Learning about Food Preservation

We are on a journey of finding a new way of eating, a way that is healthier not only for us, but for the local economy, our neighbors, and the planet. I just finished this book, it has provided me with a whole new sense of importance about this journey and a whole new set of tools for how to live in a more sustainable, healthy way. It was a really great read and I will be checking out her other books next.



and here's a poem I came across tonight that I thought was a sweet summary of what's so wonderful about preserving food:

When I go to see my grandma I gain a lot of weight

With her dear hands she gives me plate after plate.

She cans the pickles, sweet & dill

She cans the songs of the whippoorwill

And the morning dew and the evening moon

‘N’ I really got to go see her pretty soon

‘Cause these canned goods I buy at the store

Ain’t got the summer in them anymore.

-Greg Brown, Canned Goods

Radical Homemaker: Reclaiming Domesticity From a Consumer Culture

I can't do this book and the subject matter any justice by trying to explain it to you, you just have to read it!

Midtown Garden Clean Up Day

No more snow!! It's spring!

Wanna see the Midtown garden and lend a hand to clean up and get ready for planting? Come out this weekend!

Date:	Saturday, March 27, 2010
Time:	10:00am - 2:00pm
Location:	61 Holland St. NE Grand Rapids

You don't have to stay the whole time, just come when you can.

To make sure your in the know, we're on Facebook! Become a fan!

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Midtown Community Garden

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Seed Starting party!

It's Spring!! (I know, I heard it's still going to snow, I don't care!)

Click on the pic to see the event on Facebook.

Come celebrate with us! Saturday, we are going to start some seeds for the Midtown Community Garden, but you are welcome to come out and get your hands dirty with us! We are going to do some indoor seed starting and some winter sowing. Bring some milk jugs or other plastic containers and seeds if you've got them, we've got dirt and some seeds to share. You don't have to be a Midtown neighborhood resident or commit to working in the garden. If your excited about spring and gardening, even if you've never done it before, come on over and let's get our hands dirty together! If you want to help us start the plants for the garden that's great, or if you want to take some starts home, that's fine too. We'll be working inside, so don't worry about the weather report!

We went out to the farm last night for the first time and saw all the brand new baby sheep! I love spring! There are something like 17 baby lambs so far this spring, 7 lambs born yesterday alone!

This is Percy! Her momma isn't doing a very good job at nursing her so we fed her a bottle. She is soooo sweet! Her name is short for persistent, because in spite of her mom's (sheep are not very smart) head butts she doesn't give up trying to nurse.

Remember Pìo?She's big now!!

HAPPY SPRING!

The Midtown Community Garden

Rich and I are getting more involved with our new neighborhood and have decided to take on organizing the Midtown Community Garden along with Amy this season! If you live in the Midtown Neighborhood, we have a great neighborhood association, and there's lots going on!

We've created a Facebook group for the garden. Become a fan to find out about upcoming events and see us grow!

The first order of business is cleaning up the site. March 27th is the day! Time and Directions to follow. Come on out, pitch in and see what's going on.

Other upcoming neighborhood events:

April 24: Fulton Street Farmers Market Clean Up

May 15: Perennial Plant Exchange at the Midtown Green

Happy Spring!

Urban Chickens

I think one of the biggest things we learned out on the farm is how easy it is to raise chickens and how much we love fresh eggs! The girls favorite job on the farm was collecting the eggs.


We had two of the older laying hens living in our yard out at the farm. We named them Beauty (the black one) and Mops (the brown chicken). They were great pets and they put up with a lot of abuse from our kids!

Being back in the city is an adjustment and one of the hardest things is the feeling of loss of control over our food sources. I will never get used to buying my eggs in the grocery store. I plan to go back to urban gardening in the spring and I have been sprouting in the kitchen, but I am hoping that by springtime we will have the ability to have some laying hens in the yard here in downtown Grand Rapids. Having land to farm is wonderful, but even after living on 32 acres, I am amazed at how much food can be produced in a very small yard and I really believe it is possible to raise much of your own food even in the city. We have quite a few neighbors practicing Urban Homesteading and raising much of their own food. There is a movement building momentum right now working to change the city ordinance which prohibits keeping chickens in the city.

