Weighing my options

I got an email today from the director of the new community gardens in my town.  They have 20x20 plots for $20.  The co-op will plow and till, as well as having water available.  It's really tempting to have some additional space to grow some of those big space hogs. 

I got another email from the same guy, who also heads up the farmer's market in my town.  He is a professor at the University in my town and a big proponent of the slow/local food movement.  The Farmer's Market started 2 years ago with a big success to start, followed by some major slowing.  That would be expected in my mind.  However, this same man became overwhelmed when the original market manager quit and there were significant issues with follow up managers.  Last year, in it's second season, the market had few vendors and even fewer customers.  He got fed up and cancelled it after a few weeks. I know that overwhelmed feeling well.

So, here I sit.  I now have more time than I've ever had to devote to the things that I love.  If you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit passionate about food.  Particularly local, organic, sustainable food.  It's been a few months since I put the kids into school and I'm starting to get a bit antsy.  Granted, I'll be knee deep in gardening in a few months, but will still have lots more time to devote to something.  I'm really wanting to get involved in the market.  I would love to see it become successful.  I would love to see more people have an interest in where their food comes from. 

My plan is to go to the meeting in 2 weeks and offer my help.  I'm really excited to see what will need doing.  It's so exciting to know that I can now become more active in my interests.  The future is a wonderful thing full of promise.  It is also full of work to be done.  Lets get to work!

The first night of Hannukah

Last night was the first night of Hannukah.  Since Hubby is Jewish and I'm a Christian, we celebrate a lot of holidays.  The kids love it and really enjoy the fact that they get to celebrate two religions.  This year our Hannukah was even better because the meal came in large part from our own garden. 

We had latkes made from potatoes that I grew and eggs from our chickens.  The applesauce was made from apples we picked at the farm down the road from us.  I made the brisket from the half cow we got this summer from a local farm and it was simmered with carrots and onions from our garden.  I had even made beef stock from the bones when we got the cow this summer and canned it up.  The best part was that it was delicious.  There are even leftovers for tonight. 

This post is part of the Dark Days Challenge at the (not so) Urban Hennery and Simple Lives Thursday. 

Independence Days Challenge week 1

Sharon Astyk has been having an Independence Days challenge for the past few years.  She even wrote a book on the subject.  I've been playing around with it at home since then, but have never posted my update on the blog before.  The whole idea of the challenge is to do small things everyday to increase our independence for food production.  It's amazing when you start to keep track, how much can be done just a little bit at a time. 

I'm going to list some of the things I've done in the past few weeks, not just this past week.  From here on out, it will be just weekly things done.

Plant something:  2 types of lettuce, 2 types of onions, several types of peppers, both sweet and hot, bok choy, cabbage, broccoli, dill, basil and eggplant

Harvest something:  just eggs from the chickens so far

Preserve something:  nothing yet

Waste not:  composted scraps, food scraps to dog and chickens, reused planting flats from last year and pots from last year

Want not:  got hoop house partially built before 6 inches of rain fell, will finish when it dries out a bit

Eat the food:  just made one of Hubby's favorites from childhood using stored potatoes and most of the rest of my canned tomatoes.  I also made butter from the raw milk we get from a local dairy.

Build community food systems:  spoke with the woman who heads up an eat local chapter in my area about the dairy that I get my raw milk from. Will be speaking to the farmer about possible attending a meeting on dairy in the area.

This will obviously get more involved as the year goes on, and that is the fun part. 

Making butter

Ever since I read the Little House on the Prairie books, (we're on another run through Farmer Boy right now)  I've wanted to make my own butter.  When I read this post  I thought it may be time for me to try. 

We've been getting our raw milk from a local dairy of pasteured cows for a while now and I've been itching to try something with it other than drinking.  This morning Morgan and I were looking for something to do and decided to try it. 

We had gotten milk yesterday, so it had settled and separated.  The bottles I use are the old fashioned, half gallon type with a narrow opening.  I didn't have a great way to get the cream off the top.  With a little finagling, I was able to get about 1 cup of cream off the top.  We put it in a pint canning jar and started shaking.  Morgan got bored pretty quickly, so I sat and shook it for my arm workout for the day.

