New Year Brunch

It is a quiet New Year Morning around here, the kids are all scattered and we are puttering about and recovering from a late night. Seemed like the perfect time to use some of the Christmas gift we got from my niece ... Farm fresh eggs from her chickens !

Mix in a bunch of fresh spinach, small bits of bacon from the farm and some crumbled dried hot peppers from our garden... Perfect Brunch Frittata. I topped it with a bit of Salsa and now I am contemplating a nap....

Nap or paperwork? hmmmm

Onion Planting

It is too rainy out today to be gardening, but during the break last weekend, I finally got my onions planted.  This year we added Vidalias to the experiment in addition to White and Red onions.  The Vidalias come as sprouted plants, so there is instant satisfaction in planting rows of them.

We also raised the beds a bit this year, as lsat year saw us battling a bit of rot. With all the rain, I figured a higher bed could not hurt. I spaced the beds very wide, so we can grow some quick crops like radishes and lettuce in between.

 The White and Red onions come as small bulbs, and they get planted about 2 inches down in the middle of the beds. While I hand spade planted each of the baby Vidalia plants ( which are spaced about twice as far apart as the bulbs), it is easier to hoe out a small trench, lay in the onions at 2-3 inches apart and then cover them up. 

At the end of the day, I ended up with 10 beautiful rows  of onions. Now to watch them grown...

Signs of Spring

Rhododendron in bloom

Late in the Winter, we get crocus and daffodils, which bring us some hope for the season change. But it is not until a little further in, when things really begin to green and early flowers bloom that I can say that Spring has settled in well.

 First the Rhododendron out front will bloom. It happens suddenly and almost always catches me by surprise, the buds turning overnight into full blown flowers. Unfortunately, even though it is in a sheltered area, this one is usually short lived, as it blooms right at the start of the spring storms and the delicate flowers are beaten and shredded by the winds and rain.

 Not long after that, the Phlox pop open.  Low to the ground, their color spreads up the hill garden where they grow.

When the Violets kick in, growing not only in the large garden masses where they were planted, but also popping up in random spots in the yard, I can be confident that we have turned the seasonal corner. Rarely will we get snow on top of violets. When we finally get a break in the rain again, I will be busily out gathering violets to be dried- for tea, for bath salts and a precious few to be sugared as cake decorations. 

Ostrich Ferns

 The unfurling of fern fiddleheads parallels the the unfolding of the season. We have always had a few ferns scattered about ( mostly at Cthulhu's feet), but planting a mass of Ostrich Ferns two falls ago has given us a new show to watch in the spring.

 And then there is the most classic sign of spring of all- the Dandelion, with a sleepy slow bee perched a top, slowly gathering up the first nectar of the season.

 Although I will be luxuriating in the lushness of the gardens in another 2 months, there is so much growth and activity that it is hard to take it all in. One of the joys of spring is that it is like a quiet morning, allowing you to focus on a few stories and follow them completely.

Seedlings!!

Earlier in the season, we were waiting for Seedocide, but it is looking like it will not happen, after all.  For the majority of the tomato seedlings, we have made it past the cotyledon stage  and well into "real" leaves.  For plants, this is even more significant than when baby teeth are lost and adult teeth grow in.

Over the weekend, I took the growing and leggy tomato seedlings and planted them deep. The seedlings had hit about 4 inches tall and were waving in the breeze, desperately rooted in the little spouting pellets of soil.

I collected random small containers about 6 inches tall and transplanted the seedlings ( pellets and all) so that all but the upper leaves are snug in some transplant soil. Tomatoes will gladly sprout roots from any part of their stem buried underground. This will give the plants an even stronger start.

Now all I need is for the rain to stop, so I can get them out in some real sun again.

Asparagus:Preparing for years of harvest

I finally got around to adding Asparagus to our perennial collection. Since all of our kids love asparagus, this will become a spring and early summer staple. We eat enough of it that I invested in 2 year old plants, so that we can do a light harvest this year and get a full harvest next year, rather than waiting two or three years. The savings at the Farmer's Market/grocery will more than offset the extra cost.

