Food Security

A couple years ago, Angie and I went to an Earth Day event at the local agrihousing development/commune (or whatever you’d like to call it) Hundredfold Farm. It was a fun event, a little cold, but still. I attended several talks (including one at their greenhouse/wastewater treatment plant that was wonderful) but the most interesting one I sat in on was called ‘Food Security.’

Going in, I wasn’t sure what exactly they were going to be talking about, but being colored by my day job I thought it might be security of the nation’s food supply, as in national security.

Nope. It was security of your personal food supply. Specifically he was discussing the problem that is Global Agribusiness, GMOs, and the rise and fall of oil prices and what it will do to the grocery store. He was calling us all to protect ourselves and our families against the downfall of the current ‘cheap food’ method of eating. It was very interesting and funny, believe it or not, and I wish I had a tape of it.

So….fast forward to Spring 2010. Two years since that talk. Since then I have expanded my garden. I don’t think we’re headed for a world war. I don’t think we’re headed for communism (or OMG Socialism!!!) or anything like that. I do think we are headed for some serious economic problems that will affect how we live (and I’m a bleeding-heart liberal, by the way). I don’t think cheap food is going to be cheap forever. It can’t sustain itself.

Since the talk, the economy has tanked, a lot of people are out of jobs….and a lot more people are keeping chickens and tending home gardens, etc. Hm.

Last fall, I was worried about my job due to our contract being up. Matt and I talked and were very happy that….we had our garden’s bounty preserved in the basement. We were happy that…..he knew how to hunt. It turned out to be ok, I’m still working. But there it is. It was very interesting to realize this.

This spring, rumor was flying of layoffs at Matt’s workplace. We were coming out of heating season, it was the time to do it. So, we sat and talked again. And you know what? We were both glad that I had already ordered and received the seeds for this year’s garden (in addition to the saved/traded seeds from last year), and several tomato plants were on order and paid for. It was already planned. It was taken care of. We would, just barely, be ok if he lost his job.

We dodged a bullet. Two other people were let go at his workplace and Matt’s job is secure.

For now.

The talk I saw 2 years ago hit home. After the first panicked “What will happen?” went away, the first thing we both found ourselves thinking was…..thank goodness we canned all those veggies.

Our Trash

I’ve been listing more stuff on Etsy lately, you can take a look here. Several of my listings have pictures of jewelry laying on or hanging from ice-encrusted trees, shrubs, rocks, and leaves. I love these pictures. Most people I talk to love these pictures.

I’ve gotten some flack, though, from some people on Etsy about them because the ice may be dirty. These are people who are clean-freaks, I’m sure you’ve met them. They don’t want to wear jewelry that other people may have worn. They think it is icky to put jewelry on ice. Because. Ew.

The ice may be dirty.

I’ve been on the fence about changing the pictures. I keep wondering if it is keeping people from buying from me. I’m not afraid of dirt, I think exposure to germs makes me healthier and so far I’ve been proven right with a cold every 3 years, a stomach thing every few years, no flu to speak of ever, etc etc, while other people drop to cold and flu left and right despite their extreme hand washing and use of antibacterial everything.

Anyway, I was talking about this with a friend recently who, I believe, likened the complainers to morons and told me not to ever change the pictures, they were gorgeous.

So, I’m making a proclamation today that I will not change the pictures and will actually TAKE MORE ICE PICTURES as soon as I can, because they’re lovely. So there. And if you don’t like it, go find some boiled jewelry somewhere else.
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After that intro, I’d like to talk about our trash. When we moved into this house, we opted not to have trash service. We do not pay for someone to haul away our garbage. Our township recently switched trash services and we got a bill in the mail for $53/quarter. We're not going to sign up.

We’ve worked our garbage into 5 categories. I will talk about them here, briefly, after which I will relate a short story about our first 2 weeks living here. It is a great story.

Compostables: We compost what we can. We have a seal-top bin on the counter that we line with a compostable ‘plastic’ bag made of corn starch. When it is full we throw it in the compost bin, bag and all. I have also been known to compost other things, like an old wool sweater, cotton balls, and a mostly decomposed dead owl I found in the lawn once. Yum!

