Another Gardening Year Underway

Well it has been a very long time since I was on here. We had some family illnesses and the loss of my beloved Father in Love. But with that all undercontrol at this time, it is again the beginning of garden season, so I am updating on our little mini farm. We have already started many of our seeds for our vegetable garden and this year we are going to also be adding a new herb garden. Our transplants are looking really good so far and we have one hoop house in the garden of early spring veggies. We have expanded our little garden to add some fruit trees and a small area for buckwheat, and red clover for additional chicken food. We have been trying to get all the prep work done outside despite the cold weather. We ordered seeds from Southern Exposure, Baker Creek and Horizon Herbs to get started. We are now totally on heirloom seeds and I feel good about the purity of what we will grow this year. We also planted our organic potatoes during the dark nights of February, so they are bedded under leaves and straw to begin growing.

The Home Garden: An Environmental Blessing...

I have been reading Joel Salatin's book, Folks,this ain't normal, and was thinking about my garden and what we have learned from it and grown and the impact it has on our family and even our community. In the 1940's and before nearly everyone had some kind of garden. They worked to raise a large majority of their own food or they went hungry. Their yards were an abundance of foods that would soon be stored for winter use, if not eaten right away. It was the freshest and healthiest our food was or has been since. They were in touch with nature and the world around them, they saw their neighbors out in their gardens and shared a relationship. Today you go into neighborhoods and they are pristine made up of chemically created lawns and a stagnation of interpersonal relationships. There are people in those houses with health issues, and low energy, planted in front of the latest techno gadget; they are fatigued from the hustle and bustle. They eat convenience foods that are packaged in so much trash that our enviornment is in jeopardy from all the toxic waste and the food is so full of things we cannot even spell that are chemical fillers to wet you appetite, but it is fake food all the same.  Every person makes an impact on the environment whether good or bad. Those who eat highly processed, chemically created foods impact our healthcare burdens tremendously and our landfills. There are only so many toxins a normal liver can filter out before they start being stored in the body and creating chronic disease.
       Do you wish to be healthy? Do you wish to cut healthcare costs? Do you want more energy? Would you like to have assurance of what you are eating? Start a garden then, :) It is as simple as that. In a neighborhood, your local grocer has only enough food for 3 days...just watch what happens when a natural disaster strikes. There are major delays in starting the clean up process because food and water are so scarce, they have to be trucked from hundreds of miles away to give any relief. What happens if everyone grew a garden and had a "Larder"? Do most people even know what a larder is? It is a large storage area where one puts up produce for the winter months. It is environmentally sound, no gas to truck it 3,000 miles; It is fresh right off the vine and immediately processed; It's impact is very minimal and mostly in a positive way.
       I have come to believe if every family grew even a small garden the impact of waste on our environment could be cut tremendously. Putting up produce in canning jars or freezer containers that are reusable would cut huge amounts of plastic and aluminum and even tin from the mountains of debris in the landfill. And if you get a few chickens to eat the food wastes, we cut out even more of what is packaged in plastic trash bags and dumped into the landfill to leach into our ground water, and we get healthy eggs filled with nutrients that food lot chickens cannot produce, no matter how much die they are fed to make their yolks look healthy, as a bonus. 
     The best environmentalists are not the ones who write a check, but the ones who do their own part first at home. Grow a garden and now is the time to plan for the spring. Start small with a few items that you will eat, string beans and tomatoes are good basics...I would add cucumbers but I have never had luck with them, a few pepper plants work too. We started with a very small square foot garden and now have a full size family garden that feeds 5 of us comfortably with some we trade for other items. To multiply the benefits get with a few neighbors and plan so you can exchange produce...it is a great time to share in the out of doors and gardening burns calories, gets your vitamin D in, and a breath of fresh air to boot. I can think of no negatives to gardening. It does take work to process what you grow, but in the winter when you do not want to venture out you can go to the larder and pick a jar of beans and one of peaches and enjoy the fruits of your labor...
    If you are new to gardening over the winter check out books from the library and read up on gardening basics, comb heirloom seed catalogs for your non GMO seeds and get planning. Save leaves for mulching and building up your soil, rather than packaging them in trash bags for the landfill;
  start a compost heap or get a few chickens to eat those scraps...you will know your food and you will know everyone who touched it and exactly what went into growing it. Happy gardening!!!