Asparagus comes as rhizomes with a crown..  we got three varieties, Jersey Knight, Supreme Jersey Knight ( for large stalks for grilling) and a Purple Asparagus ( supposed to be sweet enough to eat raw..)  The hardest part of planting asparagus is digging the trench.  It needs to  be 12-18 inches deep.  I put one variety here, close to the house, so it is easy for dinner harvest. The other two varieties got planted yesterday in a 30' trench at the edge of the far east vegetable garden. We just agreed to  turn this into a permanent bed and lose 2 feet of garden. It was  much easier to dig than this trench, which was in un-tilled clay ground. This will also save us from augmenting the soil with lots of organic matter as we will have to do with this bed.

The rhizomes are planted crown up, and rhizomes spread in the bottom of the trench and covered with 2 inches of soil. As it sprouts, we will fill in the trench until there is a slightly hilled asparagus bed.

Plants are spaced between 8-18 inches apart, according to variety instructions.

Fingers crossed and a little sun mixed in with this rain, and soon enough we will have green sprouts shooting up through the ground.

Puddles of Hope

It's that rainy time of year that makes gardeners nervous and hopeful all at once. After a few days of rain, this is not what you want to see in your potato trenches.

And yet, we push forward. I have to admit, today I mostly planted flowers and not the asparagus and horseradish waiting in the wings. In the muck, it seemed the perfect time to plant toad lilies and wood poppies at Cthulhu's feet.

The Toad Lilies love the wetness and hopefully will soon be sprouting gorgeous spotted bursts of color. Until then, I planted a new Lilac bush where the TikiMan used to be, and filled in strawberries where we lost a few over the winter.

There is something intrinsically hopeful in the act of gardening, We put scraggly little seedlings, dormant rhizomes, or tiny little seeds into the dirt with unwavering faith that even in the absence of visible life, soon enough growth is certain.

And even in the midst of puddles that seem like they must drown everything in hopelessness, we look closely and there we find the green sprouts of hope.

New potato sprout

Food Prices Rise, thus my garden grows

Pea Plants Sprouting- Aptil 15, 2011

Gardening is good for the soul. It is meditative, relaxes and helps restore us to balance.

It also feeds my family.  In the summer, we have a minimum of 6 mouths to feed (I am always glad to have friends and family over at meal time, so our table size often grows beyond immediate family).

Ours are no longer little tots who barely count as a mouth. The youngest is 11, the eldest is 19 and almost all of them now out-eat me on a regular basis.

Putting fresh vegetables and fruits on the table in the needed quantities could quickly become daunting- and not just in the summer. We often have the majority of the family here on weekends, holidays and other school breaks during the rest of the year. We always have at least a few of us here.  And now, food prices are on the rise.  It really doesn't matter if it is energy, weather and unrest; rising fuel prices, or just people playing the futures and gambling some people's starvation against their profits- it is hitting all of us. Food prices in February had the highest jump in 36 years, and there is no end in sight. It is not just processed foods or finished, packaged goods that are rising- even staples are going up in cost. The continued rises are expected to push more and more people into poverty and into starvation or malnutrition. I was even interviewed by the Christian Science Montior about rising food costs earlier this winter.

What bothers me the most about all of these articles is that they document the rise of costs and the increases in problems, but I do not see any recommendations to people on how to cope. All they do is raise fear and hopelessness.  It is time that we in the US return to our roots, so to speak, and tackle this the old fashioned way- start planting and growing some of your own food.  Give me an excuse why you can not, and I can counter it.  Plants are expensive? Seeds are cheap. And for many plants- like these sprouting tomatoes, the packet holds many more seeds than any one family needs- share with friends and family. A packet of tomato seeds holds on average 30 seeds. If you want 5 plants just to supplement in the summer and fall months, that is 6 families worth of tomato plants for about $2.  When you go to the grocery and tomatoes are 3-5$/lb, the savings seems obvious.  Don't have time to start seedlings? You buy the seeds and let someone else start them    in exchange for some of the plants.  Have the time and money? Sprout extra plants and give away the extras to someone who has neither.

Container Grown Lettuce Sprouting

Space is always cited as an issues- but there are a myriad of vegetables and herbs you can grown in containers, on balconies and rooftops. And many cities and towns have community gardens that you probably already have access to. Now is the time to claim your spot. This early lettuce will never leave the container, it will provide a first crop of lettuce before the ground is warm enough to sustain.

