New Site!

I finally got my domain to resolve so the new site, the shorter amount of typing and personal IP: http://www.SustainableEats.com is up! Please switch any RSS feeds or email updates, blog links or other to that one since I’ll be making all future posts there.

I have lots to add about putting my tomatoes in the ground, building my hoop house and getting this spring garden party started finally!

The irrigation is here and I’m starting to put it in, read why chickens make lousy housepets and see the chicken coop come together.

Urban farming at it’s best, right from the comforts of your own desktop. Hope to see you over there!

How Can You Save Money Buying Locally?

Have you ever heard of a wholesale buying club? It’s kind of like Costco for savvy shoppers who are able to pool orders together with other savvy shoppers and get amazing deals on REAL FOOD. Shhh, dont’ tell everyone about it though.

A whole new world has opened up for me this year. I can’t even remember the chain of events that led to this amazing discovery but I know it started with reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and then The Omnivore’s Dilemma and then seeking out meat buying clubs which lead to my discovery of the Kenmore Milkshed (how can I be 42 years old and never even knew you could get real milk?) and then all those deals they get gave me the idea to approach other farmers and ask if they had buying clubs.

Read the rest of this entry…

Chicken Love

I did it – I didn’t chicken out. We got the chickens today!

Read the rest of this entry…

Could you go no GMO?

It’s a great question and one as recently as last summer I would have answered no to.  I remember hearing a news report about 4 or 5 years ago that some foods in the grocery store were modified genetically.  I felt cheated.  I felt deceived.  And then I promptly forgot about it.

I’ve come a long way since then.

It’s easy to fall back on old eating habits, forget what you’ve read or just assume that the FDA would not allow harmful things in the food chain.  That is a naive and dangerous approach.  I’ve compiled some tidbits I’ve cut out of recent newletters (mainly the PCC Sound Consumer) or online discussing just how poorly your food chain is regulated. 

As you read through these, ask yourself if the FDA and USDA are really protecting you.  Make your own decision.  And when you get done go and join the No GMO Challenge over at Real Food Media.  If enough people sit up and pay attention, take the pledge for 30 days, and word gets out to food manufacturers, it will change things.  This is your vote.  Make it count.

Children’s allergies are up to 1 in 26 kids. In 1997 it was 1 in 30 kids. Peanut allergies have doubled. Genetic modification, anyone? (US Center for Disease Control and Prevention)

A federal appeals court ruled against a meatpacker (Creekstone) which wants to test their cattle for mad cow’s disease. The USDA tests only 1 percent of all US cattle. Larger meat companies feared they would be forced to test for cow’s or lose market share if Creekstone was allowed to claim their meat was BSE free. (LA Times)

NOSB (National Organic Standards Board) voted in Nov 2008 in favor of developing farmed salmon as USDA certified organic. If approved, certified organic fish would be fed 25% non-organic fishmeal from wild or mercury contaminated fish. Think confined feed lot operation only with fish, their pollution, waste and parasites going directly into public waters. Please don’t buy farmed fish.

A University of Vienna study found negative effects on reproduction in mice eating GM corn from Monsanto. This same corn is approved for human consumption and currently in foods in your cupboard.

Milk and meat from the offspring of cloned livestock are currently in the US food supply and have been now for several years. (Wall Street Journal)

The USDA, FDA and EPA have announced that an experimental GM cottonseed developed by Montsanto has entered the US food supply illegally. (Union of Concerned Scientists)

26 university scientists have issued a complaint to the EPA saying biotech companies are preventing them from fully researching the impacts of GM crops. (NY Times)

If you are concerned at all by anything you’ve just read here please go sign up for the No GMO Challenge. Your children will thank you by hopefully being able to have children of their own someday.

Homemade Food Scrap Digester

One of my projects for this week, along with re-potting the tomatoes, was to make a scrap composter.  We have a great compost program for yard waste in the city but I wanted those nutrients for my yard.

I followed the directions I found on a handout I got from a Tilth volunteer at last week’s UW Farmer’s market that don’t seem to be on their website. 

Read the rest of this entry…

Taking Stock

I wanted to share the list of items that we are growing on our small city lot because it still astounds me that there is room for all this bounty.  Once you start looking at your yard as growing space and remove the lawn all kinds of possibilities open up.  Maybe this list will inspire you as well.