If there is anyone in the Grand Rapids area that is interested in getting involved in the recently formed Urban Chicken Movement, please consider joining us at the Eastown Neighborhood Association this Wednesday Novemeber 11, 2009 at 7:00pm.

We are all very hopeful the ordinance will be changed soon. There is quite an interest in this topic. We also have a facebook group Urban Laying Hens...Chickens for Grand Rapids.

Here are a few reasons I believe Hens can live in the city:

1. They don't need much room, there are some great chicken tractor designs that you just move around your yard every few days to keep the chickens on fresh grass and they will mow your lawn for free.
2. Seven laying hens produce as much waste as one average sized dog, but unlike dog waste, chicken waste produces great compost material and fertilizer for your garden.
3. They don't make much noise, you don't need a rooster.
4. They are beautiful and living things are wonderful to have around.
5. Chickens provide pest control in your garden, eating harmful bugs and slugs.
6. The eggs they produce are much healthier and more nutritious than those you buy in the store.

and here is my favorite reason to have chickens in the yard:

7. They eat up all your kitchen scraps!

Here are Beauty and Mops enjoying leftover stale cake! Okay so maybe that's not the best thing to feed them...

sewing for me!

I apologize for the lack of posting lately. Things have been so crazy and our family has really had a hard time getting into the swing of things in the new year. We seem to have contracted every virus on the planet in the last few months. Lily has been struggling with her school routine, especially riding the bus and the Baby has been worse than ever about sleeping at night. She is doing better now, and I think that it is due to the fact that I have weaned her totally. She seemed to have entered a new developmental stage lately and it just kind of worked out. She will be 18 months old this month, can you believe it? I can't!

I promised myself as I was sewing night and day before Christmas that I would make some things for myself in the new year. I have been living up to that promise this week so I thought I would share a couple things. Sorry the photos are not the best, I was in a hurry and I couldn't figure out any other way to photograph my skirt with me in it except to use the photobooth on my computer.

I made myself a new purse last weekend:

and I finished a new wrap skirt today:

So stayed tuned to hear more about our gluten free cooking, sewing, the toy swap, those crazy kids of course and most exciting, the spring growing plans!!! Anyone else out there planning a garden?? What are you growing? Interested in sharing seeds and planting together??

Our Garden- fall update

It's been a long time since my post about the Garden this spring, I can't beleive how summer flew by! I wanted to share how the garden did this season. We ate well out of the garden most of the summer and right now we have cucumbers and tomatoes coming out our ears. If you'd like some, please drop by and pick yourself a few!

I did not have nearly the time I had hoped to maintain the garden this year, so it is incredibly overgrown, but the produce seems to have faired well.


This organic Roman Candle Tomato plant did extreemely well and produced far more yellow tomatoes than we knew what to do with. We made a huge batch of salsa for Daisy's birthday party, it was yummy! We had green pepper and jalapenos from the garden too!

Here's the salsa recipe, per Kathy's request :), but it's really all to taste, so make it how you like it:

-64 ounces (canned diced) tomatoes or however many you can pick from the garden
-1 green pepper
-1 jalapeno (or more if you like it spicy)
-3 carrots
-1 tbsp salt
-1 tbsp lemon juice
-1/2 bunch of cilantro (we like cilantro!)
- 1/2 of a big white onion

Dice up the tomatoes and place them in a bowl. Then dice the rest of the ingredients in a food processor or blender (hint: do the green stuff together last and separate from the rest so it doesn't turn the whole batch green) and then mix it all together!

I plant lots of Marigolds in the garden every year, they are my favorite flower for some reason. They are supposed to keep the pests away. I don't know if it works, but it makes the garden look real pretty! Having a garden in the yard brings me so much joy. I love looking at it and I love that the kids get to see where food comes from. I have come to feel that gardening is a very spiritual act and brings us so much closer to an understanding of creation and how we are tied directly to it.