There are a million reasons to grow food- even if you pick just one thing to grow. Besides taking the pressure off of food demands, you know where the food  has been and what it was exposed to. You will taste flavors and textures you can never get in a grocery store. Given the opportunity to pull dinner from the ground and help prepare it, you will be surprised the foods your kids will eat.  At a minimum, if you are not physically able to grow your own food, stop by your local Farmer's Market this weekend- almost all of them are now open - a simple google search will turn up local opportunities you might not have known existed.

Early Sprouts of Spinach

It is time to combat the fear of food prices with a few simple tools- some seeds, some dirt, some water and some sun.

Garden ReHab

Last fall I got sick, and the fencerow perennial garden didn't just go wild, it got overrun by crabgrass and weeds. You can see the results this spring. It was not only horrendously ugly- it is pain in the making all summer long when that crabgrass wakes up and starts to sprout and grow. With the ground soft from recent rains and the crabgrass not yet growing , today was the day to tackle this.  The fence is about 50ft long and there is garden on both sides. In addition to over wintered crabgrass with months of roots, there was also the monster weed that infested and overgrew everything.,
I decided to tackle this with a trowel, some clippers and a large shovel. I used the shovel in between the clumps of perennials, turning over every bit of the garden, pulling up roots and destroying the invaders. Closer around the perennials, I used the trowel to get close but not tear up the barely sprouting new growth.  After 5 hours of work, the results have made me very happy and will be much easier to weed going forward. The garden does need a load of mulch still, but the uncovered perennials ( bachelor button, echinacea, black eyed susan, gay feather, bergamot, daisy and tiger lillies are what are starting to sprout at this point) have lots of room to get water and sun- and much less competition.  Stay tuned later in the season when the garden is in full bloom and the butterflies flock from miles away.

The potato saga cotinues

Here in Indiana, it is Potato Planting time. This is our third year of a growing potato addiction. The first year it started with a walk through Rural King , and we happened to pass by the bins of seed potatoes.

"We should grow some potatoes this year..." , was quickly followed by picking through seed potatoes and filling a  sack or two with small seed potatoes that could easily be put into the ground.  We broke new ground for that garden, made some mounds, planted the potatoes and let them grow.
 Our yield was relatively low that year, but honestly not bad for someone who had never grown potatoes ( how is it I grew even peanuts as a child, but not potatoes??). We hand pulled small ones during the late summer and our harvest took us until Dec 1. It was satisfying, the potatoes were delicious and we were hooked.  Over the winter, I read more on raising potatoes and was more prepared the next spring.   

When the gardening catalogs started coming in, I poured over all the potential types of potatoes.  I was excited to try something other than the red, yellow and russet that were available in the grocery stores and locally.  I had learned that we needed to grow the potato mounds as the plants grew to increase yield.  We dug, planted and watched them sprout and grow.  We fell in love with Kennebecs, before I found out they were the new darling potato in upscale restaurants. ( no surprise why, the flavor is gorgeous, they cook well and have a beautiful  creamy color). We love the taste of the Purple Blush, the lightly purple skin always revealing amazingly sweet pure white potato flesh. Unfortunately, their yield is lower, so they were a cherished treat.  Last year we learned lessons about overcrowding plants and flooding. However, we started eating potatoes hand picked from the garden in June and did not buy another potato until March. We had improved.

This year, I am starting to feel like an expert. I had set aside a few of our favorite potatoes (Kennebec, Red, Purple Blush, Yukon Gold and a handful of russets I got from my father in law) , so there is no expense of seed potatoes.    Last year, I learned how to cut and ash the sprouting potatoes so we were not dependent on many small seed potatoes and a few potatoes yields many new potato plants. Rolling the freshly cut potatoes in ash ( I clean out the fireplace- you can also clean out a grill) helps to protect the potatoes from insects and infection both as they sit and scab over and after you plant them in the ground. 

After cutting, you let the potatoes sit for at least 2 days, allowing the cut edges to "scab over" and making them less vulnerable to infection.  I plant in cycles. By planting new potatoes every few weeks ( and then again some at the end of June), I stagger the harvest and protect against a random weather event that trashes a crop ( lesson learned from massive flooding of huge first crop last year).  Since I am going to plant multiple times, when it is time to plant, I choose the potato starts that are most sprouted and have the smallest remaining old potato to continue nourishing them.  Potatoes that have accidentally been let to oversprout have to be planted ASAP and handled very carefully.