 

Start Small...Going Towards Self Sufficiency

       I have come to the conclusion that at times my life is too busy to do all I want to do. Our striving towards self sufficiency has grown in responsibilities. We have chickens, our garden grew in size, and we have ducks now. We continue to renovate our home, life is full and good. Blessed I should say. Our summer canning is just about over we still have pear sauce to make, and we froze our blackberries to make jelly when the weather cools down. We have begun to plant the fall veggies, just a few things, zucchini, peas, and a few late season tomatoes. We will soon plant our kale and spinach in the cold frame so we can have fresh greens in the winter. We are looking at getting our firewood together for the winter and plans to finish another section of the back deck before moving inside to continue work on the kitchen renovation.
     I am told by many how they wish they could have a garden the size of ours and I always think about the process of getting where we are. We started small, very small, with just a few raised beds, one with string beans, one with corn, one with butterbeans, and 8 tomato plants. We enjoyed those first garden day experiences in the trailer park we lived in. We looked for our first house and wanted some land with it, an acre and a half...of sand, scrub oaks and pines. We planted some fruit trees and put in 8 raised beds, which held zucchini, string beans, tomatoes, butterbeans, potatoes, onions, strawberries, and peppers. Small was the key to building a great foundation, in a few years we added six chickens for fresh eggs and bought a woodstove second hand. As the years passed we read and explored ideas of what we wanted to do and how we could be more self sufficient. We now have a solar/wood stove water heating system, blackberries, grapes, pears, blueberries. We grew a diverse group of veggies and tried some different gardening techniques, such as Three Sisters. We will not be doing Three sisters this way again, but have tweeked the method and made it more friendly to our needs.
     Anyone can grow some of their own food, the key is just start small, see if any friends or relatives have canning jars, save for a pressure canner, set small goals and reach them. Many try to do it all and fail at it all. As the years have gone by we have discovered many things that we enjoy and some we do not. One thing we laugh about is that, we really do not care for string beans, yet we have grown them every year and in some lean years they were a blessing that helped make ends meet. We grew them again this year, because they are easy to grow and nutritious. We also discovered we really like Kale and while we planted a small amount the way I harvested it  by just harvesting the leaves we needed for the meal I was preparing, allowed us to have kale all winter long. Journaling helps a lot with keeping up with what you like and don't like, what works and what you hope to never do again, and what you hope to do in the future. So if I have any advice to give, it is start small and you will have what you desire one day. If you start big you will give up under the enormous weight of handling all things at once.  

Free to Eat Healthy

I have been reading quite a bit lately and it has struck me that Wall Street does not have any desire to see us eating healthy. Their goal is to make money at all costs. Sad to think some people care so little about others. So waiting for our government to legislate healthy food will never happen. They are slaves to corporate money and greed. But we can make a difference one choice at a time. If we do not take interest and control of what we eat our lives will only get shorter as the food in the supermarkets becomes more corrupt. How can we do this? One step at a time. The following is a summation of a list from Holy Cows and Hog Heaven - Salatin
1. Find out what can be grown locally, so as to know what can be available.
2. Visit the local farmer's market and if you do not see something you are looking for ask, they may know someone who sells it.
3. Put our the word you are looking for something locally, or grow it yourself.
4. Ask the local coop if they know who sells direct to the consumers and can you get this information.
5. Search the internet, put in the food you are looking for and see what comes up.
6. Contact your state representative of the North American Farmers Direct Marketing Association.
7. Join a Weston Price Foundation Chapter (http://www.westonaprice.org/ ) , or start one, the same with Slow Food (http://www.slowfoodusa.org/?gclid=CJTGnp3d0LECFW1j7Aod6zMArg). Log onto www.eatwild.com

