Grow Your Own: Fixing the Broken Food System

I don't often force my opinions on others. And for the most part I am of the opinion that people have freedom to choose. I don't care if you stay-at-home or work. I don't care who you marry. I don't care who you believe or don't believe in. I don't care who you vote for. We all should have the freedom to make those choices for ourselves with out fear of retaliation or loss of rights.

Things get a little hazy when it comes to more global issues. I do care if you throw your trash somewhere it shouldn't be. I do care if you pollute the air. I do care if you recklessly and thoughtlessly hurt the Earth in various ways, because the truth of the matter is we are hurting the Earth, and ourselves,  and for the most part the people of this world just don't care. And that's not right.

But today I am going to voice my opinion, my opinion about food and the current government run food system we have in the United States. I have been reading Joel Salatin's Folks, That Ain't Normal and while his words aren't completely new to me, they do get my heart pumping and my brain screaming about all the people in the world who just don't realize or care about what they put in their bodies or how it got there. About how some people in this day and age don't know where their food came from or what is in it. About how out of touch we are with the fact that we are leaving one of our most basic human needs in the hands of someone else, who may or may not have our best interests at heart.

Just down the road from where we live is a tomato farm. A huge farm with acres of tomatoes. It's a beautiful sight to see. That is until you see the warning signs. These aren't your run-of-the-mill No Trespassing signs, but danger signs warning you of the health risks the chemicals used on the fields might cause. When they spray the fields the workers wear what look like Hazmat suits. The beautiful fields are also marred by rows and rows of red, ripe tomatoes. Not on the plants, but wasted on the ground. Only the green tomatoes are wanted. I would suggest donating those ripe tomatoes to homeless shelters, but I am not sure I would endorse giving Hazmat tomatoes to the less fortunate either.

I  believe that our current food system is unnatural. It's unnatural that food be shipped for thousands of miles. Its unnatural that milk in it's natural form is illegal to buy or sell. It's unnatural to eat watermelon in Maine in December. And it's unnatural that some children today don't know how, when and where the food they are eating came to be, or worse yet that the food they are eating is so far removed from it's natural state that they might as well be eating cardboard.

But how do you fix a broken system? That's a big job. The only current solution I have is that every capable person should be growing something. Anything.

Live in an apartment?

• Grow plants in pots on your deck or balcony. Tomatoes, peppers, herbs, strawberries and a ton of others do well in containers. 
• Ask the managers of the complex about starting a community garden on the grounds.

 

Live in the city? 

• Look into local cummunity garden plots available for rent
• Can you grow on the roof of your apartment building?
• If you have a sunny window or room for artificial lights you can grow plants such as greens, roots, and herbs that don't require pollination. 

 

Can't afford it?

Gardening doesn't have to be expensive. You can get seeds as cheap as $0.99. Are they heirloom? No, but they will grow into food nonetheless. The local Dollar Tree sells reasonably sized bags of potting soil. Plant your seeds in recycled egg cartons, use milk jugs with the tops cut off and holes poked in the bottoms for containers on your deck. And remember that one zucchini plant, one tomato plant and a container of bean seeds can give you virtually free food all summer long.

Don't have time?

Yes you do. If you have time to read this article you have time to plant a couple plants. Big gardens have the potential to be time consuming, but 1 or 2 dozen plants or a few pots on the deck will add less than 15 minutes of extra time a day. Not having time is an excuse and I am sure most people know that.

 

Have a big back yard?

What are you waiting for?! Get growing! And don't forget to share or trade with neighbors and friends who may not be able to grow as much as you.

The only way to fix a broken system is by taking it into your own hands and hope that everyone else does too. We grow a lot, but still are much too dependent on a grocery store for our food. But we are a lot less dependent compared to 5 years ago. If every able-bodied person began to take back control of their own food, we'd get a whole lot closer to a more natural, healthy way of living and eating. It all starts with one person taking small steps to fix a problem. Start small, work your way up, but the most important thing is to start.