After about 20 minutes I could see it really getting thick and coating the jar quite well.  All of a sudden you could see it forming the butter.  The curds had formed and the sides of the glass cleared.  There was no mistaking the fact that we had created something here. 

I dumped it into a sieve and ran water through it to get the excess buttermilk off.  All the while I was kneading it and forming it.  We certainly don't have much, but there is potential.  I've been wanting to make cheese and now have an excuse to get more milk each week.  I can take the cream off the top for butter and use the rest for cheese and drinking.  I'm so excited!  Another goal reached for my yearly list.

There's a change coming

I woke up this morning in a wonderful mood.  That mood got even better when I logged onto my Facebook account.  Apparently Oprah had Michael Pollan on her show yesterday.  I didn't watch it, but have read great things on her site.  There were so many people talking about it on Facebook.  They were linking to Oprah, saying they needed to make a change and talking about Food Inc.    I had to join in and link to local Farmer's Markets that are running in the winter. 

It makes me feel hopeful for some significant changes.  It would be even better if these same people would look into planting a few edibles in their yard this year.  I swear that gardening is like crack, you get hooked and you can't stop at just the tomato plant, you have to have more!  Well, maybe that's just me.  If this groundswell from Oprah's show gets a real toehold, there could be major change this year.

There have already been huge numbers of new gardeners.  Anybody who tried to order seeds last Spring, quickly found out that things were rapidly running out and many were unable to get the varieties that they wanted.  I just got my Fedco order and along with it was a letter in Fedco style.  It talked about the politics of farming, how they are continuing to see record sales and struggling to keep up with them.  The types of veggies are changing too.  It seems that more and more of us are looking to grow veggies that are good keepers over the winter.  This is important.  If more of us have fruits and veggies in the basement, there will be less demand for those summer fruits and veggies from our Southern neighbors.  We need to get people hooked on the taste of fresh from the garden foods.  How can you even look at a grocery store tomato, when a little patience brings you a garden tomato. 

There are so many delicious things that people have forgotten about.  Take our dinner tonight for an example.  We'll be having roasted veggies.  They all come from either our own garden or the farmer's market.  With sweet potatoes, carrots, beets and onions, the taste is amazing.  Why have a tasteless imported tomato, when I can have those gorgeous root veggies.  The flavors can't even compete.

Then there is the taste of real meat.  The chicken that we've been eating lately are from the local slaughterhouse.  They aren't those quick grow chickens.  These are dual purpose birds that were running around in someone's backyard.  The legs tend to be a bit tougher, since they actually use their legs, but the taste is incredible.  It actually tastes like chicken.  This is the same with all the meats that we've gotten from there or other local places.  You don't need to eat as much of this kind of meat, there is so much flavor, you don't need to. 

I'm amazed at how far our local eating journey has taken us.  We still have a long way to go, but its been amazing.  If more people become interested, it can only get better.

Food Goals for the Year

Going right along with my garden goals from yesterday are my food goals for the year.  They certainly go hand in hand with the garden goals.  These are things that we've been working on for the past few years and every year I try to expand on things. 

1.  Expand my repertoire of breads.  I can already make a rather nice loaf of bread, so it's time to move on to bigger and better things.  We're talking bagels, pita breads and crackers.  I've been having a great time grinding my own flour recently.  I only grind a small amount (say 3-5 pounds) at a time, so that it can be used up before it loses its freshness.  I would love to not have to buy bread or crackers from the store.  I also need to perfect my tortilla making skills.  When I made them the first time, they were yummy, but a bit thick and oddly shaped. 

2.  Learn to make cheese and butter.  We are fortunate to live near a wonderful dairy farm.  We get raw milk from pasteured cows.  The price is amazing as well.  I guess when you don't pay for feed, you can sell for less.  It's wonderful stuff.  Now to learn to make some other wonderful things from it.  There is a woman in the western part of my state who does classes.  It will entail a weekend away, I guess I'll have to suffer through it. 

