It's Easy Being Green

Imagine the joy of this past Saturday.  The sun was shining.  The sky was a vibrant blue.  Birds were chirping.  It warmed up to a positively balmy 50 degrees.  The snow had completely disappeared.  Now imagine today’s disappointment when I awoke to see another dusting of snow outside!

Mentally, we are definitely done with Winter.  I’m not sure what has all the sudden pushed us past the tipping point here in our household.  Maybe it’s the cabin fever talking but regardless of the reason, we want to see an end to our current season.

My "pile" of seed catalogs. It's one of my many piles that endlessly frustrates my poor wifey.

I’ve been trying to make myself feel better by burying myself with a pile of colorful and always enticing seed catalogs.  It makes me not only feel better but provides a little glimmer of hope that I will one day be back outside, enjoying the warmth and sunshine while laboring or simply enjoying our garden.

As you probably remember from previous posts, I’ve been toiling with my vegetable gardening “method” for the year.  Historically, our little family of three has moved just about every year, going from one rental to the next.  That won’t happen this year since we’ve actually solidified our existence and purchased a house.  Now we can put down some more permanent roots in our garden as well.

Last Fall, I took some time and read Lasagna Gardening.  I’ve known for awhile that no-till gardens are much more environmentally friendly and figured Patricia Lanza’s book might be enough to spur me in the no-till direction when planning our permanent veggie garden.  About halfway through her book though, I was frustrated.  What I needed to know, the way to lasagna garden, was literally two paragraphs worth of material in the beginning of the book.  Lay down a thick layer of newspaper to smother weeds and grass and then simply pile up loose, friable, organically supreme soil for your garden beds was the basic gist.  I’m glad I only checked the book out at the library and didn’t waste the money buying her book.  It was perfect for a beginning gardener who might be discovering this new found hobby but not for me.

I felt like I didn’t have many other options though and tried to mentally design how this lasagna garden would look in my backyard.  Our yard is already small and so I was really only looking to expand my vegetable space to about 19 feet by 12 feet, a little more than 200 square feet.  I started looking for cast-offs from everyone’s front yard, Fall decorations: straw bales.  Lanza’s soil mix suggests straw as a good component to help build your raised beds up above the original soil surface.  The idea is that the straw will compost with your other organics and produce a top-notch soil.

As Winter pushed deeper into the calendar, my straw bales sat untouched, well at least by me.  Dixie, our doofy but lovable dog, has been smart enough to use the straw bales as a warming perch this winter.  Every morning she sits with a yoga-like patience atop those bales, warms herself in the early morning sun and keeps watch for the mouser cat Haley to wander back from her early walk to eat breakfast.  The more Dixie sits, the more the straw bales break down making it easier to spread into future garden beds but frankly she seemed to be getting more use out of it as a makeshift sundeck.

Dixie sits atop her straw bale sundeck. It's a product of my procrastination and her keen, dog-like ingenuity. To the right you can see our composter, poorly visited bird feeder (which will be moved) and a torn up piece of trellis used to keep Dixie off of what was left of the collard greens.

Knowing my yearning to pick something, my wife gently nudged me in one direction with a little Valentine’s Day present.  It was Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening:  Grow More in Less Space.  His concept, ditching the inefficient practice of gardening in long single rows, made much more sense for our tiny backyard.  I haven’t blogged a bit lately, in part because I’ve spent the past seven days reading Bartholomew’s book from cover to cover and embarked on the design process of our own square foot garden.  Check back tomorrow for more on how I designed our 2010 vegetable garden and what I’ve been able to get done so far.  Hopefully it will trigger you to start planning your own and make the most of your garden space and your wallet!

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Agricultural conglomerate Monsanto is at it again with another big threat to organic agriculture and we all need to speak out against it.  The USDA is currently taking public comment on Monsanto’s request to approve Genetically Engineered (GE) alfalfa that will be Roundup ready.

