How Does Your Garden Grow?

For the past two Summers we joined a CSA, I briefly mention that in a couple of previous posts.  Part of the reason is because I went through a mini-food revolution after reading the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and watching the documentary, Food, Inc. My dream was to have a nice big garden that I drenched with water from my rain barrel, worked with my hands, and nourished with compost from our homemade compost bin.

When we looked at buying our house and surveyed our yard one of the things we considered was where we would put our garden.  Coincidentally, the original owners were raising egg layers in the backyard and while I know Jim was drawing the line, my heart was secretly pitter-pattering....Who are we kidding though, I don't know the first thing about raising chickens--or putting in a GARDEN for that matter and we don't live on a farm, we live in a neighborhood.  Still, there is something quite appealing to me about going back to basics, working the land, sustaining, and knowing where our food is coming from. 

That's why the CSA was part of the solution for us for the past two years when we were busy bringing up seedlings of our own at home (the girls) and time and space constraints kept us boxed in to the 3 x 6 world of tomatoes and peppers, hanging baskets, and landscape flowers. Alas, we aren't doing the CSA this year. I think I will miss it--those mid-morning trips to the barn to pick up veggies that the ever smiling farmers and interns had literally slaved over all spring and summer.  The call to get my hands dirty is getting stronger and now a few of the girls are old enough to learn something from growing a garden and the time and space restraints are no more (maybe?).  But if you are local and looking to become a part of something special in the world of sustainable, locally grown, organic produce, allow me to point you in the right direction: Blackberry Meadows Farm. There are still spots open for their 2011 growing season and you can find all the information on their website.

In the meantime, we are late comers to this growing season. In all fairness, Jim works a ton and the weather has been soggy and raining for much of the last few months so we haven't had the chance to really do much more than slog around in the mud and buy a few plants. It will be a learning experience. I have been assigned research, planning, documenting, and upkeep and Jim has been assigned to break his back.

At the moment, the garden amounts to a 9 x 11 plot

 And a table full of veggies.

Here's what we are going to plant and I know we are late on some of these guys, but we are going to give it a go anyway:  garlic (it's in that pot and will most likely remain there instead of going into the ground...Then we will keep the best cloves, dry it and plant it next year.), onions, two types of lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, zucchini, three types of peppers, three types of tomatoes, I think some potatoes too. The girls really want to grow watermelon, but I don't know if we have room for it, so we will see. 

We have some work to do on the soil and we have to put a fence up as deer frequent the neighborhood and I'm sure there are other vermin around who will be willing to snack freely from our buffet.  It is going to be a learning experience this year and I'm trying to keep my expectations realistic.

Anyone else putting a garden in? Any tips, tricks, advice, warnings?

Weigh In Wednesday: One week until D-Day!

I almost wasn't able to get on today to update everyone on my progress... This computer that I hate so much is running VERY slowly these days which makes logging in an absolute PAIN!  But here I am and I'm happy to report that I am .8 lbs lighter! Okay, it isn't even a whole pound, but I'll take it. Knowing that it was week one of my last two weeks before the big weight loss kick off made me indulge a little more than I should have (Damn Swedish Fish) and I knew that the weight loss would slow down. I'm just happy to not have had a gain!

So today was Farm day.  I've mentioned our CSA before. Last year was our first year and we decided to join again, determined to find ways to prepare these local veggies that we aren't used to eating (Kale? Kohlrabi??)  I'm liking the CSA very much this year. Partly because we dropped to a half share. I'm ashamed to say a lot of food went to waste last year and this year seems to be just enough that I can manage it a little better. So this week, here's what we got:  Broccoli, 3 heads of leaf lettuce, a nice fat cabbage, a bag of mesclin, garlic scapes, 2 kohlrabi, basil, kale hmm...I think that's it.  So my new loves in this list are the garlic scapes and the kale, two items that I habitually ended up tossing last year.  No longer scared of the garlic scapes (which if you aren't familiar, is the top of the garlic plant, these are harvested first and then the bulb of the plant--the garlic cloves--are harvested later) I have found a way to incorporate them in to more dishes.  Last year I tried them raw in a salad and was turned off by their bite (much like eating raw garlic)...but saute these babies and the flavor becomes mildly garlicky...it added so much yummy flavor to the broccoli dish I made last week! I also threw some in the cabbage dish I made...I'm tempted to just serve them up as a side, but it might be too much garlic flavor for the family.  I have learned how to turn the kale into a light crunchy chip, the perfect base for a myriad of flavors: garlic salt, Parmesan cheese, smoked paprika etc.  This will be my new favorite "diet" snack. I L-O-V-E potato chips and these could easily become a viable substitution for those...seriously you can't eat just one!

In other news, I've got a crybaby on my hands. My littlest darling catnaps during the day and likes to cry if she isn't being attended too. I'm very nervous about how I will incorporate a workout into my day. My other babes took long naps in both the morning and afternoon. Olivia would sit awake, alert and content for a good while, but Chloe isn't like that. At least not yet, so we will see how things go...one more week to get a feel for some sort of routine!

Food. F-O-O-D. Food.