Greed will slowly corrupt all areas of life if we let it and companies will shortcut in their goal to profit. If you honestly look at the corporate food industry and find just where your food came from, you will make changes in your life that will result in better health and more freedom. If everyone put in a backyard garden or containers you can begin to eat healthier. Cut meat down to twice a week, changes won't all come at once then, but once you eat healthier choices, you will be amazed at the difference, and will make more changes. Also, in our techno world society is becoming more unconnected personally, so, get connected, to your neighbors, to like minded gardeners, to beyond organic farmers, search, research, ask, relate and you will find that changing for your health will be easier. Research laws and definitions of labels. For example 'Organic' does not mean it is 100% organic, it may have anywhere from 5-30% inorganic substances in it, thanks to the VP from General Mills (sarcasm intended) who made sure he was on the USDA team who created the definition. Read labels, if you see long names you cannot pronounce, look for something else with real ingredients. Look for 100% grassfed beef, pastured poultry and then check to make sure they really are. Go to the local farm, look around. If they don't let you, leave and find an open grower to buy from. Yes, this takes time. My question is: Are you and your family worth it? How much does your health and freedom mean to you. And buy freedom, I mean the freedom to know where your food comes from, how it lives its life, the goals of the producer and the benefits of eating the way God created food, not how man has destroyed it, so he may control it, and put your money there. Take it one step at a time. Such as: This week I will buy 100% organic heirloom tomatoes. One thing to note: be prepared to eat these foods quickly as they are live and will deteriorate, unlike corporate food that does not break down ever. You are free to invest in quality and eat to be healthy.

Getting Real

So just how do we eat better for better health? Michael Pollan give's us some tips in his book I will sum them up, but again read Omnivore's Dilemma, to understand ...

Outline from the Book, credit to Pollan:
  "Eat Real Food: 1. Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
                             2. Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients, or with
                                 ingredients you don't recognize or can't pronounce.
                             3. Don't eat anything containing high-fructose corn syrup.
   Buy Real Food: 1. Get your food from the outside perimeter of the supermarket and try to
                                  avoid the middle aisles.
                             2. Don't buy or eat anything that doesn't eventually rot.                                 
                             3. Shop the farmer's market, through a CSA, a farmstand whenever you
                                 can.
                             4. Be your own food detective.
  Eats Real Meals 1. Cook
                             2. Garden
                             3. Try not to eat alone
                             4. Eat slowly and stop when you're full
                             5. Eat at the table. "

If I could have said it better I would have, but Michael Pollan said it best :) And this is enough 'Real Food' for thought today!

You Don't Always Get What You Pay For

I have done some intense research of late after reading the Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. I have inherently known that 'Fast Food' was not good for you and thereby pass by but not through their industrialized food processing distribution center. As research is coming out on the ingredients and synthetics in fast food it amazes me what we have been eating and why we are not any sicker than we are. First, let's put this into perspective, you shop for quality in every other area of your life, but we bargain for food. This isn't how our eating used to be. Food is filled with intense labor...growing, harvesting, preparing, or hunting and gathering, and even down to shopping to find beyond organic food...it takes time. We can do this ourselves or we can pay someone what they deserve for this intense labor. They do not farm to get rich they farm because they enjoy it. However,  car shopping, shoe shopping, or house shopping, also take time and labor in the research before purchase process. Though we do not do this three times a day, buying quality still takes time. Knowing this, the food industry and our government have joined forces to give the illusion of convenient cheap food, when we shop. But in essence it is the most costly meal you can eat. That cheap carton of eggs has come through the industrailized food process that uses more energy to fuel it than all of our cars do. 80% of the corporate food chain cost is in energy. Fuel to plant, harvest, move to slaughterhouses, ship around the world...and the saddest part of that, is of the 20% actually spent for the food very little ever gets back to the farmer. Not to mention the tax subsidies given that come from a multibillion dollar food subsidy program.
     In order to save money/make money, same difference here, the industry has narrowed our diverse food palate down to two main ingredients and they have altered those scientifically and chemically so they no longer have the benefits the originals had. Those two foods are Corn and Soybeans. The percentages of foods that have these products in them are astounding. Soda for instance has 100% corn in it in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup and other corn products creations. All industry meat has been altered to consume corn. It is sickening to hear how horrible this diet is on cows and how most when slaughtered have liver disease among other illnesses from this very unhealthy diet. We as humans were not meant to eat high corn diets either, and yet the corporations have hidden it in every processed food they can in hundreds of different forms and laced it with corporately created taste. Forms they have scientifically and chemically altered to sell and make money for them, with little care to our health. So if you believe you get what you pay for with food, think again. Those 'save money' deals with loss leaders or coupons are the industry's way of selling to you so they make money and they in truth put you and your children's health in jeopardy. So how do we feed ourselves to get healthy or even just healthier...First get a copy of the book and read it. No matter how hard some of the reading is to your sensitive palate read it all the way through, it has a very hope filled ending. Next start to experience your food and what it takes from its beginning to its end. I will give some of the tips for changing our habits in future posts, but for now just start to look at your food from its incepetion. Was your corn, soy or tomato seed altered to add herbicides to it genetically? Was your dairy cow forced to eat corn 24/7 for rapid growth and faster movement to the slaughterhouse, something their bodies are not created to do so they get bloat and liver disease and live out their days in cramped crowded squallor? Were your chickens fed so much grain and antibiotics for rapid growth that just before their demise they have no leg strength to even stand and have not eaten their proper diet? Did your tomatoes come from GMO seed that was hung upside down in a greenhouse and fed fertilizer 24/7? Once we start to believe we deserve quality food, our choices will begin to change and so will our health. Our palates will no longer be satified with synthetic food by products, but will enjoy the true taste of food. Your project... read the above book :) or at least take one food product and research back to find out what is in it or how it lived its life, before it hit the shelves. One food item I will never eat ever again is chicken nuggets, something about plastic food with lab created taste just does not appeal to my tastebuds any longer. You will read this and either be frustrated and decide not to pursue this because ignorance is better in your busy, financially challenged life or you decide "Ignorance is not bliss, at least not if you're a person who cares about the health of your body and your world." -Pollan Which do you deserve?