This is similar to their Roundup ready soybeans currently on the market.  The GE seeds produced by Monsanto allow farmers to spray their crops with Roundup chemical herbicides, protecting the soybeans or alfalfa but killing everything else herbaceous, like weeds, growing around it.

The USDA itself predicts that by approving GE alfalfa, it would damage family farms and organic meat and dairy markets but doesn’t propose any way to protect them.  The main concern revolves around cross-contamination of organically grown non-GE alfalfa and the fact that organic foods can be sold without having to identify that the animals were fed GE livestock feed.

Public comment is open until February 16th, so time is ticking.  Head to the True Food Network to send a form letter to the USDA as part of the public comment record.  You can also submit a direct response at the regulations.gov website.  Our friends over at Organic Valley have also provided these talking points and suggestions for writing your own letter and mailing it over, which in some cases, seems to have more of an impact than an electronic statement.

By Mail: A written letter is very powerful. Mail your comments to:

Docket No. APHIS-2007-0044
Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8
4700 River Road Unit 118
Riverdale, MD 20737-1238

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Thanksgiving might be a week behind us but I’m still pretty pleased with our decision to go local this year.  Instead of elbowing the crowd at the freezer case at the local grocery store, we located a nearby farmer who raises natural and fresh turkeys for the Thanksgiving holiday.

This is something we’ve done before when we lived in northern Arizona.  Our tradition was short-lived however because the farm bowed out to developers and sold their acreage.  It was disappointing but just another real world example of how small local farmers are edged out of the market every day.  Last year we were new transplants to the Tri-State area and didn’t have much time to begin looking for a locally and naturally raised bird to feast on.

After a call to the River City Food Co-Op, they directed me to Uebelhack Farms located in Mt. Vernon, Indiana.  The family has been raising turkeys for the past 40 years and is not one of those factory farms that inhumanely and unnaturally treats the meat that will end up on our tables.  They took my order, asked if I wanted fresh or frozen and gave me a date to swing by the farmhouse and pick up my turkey.  It was a bit off the beaten path and more expensive than a frozen, store-bought turkey but it was well worth it.

We felt even better about our decision to buy locally sourced meat after watching an eye-opening documentary called Food, Inc. The documentary, co-produced by Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma), takes a look at how Americans consume meat that is fast, cheap and tasty (or at least that’s what we’re led to believe).  It follows meat from the breeding process in a lab, to the farm, to the slaughterhouse, to the store and eventually onto your table, showing you exactly what you’re eating.

I’ve always been a big proponent to eating locally sourced food but have found it both difficult and cost-prohibitive to find locally sourced meat.  I’ve been talking with another local farmer over at Stonewall Farms in Evansville, Indiana who sells shares of organic, pasture-fed beef, pork, lamb and goat.  After watching that documentary, I think we’re ready to make the leap in 2010 and support a local, organic meat producer.

For more information about Food, Inc. you can visit their website by clicking this link.

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As the nights get cooler and the days get shorter, apples that ripen in the Fall are finally ready to come off the tree.  We have several U-Pick apple orchards in the area and enjoy going to fill up a bag or two as we wander down the rows of apple trees.  Inevitably we come home with more than we can simply eat so naturally, we look for ways to preserve a piece of Fall.

Last year I dug out the apple slicer and corer.  It took about an hour or two to make my way through the entire harvest and get them ready for preserving.  We left several of the jars of apples plain and packed them in sugar water.  I used another batch of apples to make jars of apples packed in cinnamon red hot syrup.

Both have proven to be a winner and have their own special uses.  The regular apples I use for baked goods, pancakes or waffles and main dish recipes like Pork Chops with Apples.  The cinnamon red hot apples are good for desert toppings and breakfast treats like waffles.

Yearning to celebrate the changing of the seasons this weekend, I cooked up Baked Pork Chops with Apples and a side of Baked Sweet Dumpling Squash.  Both were delicious and I will put them in our seasonal recipe collection.  I’ll share those recipes later this week.  In the meantime, if you’re looking to can some apples, here are the two recipes I use.

