Eating Local

Yesterday Mollie and I rode our bikes to a local orchard where we bought fresh peaches, blackberries, and blueberries and where we also picked 4 quarts of raspberries! We have raspberries in our yard that will be ripe soon, but we thought it would be nice to take advantage of the season and pick some at the orchard as well. That way we can eat raspberries to our heart's content. Raspberries are my favorite, favorite fruit.

We have been reveling in the delicious taste sensations of the berries and have been able to gobble them up by the handful. I love having so many raspberries and blueberries that I can eat and eat and eat them. I often think that a bear must feel the same way! It is also nice to know that we can eat as many peaches as we want to - and they are absolutely delicious.

We had a lovely bike ride, supported a local business, bought locally grown food (basically - the blueberries are from Michigan), had fun picking berries, and got some good exercise. Mollie said that the bike ride made her feel so much better about getting the food. Tomorrow morning we will bike down to the farmer's market to pick up our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box that will be full of locally grown vegetables from a local farm. And we are picking cucumbers, tomatoes, herbs, and potatoes out of our garden on a daily basis! Tonight everything we had for dinner was from our homegrown and right from the garden. We picked a huge tomato that melted in our mouths - I mean it was sooooo tasty!

Local food is good for the environment, but it also just tastes GREAT!

EcoVillage at Ithaca, New York

We stayed at EcoVillage at Ithaca on our way to Boston and we found a wonderful place. When we checked into the Bed and Breakfast the first thing the owner did was to show us the raspberries and greens we could pick in front of the house. Then he gave us a quart of fresh sugar snap peas from the local farm that is part of the EcoVillage and a quart of fresh local blueberries. We were able to attend their board meeting in the evening and learn about some of the issues they are dealing with - how to write the lease on the land for the farmer who grows organic food on their property and supplies the village with food, and how to deal with people building campfires on the property. We also met the Executive Director, Liz Walker who wrote two books: "EcoVillage at Ithaca, Pioneering a Sustainable Culture," and "Choosing a Sustainable Future, Ideas and Inspiration from Ithaca, NY."

There is much to tell about this place, but suffice it to say that this morning Mollie and I went for a walk in the trails that they have cut through the wood and ate handfuls of wild black raspberries. As we neared the bend toward the community garden we were met by some very friendly and sweet chickens who greeted us hoping we would feed them. We also ran across a local villager who gave us handfuls of basil, some tomatoes, a cucumber, a fantastic purple onion and some fresh garlic. He just handed it to us from his garden and said he always grows more than he can use. So very nice - Mollie and I were really struck with the openness and friendliness of the community, and also with the richness of life here. It is not monetarily rich, but rather rich in life and spirit.

Compost

OK, so I know that it's probably sort of weird to be really into compost - being that it's decomposing garbage and has a bunch of bugs in it, but I think that compost is the coolest thing! Mollie started several compost piles for her Science Fair project in 5th grade. This one was the pile she put small sticks and stems in. Over the past few years we have used one pile for our kitchen scraps and leaves, this pile for small sticks and stems, and then one other pile for larger wood chips and bark. This pile is now rich compost and can be used on our gardens - amazing! There is something about the cycle of life in the compost pile that captures my attention. The fact that we can throw sticks, wood chips, grass, leaves, and all of our kitchen scraps in a pile, bugs can chomp away on them, the sun, rain, and snow can do their magic, and we can end up with rich compost to put in the garden is just cool - I don't know what else to say about it!

We don't throw away any of our yard waste because we try to use it for various purposes. We put the weeds around the trees to mulch them or, if they don't have roots in them, we put them right on the compost pile. We use the sticks for kindling for our winter fires, and we use the grass clippings from mowing for mulching the garden beds. I like that we are actually using our yard for something purposeful instead of just cutting grass and throwing away the yard waste. We are using the things in the yard to enrich the soil so we can grow more food.