3. Learn how to forage for wild edibles in my area.  Again, we are fortunate to have a man nearby who does classes on such things.  I have self identified a few things in my yard, but would like someone who isn't looking at a computer picture to tell me what they are.  I think it would be wonderful to use some of the weeds growing quite plentifully in my yard and garden for something other than compost.  It is really amazing how many weeds one has in their yard when she doesn't use chemicals.  It is also really amazing how many weeds one has in their yard when they just simply don't care.  The neighbor with the perfectly manicured Scotts lawn loves me.

4.  Try my hand at fermentation.  I keep reading all these wonderful tales of fermented foods and the wonderful things they do for our bodies.  Being someone who loves pickles, saurkraut, kefir and kombucha, it would be wonderful to be able to make these things myself.  It should save me quite a bit of money as well.  That is always a great side effect.

5.  Learn to make my own pasta.  I have the machine, I just need to do it. 

Now looking back at this post, I realize that I'm slightly off my rocker.  I think that most of the people that read this blog are slightly off their rocker as well.  So, here's to being off our rockers!  Rock on!!

Looking back

This time of year is the perfect time to reflect on our year and what we've done.  My parents have always written a Christmas letter detailing what the family has done and this year was no exception.  I always find it interesting to see what my Dad has decided to write about.  This year I have apparently become a Hayseed.  I'm not sure what exactly this means in my Dad's mind, but it appears to be his way of saying that I have a big garden and chickens.  Mind you, my parents have had both as well.  Apparently this never occurred to them.

In any case, it has been a good year.  We did in fact get chickens.  I had been talking about them for years, since we were in 4H and our leader got her first 4 chicks.  J and I had said we wanted to get them and he had the plans drawn up for their tractor.  Somehow, when I got the call from my friend that the chicks were in, it all seemed to soon.  I got them set up in a big plastic tub in the basement.  The kids were beside themselves wanting to hold the chicks all the time.  The neighborhood all had to look and name the girls.  We fretted over Mary and whether she was going to make it.  She did wonderfully of course and now they are happily laying eggs and eating up all manner of leftovers and greens.

The garden was much more manageable for me.  The previous year I had done the major expansion.  My garden plan  was crazy and made it difficult for me to manage the garden.  This year I decided to go back to what I know.  I made 7 beds that are approximately 4x12 or so.  The walkways were lined with boxes from Hubby's computer business.  I started all of my own plants from seed.  This was not the first year for that, but each year it seems that I start more and more seeds.  I tried making seed tapes for my carrots and beets.  The carrots were a dismal failure, but the beets did well. 

We had a crazy summer for weather.  June was cold and rained 26 of 30 days.  Everything was behind and waterlogged.  The tomatoes got blight, but gave me a decent crop before completely succumbing.  The zucchini did exceptionally well, but the winter squashes did nothing.  Due to being ill prepared in the Spring, my peas got planted late.  That combined with our crazy June weather, left us with a much smaller crop of sugar snaps than we would have liked.  The bush beans, however, went absolutely crazy. 

I grew tomatillos for the first time this year.  They produced more tomatillos than I knew what to do with.  After making a green salsa, I decided that we probably wouldn't grow them again next year.  The lettuce loved the wet, cool weather and grew like gangbusters.  I grew a mix from Baker Creek that I really liked.  Morgan thought it was wonderful that Mommy grew a snack for her.  She spent the summer snacking on the lettuce whenever she was out.  The beets and chard did very well, with the chard still going up until last week's snow storm. 

I had a crop of potatoes that I didn't plant last Spring.  The previous year I had planted potatoes that didn't do as well as I would have liked.  Apparently I missed quite a few and I ended up with several hills of potatoes cropping up.  They did pretty well with all the rain we had and I ended up with 10 lbs of potatoes for my lack of work.  The onions did pretty well also, although we only had enough to eat fresh over the summer.  I also planted leeks that grew well.  They didn't get used as much as they should have and probably won't be planted again. 

