Aaaaaaaaaand we already have a problem.

I am really not very good at growing things from seeds. I just haven't had enough experience, I suppose, which will change with practice, but that doesn't help me much now.

My pea and cucumber seeds have sprouted. The others have not. Not only that, but the cucumber seedlings are already a couple of inches tall (!) and I need to start raising the lights. That's going to make the tiny little peas (not to mention the other species once they emerge) really leggy; which is a problem that has plagued pretty much every seed I ever planted.

So what I'm probably going to have to do is get a separate light setup going for the little cucumbers so I can keep the light fixture right on top of the other seedlings so they don't stretch out. It'll take a bit of figuring out but I can do it. It's really too bad I didn't throw myself into gardening with as much gusto as I did cooking when I moved out, perhaps if I had I'd be really good at this by now. But that's alright. We won't have a place with a yard for a while now so I have plenty of time to get this right. And if my seedlings all turn out leggy again this year, I can always just order some healthy ones from the internet and transplant them. I'm not going to buy them from Lowe's this year, not just due to funneling money to Monsanto either. Last year my strawberries from there succumbed to soil disease and my peppers came with a hoard of aphids which proceeded to spread to all my other plants and resist my every effort to kill them off. These are problems you are not supposed to have to deal with when container gardening. I'll get quality seedlings from an organic non-Monsanto owned grower, thank you very much.

With tomorrow being the first day of March, Spring is closer and closer. Here's hoping my little garden gets off to a good start. :)

Interview: Joel Salatin | Life and style | The Observer

Interview: Joel Salatin | Life and style | The Observer

This is a wonderful article about Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface Farms in Virginia. Great guy, great farm. I'd love to visit some day.

It's about time I started this little blog back up again, since it's getting to be planting time here in Wisconsin. I ordered San Marzano Tomatoes and Smart Pickle cucumbers from Seedsofchange.org and they came in the mail today. A quick trip to Lowe's and 20 minutes cleaning off the top of the fridge and replacing the bulb in the grow light setup my mom gave to me and they're sitting pretty waiting to sprout. Should see some action by next week. I planted the tomatoes and cucumbers plus peas and spinach. I'll do pole beans later I think. I was going to wait on the tomatoes and cukes too but I figured since I've never grown them from seed before I'd better get started now so if I encounter any surprises I can easily start over and change my tactics. Since I have even lighting this year, I should have no problems with legginess.

Might as well mention my diet changes too: After watching Food, Inc. and getting started on several books (including Real Food by Nina Planck and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan) I've simply stopped eating a ton of stuff I thought I'd never do without. No more boxes of mac and cheese or cans of Chef Boyardee. No more McDonalds, Burger King, or Taco Bell. Store bought cookies, donuts, and other snacks are out too. I don't even consider this stuff food at all any more, no more than a clod of dirt is food. And after learning about industrial beef filler being treated with ammonia to cut down on E. coli I feel nothing but revulsion at the very idea of eating another McDonald's burger. I've even stopped drinking factory-farmed milk! I've been buying organic unhomogenized whole milk at Sendik's and basically only drinking milk at work save for what goes on my cereal and into my coffee (still the cheap stuff since Trev still drinks it and I don't bring my organic stuff home). And I used to drink a lot of milk, almost a gallon every other day or so. So it's more cooking, more water and tea, and better choices at the store for me! I'll take my grass-fed beef and fresh veggies, thank you very much. And if I can get my hands on some raw milk at some point so much the better. Should be another interesting year ahead.

Edit to add: Oh yeah, I did get the closet cleaned out. But it's so much easier to have my stuff on top of the fridge so if I can keep the cats off of there that's where it'll stay until I move them outside in April.

The Long Winter Ahead

Welp. It's the 26th of December, Christmas is over, and now it's time to settle in for Winter. I don't know where the time has gone and neither does anyone else it seems. Lately I've had many people comment on how they "can't believe it's Christmas already!" It's true, the time has just flown. Seems like it was just yesterday that I was watering tomatoes and picking pole beans. Now there's snow on the ground and my frost-hardy kale has finally kicked it and flopped over.

