Fall Garden Planning -- Yes It's Time to think About it!

We're barely into the growing season and already busy, busy, busy with harvesting/cooking/dehydrating/freezing/storing our bounty, but its time to start thinking about what to grow for the fall. Every year since I've been gardening, I looked forward to fall and the first frost as a time to finally take it easy and slow down -- take a break from a long, hard-working summer and relax a little. This year? It ain't happening! For many years, I've read about gardening into the fall and winter and I've even purchased the Four-Season Harvest many years ago and never put it to use, although I think about it and read about it every year. This year, I'm doing it! Sharon Astyk, author of Abundance and Depletion, is holding an on-line class for Fall Gardening and I signed up (I think she has some spot remaining if you are interested). That started the ball rolling and in one week, I bought Eliot Coleman's latest book, Winter Harvest Handbook, have been perusing Eliot's website for ideas for fall and winter growing (worth the visit, by the way, they grow vegetables YEAR-ROUND in Maine! Incredible), and placed an order for fall/winter seeds/plants. I plan to have leeks, several kinds of greens, beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, turnips and maybe some asian greens and broccoli into winter. The cool part about the Fall Garden class is it is real-time and she'll have us starting seeds some weeks, prepping a bed another week, maybe working on the fall/winter cold frames or greenhouses, etc. Boy I'd love a greenhouse -- an Eliot Coleman movable greenhouse would be awesome, wouldn't it!? I've been wanting a greenhouse for 17 years. Maybe this will be the year I finally invest in one. I told hubby it would make a wonderful 50th birthday present! :)

The Garden - June 16, 2009

It was mentioned before but is SO worth repeating -- I have the best boss in the world. She was ok with me staying home today to work in the garden and boy oh boy did I work -- a solid 10 hours straight. I was feeling overwhelmed and needed an entire day dedicated to anything and everything in the garden; weeding, staking tomatoes, transplanting some volunteer cantaloupe, seeding greens, compost turning, feeding the plants compost, composting spent and rotted turnips, harvesting peas, freezing peas, and picking some broccoli, romaine lettuce and peas for my mom. My dear mother came and helped today too -- she pulled some weeds. She's awesome. So here are the latest pics:

Hubby - the Caged Chicken Eater

When your beliefs, opinions, and practices day in and day out, are part of a marriage, sometimes (and ONLY sometimes), the couple become one -- you have the same thoughts, ideas, and activities. After 20 years of blissful togetherness, hubby and I do in fact have many likenesses -- but not when it comes to food and prices of organic food. I love my hubby dearly and for the most part, we do the same things, but he continues to buy "cheap" chicken. There, I said it. I can't hide it any more and I'm sort of embarrassed with my preaching about saving the caged birds from a life of misery. One half of our union doesn't care too much about the environment, nor the bird itself. Last week, I brought home some beautiful organic, free range chicken breasts mainly for him, but I was thinking about eating some of it myself (I haven't eaten chicken in probably about two years and this is the first time I found semi-affordable organic/free range/local birds). And what's worse, being the good wife I sometimes am, I bagged up and froze the meat this morning for him - which is what prompted this post. It really hurt putting those birds in a bag. Visions of beakless cacklers crammed in a too-small cages ran through my head. Then after that miserable short life (I think I read broilers are raised for 9 months which is a blessing after being injected with antiobiotics and not being able to move), they are literally thrown in crate and hauled off for slaughter in an industrial complex somewhere. Maybe in China. Or maybe in Oklahoma somewhere, then flown to China to be cut up and packaged, then shipped back to the states to land on the Giant shelves prepackaged for $1.79 a pound. Yes, its that $1.79 that is the driving force to hubby buying this chicken - as is the average American and why the organic movement can't break into the average buyer. I can't convince in him no how, no way, that organic chicken is worth the price. I found local, organic, free-range whole birds for $2.50/lb, but what did he do? He bought the packaged, high-cost-to-the-environment $1.79 meat. I really do love him, but this hurts -- and I don't think he minds too much. Geeeeezzzz. It's all a practice in tolerance and patience -- it's all a test!

The Imperfect Garden

Practicing organic methods in the garden takes T.I.M.E.... something most of us have very little of. Unless you have a postage stamp-sized garden, and not a whole lot of anything else going on, I'm sure you found out the hard-work way, there are simply some things that will not get done. As I sat in the garden this weekend, painstakingly pulling tiny purslane plants from the base of the sweet corn to prevent smothering of the corn (taking extra-special care not to disturb the tender corn babies) in preparation for their first feeding of compost, I thought about conventional gardening and farming. I live in farm country, and I often see the farmers spraying numerous times a season. It's so easy for them to mix it up, and pour it on. Chemicals truly make it much, much easier, but at a cost more valuable than gold. And as I hit the compost pile, turning, digging, pulling, tossing, and carrying finished goods back to the garden, I thought about how much harder it is, but SO much more healthy in more ways than one - the environment, sustainability and "recycling of materials (a.k.a. horse manure!), human health through the food we eat AND our own physical being. Organic gardening is a workout! And even with all that hard work, its still not perfect. There are weeds I'm learning to live with until I can get to them, there are overgrown herbs that can just wait a little longer, there are tomatoes that need staking that can hold out a couple days, and there are areas that simply were left for nature to deal with -- there are peas to pick! Organic gardening is all about spending a lot of time nurturing a healthy lifestyle, and accepting imperfections.

