Nearly time!

Its been so cold and dreary, and I've been away...but this weekend the fun starts!

I'm starting seeds this weekend...baby tomatoes and peppers, watermelons, squashes, a few other things. I made a schedule weeks ago, I just need to go flip through it.

Still need to build boxes,and I need to start researching when my farmer's markets open for the year...

Winter's here!

Well, there has just not been much to comment on lately--its all just waiting for things to start. I see I have picked up a few more subscribers and I seem to be getting a lot of hits lately, so I thought I needed to find something to write about.

I plan on starting seeds in about 3 weeks, so there will be something to fuss about soon. And I need to build some more planters. The indoor plants are all OK and waiting for warm days. The days are getting longer too....

Today, I got out of the shower late in the afternoon and noticed the light outside was odd--I thought fog had come in (HOW?) but really it was snow and blowing winds turning everything misty and weird. Its the first blip of snow here this year. I have not peeped in on my garlic lately since its been kinda warm and I felt it was probably fine. I did not go out and flip up the leaves today either because when I looked out the window I could see long green spears poking up from the garlic boxes.

SQUEE!

Here is hoping that the real snow comes and covers and insulates and I don't lose that garlic to a hard freeze without any cover!

WHEE!

I got my Baker Creek order yesterday! I'm excited to get started for the season, but I have a month or so to go before I can realistically start planting. But now I have nearly all the crops I want to grow! Everything else I want will be plants and they won't be showing up until May (hot peppers and eggplants)

My overwintered plants are generally doing OK. Aphids are doing a number on my mints though. My mojito mint is dead, and I fear the anise, chocolate and spearmint are suffering. I am unsure on the status of the pineapple mint. The cat nip is the only thing thriving right now. It is FULL of new leaves. If these all die, I will probably order more, but I might order more than one of each type this time. My mint last year got bugs and died too...I wonder what the heck is going on with aphids in my house. They don't become an issue (or even apparent) until the plants come inside.)

Finally, Project Garlic is doing ok! I still have shoots that look alive, and it seems nothing has frozen solid out on the roof. I've been fortunate with the weather--no snow to speak of and its only flirted with below freezing temps, really. We could still get a few weeks of nasty weather, but so far I am optimistic. Only 8 more weeks of winter, and so far so good!

My Local Story

As I mentioned the other day, I think I am finally crystallizing my thoughts on the Eat Local movement.

I heard about it for the first time this summer on the now defunct Pocket Farm blog announcing the "One Local Summer" challenge. I did not find out about it in time to actually join the blog's activities, but they did encourage people who did not sign up in time to go ahead and once a week eat an entire meal made from locally grown products. The idea intrigued me since I was at the start of last year's garden, so I researched local farmer's markets (and I plan to do so again in the next few months, and I'll tell you what ones are good and what ones are not what they seem) and went to a few. I embarked on the project because it sounded fun, and while I don't think I had a 100% local meal every week, I did quite a few--I'll blog about them this summer.

Eating locally in the summer is easy since everything is growing, and as summer wore on, I wondered how people kept this up when things were not growing and there were no farm markets open. One of the things I found out quickly on my Local Summer was that what I was growing and buying beat the crap out of Stop and Shop. I had no idea. I started looking into preserving what I had, and ended up teaching myself how to freeze stuff properly. This was made easier when I found the exhaustive (and fun!) how to can everything website. I toyed with the idea of canning, and I have the Ball Blue Book, but so far I am not quite ready to Go There yet.

So now I have a freezer full of food from the summer, and meat from local producers that I've mentioned before (Abma's Farm and Bobolink) and I have to say I feel happier with my food choices. One of the benefits touted for a local diet is that you are using less oil and gas transporting your food. I like this idea. I commute 45 miles one way, and I am not happy with that--I like my job, and I can't afford to live close to it due to the insane housing market. I don't know that I would enjoy living where I work either. So, eating local is a tiny tiny step, but it is a tiny tiny step that I can take, and if more people took tiny tiny steps, maybe those steps would be bigger.

I do pick and choose things that I still want but can't get locally...like chocolate and coffee. I have stopped buying bananas and pineapple constantly (but I did accept the two pineapples that arrived at work in holiday fruit baskets!) and I am really trying to adjust my diet to the seasons this year...which means apples and pears all winter, and no strawberries until spring and summer. It also means I keep onions and carrots and celery around since these seem to be the case of everything you can make. I've learned how to store squashes and apples without using my fridge since I have a cold but not freezing porch. I cook more, and use pre packed and processed things a lot less...and eventually I'll use none of those...and I feel better because my diet is better. I also think I am spending less overall on my food budget, but that is also a project I've set out for this year. I can go weeks without going to the supermarket, at least.

I doubt I'll ever be 100% locavore. For one thing, I can't guarentee my dairy comes from within 100 miles, but liquid milk tends to end up a local economy anyway. I also can't find anyone milling flour in NJ, so I bend that rule by using my bread machine more. And I still like to get unusual things from time to time (like I found a nice recipe for plantains the other day, and I want to try those out) but they are treats now, and not an every day thing.

So that is my ongoing story. I really don't want to make this a big political thing, and I am not going to go force people around me to join in--I have had enough unpleasant interactions with nearly militant vegetarians (I am an enthusiastic omnivore) that I don't want to become That Chick. But I am happy to share what I have learned and know with anyone else getting started on this road.