Apples In Syrup

courtesy: Ball Complete Book of Preserving

Ingredients:

-  10 to 12 lbs. apples, stemmed, peeled, cored and quartered (to prevent browning submerge apple slices in 1/4 cup lemon juice and 4 cups water)

-  1 batch of hot syrup (I used a light syrup recipe because I wanted to preserve as much of the nautral apple flavor & sweetness as possible.  Make by combining 2 & 1/4 cups of granulated sugar in a large pot with 5 & 1/4 cups water.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved.  Reduce heat to low and keep warm until needed, making sure you don’t boil the mixture down)

Directions:

1)  Prepare canner, jars and lids.

2)  In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine apples and syrup.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Reduce heat to medium-low and boil gently for 5 minutes, until heated through.

3)  Using a slotted spoon, pack hot apples into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch of top of jar.  Ladle hot syrup into jar to cover apples, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbled and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot syrup.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

4)  Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process both pint and quart jars for 20 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

Apples in Cinnamon Red Hot Syrup

courtesy:  Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Ingredients to make 8 pint jars:

1 & 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup cinnamon red hot candies

2 cinnamon sticks

2 tsp. whole cloves

1 tsp. ground ginger

2 cups water

1 & 1/2 cups vinegar

2/3 cup light-corn syrup

2 tbsp. red food coloring (optional)

24 medium apples, peeled, cored, sliced and treated according to directions above

Directions:

1)  Prepare canner, jars and lids.

2)  In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine sugar, cinnamon candies, cinnamon sticks, cloves, giner, water, vinegar, corn syrup and red food coloring, if using.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently.  Add apples and stir gently over medium-high heat until apples are heated through, about 6 minutes.  Discard cinnamon sticks.  Turn heat off, but leave saucepan on heating element while filling jars.

3)  Using a slotted spoon, pack hot apples into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch of top of jar.  Ladle hot syrup into jar to cover apples, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot syrup.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

4)  Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 10 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

Now let the fruits of your labor cool for a couple of days and coming up later in the week, I’ll share the delicious recipe I used for Baked Pork Chops and Apples and Sweet Dumpling Squash.

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The so-called “Dog Days of Summer” are paying off in the veggie garden this week. My wife and I have spent quite a bit of time outside pulling weeds, smashing squash beetles, plucking Tomato Hornworms and giving our little 10×4 foot plot of wholesome paradise some good ‘ol TLC. Mother nature has been a big help too, squeezing some much needed rain out of a passing cloud or two at least once a week. That’s apparently a rarity out here in southwestern Indiana during August but who’s complaining? We’ll gladly take the free water!

Our collander is brimming with Friday's tomato harvest, sporting a fresh batch of roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and slicing tomatoes.

On Friday I had to make a mad dash through my tomato patch to harvest what was ripe before the plants sucked up all the rain water. I’ve been having a big problem with tomatoes expanding way too quickly with all the rain and then splitting just as they ripen. Since I’ve been picking preemptively, they’ve been faring much better though. Our roma tomatoes are producing a bumper crop of pear-shaped goodness that will be perfect with pasta. The cherry tomatoes haven’t let up either, gifting us with a fresh flush of fruit every couple of days.

On Saturday our baby was fast asleep for an afternoon nap so we decided to hit the garden again and do some cleanup. Squash beetles totally annihilated both of our zucchini plants. They bore into the stems of the plants and kill their ability to suck up water. They eventually get the wilt disease and die. I would normally be sad about it but those two plants each produced about ten pounds or more a piece of fresh summer squash.

A weekend bounty of fresh vegetables for the picking. Clockwise from top left: Handfuls of cherry and roma tomatoes, lemon cucumber, bell peppers and an Orange Oxheart heirloom tomato.

