It's Easy Being Green

Here at the Half-Acre Homestead we take a lot of time to watch what we eat. Organic products get the green light to jump into our shopping cart at the store but we’re very mindful of everything else, especially foods that contain Genetically Engineered or “Modified” ingredients (often labeled as “GE” or “GM”).

Based on our research, we firmly believe GM or GE foods are not only a danger to our health but also to our ecosystem. The contamination issues alone are worrisome as genetically modified strains of plants begin interacting with the natural environment and with non-GM varieties. I don’t eat food with pesticides applied to it so why on earth would I want to eat food that creates its own pesticide inside the very plant I’m consuming? It’s abhorrent to think about. Add to that the track record of big agribusinesses who tinker with nature for their own profitability (like Monsanto) and you begin to see the big picture.

Here is a funny little video out right now encouraging consumers to contact the FDA and let them know you’d like your food to be labeled properly, alerting you if you’re buying something with GE or GM ingredients. I have no problem believing a majority of consumers will just continue down their blind pathway, buying a cart full of crap-tastic food and not thinking about the future consequences. I however would like to know what is going into my family’s body and would hope you do too.

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In case you missed it, NPR’s Science Friday with Ira Flatow had a great little teaser this past week about their latest SciFri video. Flora Lichtman recently paid a visit to a geodesic dome home built in “Long Guy Land”, New York. The piece is fantastic and gives a tiny glimpse into a life less dependent on the man or the machine.

I won’t give too much away but I have to give props to former NYC firefighter Kevin Shea for taking an arm-chair idea and running with it. I find it especially funny that his neighbors just don’t get it and actually detest the idea. You can be sure though they would be the first ones knocking on Shea’s looking for refuge or help. Special thanks to the crew at Science Friday for bringing this story to light! Watch the video below and then share your thoughts. Would you live in a geo-dome? Do you have an unconventional home that is easy on the environment and your pocketbook?

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We’re getting a crisp taste of fall here at the Half-Acre Homestead. We swung from the century mark down to about 60-degrees and all within a few hours this past weekend. We’re now donning light jackets to sneak out and take our evening stroll through the garden and I definitely am having to zip up when I go out and make the nightly rounds with our crazy menagerie of animals outside.

Despite feeling extremely sick to her stomach for reasons we'd later understand, my Homestead Hottie climbed right in to apple picking.

Looking for a break from the daily routine with our toddler and newborn, Homestead Hottie and I decided we wanted to get out and enjoy one of the fall activities we’ve come to really enjoy: picking apples. The first year we moved here we went to a u-pick apple orchard located in the middle of town. It was the staple of many family traditions in the area. We pulled up into the dusty parking pad to find three children and a horse hanging out in a small plywood shelter. After paying our money we were handed our two picking bags and off we went.

At some point during this excursion, walking up and down row upon row of this apple orchard, we came to the conclusion Homestead Hottie was pregnant with our first Darling Daughter. She looked greener and greener around the gills with each passing moment and at one point thought she was going to pass out. Needless to say, this apple picking excursion was the beginning of our realization we were headed down the path to parenthood. Memories were made and so was a lot of applesauce.

Instead of climbing, I took aim at the tops of the apple trees with one very handing wooden stick and would catch my results as they fell.

Fast forward three years and we’ve been super stoked to see our friend Joe Engelbrecht working on getting his fourth generation orchard up and running. While we couldn’t u-pick at his orchard last year, we bought plenty and plenty of apples from his farm store and turned them into preserved apple slices and several canning jars full of apple butter. In my opinion, they are some quintessential treats of fall.

This year, Joe’s u-pick orchard is up and running and we didn’t hesitate to jump in the first weekend we could. We know the longer you wait in the season to pick, the harder it is to find some good quality fruit so we didn’t want to drag our feet. After purchasing our picking bags at Joe’s store (he was charging $1 per pound and you got to decide between 5 or 10 pound bags), we were given directions on how to access the gravel trail meandering through adjacent corn fields and to the orchard laid out nicely on the slope above the store.

Pulling up to the rustic red barn marking the entrance to the orchard, you could begin reading the signs marking each row of apple trees. Much to Homestead Hottie’s excitement were a row or two of Jonagold apples. These are her favorite “everyday” eating apples and a variety our family chiropractor turned us onto when he discovered Talina didn’t like the texture or taste of most apples.

The orchard was overloaded with apples when we paid a visit with plenty still in our Darling Daughter's reach.