Fedco Seed Variety Review

Many of the seeds from Fedco this year are virgin tries for me -- that's part of the fun of gardening -- experimenting with new varieties. The older heirlooms are especially interesting and if they are still around after all these years and being touted as "super sweet," or "reminiscent flavor;" how could you go wrong? We love carrots, and I got pretty excited last night when I pulled my first bunch. The variety is Sugarsnax and they are delectable. I especially love the long, skinny growth pattern. Very strong plants. Here's a short list of varieties so far this year and what I discovered about them:

Oregon Giant Snow Pea - slow to germinate and come in - maybe only 60% germination rate. But boy are they now taking over. I'm picking almost every night. Flavor is ok -- not the best I've had.

Sugarsnax Carrot - Beautiful looking carrot - long, skinny, colorful; and the flavor is sweet - not bitter.

Early Wonder Tall Top Beet - Incredibly easy and tasty plant; both the greens and the beet itself. I cooked up a pasta recipe that called for the beets AND the greens and it was wonderful.

Risato Rose Radish - Radishes never formed. plant went to flower and seed and the radishes never formed. Bad choice with this one. Pulled and composted the plants.

Purple Top White Globe Turnip - too wet and bulbs started to rot. Mom was disappointed.

Space spinach - You'd think all spinach would be fine, huh? Not so - this variety went to seed fairly quickly and I didn't get near the crop I expected. The flavor was good and the leaves were small and easy to handle, but they are seeding and I'm about to pull the plants and reseed.

Jericho Lettuce - ok; average. I'm not a huge fan of plain lettuce. This was planted for hubby.

Arcadia Broccoli - Interested heads forming. They are super tight and slightly golden-tinged. I'm anxious to taste -- I've found many broccoli varieties to be bitter.

Red Russian Kale - magnificent. I've only recently started eating kale and find store-bought to be bitter. This variety is nothing like store varieties. It's small-leafed, stays fairly compact while growing, and the flavor is spinachy. Even hubby eats it! I'm very pleased with this one and will buy again. Can't wait to reseed for fall.

Safir Cutting Celery - They weren't kidding when they said growing celery is for the experienced gardener. After months of growing indoors, and about a month of being outside in their home for the summer, the plants are just now starting to show signs of actually starting to get life. They are greening up nicely, but still very small. I'm feeding them today with fresh compost - maybe that will bring them around.

Zefa Fino Fennel - slow to germinate and maybe only 50% germination rate, but those that are growing and growing beautifully.

Swallow Eggplant - only 2 seeds germinated after about 2 weeks and those both died. I'd call this a crop failure. I ended up buying eggplant transplants.

Local Pastured Raised Poultry

Shady Acres Dairy Farm in Elizabethtown PA has a stand at the Broad Street Farmers Market in Harrisburg. They sell pasture raised poultry, beef, and sell eggs, milk and homemade cheese from those pastured animals. YES! This is the way it should be. A farm, with fields, and animals in the field. And the farmer selling his products without the fancy packaging and processing. It was awesome to see this gent's stand. What really hit home was his brochure (he doesn't have internet or I'd link to his website). In it, was an order sheet that said:

Fresh Whole Broiler Chickens , 3-5 pounds a piece. $2.25/pound: Not packaged, bring your own containers. Order fresh chickens, and pick them up at our farm on the day they are processed between 2 pm and 6 pm.

It's like a chapter out of In Defense of Food! Michael Pollan spends time at Polyface Farm where the owner, Joel Salatin, processed food exactly like Mr. Wise of Shady Acres Dairy Farm. Yes, I'm vegetarian -- but will make exceptions for locally produced meat where I know the animals are raised and treated humanely, and the grain and food they eat is not part of agribusiness. And it appears I may now have that access without paying an arm and a leg for it! Natural Acres, in Millersburg (local) is locally raised, pastured beef, but way, way too expensive. I can handle $2.25 a pound for pastured chicken. Of course the first thing hubby said was, "but how much is regular chicken for a whole chicken." Don't ask Rick! Just think about the good deed you are doing for mother earth and local farms! I believe I may be stocking my freezer with local chicken.

Pics from the Backyard

Oregano on its 2nd sprouting... the first batch was already cut, dried, and jarred. Egyptian onions, bulb fennel, and parsley.

Black Beans (the dark row next to the fence), tiger eye beans, and cannelli beans.

Sugar peas!

Red Beets and carrots.

