2012 Local Eating Goals

Now that (I hate to say it) we've passed the middle point of summer, I am thinking about and preparing for Fall. This year, more than ever, I am trying to live in the moment and truly enjoy each day and revel in the season- the sweltering hot days, the strangely-cool days, and everything in between. 

However, part of appreciating these summer days is putting up some of my favorite fruits and vegetables for later on the in the year, and planting in preparation for fall. Every year I have a sort of mental list of Homestead-y things I'd like to accomplish- things to grow, things to can, things to freeze, things to dry and store through winter. I'm proud to say that this year, I have actually done some significant fall planting, and I've also done a pretty fair job at "putting up" or canning/preserving/storing & locally sourcing a good deal of the things that were on said mental list! 

I will say that I've give myself some exceptions- this list applies most to food that is eaten in my home. While eating out and about, I do try to have a strong focus on local food, supporting local businesses, and avoiding questionable meat (essentially, it's questionable unless I know where it's sourced from). BUT it's hard to find places to eat that meet all of my strict qualifications! So while I am an intentional eater at restaurants, I am my best locavore self at home, where I can better control what comes into my home, where it comes from, and what I spend our $$$ on.

As I have moved towards eating more and more locally, there is a natural shift towards eating things in the season they grow in. For example, when I say that I eat only local potatoes all year long, it is because I plant potatoes in the spring, I harvest them in the summer, and store them to eat throughout summer, fall, and into winter. Then I stop eating potatoes until I can find them locally again in the spring, or grow them myself once again!

With all that stuff in mind, here's an attempt at a typed version of my 2012 Local Eating Goals.

Happy Home 2012 Local Eating Goals
* crossed off= already preserved or ready to store

Veggies to store/source locally for the entire year-
(successfully achieved this part of the list last year!)
Onions
Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Acorn Squash
Carrots
Garlic (50 heads)

Other food products to source locally for the entire year-
Wheat
Bread
Bagels
Butter 
Milk 
Eggs
Meat products

Herbs to dry & store/grow indoors for the entire year-
Cilantro/Coriander
Basil
Thyme
Rosemary
Oregano
Sage

Locally grown veggies & fruits to Can-
6 pints Pickles
5 pints Tomato Sauce 
10 pints and 12 half-pints Corn
10 pints Green beans
25 half-pints Peaches
15 half-pints Pears
6 pints Apricots
3 pints Cranberry Sauce
15 half-pints Applesauce
3 pints Blueberry jam

Locally grown veggies & fruits to Freeze-
5 quarts Blueberries 
1 quart Cherries 
1 quart Raspberries
2 quarts Strawberries 
3 quarts Corn

Locally grown fruits to Dehydrate-
2 bags dried cranberries

If you'd like to set some local eating goals for yourself, I have a few tips:

• Set some perimeters for yourself- be realistic about what you think you can do
• Have strategies in mind- Where will you shop/how will you grow things to meet your goals?
• Think it out- If you want to can 60 pints of tomatoes, when will that actually happen and do you truly have the time & resources to do that?
• Pat yourself on the back, even if you don't accomplish everything you set out to! You're still making progress, and you'll have a better idea of how you can improve in future years.

What do you try to eat locally year round? 

Are there things that you think are more important to source locally than others?

The Importance of Experimentation in Gardening + DIY Lemon Balm Cleaner

I'm admittedly picky at times. I'm not always a try-er of the newest things. However, I think experimenting, testing, and "giving things a try" is really important to continued success in the garden.

Our gardens are affected by so many factors- pests, weather, water and soil conditons.. as gardeners we have to be ready and willing to adapt, change our plans, and accept the results that nature gives us.



I've been reading Founding Gardeners (which is a great book, btw) and thinking about experimentation and observation. Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Madison and Franklin all had very high regard for the role of trials and experiments in the garden, and devoted whole sections of their land and gardens to that very purpose. This has gotten me thinking about all the little ways I've experimented in my garden over the few years of its life.



Lemon balm in my garden

 Almost every "experiement" I've done in the garden or in the kitchen has probably been done before many different ways, but I still think there's merit in trying things for oneself. Most of my awesome projects; concrete block raised beds, my DIY 5 gallon bucket Root Cellars, homemade Vanilla Extract- those were all "experiments" or trials that I got an idea to do, and did!