Back Yard Gardens

Sunchokes by the creek (on the left), hardy kiwi growing on the lattice of the outdoor swing, and zucchini and cucumbers growing in one of the back beds. These are a few of the things we have planted in the last two years. We also have butternut squash, lots of tomatoes, more rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, garlic, and more potatoes. We've planted paw paw trees (a fruit tree native to this area), chestnut trees, and locust trees (for wood). The hardy kiwi (below) hasn't flowered or produced fruit and the blueberries are sort of pitiful because it turns out that blueberries are not really native to this area. But, it's a learning process and maybe the kiwi and the blueberries will produce fruit at some point.

I want to plant some more paw paw trees back by the creek and I also want to plant a few mulberry trees. Both fruits grow in the wild here, so I'd like to experiment with growing them. Paw paw fruits taste a bit like banana custard, believe it or not! And the mulberries will be a replacement for our poor little blueberry bushes.

Last week I put in a few more beds with onions, stinging nettle, Italian dandelion, brussel sprouts and burdock. These beds are sort of experimental because I had a lot of seeds left from the past few years and I wanted to get them in the ground and see what happens. I'm still experimenting and learning so sometimes I plant things just to see what they will look like!

I'm going to start some sea kale and some Good King Henry from seed and plant those once they have grown a bit. I've got the seeds and just need to get them in under the grow lights. They are both perennial vegetables and I want to get them established in the garden. I'm also going to order Egyptian walking onions because they will keep growing from year to year. I want to put in some wild onions (ramps), but I don't know where to get them yet.

I wish there were local nurseries where you could buy some of these perennial vegetables. I have to really search for them, track them down in different catalogs, and then order them. Well, I guess that's part of the fun.

Front Yard Edible Garden

Our front yard garden is full of flowers that attract beneficial insects like butterflies and bees. They also attract hummingbirds and, in fact, this morning a hummingbird spent quite a bit of time feeding right next to me! It was really lovely - I don't think I've ever been quite so close to a hummingbird before.

We also have edible and useful flowers like echinacea, safflower, nasturtiums, scarlet runner beans, borage, lavender, and buckwheat. I have tried to find as many edible flowers as possible and experiment with planting them. Hollyhocks and perennial sunflowers are supposed to be edible as well, but I haven't tried eating them yet.

Other edible plants that are hidden in this flower garden are: rhubarb, potatoes, strawberries (both domesticated and wild strawberries), currents, mint, comfrey, tomatoes, blueberries, serviceberries, sunchokes, a wild plum tree, and a filbert tree.

The long term goal is to fill the yard with edible plants and have very little grass. We have about 2/3 of an acre and right now we have to spend time mowing every few weeks, but we are making progress toward our goal as you can see from the photos.

Strawberries, Raspberries, Rhubarb

We have been able to harvest a lot of strawberries and raspberries this year as you can see in the photos! It rained a lot earlier in the month and the garden exploded - especially the strawberries! I have also harvested quite a bit of rhubarb and I think that will go on all summer.

One of the things I think about often is how we would actually feed ourselves with our garden. We have a lot of food in it now and we are developing some perennial beds, but most of what we eat still comes from the store. I think the reality is that if we want to feed ourselves with the fruits of our own labor it will truly become labor!

Mollie is in China right now so we have been watching a lot of movies about China while she is gone. Today I watched a movie about planting and harvesting rice, and I realized all over again how an agrarian lifestyle is really a lifestyle, not just a hobby. People have been harvesting rice in some of the established riced fields for hundreds of years and their whole lives revolve around the planting and harvesting of rice. The neighbors work together and the community is centered around the rice fields.

Saul and I work full time and Mollie is in school, so it is not possible for our lives to center around our garden. What we do is more than a hobby, and luckily I have the summers off, but we are far from true farmers.

However, right now I am sitting on the front porch looking at our garden while across the street several of our neighbors are working in the community garden. More and more people in Yellow Springs are starting to garden and we are building a community around sharing food and plants. It's not the same as the old established farming communities, but it's a good thing happening!