The orchard expanded as well.  We added another peach tree and 3 more apples.  This brought us up to 5 apples, 2 peach and a cherry tree.  I also added 6 blueberry bushes in the back yard.  These did well, although they are where the kids play and 1 ended up a casualty of play.  The rest look really good and I'm hoping for a good crop of blueberries next year. 

I held canning classes for the first time this summer.  We made Triple Berry Jam and learned how to water bath can.  There was a second set of classes on pressure canning beans, but that was not as big a draw.  We'll see if there is any interest next year. 

In the fall I expanded the garden again.  This time with about 350 sq ft of raised beds.  This will allow me to continue on my quest to raise the majority of my family's fruit and veggie needs.  We've all really gotten hooked on our own veggies, much preferring them to anything else we could buy.

In the same vein, we've really expanded on eating locally this year.  We got half a grass fed cow from a local farmer, chickens from a local butcher and a pig as well.  Our milk is raw milk from a local dairy of pastured cows.  All that, combined with our own eggs, means that well over 90 percent of our protein sources are local and sustainable.  As my kids would say, they're from the nice farmers, not the mean ones.  Our little town started its first Farmer's Market, which was a huge success.  It was great to be able to supplement our garden with fresh, local, organic veggies. 

Its been a great year.  This is my first year blogging regularly and it has been a blast.  I'm looking forward to next year as well.  The list of things I want to accomplish gets longer and longer, but that's half the fun.

Mommy, I don't like the store bought veggies.

That was what my 8 year old told me at dinner tonight.  My gardener's and my mother's heart sang.  We were eating an organic mixed veggie mix from Trader Joes and he kept picking out the green beans and telling me they didn't taste like real green beans.  Well, how about that? 

We then started talking about the fact that I was trying to grow all of our veggies.  The kids have always helped me pick out different seeds for the garden.  We like trying different colored carrots and such.  Tonight we were debating whether it was better to start a permanent strawberry bed, or an asparagus bed.  The kids both like asparagus, but of course picked strawberries.  Hubby picked the asparagus.  I may have to build one more bed. 

The next conversation was the kids listing all the vegetables that were their favorites.  They both ran out of fingers and toes.  How cool is that?  Since my Fedco catalog arrived this afternoon, you know what I'll be doing as soon as I post this. 

Time for reading

This is the time of the year that I actually have a few minutes to sit down and read up on things.  I love books, and have a bad habit of needing to own them all.   The picture above shows a sampling of the many books I own.  I love books on gardening, homesteading, preserving, frugality, and well, you get the idea.

At the library yesterday, there was a copy of John Jeavons book, The Sustainable Vegetable Garden.  Its very interesting and extremely detailed.  I need more though.  My library is pretty pathetic these days as a result of budget cuts, but I have lots of credits on paperbackswap.com. 

Some books that I really love are in the picture above.  Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living is amazing.  There is so much information in that book on everything from gardening to being frugal, cooking, preserving and raising and butchering animals.  Just amazing.

I also really love Eliot Coleman's book Four Season Harvest.  It has so much practical information on season extension for your garden. 

The frugalista in me loves The Tightwad Gazette.  Its funny to read it, since although it was written about 15 years ago, the economy was doing poorly then and there were lots of people looking into the frugal lifestyle.  Her basic recipes are wonderful to make something from just about any ingredients you happen to have laying around.  Some things are outdated, but overall its a wonderful resource. 

Some other good ones are Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth.  My sister in law is currently borrowing it, so it isn't pictured.  It has everything you ever wanted to know about saving your own seed.  Then there are all the preserving books, like Root Cellaring by the Bubels, Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator cookbook and Ball's complete book of Home Preserving. 

Recently I've been reading more on the local food and sustainability fronts.  Sharon Astyk has 3 books out right now with a fourth on the way, so far my favorite has been Independence Days.  I also really enjoyed Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. 

Please share some of your favorites with me.

Pumpkin seed saving

When I processed my pumpkins the other day, I decided to save some seeds.  Pumpkins tend to cross rather easily, so this isn't something I would normally do from a pumpkin I didn't grow myself.  However, we picked these at a farm where there was an acre of just pie pumpkins, so I thought it was probably safe. 