Meat/fat/cheese: Most of the meat and fat we toss at the top of the yard for whatever animals will eat it, usually some of the gazillion feral cats we have here thanks to our neighbor the crazy cat lady my mother in law.

Burnables: all paper and cardboard goes into one of the trash cans we have in the kitchen, which we take once a week or so to our burning barrel to burn.

Recyclables: All recyo-babbles get bagged up and taken to the local Refuse Transfer Station (dump) about 5 miles away. We can deposit all recyclables for free.

Everything Else: Whatever doesn’t fall into the above categories gets bagged up and taken to the dump about every other month (um, more often in hot weather). This is usually plastic or metal that can’t be recycled, Styrofoam, sometimes bones, foamfill from torn-apart dog toys, other miscellaneous items.

The last trip we made to the ‘dump’ was this weekend. We threw out 60lb of trash that we’d accumulated for well over a month, and it cost us $3.00. Sometimes it is $2.50, sometimes $4.

So, for a year it costs us less than $3/month for a grand total of less than $36/year. Plus, with our sorting we really don’t throw out as much.
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Now, for a trash story:

The elderly woman who lived in the house before we did had been bullied by the landlord of the house next to us to allow his tenants to use her driveway. By proxy, they also got away with not paying for her to have the driveway cleaned off in the winter and they used her trash service. The trash was put at the end of the driveway and they could just add a bag or two to her bag. Hey, an old lady doesn’t accumulate much trash in a week, right? It was never noticed by the collectors.

Then we moved in and didn’t renew the garbage contract.

(We also sent the landlord a letter via our lawyer saying they could no longer use the driveway because they had roadfrontage and didn’t, legally, have a right to use it, and almost got into a physical fight with the man over it. It was a fun time for everyone! The story I’m relaying here happened before the letter, though).

So, Tuesday the week after we moved in the woman who rented next door dragged her bag of trash to the end of the driveway.

Wednesday morning, it was still there.
Thursday morning it was still there.
Friday morning (shock) it was still there. She dragged it back.

The next Tuesday she dragged TWO bags of trash to the end of our driveway.
Wednesday morning, it was still there. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Thursday morning, it was still there. She dragged it back to her rental house. (Quick. The woman is quick).

I’m not sure what happened between she and her landlord, but she didn’t do it a third week. I also can’t remember if they wound up having trash pick-up at the end of their driveway when they eventually were, ah, forced to put one in (right over the sewer box, I might add). If they did I’m sure she ended up paying for it and not the landlord. We had new neighbors by the end of the year.

Drumroll Please: We Have Broken Even

Yes, we have officially broken even in our garden.

What does this mean? Well, I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of all the money we’ve spent on vegetable seeds and plants this year VERSUS how much we would have paid (on average) at the grocery store or farmers markets for the same produce…..and we have broken even.

In 2009, we spent a grand total of $241.68 on vegetable seeds and plants. This does not count what I planted this year from seed packets I purchased in previous years, please keep that in mind.

I just tallied up the latest prices and poundages, etc, for our veggie harvests and IF we had purchased these veggies at the grocery store, we would have paid ……(drumroll)…..(suspense)…...

$298.04

Seriously. AND that only counts the following:

-Asparagus
-Yellow Beets
-Blackberries
-Blueberries
-Garlic
-Leeks
-Spring Peas
-Potatoes, Red
-Raspberries
-Spinach
-Strawberries

It does NOT count in the 76 onions, dozens of heirloom tomatoes, 45lb of paste tomatoes, fall crops, beans, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, okra, herbs, peanuts, sweet potatoes, fingerling potatoes, or the Yukon Gold potatoes. Oh, and saffron. The saffron alone will probably put us over $1000.

I will be posting an overall list eventually, but probably not until winter…when I have time.

So. Save yourself some money. Grow your own food. It is worth it.