Permaculture & Agroforestry with Mark Shepard

Yesterday I went to a workshop on Permaculture and Agroforestry with Mark Shepard. We spent the morning in "class" listening to Mark talk and show a power point presentation and then spent the afternoon at Radical Roots Farm applying the things Mark talked about in the morning.

The things I remember and wrote down are:

• Permaculture is a process, not a set of practices.
• Look at the big patterns.
• Do precise planning so that you can do a small amount of work that has a huge impact and lasts a long time.
• Utilize the Keyline system of water management - find the natural flow of the water and then plan everything around that. This made so much sense to me after spending way too much money trying to keep our plants watered during the drought part of the summer. I am realizing that developing our water plan is one of the most important things we need to do for our garden to be sustainable. We put in about 10 rain barrels last fall, so it will be interesting to use that system, but the keyline water system using swales should also be very helpful because it works uses the water that lands all over the yard, not just in the rain barrels. The idea is to slow the water down and spread it out.
• Patterns are derived from the keyline of the water system.
• Use water as a resource instead of trying to get it to go "away."
• Permaculture is a verb - get plants in the ground.

Being at Radical Roots Farm and listening to Amy Batchman talk about her plans was really inspiring to me. What helped me the most is that even though Amy is a much more experienced farmer than I am, she still doesn't know exactly what she wants to do and there are still a lot of issues around the farm that she needs to solve. Her openness was very generous and it pulled me more into this larger process that we are all a part of. It also made me realize that all of this is an ongoing problem solving process and that I don't need to have everything solved or know everything to be part of it. That was refreshing to me. So, thanks Amy!!

Today I planted some tomatoes to put under the grow lights. I know I'm sort of late getting them started, but I wanted to get them planted anyway. I also transplanted some raspberries because I put them in the middle of the yard when I first planted them! Every time I look at that batch of raspberries in the middle of the yard I think, "What was I doing?" But it's OK. I'm transplanting the shoots to the side of the yard and am looking forward to a whole new raspberry patch in the future! In the meantime, the raspberries are really tasty and I'm just glad they are coming up and growing. It's so satisfying to have the perennial plants come up! I just love it.

It felt good to get out and work today - am getting hooked back into being in the garden and can't wait to get out again! Yay!

Here is a link that tells about Mark's farm:

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-12/mark-shepherds-106-acre-permaculture-farm-viola-wisconsin

Got Started - A Bit

OK, so I did get out last weekend and planted a bed of lettuce and some sugar snap peas. The weather has been really nice, but I've been tired after work and just haven't been able to get outside. It's like I want to want to, but just can't seem to jump in. I'm sort of overwhelmed because we started lots of beds and now I know how much work it's going to be to keep up with them, keep the weeds out, keep things watered in August...

I'm looking forward to the strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb...all the things I don't have to plant this year!

Saul has spent this week gathering a lot of wood from a fallen tree that was cut down by the village. The pieces of wood are cut just the right length for our wood stove, although we still need to split it. He called the village and they said we could have the wood. It's a lot of work to load it in the pick-up and then stack it in our yard and then split it, but it's free wood! And our bills are so much lower now that we heat with wood. And it's recycling because this tree fell during a storm and now we can use it for fuel. So, it's sort of groovy. When we heat with wood we really have a grasp on the labor it takes to create our heat and I like that. I like that we have to work to heat our house instead of just moving the thermostat up which takes no work - or thought - at all. I like that every time we want to be warmer we have to clean the ashes out of the stove, crumple paper, get kindling, bring wood in the house, put the wood in the stove, and light the match. It takes all those steps plus all the work Saul is doing to gather and split the wood. It keeps us conscious of our energy consumption on a whole new level because we have to put out energy to stay warm.

