when they get store bought once and a while. We're spoiled. Onto these she made a vegetarian Sloppy joeesque filling. I bought some TVP a little while back so that we could experiment with it and see how we liked it. She's really gotten to like making homemade meals with it much better than some of the pre-made vegetarian products out there.
Onto this I put some of my homegrown sprouts and voila, tasty meal. Now does it really qualify as a 100 ft diet meal since neither the flour nor the TVP are from my back yard? No, probably not to the purist, but I look at this as an excersise in producing as much of our own food as possible. Do we do that all the time, no. Do we a couple times a week, yes. Is it progress, definitely yes.

I hope as we share our progress and lives with each other, we keep in mind that we're all on a journey, some are further than others, but none of us is perfect. In fact what may be perfect to one would likely not be to another. I haven't heard anyone nit-picking or anything, at least with regard to "the 100ft Diet", but I think we've all seen it before with other such collaborations. To build a community, we all have to be a bit flexible with what others are willing to do, and encouraging of the things that they DO do.
I wanted to let everyone know I've been really enjoying getting to read some of your post as well. With the garden season just kicking in for many of us, and lots of people getting an early start, it looks like we'll all have lots to share in the upcoming months. Plus I'm really looking forward to the 100footdiet.org site launch on the first day of Spring next week.

P~