We quickly filled up a 5-pound bag of Jonagold apples after walking just one or two trees deep down the row. I wanted to get a mixed bag of a few of the other varieties Joe has to offer including Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Braeburn. These three varieties aren’t quite at their peak of ripeness yet but I’m sure several days on the counter will help them get there.

Everly had a blast sprinting from tree to tree and gazing at the trees, overloaded with one of her favorite fruits to snack on. She even had a few apples that were within her short reach that she was able to pick and this made her quite proud. In fact, one of those apples didn’t even make it into the bag but instead landed firmly in her mouth. It was her picking fuel and the ultimate test of the quality of Joe’s apple crop. Everly definitely approved because aside from a shared bite or two, she downed that thing. Baby Adalyn slept the entire time we off-roaded her stroller up and down the orchard rows so she must have been enjoying herself too.

If you’re looking for a fun family activity to do one of these fall weekends, I would definitely recommend heading to Joe Engelbrecth’s Fourth Generation Orchard to pick some fresh apples. Not only are you supporting a local farmer by doing so, you’re supporting a unique local business. Joe and his wife are carving a very unique niche for themselves in the Evansville area and hopefully will find further prosperity here in the future. Happy picking!

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This has certainly been a challenging gardening year, at least for us here at the Half-Acre Homestead. Not only do we have significantly less time to work in the garden (due to the impending arrival of baby girl #2 in the next few weeks) but the weather has just been a bear this year.

All varities of squash have set nicely this year but so far nothing has matured. Every plant has been attacked by squash vine borers and died.

We had an early tease of a warmup early this spring but then the weather turned cold and downright nasty. Cool, rainy weather stuck with us through the end of June but that now infamous 2011 Heat Bubble has built up and doesn’t seem to be looking to leave anytime soon.  Our garden plants were slow to start and are now battling high-heat and humidity.

As a result, this past week marked the arrival of the first ripe tomato. It’s happened significantly later this year than last. Our spring planted squash plants (pumpkins, zucchini, yellow squash) are all dead now, thanks to an outbreak of squash vine borers. The wasp-like insect lays its eggs on squash seedlings. The grub-like infants grow in the stem of the squash plant, boring out the inside of the steams as they eat. Eventually the plant can’t exchange water or nutrients and withers. We’re hoping a second planting will start producing in enough time to save our squash season.

Our popcorn patch has wasted no time shooting up toward the sky and looks to be producing quite a few ears of future popping goodness. Eggplants have also been extremely slow this year both growing and with fruiting. Etna bush beans (used for drying) have been doing very well and produce abundantly. Our pole beans on the other hand have yet to set pods even though they’re covered top to bottom in blooms.

Hopefully things will eventually catch up but if they do, we’ll probably already be gone to The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee to welcome our newest member of the family into the world. How does your garden grow this year?

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Is it truly possible that a tide of change is surging in to the fattest city in the nation? I think it might just be possible with the addition of local farm markets, a new Fresh Market boutique grocery and one of the most shocking signs of change I’ve seen yet: a vending machine with healthier snack options.

A new, healthier vending machine located at Eastland Mall

This new Fresh! vending machine is located in the eastern entrance portal to Eastland Mall, right next to the Old Navy store. It also happens to be placed right next to the new electric train that will drive you and your kids around for a pretty penny, talk about a captive audience! However, the fact that this machine contains some healthy options such as Cliff Bars for Kids, fruit juice pouches, fruit snacks and Stacys Pita Chips makes this granola dad happy.

Sure, I know what you purists are saying: this isn’t good enough and its still processed food and what about those Kettle brand potato chips! What I have to say in response to that is this is a good solid move and I hope to see more trends in this direction here in Evansville. Only then will we begin the road to recovery as the fattest city in the United States…that and eliminating the McDonalds or other fast food outlet on every corner

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*NOTE – I did not receive any products or services for this blog post*

No question about it, my excitement was far more noticeable as Homestead Hottie opened up a gift box mailed to her. Packed inside, nearly a half-dozen bottles of Martha Stewart’s clean products, everything from glass cleaner, toilet bowl scrub, laundry detergent and dish detergent.

Martha claims her product line if “effective, responsible and safe” with most being 99% plant and mineral based cleaning products. All ingredients in the cleaning products are said to be biodegradable with no artificial ingredients. Even the bottles are fully recyclable. These are all great features and just the type of products we’re always on the lookout to use here at the Half-Acre Homestead.

Using this batch of green cleaning products left me thinking Martha should stick to other things, mainly baking that 12 hour cake or hot gluing the most fantabulous wedding decorations you’ve ever seen this side of the Mississippi. If fact, I found her green cleaning products less than effective at their labeled task.