This next week we will be chilling out and recovering from the hectic holiday season and on New Year's Eve my fiancee and I will be enjoying some Tallgrass steaks. Yes, fiancee. He proposed on the 4th of December. We're planning on having our wedding August 22nd 2010 if all goes according to plan, so I'll likely be posting wedding updates here as well for a while. :)

January will be a month of preparation and planning. I've got to get that bedroom closet cleaned out first of all and make room for a grow-light setup. I then have to get some light housing and wire it since apparently hardware stores don't sell housing for 2 foot bulbs that actually have plugs on them. Also on the agenda is a timetable for when to start my seeds and get them outside. My seed catalogs should be arriving shortly. I plan on doing spinach, lettuce, and maybe some peas during the cold spring months, and then Roma tomatoes (for sauce!) and pickling cucumbers (for pickles!) during the hot part of the year. Since I love fresh pole beans so much I'll likely grow those too. I was considering doing 2 varieties of pickling cucumbers so I can decide which I like the best but I might not have room on the porch for that due to limited sunlight. Strawberries are out, they take up too much room for too little produce. I intend to make jam but I'll buy the berries at the farmer's market or go to a U-pick orchard. There's gonna be a lot of canning going on next summer. :)

Hopefully I'll have enough to keep myself occupied and the Winter blues won't affect me too much this year. I always have such a hard time during Winter. Perhaps this year will be different. I have some bread proofing right now so I'd better go attend to it. I'll likely be whining about that horrible closet in my next update. :)

Glorious Weather!

The weather has been fantastic recently; it's like those first glorious days of good Spring weather where you throw open all the windows, air out the house, and try to squeeze in both work and play before it inevitably turns back into freezing cold Spring weather. The leaves are all off the trees here in Wisconsin by now, but despite everything being gray the sun still cheers me up immensely.

I refilled all the birdfeeders and need to work on keeping them full. The birds need all they can get so they can prepare for the lean winter months. They're going to be my entertainment this winter so I need to keep them around. The plastic is up on the bedroom window (of course since it's been 70 degrees it's way too hot in there now) and the balcony has been cleared of all garden remains save for the empty pots and my winter greens and swept clean. It's hard to think that by the end of the month we'll probably have snow, but it's a near certainty. Time to start preparing for the holidays!

I'm making Jambalaya this week; here's the recipe I'm using (from Allrecipes):

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 pound andouille sausage, sliced
• 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley
• 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pound frozen cooked shrimp without tails

Directions

1. In a slow cooker, mix the chicken, sausage, tomatoes with juice, onion, green bell pepper, celery, and broth. Season with oregano, parsley, Cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper, and thyme.
2. Cover, and cook 7 to 8 hours on Low, or 3 to 4 hours on High. Stir in the shrimp during the last 30 minutes of cook time.

We'll see how it turns out. If it's good, it'll go into regular rotation. I have to get ready to leave for work now, so I'm gonna cut this short. Farewell!

Tomato soup, and changes to our eating habits

I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Which is today's recommended reading, by the way) and the more I read the more I want to change the way we eat. Not only because I don't want to financially support the terrible food industry in America any more than I have to, but also because I think eating local, in-season produce comes only second to actually growing all your own food as far as making you truly appreciate what's on your plate come mealtime. For example, you really start to appreciate summer's bounty when you're on a strict local-only diet and you've been eating potatoes, carrots, turnips, meat, and whatever you managed to preserve for 6 or 8 weeks and winter's only half-over. It's going to be a slow process, but I'm trying to reduce how much meat we eat while expanding our horizons as far as vegetables go. So far, I've eaten mushrooms (meaning I got over my aversion to consuming any sort of fungus whatsoever simply because it's fungus), asparagus, turnips, and acorn squash. Those are all things I either never liked before or simply hadn't had. I don't necessarily love them yet, but I have a feeling I will eventually. Still, this little project isn't without it's obstacles, the biggest one being my stupidly high metabolism and hypoglycemic tendencies. I need a lot of calories and protein and I cannot get through an 8 hour shift at work on nothing but salad and fruit. On top of that, I have lazy days where I don't feel like cooking and opening a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli sounds really good. I also have days where I get distracted and forget that I need to eat until it's too late to cook something before I have to leave for work, and due to the aforementioned hypoglycemia issues not eating before work is not an option for me. But I'm working on it. I'd like to eventually get to the point where we can just stock our freezer with free-range meat from local farmers once a year and get by on that. The only way that will be affordable is to reduce how much we eat. Same with milk. I drink way too much milk and if I want to buy all organic pastured stuff I'm going to have to cut my consumption. Getting Trevor on board with that idea is also something I'm working on.