Note: All quotes in this post come from Joel Salatin's Folks, This Ain't Normal. No matter what your thoughts are on food and farming I recommend reading this book. If you agree with him it might help push you on to the next step. If you are still eating McDonald's and buying processed foods on a regular basis, it just might open your eyes. 

This post has been linked to Freedom Fridays,  From the Farm Blog Hop, The Clever Chicks Blog Hop, The Homestead Barn Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection,

Farm Update; June 16, 2013: Growing Up

We've gotten a lot of rain this spring, which means the plants are very happy. All sorts of tiny fruits and flowers dotting the plants. The eggplants are huge, compared to the non-existent plants last year anyway. I keep a healthy dusting of Diatomaceous Earth on them to keep the flea beetles away. I've started dusting the cucumbers too. Just in case the cucumber beetles decided to show up.

The peas are starting to die down. We were picking about 5lbs a day last week, but with the temperatures in the 80s the flowers are done and we are just waiting for the last pods to ripen. I have a total of ZERO peas in the freezer. But I do have 4 boys who have eaten 5 lbs of peas a day for over a week. I guess that is good too.

 The tomatoes are growing like weeds. I am trying to stay on top of the suckers, but sometimes they get out of hand. It seems like I tie them up to their stakes and 2 days later they are needing to be tied up higher again.

No red ones yet, but lots of beautiful, little green fruits. Here are just a couple of them. We've got all sorts of colors- pink, orange, yellow, red, green and white. Can't wait for the colors to start showing!

Some of the stems on these plants are just massive. They hardly need staking at all because they are almost 2 inches in diameter.  I am not sure if it is because of variety or because they were hardened off really well on our windy back deck.

Remember Chickory and her 12 chicks? They are almost 6 weeks old and are finally big enough to be let out to free range during the day. Mama keeps them in line and keeps them safe from the big birds. Since it looks like have a number of roosters in this batch, we let another of our broody hens sit as well. She's sitting on 10 eggs, which are due to hatch this week sometime. Our current laying hens are getting up in age, and are in need to replacing.

The baby goats are growing too. Jack and Jill are 12 weeks as of today, and Kipper and CoCo will be next Sunday. This means they are officially weaning age, and are ready to leave. Coco was picked up yesterday. Kipper and Jill will be staying together and leaving to go to their new home on Tuesday. Jack will most likely be leaving on Tuesday as well. It's sad to see them go, but will be nice to get the extra milk from their mothers and have 4 less mouths to feed!

 I successfully started 5 lavender plants from seed, and they are getting much bigger. I am hoping to propagate a few more plants from cuttings this year once these plants are big enough.  I also  harvested my first cutting of basil today and now have a pint of fresh pesto in the fridge.

This post has been linked to: The Homestead Barn Hop, Thank Goodness It's Monday, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Make the Scene Monday, Homemade Mondays, The HomeAcre Hop,

Garden Update: May 27, 2013

We spent the weekend staking tomatoes and pulling off suckers. We also planted more beans and squash. This year I am determined to keep track of what is growing where so I can actually see which varieties grow and produce the best. Since I grow so many different types, using markers in the garden get a little difficult. So instead I planted with my notebook and pen in hand then transferred the lists to the computer. 

This is our main tomato bed. It has 75 plants total and 19 different varieties, all heirloom. 

And this is my map. All items marked with an * are Rylan's plants.

 

Today Rylan and I planted the melon bed. Most of the watermelon bed belongs to Rylan. It's his baby this year and he has big plans. We have 60 plants total in the bed.

We also planted most of the bush beans and summer squash. We haven't put the okra in since we were expecting cooler weather, but now that is' back to the 80s, Okra is next to go in the ground.

We also finished up our eggplant, peppers and cucumbers.  And added some of our extra tomatoes on the end. Rylan is taking the suckers off his 3 tomato types and planting them in order to get more plants for less seeds. I've done this most years when I find huge suckers that were hiding from me. It works pretty well and is an easy way to increase the number of plants.

Here's the map to that bed. The extra spaces at the end are for the extra tomatoes.

How does your garden grow?

This post has been linked to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, The HomeAcre Hop, The Homestead Barn Hop,

Alpaca Shearing Day!