Assurances of purpose :)

Two friends in two days have reminded me of their desire to get some more info from the life skills I have learned through out many trials and errors. I have been slack with my posts but will update on our course of events. We planted our garden and have now harvested most of it. We are readying it to replant, as we have time for a second harvest. To ready it we have tilled in the leaves we mulched our plants with, to save water and have added chicken manure compost from our little flock of birds :). We will till this in soon and replant and remulch our seedlings when they first appear. We harvested 4 varieties of heirloom corn, three varieties of bush string beans, zucchini, yellow squash, golden zucchini, butternut, and an acorn squash. We also have had five watermelons and 6 pumpkins finish up, though there are still more on the vines. We also harvested black beans and dried them the rest of the way to store. To dry them we just laid them out on our dehydrator trays and let them sit for several days to a week. We cut up gallons of string beans and cut and froze them for later eating and shelled and froze some of our butter beans as well as dried some. Tomatoes are now coming in and the weeks we had zucchini, butter beans, onions, and carrots we had harvested, we cut up tomatoes and put them all together with the veggies in a soup mix, to which I added oregano, basil and garlic to my tastes and pressure canned them in pint jars for 40 minutes. As local produce has come in I have gone to the farmer's market and bought locally grown peaches which I put up in the freezer for smoothies or swirls (Swirls is frozen fruit run through my champion juicer to make an ice cream consistency). Remember the trick to shopping the farmer's market is knowing the prices and what you are willing to pay. If you are not willing to pay 35 bucks for chilean grapes, check out the $13.00 pineapples available, until california grapes come in and the price goes down, then buy several cases and freeze some for snacking and dry some for raisins. Loss leaders in supermarket ads give you the best idea of what is in season and what is plentiful. It is better to buy quality than cheap, so find out where things are grown, if it is local their costs for transporting are much less. Do not get a bargain unless you can prepare your food right away. I bought 40 lbs of bananas for $5, because they were ripe. I came right home and ran them in the blender and froze them for smoothies and some I placed on dryer sheets for fruit roll ups. If you have too many of something preserve it naturally. First choice for me is freeze or dry. I can last as canning kills the enzymes in food that help and aid in proper digestion of foods. Watermelons are cheap now so I will cut them up and dehydrate them, which gives me a treat that tastes like candy :) for the winter months. I dehydrate all veggies at 105 degrees to keep the enzymes alive. Well we are remodeling our kitchen and I need to go supervise my wonderful workers :) Have a blessed day!