To change topics for a minute, I pulled up the garden several weeks ago, but due to the rather mild summer I had more green tomatoes than red on the vine when I went to compost the plant. I couldn't bear to just toss them, so I decided to put them in one of my cloth shopping bags and see what happened. Then I forgot about them.

Well, a day or so ago I suddenly remembered they were in there while I was at work, and a pang of guilt hit me. Surely they'd be rotten by now, and they'd all go to waste. Owing to my wonderful ADD, I again forgot about them until today. I'd skipped breakfast (coffee doesn't count) and for lunch I had a salad, some cheese and crackers, and a handful of apple wedges. Seemed I'd hit a vegetarian streak, and I decided to continue it. We went to Half-Price books, and then Target, and the whole while my stomach growled and I tried to figure out what I could have for dinner that'd still be vegetarian. Then I remembered the tomatoes.

I looked into the bag when we got home and wouldn't you know it, they were just about all perfectly ripe. I inspected them and found one that was going bad, and while chopping them up I had to toss maybe two more smaller ones that were too bruised and mushy. The rest of them went into a pot with some minced garlic sauteed in butter and are now gently simmering along with some spices, salt, and pepper. I'm going to add some rice, lentils, and barley too and it'll make a hearty meal. I only wish I had some dough I could pull out of the freezer like I did earlier in the week with my roast. Perhaps tomorrow I'll do some batches of bread and dinner roll dough so I can have hot crusty bread anytime I want.

Oh yeah, speaking of that wonderful roast: I put it on the table and sat down to eat and it hit me... this meal was entirely homemade. There wasn't a single pre-packaged thing in it save for the milk and block of cheese I served with it, and I told Trevor that if we had a cow those would have been homemade too. I was proud of myself then and I'm proud of myself now. Maybe this whole "Eat more vegetables, less meat, and try to stay in-season" thing won't be so hard after all.

Here's how I made my soup, by the way: (EDIT: So as not to surprise anyone who decides to make this, this is not traditional smooth tomato soup. It's chock full of the barley, lentils and rice with a little bit of broth left over. Rich, hearty, and delicious.)

1 large clove of garlic (or 2 smaller ones)
2 tablespoons of butter (what I had on hand, you could probably use less)
2-3 lbs of fresh tomatoes
onion powder, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, cloves, bay leaf, sugar
half-cup or so each of rice, lentils, and barley and some frozen corn if you want

Heat the butter in your pot, mince the garlic. Sautee the garlic in the butter and take off the heat while you chop your tomatoes. Now, I had a food mill so I just chopped them, added 2 cups of water to the pot with the garlic, and threw in the pieces. Without a food mill you're going to have to blanch the tomatoes and remove the skins and seeds. (Hint: Get a food mill.) Added the herbs and spices and let it all simmer 20-25 minutes. Ran the lot through the food mill, added sugar to taste, and then put it back on the heat to bring it to a boil. I put in the rice and lentils and waited a couple of minutes before adding the barley and corn since it cooks quicker. After that, I let it simmer for 12-15 minutes and stand uncovered. It went from thin and watery to thick and rich. I served it with garlic bread. :)

No more leaves

The news is saying that the Fall colors are just about at their peak, and when we get away from the apartment, they are. Right outside, though, the trees are already bare. We're getting a lot of sunlight in the apartment and on the balcony now, which is good for my mood and great for the little rubbermaid full of leafy greens. Those are probably going to be history by next week, because now that they've been exposed to a couple of frosts they should taste really good. It's a shame I never managed to get any spinach or peas planted.

Now that we're settling into the cold part of the year, I'm going to have to find other things to do with my time. I'm currently crocheting a blanket which will probably end up being a baby blanket for our first kid whenever he comes (surely I'll have it done by then. Right? ... Right?) I'll probably bake a lot more now that the extra heat is a good thing, and I certainly need to work on my pie crusts. I'm also trying to cut down on buying food at work because there are other things I want that I can spend all that money on. I've been taking a lunchbox full of stuff to munch on throughout the day, though it's hard to find time when you work in a busy deli to take off your gloves, go in back where the customers can't see you, grab a handful of trail mix, come back, put more gloves on, and then keep going. Repeat that process enough times in one shift and you can't get your routine done. I'll be glad when I don't have to worry about finding time to manage my blood sugar while working.