First, we dig trenches about a shovel head deep. Yesterday I did six 10 foot rows. The rows are put in about 2 feet apart. Potato plants grow pretty big and bushy and this year I am being careful not to overcrowd.  I then use a hand trowel to dig down  a few inches in the bottom of the trench and place a potato start in the hole.  How deep I make it and how much dirt I put over it depends on the impending weather. When we are due for several days of rain ( like now) right after planting- a good healthy time to plant, btw- I plant a little shallower, because the rain is going to erode some of the dirt off  of the hills and down into the trenches, burying the potato deeper.  When I plant in a dry spell, I make sure the potato has about 6 inches of dirt over it.
As the potato plants sprout up, we will gradually continue filling in the trenches and burying more and more stem of the plant. It is from these buried stems that the potatoes will sprout and grow. When the ground is level again, we start digging in between the rows, piling the dirt up around the potato in mounds, until the potatoes are eventually growing on mounds with trenches in between.  This helps to increase the potential yield from each crop.

I have what look to be many extra small yellow and russet potato sprouts, and perhaps even some reds. If you are local and want one or two to experiment with growing potatoes in your garden, give me a holler and we will addict you too.

Garden Starts

Finally... it dried out enough to till and start working the garden. I am exceptionally lucky to have a man in my life who likes to till. There is nothing other than a newborn that has as much lurking potential as a freshly tilled garden.


Today I cut and ashed the sprouting potatoes I managed to save back. The only time that did not get sprouted are red, so I will need to grab some red seed potatoes tomorrow. For the rest ( purple, yellow and Kennebec) I have over 100 potential plant starts. I am a little low on the Kennebecs, and we fell in love with those last year, so I may grab a few more of those when I get the reds. I only have a dozen of the purples, but they produced badly and were very insect prone, so we are mostly keeping those as novelties and to eat as they grow in the summer. they need to sit in brown bags on the gardening work bench for about 48 hours before planting.

I was planning on planting first round of peas, snow peas and spinach early this am, but late last night realized that they were calling for a couple of days of rain... which meant not only missing the raining days, but also the following days it took the garden to dry out again... so I bolted outside last night at 9:30pm and planted a row of each ahead of the rain. That will allow me to put a second round in the garden in about 10 days to stagger harvests, rather than just getting the first round in then.



Knock wood, the tomato seedlings are still growing, but the peppers have not sprouted much at all. I rearranged them under the grow lights and put some under a plastic "greenhouse" lid on the porch to see if additional light helps.

I love the feeling of dirt between my toes and soil on my hands. This is the time of year that awakens my hibernating soul and makes me smile for no apparent reason.

Planting Season Begins

Although I had previously planted a row of spinach and some peas, today the planting season started full force. We gathered the troops and planted the followin

4.5 12' rows of Kennebec potato
3 12' rows of Purple Haze potato
3 12' rows of Yukon gold potato
2 10' rows of Red Norland potato ( planted closer for early potato)
2 12' rows of yellow onion
10 10' rows of yellow/white/red onions
1 20' row green beans
3 8' rows of peas
1 20' row of snow peas ( makes a second row)
1 8' row of spinach ( makes a second row)
1 8' row of rainbow carrots
2 8' rows kohlrabi
16 cloves of garlic

This is just the beginning... as the season progresses, there will be tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash, pumpkins, chard, lettuce, herbs, kale and other deliciousness.

It is so nice to have the growing season started again...

It's not too late- the mid summer garden

Most people think of the life cycle of a garden as something that begins in the spring, simmers slowly, grows like crazy all summer and then is over in August or so. Planting is deeply tied in most people's brains with the spring- but even here in North Central Indiana where we live in zone 5, planting continues into August in our garden. We like to spread our garden bounty over as many months as possible, both to extend the return and because with a full time job, I could not possibly handle everything needing to be harvested and processed all at once.