I really need to make some pickles this week, before all of the cucumbers go soft. I am going to send some to Rosie's preschool class for a snack next week, but we will still have tons left. For some reason they are the thing that does the best in my garden every year. I made lots of tomato cucumber salad with fresh basil this year. Just mix up some sliced tomato cucumber and fresh basil with a little olive oil and salt and pepper...So goood!

One day when we were especially broke and commited to not spending any money, Rich said, "I wish that we had potatos." I rememered that we did have potatos (it was that weekend you know when it rained and rained and rained) but that they were in the dirt out side, so I went outside to harvest them. Yup in the rain. It was a moment I will never forget.

This is the rest of what I harvested that day in the rain:

If you've never tried them, you should totally try some FRIED GREEN TOMATOES!!! They are kind of an aquired taste I think. The first bite was really weird and I didn't think I liked it. Rich had the same reaction, but after eating a little more we both decided they were pretty good. The next time I made them, we liked them more than the first time.

So here's how you do it:
- Just slice the tomatoes about 1/4 of an inch thick and coat them in corn meal or fish fry mix.
-Shake on a little salt and pepper.
-fry them in oil till they are golden brown.
Enjoy! Yum!

So as the season is drawing to a close I am preparing to work on ammending my soil a bit and then to hunker down for that cold time of year and plan my garden for next year. If you've never done it before, you should think about it. Right now is the time to pick a spot and get your soil ready for spring! Here's a few books that I would recomend:

FREE Fun event this Thursday night

This is put on by an organization that I volunteer with. We are working to provide education and create change in urban Grand Rapids around environmental justice issues such as lead, radon, carbon monoxide, and food availability.

This is a FREE event and there will be fun stuff for the kids to do and even FREE food! Check it out! I wish I could go, but I will be at PAPA Fest! We are leaving Thursday morning and we won't be back till Sunday.

The Garden

I spent the entire weekend working in the yard and my garden. I can't believe how much I accomplished. Rich was gone fishing all weekend, so I put my supermom powers to work and wah-lah the garden is all planted! No, it wasn't really that easy. I am so tired and my mucsles are aching! I think Daisy, who is no longer content to be confined now that she can crawl, ingested some dirt, grass and probably even a few bugs. Lily and Rosie almost killed each other fighting over Rosie's pet worm...But the beds are built and the garden is planted. We are all looking forward to a summer full of fresh homegrown tomatoes!



Lily and Rosie were actually big helpers some of the time. Rosie helped me shovel compost and dirt into the containers that we planted our petunias and marigolds in. Lily "the workhorse" hauled the sled full of compost (we don't have a wheel barrel) to the garden. Yes, she did makes horse noises the whole time. Daisy took pretty decent naps so I could get alot done, and for an hour or so after she woke up she was pretty happy to sit in the stroller and watch the action. I also owe Rich a big thanks even though he wasn't home to pitch in. He has been the one doing the composting and I was very excited when I dug into the pile and found some beautiful dirt! I am sure our plants will love growing in it. Lots of nutrients!





Towords the end of winter we had painted some garden signs together with Amy and her kids. It was a fun family thing and I think they look really cute, the perfect finishing touch. The pink flowers in the bottom of this photo are wild strawberries. This is their third season, so I am hoping we can get some of the fruit before the squirels. The dirty rats have a sneaky way of getting some of our best produce but they better be on the lookout this year, Rich bought pellets for his gun!








Here is a shot from the end of the day today when all our hard work was finally finished. We planted tomatoes, carrots, lots of herbs, lettuce, potatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers, in addition to the beans, lettuce, spinach and peas that we had started earlier. The section in the front with the wood paths is what I had from last year and everything beyond that where the stepping stones are is the new area. I got rid of some more grass (FOOD NOT LAWNS!!!) by using the lasagna method of layering newspaper, leaves, compost and dirt. At the very front is my new Lilac bush the girls and Rich got me for mothers day.






I will leave you with a few more pictures and soon I'll be inviting you over to eat some fried green tomatoes!