I like the pump spout on this bottle of laundry detergent but that was about the only thing I liked.

Martha Stewart’s clean Laundry Detergent smelled pleasant enough and had a thick, detergent like cream to it. We used the whole bottle of detergent and as long as your clothes weren’t soiled, they came out smelling and looking clean. Light to moderately soiled clothes often came out with stains and dirt still in place. Heavily soiled clothes didn’t stand a chance of coming clean with Martha’s detergent. Any level of soiling required the clothes be washed with our homemade natural laundry detergent.

Steer clear of Martha's Dish Detergent if you're looking for clean dishes.

Much of the same is to be said for the Martha Stewart clean Dishwasher Detergent. This detergent is fragrance free but I noticed right off the bat that it is extremely runny. While most liquid dish detergents are gels, Martha’s is watery and not very viscous at all. We used most of this bottle and found each and every wash with the detergent to leave our dishes covered in a scummy film. Dried or baked on food debris was never removed by the Martha Stewart clean Dishwasher Detergent and most truly dirty dishes had to be washed by hand following a run through the dishwasher. The results were so bad I quit using the detergent and it has since taken me several washes and hard hand-scrubbing to remove the film that Martha Stewart’s detergent left coating my dishes.

Martha's All-Purpose Cleaner has been effective in quickly cleaning lightly soiled areas of the house.

I have used the other cleaning products off and on, mainly just for convenience factors so I don’t have to sprint to another area of the Half-Acre Homestead when I need to clean. For the most part I’ve found the Toilet Bowl cleaner and the All-Purpose cleaner to be pleasant smelling and effective at cleaning. The Carpet Stain Remover had a “spotty” track record on our carpets, cleaning half of the stains with a bleaching effect noticeable while the other half of the stains were left untouched.

As for now, we will continue buying green cleaning supplies from the likes of Seventh Generation and Dr. Bronner’s. The rest of the cleaners we will make on our own. It was wonderful to receive a box full of green cleaners as a gift but I would recommend not buying them for lack of effectiveness.

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The weather here in southwest Indiana has been flip-flopping faster than a group of politicians lately. May proved to be a tough one to get the garden off to a good start before the heat of summer set in and parched everything. We struggled the first half of the month with copious amounts of rain, day in and day out. The raised beds proved their worth in being able to shed the excess water and keep winter vegetables from turning into a bog.

Cooler temperatures (we’re talking 50’s some days) definitely put a cap on growth rates though and stunted warm weather crops that should normally be out around that time. Several tomato transplants just couldn’t get the early sunshine and warmth necessary for them to establish and they ended up withering away. Once two weeks of severe rain moved out, we quickly ping-ponged into the mid 90’s with full sunshine. This extreme temperature swing stressed even more transplants and left local gardeners and farmers wondering what season mother nature was going to stick with for awhile.

It looks like the heat has ended for the time being, taking us back down into the upper 70’s and low 80’s. Another stormy and wet pattern is setting up for the rest of the week. Established plants took advantage of the sun and heat though, putting on a flush of growth that caught them up nicely.

Calico Popcorn begins to stretch toward the sky while a volunteer pumpkin begins to ramble about in front of the popcorn patch.

Our patch of Calico Popcorn out near the duck pond already reaches my knee and almost swallows up our Darling Daughter when she walks in the rows. The tomato plants are also doing great, shooting up a foot or more in the past several days. We’ve even started to have some blossoms open within the last couple of days so hopefully by the 4th of July we will pick our first homegrown tomato. Potato sprouts are shooting up but who knows what they’re doing beneath the soil’s surface.

Our two black and white cats poke through the new garden space checking out the tomato patch and the potatoes in the lower right.

Cosmo Savoy Lettuce has been a big producer in the cool temperatures and only recently has started to bolt. It’s produced many dinner salads for us and by far has been the most successful lettuce growing we’ve ever done. Purple Globe Turnips have also done well this year and provided a continuous harvest. Our grapes are off to the races too. They are quickly climbing up the arbor over our garden gate and are stretching down each side of the garden fence without abandon. We even have some clusters of grapes growing and can’t wait to taste them when they’re finally ready to eat.

The grapes have started furiously crawling across the tiny arbor over our garden gate.

This is the first year we've had clusters of grapes growing and we can't wait to try one!

We’re planting more fruits and veggies every day to keep a continuous harvest cycle going this year. We can’t wait for those summer staples like tomatoes, zucchini and yellow squash to start producing. How does your garden grow? What has done great so far and what has been a disappointment?

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