The Backyard

The Backyard

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Locally Made Spirits




Pennsylvania is blessed with local producers of all kinds - meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables, wine, and even potato vodka made with PA potatoes. A friend of mine introduced me to another unique and locally produced product -- ROOT. From the producers website, its the original root beer -- what root beer used to be before they took out the alcohol. I can't wait to try it 'cause as a kid, my aboslute favorite drink in the world was a root beer float. And yes, it's made completely from organic products. Be warned though --its $40 bucks a bottle. It's a fairly new product and not widely available, but spread the word and it will be!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Kale Sprouts! In February

About two weeks ago, we had a nice 50-degree day and I was messing around with my makeshift greenhouse and thought I'd throw a couple kale seeds in there to see what would happen. Today, I cleared off the snow and pulled up a window to see what was going on and low and behold, there were kale sprouts! I was shocked. They got a good drink and I'll just bet I'll be eating kale in about a month. Kale loves cold weather. The temp under the storm windows on a sunny day is about 50 -- perfect growing temps for kale. Fun stuff.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Sustainable Farming vs Agribusiness

Rodale recently issued an interesting article on the U.S. Farm Bureau Declaring War on Sustainable Farming calling advocates for sustainable farms "extremists." You gotta click on the link and read the article. Rodale makes excellent points and of course encourage you to continue shopping organic and local.