3 month old strawberries looking mighty strong.

Onions circling peppers. this is the center of the rose garden which used to be planted in annuals -- usually begonias or marigolds. This year, its all edibles.

Broccoli just about to overwhelm us -- we have 40 plants that will be ready to pick all at the same time!

Salty Local Strawberries

Strawberry season is here and the locals are hanging out their strawberry signs and I made my first stop this week to pick up a couple boxes. Two weeks ago, I splurged at the Broad Street Market in Harrisburg and purchased North Carolina berries -- they were $3.75 a quart. In the back of my mind I was thinking, that's kind of expensive. This week, the local farm where I normally get the out-of-this-world berries, soaked me $4.00 a quart. I was hesitant, but bought them anyway - 5 boxes becauses I wanted to try my hand at drying them. Today, I decided, that's too much and unless I find a cheaper way to get them (pick my own at the fruit farm 1.5 miles away from me??? More on that if I do), I'm not getting any more. Why are they so much? $4.00 is really out of hand -- and that's not even for organic. I can't imagine what a quart of organic strawberries cost. To be honest, I've never even seen organic strawberries. Possibly its because there are so few organic plant growers (the plants must also be organic in order for a grower to sell certified organic berries). Hubby put the bug in my ear -- why pay that? Next year, I'll have all I want - for free - from the backyard. Those 100 strawberry plants that went into the backyard 2 months ago and very, very happy in their new home and will show their appreciation to me next year. So this year I'm saving my money on strawberries and spending it elsewhere. I'll await wild black raspberry and wild blueberry time and pick for free until my heart is content! It's only about a month away -- and wild black raspberries are in the FRONT yard - more than I've ever seen (they like the rain). It's nice to not have to travel too far.

The Chili Backyard Update

The Backyard from atop the horse S--- pile. Asparagus in the front, the main vege patch, and the conversion rose garden closest to the house. And the white spot in the middle of the patio? That would be the non-working antique behemoth of a freezer that's about to be turned into a root cellar. Wormy

The gorgeous, beautiful, magnificent, delectable compost pile. The best food on earth.

The potato "wall". I had thought I lost all the potatoes to frost on May 19, but low and behold, mother nature didn't beat up on them too much -- they're back! In full force.

And the blog header is the main vege patch -- green beans and corn alive and well. Everything is organically grown and and seeds are from FEDCO -- no GMO seed companies spreading their bad word in MY backyard.

Our Roots Grow Deep - The Story of Rodale. A Book Review

“We’re not publishing; we’re trying to make the world a better place, a healthier place.”
Ardie Rodale, Chief Inspiration Officer of 60-year old publishing company, Rodale, 2007.

Our Roots Grow Deep, The Story of Rodale is yet another book in my repertoire of readings that have inspired me, motivated me, and has provided focus I always crave to continue living the healthiest lifestyle I can. Rodale was my original inspiration for gardening (Organic Gardening magazine in the early 90’s), and when I took on bicycling and outdoor fitness in the early 2000’s, little did I know that Rodale’s other mission is health and fitness. Their mission is my mission – organic gardening (their roots, my roots) and health and fitness (bicycling, running, hiking, swimming, etc). I’m in awe. (For those of you who hadn't realized it, I have another blog that focuses on my fitness life -- Chilibloggin. You'll love the blog header picture that "connects" organic gardening with biking! )

The book spans the years of the life of the founder, J.I. Rodale to the present day 3rd Generation family-owned business. From the 1930’s, to 2008, the company saw numerous transitions, but always survived and grew. The company never left its “roots” of founder J.I. Rodale – organic gardening and healthy living. Even today, and moving forward, management continually focuses on that mission.

In its seventh decade, and under its third generation of family leadership, Rodale is neither complacent nor comfortable with power. Despite all the success and growth, the company has never succumbed to a sense of entitlement. An in the millions of magazine and books that it publishes every year, the exuberance and creative spirit of J.I. Rodale, the determination and humility of Bob Rodale, the spirit and strength of Ardie Rodale - and the promise of a birth future shine through. As Maria Rodale put it: “Our goal is to reach as man people as possible with out message and to change the world for the better.”

Being the sap I am, I cried twice reading this book – you become part of the family flipping through the pages, and you felt their pain when both J.I. Rodale and his son, Bob Rodale died suddenly. The book leaves no stone unturned – it talks about the publishing business and their entire family in the business throughout the years. The parents, the children (one of them died of AIDS), the grandchildren, where they lived, how they lived, where they went to school and college – its all in the book, written with a passion for living. The book itself is an impressive coffee table-style book that your guests will enjoy paging through while relaxing. There are many, many pictures and the bottom of each page provides interesting historical events throughout the years – all relating to significant accomplishments by Rodale at the that moment in time. My passion is Rodale’s passion – organic gardening and health and fitness. After reading this book, I feel like I should be working for Rodale. Very inspiring, indeed.