A Nice Surprise

I went and laid out my calendar for starting seeds for next year--its all plotted out for succession planting through the spring and fall, so I should be able to maximize mmy garden this year. I also made a schedule for placing my seed orders...and then one of them showed up yesterday. I have my Red Robin tomatoes (to be grown indoors next winter for year round tomatoes!) and mini head lettuce seeds from Containerseeds.com. So one less order to place.

I also got talking to a friend last night who has his own garden and has done a fair amount of canning (he brought amazing home made salsa and hummus to the party we were at) and he offered me the use of his canning equipment so I can try it out next season. I just have to buy the jars and lids. Pretty exciting.

The Baker Creek order goes out this week, and since I am splitting a Cook's Garden and Chile Woman order with co-workers, those will go out later in the month. I still need to decide on mint plants since my mojito mint is dead dead dead from these stupid aphids that came in the house on them (and the spearmint and chocolate mint...those are doing OK though) I lost the mints I had last winter to aphids too, and I am using a home made soap spray on them this time, but I can't seem to beat them into submission. fortunately they have not spread to anything else, and I doubt they will if they have not done so by now.

I added a list to the blog of plants I want to grow at some point. Looking at these seed catalogs makes me crazy as there are SO MANY things I want to try. Some I know will have to wait until I have my own place--my landlord was pretty cool with the small farm I installed on his roof last year, but I doubt corn will ever go over well, and asparagus might be a tough sell in a container. I'll research more and add in for next year. I definitely want to do potatoes next year, at least.

I've done some thinking on the local diet the past few days and I think I may be crystalized to the point of actually writing about it soon.

Welcome, New Year!

I did some garden chores today...mixed my latest batch of bokashi into 3 of the self watering containers. I was set to do this Christmas Eve, but it rained, so I had to wait for a reasonably nice day and today was it. I'm down to having one large SWC to put compost in, and I think that will be ready to go in a month or so. Before I need them, definitely.

Project Garlic apears to be doing FINE. I peeked under the mulch and there are still happy looking garlic leaves poking up! I was pretty hopeful when I went and found the SWCs nota giant frozen solid mass. The boxes of mesculun I have outside the bedroom window also look reasonably well, and they are at a bigger risk for freezing, I think. yet they are still growing (very slowly) and look pretty good. If we get and nasty storms, I'll pull them inside, but they may be ready for greens in March.

Today's plan is to plot out when I need to start seeds. And finish out my seed orders. I've gotten catalogs from Burpee, Cook's Garden (a gorgeous one this year!) and Seeds of Change. I am likely NOT going to order from Burpee, but I will order from Cook's and I need to flip through Seeds of Change (the garlic came from there) The plan is to get my orders out by mid January so I am ready to roll in March. I'm not ordering much this time, since I have a lot left over from last year that I can use again.

I've been steadily using up what I out up last summer too. Today it was Jersey blueberries in the pancakes. YUM. I've been amazed by how good the produce I froze last summer tastes....as much of a pain as it was blanching and bagging, I think it was definitely worth the effort to do it. I may go and invest in a Food Saver for next summer since that is supposed to help save freezer space--I don't have much! I will probably venture into canning this summer too...I definitely want to put up some tomatoes, maybe make sauce and salsa for winter...

Bokashi

I think in fall of 2006--it was shortly after I joined the Yahoo Edible Container List, at any rate, that I started to feel a little funny about the amount of stuff I was putting into the trash, and I quietly wished I had room to compost. I live on the second floor of a house--I rent, so setting up some big project in the yard was out of the question. It didn't occur to me that I COULD pull this off until the Bokashi system was mentioned on the Yahoo list.

This things works PERFECTLY in an apartment enviroment. It is meant for scraps and stuff, but I do put some of my garden waste in to it too. It uses a 5 gallon bucket that you dump your scraps in (and you can even put meat scraps into it, and paper towels, tea bags, all that sort of stuff) and then add a handful of wheat bran that is impregnanted with microbes. Once your bucket is full, you sprinkle in some more wheat bran and keep the bucket closed for 2 weeks (or longer.)

After 2 weeks you have scraps that are pickled. They don't smell GREAT--very vinegary--but its not horrible either. What you are supposed to do at this point is go dig a hole and bury the contents of the bucket, and then wait another 2 weeks and plant away. What I do is dump the bucket into a 55 gallon trash bin, and cover it with dirt from old pots, or bury some directly into the bigger containers I use or tomatoes. I can testify that in 2 weeks, stuff you bury in a trash bin will turn into nice compost. You do want to cut up stuff, because bigger chunks (corn cobs, avacado pits...ask me how I know) don't break down so quickly. Sometimes you get white fluffy mold in the bucket...that's OK.

While the bucket is initially composting, it makes a liquid you can use as plant food, or just dump down the drain. You're supposed to drain the liquid off every 48 hours...I don't do that so often.

You can probably make your own Bokashi buckets--or you can buy them. You can also buy the bran or if you're really hardcore and have space, you can make your own. Arbico Organics has the buckets and bran, but I will warn you, the bran can take WEEKS to arrive so don't wait until you're nearly out to order it. I have 2 buckets which works well for me--it takes me about a month to fill one. I'm emptying one this weekend, actually.

This is a really excellent explanation of how the system works My bucket lives under my kitchen sink, and you'd never know it was there. I use the liquid that come soff the bucket as plant food, as I mentioned--its about 240 ml (4 ounces) to 2 gallons of water. That stuff does smell a little, but it dissipates quickly.

So, the upshot-if you live in an apartment, you can still recycle your organic stuff pretty easily and in a way your landlord won't even know you're doing!