I'm also trying to be more dedicated to cooking good food and eliminating some of the processed stuff we eat because we're too lazy to slap something together for lunch or dinner. Trying to cut down on our meat consumption has been a huge challenge, and it's going to have to be a long term goal because we need to broaden our vegetarian horizons and find out what we like before we can start cooking more vegetarian meals.

This is just a quick update, I actually need to hurry up and eat so I can finish the dishes and get ready for work. For now, I'm out.

Always the Summers are slipping away

Well folks, the sun has set on the last day of Summer. Normally I'm in full squirrel-mode by this point (Well okay I still am even this year, more on this later), and pretty leaves and pumpkins are the only things on my mind. This summer, however, has been a very special one for me, and I'm sad to see it go.

I've learned a lot this past season. Not only about gardening, but also about myself. I've grown to care about things such as agricultural sustainability, homesteading, and the value of knowing how to just do things yourself. I've realized that I'm really, really good at picking up new skills on my own just by looking up a how-to page on the internet. I feel like I will one day be able to do a lot of things that most people would balk at. Hell, I already know how to bake bread all by myself without using a machine of any sort. Just the other day someone was surprised when I told them I baked bread often, but don't own a bread machine. Sometime in the near future I'll be doing my own electrical wiring (actually this coming spring I'll have to rig up some lighting for seed starting!) and minor home repairs, just because I want to prove to myself that I can. I'd fix the broken switch on the washing machine so we don't have to lift the lid to get the basket to spin, but that involves buying a replacement switch and Trevor won't let me because that's the management's responsibility. I agree with him there, so I think I'll just have the repairman show me how when he does it.

Before I go too far off on that tangent, I'd like to go ahead and go back to that whole squirrel-mode thing. I don't know what it is, but every single year around Autumn I get the urge to hoard food. And this isn't a recent thing, I did this as a very young child. I specifically remember making a list for a winter cache and raiding the kitchen so I could store stuff in my room. My mother was none too pleased to find a bunch of cereal and other foodstuffs stashed in my own cupboards instead of the kitchen's. This year, I have a canner. This year, I bought an entire bushel of apples. And this year, I have garden veggies to freeze and raided the Madison farmer's market for enough jam and honey to last through the coming winter. I still have a few apples to can, but let's just say I won't be hurting for applesauce or apple pie anytime soon.

This year, my ridiculous squirrel instincts have been (mostly) satisfied. It's... well, satisfying. The only thing that would make me happier is if I had an actual cellar with a huge wall of shelves full of jars. Maybe in a few years. I can't wait to see how bad this urge gets when I have children to care for, because my maternal instincts make me even more irrational than my squirrel instincts. Trevor will probably refuse to talk about it.

Oh yes, the garden! The last few pole beans are slowly coming in. I have several pods that I just left to completely ripen and dry out so I can save the seeds for next year. Got some good tomatoes (finally). Those went into vegetable soup. The anaheim peppers have blossom-end rot, so they're going to be a total loss unfortunately. Very frustrating, but at least now that my chili pepper is going wild with blossoms I can give it some milk so they don't end up like the first batch of tomatoes and the anaheims. I bought a string of peppers for drying at the farmer's market, so I won't go without. One little strawberry plant is hanging on like a champ, but I know I'm going to lose it to the same wilt that got the others so I'll probably yank it and use the pot for cold-weather crops. My basil is going nuts again, I'll probably trim it back soon.

As far as cold-weather stuff, I've already got kale, lettuce, and swiss chard planted. They're all leggy as hell since I started them from seeds and only have one puny light in there. I put them outside in the sun before any more damage could be done and picked the strongest ones when I thinned them, but they're still floppy. Ah well, they're still growing well. I plan to plant some spinach if I can just find some seeds. I may have to order some, since apparently none of the stores around here have heard of fall planting. I think I'm gonna do some garlic too, and when it gets too frosty for anything to grow I'll fire up the old Aerogarden.

The summer was a cool one, but it was still kind to me. I learned a lot of lessons and will have a bigger, better garden next year. Signing off for now. Fare thee well, Summer! Until next year.