Pumpkin seeds. like tomato seeds, have a slimy coating that needs to be removed first.  I started by removing the amount I wanted and placing them in a bowl with a small amount of water.

After a few days they developed a bit of scum on them.  The scum helps to rid the seeds of their coating.  The next step is to place the seeds in a colander and rinse them thoroughly.  They are then put on a plate to dry thoroughly.  You need to dry them a bit more than you might think.  I leave mine on the plate in my kitchen for a few days.

When they are thoroughly dried, you can package them into envelopes or other containers to await planting.  If anyone wants a few seeds, let me know and I'll send what I can off to you.

Finally!!

This morning the chickens were making a lot of noise.  I didn't want to get too excited and decided I would go out in a little while to see if they had done anything.  A half hour later, I got a knock at my front door.  There stood J and his whole family with this beautiful egg.  They decided that they wanted to see my face and wanted me to have the first one.  I've done the lions share of the day to day care for them, so they felt that was fitting.  The girls are still making lots of noise, so hopefully we'll have some more soon.

I feel like its Christmas, I'm so excited.  The kids were so thrilled, they both wanted to have their hands photographed with the egg.  So above we have Noah and below is Morgan.

The egg is about 1/2 the size they will be in a few months.  Its so neat!  I just can't stand it!

Holiday lighting for chickens

J and I have been talking for a while about how to set up some lighting for the chickens so that they will lay.  For those who don't know, chickens lay eggs depending on the amount of light they get daily.  In the winter they lay very few if any eggs, so many people supplement the lighting to make their bodies think its ok to lay eggs.  The other day I had a lightbulb moment (I know, bad pun) and thought to use the Christmas lights that we no longer put on our house.  So far it seems to be working, the chickens are staying up later and eating and drinking later.  There are no eggs yet, but they are making what appear to be nests in the house.  I'm hoping this is a good sign. 

I'm happy to see the lights get used.  We used to be good little decorators and put them up on the house every year.  Then we got lazy and figured that it was good anyway, since then we weren't using the electricity.  Now we're using electricity for a good cause, not throwing these in the landfill and not buying anything new.  Pretty good option in my book. 

The plan for next year is to get more chickens.  We want to build a bigger, more permanent coop for all of them.  The tractor would still be used for the new chicks, until they're big enough to go into the larger coop.  We can also use the tractor to graze them when it suits our purposes.  The long term goal is to not have to supplement them with light over the long term.  If we let them lay like crazy during summer, then we can preserve the eggs for  the winter.  I have no idea if this will work, but it would be great if it did.  Eggs keep for a long time and can also be frozen if need be.  Has anyone else done this and had it work?

Canning applesauce

Time to make the applesauce.  The kids were so excited.

I cut up all the apples, leaving the skin on for added flavor and nutrition.  The cores were placed in a bag to save for the chickens.

Into the pot with an inch of water.

All soft and yummy.

Through the strainer to get the right consistency.

Then 20 minutes in the water bath and we have sauce!  The kids love it, so I need to use up the rest of the apples tomorrow.

Thinking about Thanksgiving

 This sounds great!  I just found this nifty little site.  My family has always had a relatively local Thanksgiving, even before we really understood the whole locavore movement.

My Mom has always gotten her turkeys from a local turkey farm called Bongi's.  We love the taste of the fresh, local turkeys.   They are so different from the plastic encased, frozen birds. 

Then there are the sides.  My family has always had a garden if at all possible.  I've now got one as well.  So, between us, we have lots of veggies at our disposal.  The butternut squash is a must have, along with the pumpkin pie from our own pumpkins.  We also have goodies that were frozen during the summer, like broccoli, green beans and peas.  Apples are abundant here in New England, so pies and cider are a yummy addition.

It seems that the biggest thing that is not local are the grains.  We buy all of our flour from King Arthur Flour.  The company is relatively local, being in Vermont, although I don't know where they get their grains from for the flour.  I'm told that there will be a grain CSA starting up in the Western part of MA, so that should be very exciting.