In the next week, I will be planting Okra, second crop turnips, late leaf lettuce and more green beans. If you look at my garden right now, it is a complicated mix of ready to harvest vegetables growing right next to just sprouted seedlings. I have a stash of seeds in my garage waiting for early August planting- peas, snow peas, spinach and kale. They are cool weather crops, and with a little luck and not a very early snow, we will be harvesting the peas and snow peas in September and will continue getting spinach and kale until the first very hard freeze. Kale is hardy enough that is will often survive a couple of freezes and you can go pick it out of the snow.

If you have been contemplating a garden, but have given up because you think it is too late, get out there and get some seeds. Here are some examples of wonderful foods you can still grow and harvest this season, even in hardiness zone 5:

1. Tomatoes. It is way too late to plant seeds, but you can still go grab a tomato plant from your local garden shop and stick it in dirt. They do well in containers or in the garden. The critical factor with tomatoes is to find a spot where they get at least 8 hours of sun to set fruit. It will be late before you get fruit, but for the last few years we have harvested tomatoes up until November in our garden.

2. Lettuce. It is too late for a large head lettuce, but most leaf lettuces are ready to start eating only a month from planting, and then continue on for many weeks after that. Baby or mini romaine lettuce will also sometimes be ready in only 6 weeks- that is a mid August harvest.

3. Radishes. Check the packets for expected time to harvest. Regular red globe radishes are typically a month to harvest, and right now is the perfect planting time for the long growing, late harvest radishes like a Daikon to be ready in early September.

4. Green Beans. With a 6-8 week plant to harvest cycle, you can still get green beans planted for the next couple of weeks. These are easy to grow and freeze very well for consumption later on. We are working on squeezing in as many cycles of green beans as we can this year to last longer into the winter.

5. Peas and snow peas. It is actually too early to plant the late crop of these chill weather loving plants. If it is too hot when they flower, they will not set fruit well. If you live in a warmer zone, you will have to push the planting date out even later than the early August date we use around here.

6. Turnips . Turnips are another plant with a 6-8 week harvest cycle. Get those seeds in the ground and be fat and happy for Labor Day.

7. Okra. Because I tend to like to eat Okra in gumbos and soups, which are cool weather foods for us, I am waiting until this week to plant my Okra. This will give me a late August harvest date. We will have some fresh for Labor Day, then freeze the rest for winter eating.

8. Winter Squash. Check the seed packet of your preferred variety, but some could still be planted today for September harvests. My Pumpkin seeds are going in the ground tomorrow. That is a little later than normal, but will give us great October harvests and hopefully skip the August wilt we had last year.

With an early spring and a mid summer planting of some crops ( green beans, turnips, etc..) we actually manage to get twice as many harvests out of a single season. You may have missed the early spring planting, but you could still make the mid summer planting and be enjoying fresh salads and vegetables from your garden at your Labor Day cookout.

Meet the Gardens

The last couple of weeks have been punctuated with intermittent flurries of planting, and the gardens are starting to green. Here at Sycamore House, we have three vegetable gardens.

The Driveway Garden is our oldest vegetable garden, on the southeast side of the house next to the..( wait for it)...driveway.