Side orchard:

• Liberty apple
• Cox Pippin apple
• Montmorency cherry
• White Gold cherry
• Italian Prune plum
• Blues Jam plum
• Bay
• Quince
• Columnar Golden Sentinel apple
• Yuzu
• Desert King fig
• Violetta fig (potted)
• Dalgo crabapple
• Improved Meyer lemon (potted)
• 15 Jersey Knight asparagus
• 2 Hardy Annanasnaja arguta fuzzy kiwi
• Table grapes (future plan for arbor over garage door)
• 32 Tulameen raspberry canes

Front yard planted in ground:

• Rubel blueberry highbush
• Legacy blueberry highbush
• Darrow blueberry highbush
• 3 rhubarb plants
• 3 Globe artichokes
• Bronze fennel
• garlic, chives, scallions, leeks and storing onions
• 3 bags or barrels of potatoes
• chammomile

In raised beds:

• 30 tomatoes
• 2 eggplant
• 15 basil
• Nantes carrots
• beets
• radiccio
• Swiss chard
• kale
• brussel sprouts
• broccoli
• corn
• mache
• claytonia
• French sorrel
• purslane
• green beans

Lower front terrace outside fence:

• 8 lowbush blueberries, Tophat
• 6 cranberry
• 2 lingonberry

Just in front of the front fence so they can grow up it:

• 3 zuchini
• 1 Magic Lantern pumpkin for jack-o-laterns
• 1 Sugar Pie pumpkin for pies
• 1 muskmelon
• 2 cucumber
• 1 butternut squash
• sunflower sentries – these are re-seeding from last year and I’ll re-plant as needed.

In my semi-shady backyard I have or will plant:

• 2 evergreen huckleberry bushes
• countless strawberry plants in the rockery
• peas
• celery if the seedlings make it.  They aren’t very happy right now
• mustard
• cardoons
• lemon verbena
• lemon balm
• chocolate mint
• rosemary
• sage
• oregano
• marjoram
• lavendar
• tarragon
• cilantro
• parsely
• thyme
• red currant
• black current
• aronia
• sweet woodruff (for flavoring soda)
• 1 service berry tree for jam or dried fruit for baking
• lovage - to be used as drinking straws for bloody marys when we have time to sit around…

It’s pretty astounding, isn’t it?  All in the same space that was previously un-usable or was rarely used front lawn.

We are trying to design the garden so that it fits well with the neighborhood and adds to resell value should we choose to sell the house.  With some planning and creativity you can do amazing things with your landscaping.  Growing groceries isn’t just for farmers anymore and can fit well into just about any landscape design.

A future post for next year when the fruit trees and berry bushes are bearing fruit will be on bees.  I wanted to get them this year since I was told the reason some of my zuchini fruits last year rotted and fell off was lack of pollination.  For now I’m happy to have gotten the garden beds in and focused on irrigation and chickens.   More to come on those topics hopefully next weekend.

One last note – all the berry bushes and trees I purchased in March as bareroot stock.  It’s a much less expensive way to purchase plants.  They are shipped to you during the dormant season for significant savings.  I ordered mine online from www.raintreenursery.com and www.onegreenworld.com.   Both are located in the Pacific NW and have disease resistant varieties that are acclimated to our conditions.  One Green World especially has amazing customer service – phoning before shipping each order to be sure everything is correct and let you know when things are coming.  They were great to work with and let me change my order just before shipping.  Raintree as well even went so far as to apply a discount code to my order that I had forgotten to use during the checkout process.  I recommend them both.

Planting the Seeds of Change

It’s a radical idea to grow your own food and more empowering then you can imagine.  Everyone who has seen our front yard converting from green lawn to growing beds and orchard has asked the same question – “Do you really think you can grow enough food to feed your family?”  My answer is unequivocably “YES!”

By the end of WWII 40% of all American produce was grown in yards.  A lot has changed in 60 some years.  We’ve forgotten that we have the ability to grow food, and even more empowering then growing it is completing the cycle – letting a few of everything go to seed and storing those to use next year.  Knowledge is power, and dangerous to food corporations. 

If everyone was doing 15% of what I am doing – just saying no to food that contains dangerous chemicals, or is harvested using forced and/or child labor which happens even in this country (think of your year-round tomatoes) - food giants would sit up and take notice.

In the same way the toy industry suddenly realized this year that consumers would indeed hold them responsible for using lead, pthathlates and other dangerous chemicals in children’s toys and baby items, they would realize the future needs to change.  Knowledge is power. 

My challenge to you is to take the time to understand exactly what is in one grocery item per week and how it is made and harvested.  Email or phone the company.  Read the ingredients on the box.  Use your google skills.   Empower yourself.