Tomorrow I am going to an all day workshop about permaculture. Really, I just want to sleep in, but I'm sure I will really enjoy it when I get there. Part of the reason we started this blog is because we are just normal people who work and are raising a child and we don't do gardening, organic farming, canning, drying - you know all that stuff - all the time. A lot of our time is taken up with all kinds of other things, but we want to learn about how to live a more sustainable lifestyle. We experience on a regular basis how difficult it is to do that with the schedule we have. The hectic nature of life is probably the reason a lot of people don't make changes and it keeps us from moving as quickly on all this as we would like to. So, we just take it a bit at a time and do as much as we think we can. We also eat pizza and watch movies some Friday and Saturday evenings because we just need to veg after a busy week. Like I said, we are just normal people - not your radical types - and yet... It's all a balance.

So, that's what's up this week. In the garden - not much - lettuce and peas. In the overall scope of things - Saul has made lots of progress on our wood supply for next year and the year after. Tomorrow the permaculture workshop...and Mollie's lacrosse games and practices after school, my work with 60 middle school students every day, Saul's work with college students 4 afternoons/nights a week, Mollie's homework and work on her script with Cora...

Life in this modern world... Would we want to live in a more agrarian culture? Sometimes I wish our lives centered more around planting and harvesting, around a celebration of the seasons, around an awareness of the importance of water, sunlight, and soil quality. But what would it be like to live without some of our modern conveniences? What would it be like to have a life span of 45 years - or 25 years for women like it was in Ohio in the early 1800's. I think it's important to live the life we are living now with an awareness and an understanding of agrarian and indigenous cultures, but not with an idealistic, nostalgic viewpoint.

Getting Started

I am having a really hard time getting started with the garden this year. I don't feel very motivated to get out in the yard and I don't quite know where I want to begin. It is nice to look through the blog posts and see how lovely the garden looked last year and the year before.

I know that I don't want to plant as many annuals this year and I only want to plant the things I have had a lot of success with: squash, cucumbers, basil and tomatoes, lettuce. I haven't had the greatest luck with tomatoes, but they just taste GOOD that it's worth planting some. I'm interested to see what perennials are going to come up and I mostly want to plant edible perennials this year. It's just so nice to see them coming up in the spring and to know that you don't have to go out and plant them! Our asparagus didn't come up last year and I'm wondering what will happen with it this year. It will be disappointing if it died, but I guess that's part of the learning curve. WHAT I am supposed to learn from dead asparagus I don't know for sure, but I'm sure I am supposed to learn something.

I planted lots of raspberries along the edge of the yard this year, so my taste buds are anxiously, excitedly awaiting to see how they will grow. And I'm even more excited to eat them, but am not anxious about that. Watching raspberries grow is not one of my hobbies - just so ya know...

I "forgot" to harvest the Jerusalem Artichokes this year - well, in reality, I don't know when they are supposed to be harvested. Maybe I should go out and check them. They might be very tasty right now. They are sort of hard to cook because they have to be cleaned really well, which is a pain, and I haven't wanted to take the time when there is so much tasty food I can get from the grocery store. That's why I "forgot" to harvest then. I'm also too lazy sometimes. Well, I am still making a psychological transition...

We got a lot of rain barrels last fall, so I'm excited (Why do I keep saying "excited"? I'm really NOT that excited! Curious maybe.) to see how they work and how much water we get from them. We seem to have a sort of drought in Ohio in August and the plants are not so happy about it. I don't want to have to spend so much money on water to keep all the beautiful plants alive, so I'm really excited (there I go again -what is with me?) to see how the rain barrels are going to help.

We are going to have a base map made of our property. It will measure and label all the areas of the yard, the trees, bushes, current garden spaces, buildings, etc. We will be able to use this for planning our edible forest garden. So, maybe that's why I'm a bit stuck - I want to get the base map made and then really do some planning instead of just jumping in and creating a lot of back breaking work for myself.

In the meantime, I'm on spring break and am looking forward to digging in the earth this week.

The other thing that's really on my mind is that I just got my hair cut and I am now in the, "Oh, my God, what have I done?" stage. Funny how our experience with our hair largely determines our mood for the day - or week, or month. I don't really like that, but it's true. So, wish me a good hair day tomorrow and maybe I'll get out and garden...