I've been thinking about this all weekend....ALL weekend. Pretty much non-stop since Friday night. This happened to me once before, after I read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and I ended up joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)...this time, well, I'm not sure. But I know things won't be the same!


Friday night I finally got around to viewing the documentary FOOD Inc. I've been wanting to see it for a while and I'm super happy that I finally got the chance.


click the pic above for a link to the official FOOD, Inc. Website.


Not that this documentary has much to be happy about. When I told my mom about it, she said, "I don't think I want to see that"...well, I pose, that is EXACTLY the reason that you should! Because so many Americans are in the dark about how food gets from the farm to our tables, we are basically fooled into believing that what is provided for us in the grocery stores is safe, even healthy! I'm learning that just because the FDA says it is so or a cleverly designed package says it, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Just take a minute to think about all the product recalls and food safety issues that we've seen in the media over the last few years...green onions from Chi Chi's, Tomatoes from Taco Bell, Peanut Butter, Bagged lettuce and spinach, ground beef recalls...that's just a few that I can think of off the top of my head.


I've become accustomed to going into my local grocery store and being welcomed by shiny, colorful peppers (four different colors), tomatoes, pineapples, mangoes...fresh looking bananas, strawberries, apples. I have forgotten that these things aren't supposed to be ripe and ready to go in the middle of January (or that some of them grow no where near my north of the equator address)--until I get them home and slice or bite into one. Then somewhere in the back of my mind I think "is this how an apple is supposed to taste?" So many of the "off season" fruits and veggies that I MUST have from the grocery store are flavorless, and blah...but they sure do look pretty sitting on my counter.


I remember when I was a youngster...in the not so long ago early eighties...going to the store with my mom and asking "why can't we get peaches?" and my mom saying, "well, they aren't in season" and basically that meant that the grocery store doesn't have any either. Now the grocery store has them...and off season, they are absolutely disgusting. I will vehemently argue with ANYONE who tries to claim otherwise. Still, the grocery store now has them at any time of the season and they look like their swollen, juicy predecessors...but...


Have you ever eaten a home grown or farm grown strawberry? Unbelievable right? How about a tomato from your own garden...you can't beat it for the flavor. I mean right off the vine, sun warmed, absolute run-down-your-chin deliciousness. Why don't we eat this way all the time?


Well, number one, I live in Pennsylvania where the growing season isn't that long...number two, it's expensive to eat healthy foods like this right? Number three, what do I do in the dead of winter (like right now) for produce?--I've nary canned a single thing, nor do I know HOW to do it. Number four, at 5:30pm that box of frozen pizza or chicken tenders looks like a great choice for dinner that night. I get it. It's hard.


BUT nothing great comes without price...and when I really get down to thinking about it what IS the price of good health? What is the price of feeling good about what I'm putting on the table, into my mouth, (forcing) into my children's mouths? What is the price of avoiding diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, cancer, salmonella, ecoli--what is the price of my LIFE, my family's LIFE??


I know there isn't much in this world that I can control, but what I put on the table can be one of them. Where's the extra money going to come from? Well...I just bought a new phone...my husband just purchase a few hundred dollar "game system"...the money is there, we just need to decide what we want to spend it on. I can tell you, it isn't heart medication, insulin, or hospital bills....


I'm really great at THINKING about eating sustainable, local, organic foods but what am I doing?...I mean really, there ARE frozen pizzas, extremely cheap cuts of meat, poultry and pork, sugary sweets, chips and pretzels, garbage breakfast cereals, pastries, and frosted this and that in my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator as I type this.


One thing I did last spring was join a CSA as I mentioned earlier. For those who aren't familiar, this is a local farm that runs because of farmer's market and CSA patrons. Basically I pay for a share in the farm and every week, or every other week (depending on how MUCH I pay) I get to out to the farm and fill a grocery bag or two with organic produce that they grow not 10 miles from my home. (I live in the suburbs). Last year, there was decent variety...no tomatoes because of blight, but they also had strawberries, organic eggs, chickens, and breads and baked goods to buy in addition. I really enjoyed driving up there with my girls on a summer morning and filling my bags. I felt really good about it.


The next week though I would find myself discarding much of the produce that came my way because I just didn't know how to cook it! I was very ashamed of myself. I want to do this again...the farmers were wonderful, the experience was lovely, the produce was EXCELLENT quality...I think I'm going to do a half share this year and it might be a little more manageable.

I would like to start a garden this year...but we are looking to also move soon...so I might not get to that this year.


And thanks to my viewing of FOOD, Inc. I checked around for some local farmers raising organic, grass fed beef...and I think I found a winner.


I'm also going to try to SEVERELY limit my family's consumption of fast food...sorry kids (really I think they like the toys that come with the meal better than they like the food anyway!)

I am going to try to be more aware and more respectful of myself, my family, my planet, my food, and the farmers and animals that produce it. I think this way of being is in harmony with what my God wants for our lives.


What I'm trying to say is if you haven't seen the documentary, you should...then you will know that I'm NOT a tree hugging hippie...I'm just a mom, trying to do the best for my husband, my kids, and myself...I think the message is worth passing along too!


I know it's going to be VERY tough...but any little change I make will be one for the better.