It gets great sunlight, but it is fairly low lying and root veggies do terribly in this spot. The very first year of this garden, we grew great radish plants that had no radishes at all. We work against the tendency to mud when it rains by building up beds. We grew great pumpkins here for several years before a miserably failed experimental move last year, so we are moving them back here this year. This year the garden has 7 tomato plants ( one of which is not yet caged) and four rows for peas and snowpeas. It will have cucumbers, summer squash, spinach, zuchinni, greenbeans, and tbd. We tried an experimen tthis year, planting our tomato plants a little earlier than normal. We wrapped the tomato cages (which the Ogre created from cattle panel)in a packing/saran type plastic to make mini greenhouses. Our very early tomato planting was a serious failure ( since it snowed the very next day..) but planting right at the border between April/May ( two weeks earlier than normal) looks like it may succeed and will give us some EarlyGirl tomatoes by mid June. With more room for tomatoes this year, we are experimenting with several different heirloom varieties. We have planted Mountain Pride, German queen and yellow pear, along with classic Early Girl, beefstake, golden and our new favorite Mr. Stripey , we always include grape and husky cherry. I am looking forwardto experimenting and finding some new favorite tastes and textures as well as having a bounty to can for the winter. The failure ofroot crops in this first location convinced us to an additional garden last year. It did so well with root crops that we dedicated it entirely to root crops- onions ( red and yellow), potatoes (red and golden) and sweet potatoes. The onions are already sprouting nicelyand the potatoes are secretly rooting under ground,although I have not seen any sprouts from them yet. ( fingers crossed) We have some additional late season potatoes that we will plant in the backyard garden as an experiment later this summer. It is too soon to plant sweet potatoes, buttheplants are on order and should be arriving in a week or so. In the meantime, we have prepped the bed for the plants and we re growing an early crop of spinach in the space. Last year Ogre added a small tomato plot in the backyard near the fence, but even with that, weran out of tomatoes well before the winter was over. This year he expanded thatplot into a full fledged backyard garden that doubles our gardening space. This garden is growing 10 tomato plants, as well as avariety of veggies. So far we have planted a variety of peppers ( sweet and hot), green beans, leeks, corn, lettuce, kohlrabi, artichokes, brussel sprouts and radishes. This garden will get some late crop corn, second crop green beans, lettuce through the whole season, some potatoes and some sweet potatoes. I am excited about all of the newthings we are getting to try because of the additional space. We are already getting lettuce and kohlrabi sprouts and I am expecting the first ofthe greenbeans sprouts to pop any day. I would love to hear if you are planting a garden andwhat you love to grow and feed your family.

Lunchtime gardening

During gardening season, one of the great advantages of working mostly from home is that I can slip outside over my lunch hour and get some gardening done. After several days of being stuck inside due to rain, rain, hail and more rain, it was a joy to get outside and get a bit caught up. There is still a lot of spring prep to be done over the next 2 weeks , but here is what I got done today:

• Moved the three chain saw carved Mushroom the Ogre made a few years back from the garden where Cthulhu has landed to the new hill garden by the mailbox ( this now names them the Cthulhu garden and the Mushroom garden)
  
• Dug up, split and transplanted ornamental grass from perennial hill garden to the new Mushroom hill garden.
• Planted 25 Freesia bulbs in the Mushroom garden
• Picked up 2 wheelbarrow loads of winter debris that had been cleared out of the Cthulhu garden right before the rains came and dumped it in the firepit.
  

Not bad for 40 minutes of work.







As you can see, there is still a lot of work to do in all of these gardens ( as well as all the other gardens around the house), but I am pleased where they stand at this point on the calendar.

Early garden start

The Ogre and I spent all day yesterday getting an early start to the garden. It is an awesome feeling to be on time this year and know that we are starting out a step ahead ( that advantage will soon be lost and I will be playing catchup, never fear).

We expanded garden space this year, turning what used to be the tomato plot into a full sized garden and deciding to spread out tomatoes- both within and between gardens. Yesterday we got our long growing root crops ( onions and potatoes) planted, along with some experimental early greens.

We planted 4 double rows of onions ( 2 red and 2 yellow) which if they grow well will yield about 200 onions. That should almost get us through the next year without buying store onions. I will be happy if we get enough to take us 6 months. We also planted 8 ( 11 foot long) mounds of potatoes ( red and yukon gold). This is the part that if they grow well, could scare me come harvest time. One row of each will be dug up early for baby potatoes and eaten duing the summer. We will replant that row for a late harvest row with the few seed potatoes we set back. We already have plans for a summertime renovation of the pump room downstairs to use as a modified root cellar, and if the potatoes grow well, we will need it.

The space for sweet poatoes is prepped, but waiting. Those get planted as plants and it is way too early to get them growing. In their space, I am running an early greens experiment and planted a row of spinach. If we manage to be done with hard freezes, we could be eating fresh spinach in less than a month and it should get to the end of its cycle about the time to plant the sweet potatoes. If it does freeze, we will just re-plant in another spot . Luckily, a single packet of seeds is not a great loss. Additionally, I planted 2 rows of peas and a row of sugar snaps. Again, a risk, since we could get an early freeze, but a small loss if we do. If we manage to slide through without bad freezes, we will be harvesting at memorial day. The fencing where the peas get planted will get overgrown by cucumbers later in the summer. The Ogre tried a new double fence arrangement which should support and make the cucumbers easier to harvest and contain.