 It's been in the 80s the past few weeks and the alpacas were getting uncomfortable. Paco would stomp and wade in their water trough and we'd set up Atreyu with a mister during the day to sit by and keep cool. It took awhile but we finally found a shearer to come out and cut their fleece for the summer. Our shearer was Joe Moore, out of Western NC, and if you are in the South Eastern US, I would highly recommend him.

First up was Paco. To say that Paco is uncooperative would be an understatement. He's untrusting, rowdy and likes to spit. They had to carry him up because he wouldn't walk on the lead even with Atreyu leading the way.

But once strapped down and stretched, he had no where to go. He could still scream and carry on though.

Paco is a Suri, and is very soft. Compared to Atreyu the amount of fleece given was very small, but it's dense and beautiful.

The boys helped to gather up all the fleece as it was cut. It was pretty windy, so they had some catching to do!

All done! He had to be carried back to the pasture as well before he was set loose. I am sure he's much cooler now!

Then it was Atreyu's turn. He's much older, gelded and has been trained. So he was very well behaved.

His fleece was pretty thick since he's a Huacaya. We got about a half a bag full from Paco and 2 over stuffed bags from Atreyu.

I bet he feels 15 lbs lighter now! 

This post is linked to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, The HomeAcre Hop, The Homestead Barn Hop,

{Goat Milk} Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Cajeta Swirl

I am waiting on new cultures to arrive before I can make more cheese and we were getting a little overrun with milk. Yesterday I made a half a gallon of yogurt and used another half gallon of milk to make cajeta in the crock pot. We have made dulce de leche in the crock pot before using store bought condensed milk, but I wanted to try it with with our fresh goat milk.

It took all day to cook down, but it is so, so good. It tasted a little like a mix between caramel and butterscotch.

To Make Cajeta:

1/2 gallon goat milk
2 cups sugar
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean
dash of cinnamon/ 1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 T water

You can make this on the stovetop (quicker, but more hands-on) or in the crock pot (much longer, but does not require constant attention). I went with the crock pot so I didn't have to stand and stir for hours.

Place the milk, vanilla, cinnamon and sugar in the crock pot and turn on to high. Stir every so often until the milk is hot and sugar is dissolved. Stir in the baking soda water. Continue cooking on high stirring every so often. I just stirred as I came into the kitchen, maybe once an hour or so. Keep the lid off since the goal is for the milk to reduce and caramelize. It took about 12 hours to thicken up to the consistency I wanted (like a sauce/topping) if you want it thicker just cook a little longer.

And this morning Annika and I made vanilla bean ice cream to go with our cajeta. Sometimes I make the more involved ice cream by making a custard with eggs, milk and sugar but today I went the simple route.

To Make Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (raw):

2 cups raw goat milk
1 cup goat milk yogurt
3/4 cup sugar
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean

Whisk all of this together and pour into a 1.5 qt ice cream maker and mix as the machine instructs. The key here is to have 3 cups of liquid. You can use a combination of heavy cream, whole milk, skim milk etc. The lower the fat the less creamy the ice cream will be. I choose 2 cups of whole, raw goat's milk and 1 cup of yogurt this time to see how the yogurt affected the consistency.

We also swirled about 1/2 cup of our cajeta into the ice cream just as it finished processing.

It wasn't quite all the way frozen by lunch time....but it was still really good!

Garden 2013: Finally Planting

 Planted:

80 tomatoes,  20 heirloom varieties
20 peppers, 8  heirloom varieties
15 eggplants, 4 varieties

300 peas, 3 varities
Kale, lettuce, chard, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower (all but the kale are doing rather poorly at the moment)
radishes and carrots planted in straw bales

 Herbs: Sage, Oregano, Lavender, Thyme, Wormwood, Curry, Rosemary, Calendula and 7 different varieties of basil
Flowers: Cosmos, Zinnias, Marigold, Sunflowers and a few different wildflowers

We stayed in the garden most of the day yesterday, and with this addition I was able to get a lot done. Annika (and the boys) played in the sand ALL day in the shade of the old apple tree. 

The first tomato....on one of the plants I started back in February.