Interestingly, I've never thought about this before.  I'm relatively new to the locavore and green movements.  It is neat though, that we were doing it right anyway.  The only thing we need to find local now is the little boiling onions for creamed onions.  Those are a must have at our Thanksgiving meal.  What will you be having for Thanksgiving?

Apple Picking

I love apple picking.  We were late going this year, but thankfully there were still plenty left.  I packed the kids and the wagon into my car and off we went to Honey Pot Hill.  Its a great orchard about an hours drive from me.

The only problem was that most of the apples were too far up for us to reach.  Here is Noah trying to find apples low enough to pick.

Any that Morgan found were instantly eaten.

These were out of reach, taunting me.  I am scared of ladders and didn't have my 6'4" hubby to get them for me.

Every tree had hundreds of apples on the ground under it.  So much waste made me very sad.  It was impossible to walk without making applesauce as you went.

The wagon was very useful, since we ended up with a bushel of apples.  The kids are excited to make applesauce from them.

It really was a perfect day.

Over at the farm store, they had pumpkins for sale as well.  They look so nice all lined up.  When the kids were little we would have them sit on the pumpkins for pictures.

I loved the rows of future trees.  This orchard is truly massive.  We have been going there for years, but ended up in an area that I didn't even know existed.  Tomorrow I'll post pics of the animals they have.

Pretty piles of dirt

Today is blog action day.  The topic is climate change, something near and dear to my heart.  One of the big things I'm trying to do is to grow as much of the fruits and veggies for my family on my tiny little suburban plot. 

Here is the dirt for my newest garden expansion.  I've been busily adding raised beds to my current garden of almost 1000 sq ft to increase me to 1340  sq ft or so.  This will allow me to add more calorie crops to our regular veggie rotation and to add more perrenial fruits and veggies to the mix as well.  How does this help with climate change?  Think food miles.  There are none here.  Instead of the 100 mile diet, it would be more like the 100 foot diet.  How cool is that? 

All of us can grow some part of our own diet, even if its only a pot of basil in the kitchen.  It all makes a difference.  We just need to take that step.  If you had told me 8 years ago that I would be doing this I would have laughed at you.  As I've said many times, this has been a gradual process.  It all started with a few extra tomato plants from my mother's garden.  I never had any plans to continue to garden, but somehow it just continued to grow.  It became an addiction of sorts and I guess its a good addiction.  Food security, healthy fruits and veggies and good for the earth to boot.  What could be better? 

Food goals

As I've been wrapping up the major part of the growing season, I've been thinking about goals.  Goals for next year, for the coming years.  So many parts of my life have goals.

For my garden, the goal is to produce as much of the fuits and veggies that we eat as possible.  To that end, I've added fruit trees and bushes along the way.  Next year will see the start of a strawberry bed.  The veggie garden grows each year as well.  I foolishly thought that when I fenced in my garden, that I would be done expanding.  Silly me.  This year I'm adding more beds outside the fence to increase my garden space again.  One of the beds will be a strawberry bed, another a permanent garlic bed, the other 2 will be tomato beds next year.

One of the things I'm really trying in earnest now is season extension.  I've been doing multiple planting of various veggies, mostly those in the cool weather crop families.  When we get to frost time, I'll be putting cold frames over some of those crops to extend them even more.  Others will be mulched and left in the ground to be harvested as we need them.  I still have a long way to go on this one.  I'm still working on which root crops my family likes and which ones need what kind of protection.

Along the same lines, is changing over how we eat.  Eating seasonally and locally is very different than going to the grocery store and buying whatever we're in the mood for.  It means eating asparagus only for the short time its available.  It means forgoing bananas and oranges, since they don't grow here.  (I don't think I'll be able to convince Morgan and hubby to give up the OJ any time soon.)  The thing is, the more we do this, the more we like it.  Its amazing how good food tastes when it hasn't been picked early, shipped around the world and eaten at less than optimal freshness.  We really appreciate the new foods as they become available.  The changing of the seasons and foods that are available are more of a celebration.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so to speak.

What are your food goals?  Are you looking to eat healthier?  More locally?