An even better memorial day treat may come from an experiment that the Orge originated. He created three modified cold frames by wrap 3 of our 16 tomato frames with clear plastic and we early planted 3 plants- a Mr. Stripey, an Early Girl and a Cherry Tomato. I have my fingers crossed on this one, because if it works, we could have fresh tomatoes by memorial day or shortly after, instead of waiting until July 4. An extra month of tomatoes to eat is wonderful, but even better, if it works, we will do at least half of the tomato plants that way and will have extras to can/freeze as well.

Eating outside of the box

Todays CNN.com article on the choices being faced by the unemployed to eat or to pay other bills got me thinking that maybe it was time to tackle the problem with a little outside the box thinking. There is no doubt that the food stamp program does unimaginable good for the recipients. The editors of the NYT Times recently pointed out that not only does the food stamp program feed people, but it also does direct good to assist with stimulating the economy as well. While there are a lot of people starting to emphasize with those struggling to make ends meet, including a CNN reporter trying to live on the SNAP ( food stamps) budget for a month, I have not seen many people trying to address the problem raised by one woman in the CNN article:
"Sears stretches her food budget by buying cheap and sometimes fatty meals. She said she doesn't like doing that but can't avoid it. With food prices high, she said, grocery shopping is stressful.

"We get like the mac and cheese, which is dehydrated cheese -- basically food that's no good for you health wise," she said. "Everything is high in sodium and trans fats ... and that's all we basically can afford. There's not enough assistance to eat healthy and maintain a healthy weight."

Advocates for the hungry say many people on the food stamp program opt to buy less-healthy foods because they can't afford fresh fruits and vegetables on such a tight budget."

What if we look at other method for getting food into people's hands and on their tables instead of just looking to spend more money at the grocery stores ? We are lucky to live in a nation with a long growing season and lots of good soil. Even in the depths of cities, there are many gardens and green areas. Because of this, the American Community Garden Association lists 120 community vegetable gardens in New York City alone. What if we added funding and support for gardening to the fod stamps program? Let the program help pay for staff that can assit, mentor, and administrate the gardens (people need jobs, right?) and people who volunteer in the gardens get a portion of the harvests. They get fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs for a few hours of work each week. The peak growing season is summer- when students are out of school. This would also provide and activity that even younger kids can participate in and they will learn useful life skills as well.

Don't live in an area with a community garden? Allow food stamps to pay for seeds, basic gardening tools and items that individuals in rural and/or suburban areas could use to plant provate gardens. Allow regional areas to purchase and loan out garden tillers that folks who want to plant in their yard can use. If we are worried about enough people being able to use a tiller, or the tillers getting abused or stolen, then again- hire people who can travel the rounds of food stamp recipients' houses to till a garden.

Want to make the impact really lasting? Build a social media site and some print pamphlets with gardening tips, cooking tips, recipes and information on canning and preserving food. It would need to have some non-online resources as not everyone can afford to be online, or has the time to cruise the net at the library every week.

Want to really surprise people? Make it easy for home gardeners to band together to sell excess food in small farmer's markets, or to trade zucchini that they grew for carrots that someone else had success with.

This is not an unprecedented idea. During World War I and II, the Victory garden program called for people to grow food at home or close by to assist with the conservation of oil being used by the war efforts. Today, the Liberty Garden program also calls on individuals to grow food in backyard gardens to help conserve energy and to make eating more eco friendly.

By implementing a "garden growing" portion into the SNAP program, we will not only alow people to eat in a more healthy way, we will also add jobs and be more eco friendly. Seems like a certain win on all facets.

Bounty...

It is the time of year when the harvest of vegies makes you feel like you could eat forever and still have food. It has been weeks since I have been to the grocery, but it is only today when I finally feel like I need to go pick up some bread and milk and odds and ends.



As I write this, the roma tomatoes are on the stove, simmering into a mess that will become tomatoe/spaghetti sauce and the rest of the tomatoes await canning tomorrow. Some will get canned plain, but some will become cilantro tomatoes for a summer delight later when the snow is piled high.

Tomorrow will be a busy day, there is swiss chard and kale to pick and freeze, pickles to be made and late summer seeds to be sown... now all we need is just a bit of rain...