While we were out there dealing with the squash beetles we harvested another basket full of produce. Saturday’s take included more roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, bell peppers and an Orange Oxheart heirloom tomato. All have really taken off and produced wonderfully in southwestern Indiana. We can’t wait to enjoy the fresh tastes of each of them.

My failures were definitely sweet corn, yellow squash, pickling cucumbers and pumpkins. I’ve been struggling with powdery mildew spreading from one cucumber vine to the next and then it spread onto my pumpkins. Both are still putting on fresh leaves and trying to set fruit but the mildew just marches on. My sweet corn growth was very stunted and produced some very tiny ears of corn, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. I didn’t follow proper planting recommendations by planting at least four rows so that was probably the cause there. Yellow squash were attacked by squash beetles early on and never really had a chance.

We still have another three months to go before the first average fall frost so I think our harvest days are far from over. I’m also going to try my hands at growing some fall vegetables this year and am getting ready to tackle that project this week.

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My two zuchinni plants have grown to encompass probably about four square feet of garden space a piece now and are popping out some whoppers!  The zuchinni plants really seem to suck up all the rain water they get which in turn produces some that look like they’re vying for world domination.

This week's harvest from the backyard zuchinni plants

This picture shows this week’s total take.  We’ve been eating a lot zuchinni and are skulking around for some more recipes.  Usually we just saute it up with some butter, herbs and wine and eat as a side dish.  I know I’ve seen recipes for stuffed zuchinni that looked pretty good so I guess I need to go track that down again.

Do you have any great zuchinni recipes?  What do you currently have a bumper crop of in your garden?

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This Memorial Day of course marks the beginning of Summer and what better way to celebrate the season than to fire up your grill, right?  Well for me anyway, it’s my preferred method of cooking when it heats up.

Grilling has it’s benefits, especially when it comes to trying to keep your home cool during the Summer months.  By cooking outside, you’ll reduce the heat output of your kitchen which of course will make your air conditioner run harder trying to keep you comfortable.  It will keep your cooling bill lower and easier on your pocketbook.

While grilling over propane is the cleanest burning way to cook up some food on the “barbie”, I’m a charcoal purist.  I like the tast charcoal provides that I just can’t get on a gas grill.  I used to exclusively use charcoal briquettes until I ran across a produce that I think is a little more natural: lump charcoal.

You may have noticed lump charcoal is popping up in more and more stores.  My local Schnuck’s recently introduced their house brand of lump charcoal called “Full Circle” and bill it as a natural product.  Most lump charcoal is pure, unadulterated wood scraps that are fired at high temperatures to develop the char.  That’s it!  Nothing else is added.  Lump charcoal burns cleaner than briquettes and hotter.  Sometimes it can be more expensive than briquettes and not burn as uniformly or long.

Charcoal briquettes however are a different story.  They’re made from charred wood as well but are pulverized and compressed with saw dust, borax, starch, sodium nitrate and limestone.  For more on what each of those fillers do, click here.  If you begin grilling before the briquettes are ashy, it’s possible they can release a chemical type flavor into your food.  The added chemicals, while claimed to be unharmful, are enough to drive me to use just natural lump charcoal.

So what if you currently have a charcoal grill and you’d like to reduce your emissions by grilling with a cleaner fuel?  You might just run out and buy a brand new gas grill but that of course is wasteful thinking.  I just ran across an interesting new product on the net that could be the way to convert your old charcoal grill, to a lean, green grilling machine.

The Flame Disk is billed as a "clean burning" fuel to use in your charcoal grill.

The manufacturer says the product is made from 100% ethanol, a renewable biofuel made from corn.  They also claim that the emissions include a small percentage of carbon dioxide (less than charcoal) but is mostly made up of water.  Plus they say it’s as easy as peel, light and grill.  This seems like a great idea to me and would be willing to try it out sometime, especially on a camping trip when fumbling with a bag of charcoal and lighter fluid might be a total pain.

What’s your view on grilling?  How do you make your experience more eco-friendly?  Share your comments with our other readers!

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