Larnin' from Grandmother YouTube

This year has seen a number of firsts:

• first pressure canning (beans, and beets now, too!)
• first time planting several things (okra, sweet potatoes, leeks, and soon turnips and cabbage)
• first time making sauerkraut

how does one pressure can? I mean, you can read the manual, but I'm a watch-and-learn kinda gal. I would have gone to visit Matt's Grandmother Mary V, but that isn't an option anymore and I don't know anyone who cans. So, what did I do when I wanted to see it happening?

I visited Grandmother YouTube. Yes, YouTube is being used now for instruction on just about anything....including, it seems, pressure canning. See this 9-minute video on canning green beans from Wolfcrik, and also see the other canning videos this user has uploaded.

Ah, now, how do we make sauerkraut? Real, fermented sauerkraut? I didn't know, but I wanted to do it (see an upcoming post about my great great grandmother Amelia). Well, now, I sat down at the foot of Grandmother YouTube again and found three wonderful videos:

• This one, from Kitchen Gardeners International, is about 7 1/2 minutes long and does a really good job with details
• This one from a woman in Alaska also has a nice bit with a cute kid who will gladly eat the cabbage cores. It is about 7 minutes.
• And this one from a homesteader in Alaska shows the process via another method (I must get one of those knives for cutting veggies in the garden!)

There are a few other thing I want to try for the first time this year, such as making Greek yogurt and cheese. Grandmother YouTube came through yet again with this wonderfully quick 10-minute video on Greek yogurt. I haven't looked up cheese making (yet) but I'm sure there are some out there.

So many people watch silly videos on YouTube. (I do, too, have you seen the spoof of Total Eclipse of the Heart? Or Sham Wow?) But there are a lot of really good instructional videos on the system, too. Take a look, you may be surprised.

What has Grandmother YouTube taught you recently?

Two Totally Terriffic Tips

Neither one are from me. Sorry.

First, check out this post about pumpkin growing. I *cannot* believe the difference.

Second, while looking for information on vine borers, I found a great tip about warding off downy mildew. It seems that spraying the leaves of the plants with a dilute kelp seaweed solution will keep downy mildew away. So far, it has worked for me and I'm thrilled, as I lost all my summer squash plants last year to downy mildew. I do have some leaves that have it and I'm spraying them to see if it will actually get rid of it, too. Stay tuned!

Silly Leeks and Twinning Beans

I have a few tips for anyone growing leeks or pole beans this year. First the leeks. This is my first year growing leeks, I've got about 65 in. They are doing really well, but everything I read tells me that you need to blanch them to keep them white and tender, or else you are stuck with tough, dark green leaves.

Most commercial growers sow them in trenches, then just backfill as needed. This leads to leeks that have sand and dirt between the leaves that is almost impossible to get out.

One of my books suggests this as a preferable method:
Don't they look silly? The book also suggests to put them on when the plants get to be around an inch thick. I don't think they would have gone on, I had trouble with these and they were only 1/2-3/4" thick.

Next, a tip for getting pole beans to learn to climb. I've been having trouble with some of them, so I have taken to wrapping them around themselves, like this:
I tucked the growing tip under the vine I manually wrapped around the pole. So far, it seems to be working.

Not what Sunkist had in mind

This is our dog, Max. Max is a yorkie and has a LOT of hair. We trim him 3-4 x/year just to keep him from dragging entire tree branches indoors with him.

(left) Max before a haircut
(right) Max after a haircut v


So. What to do with all the hair? Well, the great thing about dog hair is that it smells....like dogs!! Small critters that eat things in my vegetable garden are repelled by dog smell. (Some people are, too). Hmmmm.....


I have about 2-3 trimmings worth saved up in a ziplock baggie at home. I've also been keeping those mesh bags you get cherry tomatoes and avocados in at the grocery store.



Put some dog hair in a mesh bag, maybe half a cup or so. Fasten it off with a twisty-tie. If you have one of the looong bags, put another twisty-tie on it (like so > >). Cut between them. This way you can get 4-6 hair bags per mesh bag.


To keep animals like raccoons, bunnies, squirrels, The results from you labors, small bags full of dog hair, can be scattered around your vegetable patchand possums away. I've even had good luck keeping deer away from our patch.

I would also recommend this method in your flower and bulb gardens.