Sometimes the idea occured to me first, sometimes I was looking for a solution for a problem and found ideas that I figured I could try out. Either way, because of the room I've given myself to try these things, I now have products and advantages I wouldn't have otherwise; an awesome urban garden with extra space for herbs, a successful way to store carrots and potatoes right up until late spring, and high-quality, low-cost vanilla extract!

An experiment I just stumbled upon recently is this Lemon balm drying project that I wanted to try out.

DIY Lemon balm Cleaner

I planted Lemon balm this year, with no real thoughts on how I would actually use in, whether in cooking, medicial or other useage. I was googling how to dry Lemon balm at home, and I saw a few methods- oven drying, a electric dehydator, but one method stuck out in the reading- laying the Lemon balm out on a towel in front of the dehumidifyer- what a creative idea! We already run a dehumidifyer nearly 24/7 in the summer, so why not use the hot air that is getting sucked in to the machine to dry the herbs? Yesterday night I picked some Lemon balm from the garden and laid it out on a kitchen towel. I spread out the towel on top of the ottoman in the basement, and scooted it up in front of the dehuminidifer, as pictured.

When I came down this afternoon to check, less that 24 hours later, look what I found:

Perfect, right?

I thought the leaves would take at least 2 days to dry out! It's taking a lot of restraint not to fling out into my garden and just start harvesting all my herbs to run the same experiment! I do think I'll try drying some Lavendar this way, as well as some bundles of Thyme, as our nice weather draws to a close in late Fall.

Because the Lemon balm dried so nicely, I was already able to start an infusion to make a Lemon balm scented cleaner this evening!

I crushed up the leaves a bit and add them into a bottle of white vinegar (1 cup) in a spray bottle. Supposedly, the leaves can be left in the bottle for few days to infuse, and then I can strain them out and I'll have a great, fresh Lemon balmy scented vinegar. I'll add 2 cups of water to that, and have a great homemade cleaner! As someone who regularly ulses a just vinegar + water mix, I am definitely looking forward to a more pleasant scent- maybe Lavendar or Rosemary scented cleaner will be next on the list?

I'll definitley report out on my facebook page about the results- I have a feeling I might have to try a different preportion of vinegar to water in order to get that lemony-fresh scent I want.

Keep trying things, even if they don't always work out- Our Founding Fathers would applaud your efforts :)

What's Up Wednesday

My first Cherokee Purple tomatoes are ripe!

 Cucumbers! Now I have two plants producing- twice the harvests :)

 

First batch of coriander seed is dried and ready 

to be harvested and put on the spice rack

New fall seedlings are germinating nicely- 

swiss chard, onions, broccoli, pak choi, and more

 Yum :)

What's Up in your Garden this Week?

Drying & Saving Seeds for Future Planting

Earlier in the month I posted about drying veggies and herbs in the garden for later use. In a similar vein, it's fairly easy to dry lots of different seeds for planting next year if you know how to do it!

Over the past week, I've been starting to harvest and dry seeds from Bell peppers, Cantaloupe, and Kidney and Provider bush beans. I scoop out the seeds from the veggie of choice, rinse them off gently to clear them of all that inner-vegetable juice, and then I spread them out on a kitchen towel to dry for several days.

Make sure there is enough space between each seed so they can dry properly!


When they're dry to the touch, I gather up the seeds, make sure they're separated by type, and then place them in ziploc bags or 8 oz canning jars. Then, they get labeled with a permanent marker, and I store them in the refrigerator for next year! They seem to store quite well that way- I kept pepper seeds (in a plastic bag) and dried beans (in a glass jar) in the fridge over last season and those plants did very nicely this season!

If you're growing beans now and you'd like to save some for drying, here's a tip- let them dry outdoors right on the plant! This year, I planted about 20 kidney beans and 20 provider green beans, all for saving. I just let my bean plants grow throughout the spring and summer- at a certain point they look optimal to harvest for green bean stage, and then they start to get fatter and puffier. Instead of harvesting then, I let about 3/4ths of my crop dry, cutting back on the water I give the plants and eventually not watering them at all.




When the bean pods are beige-white and quite dry to the touch (if you shake them, you should hear rattling inside), they're ready to harvest! Pull the pods from the plant, and you'll have a pile of dried bean pods, like the picture to the left.

Yesterday, I spent 20 relaxing minutes cracking open each pod, and collecting the 2 -5 beans that lay within each one. I ended up with about 100 kidney beans! It's not enough to store as beans for much of anything- really it would only be enough for 1 or 2 winter batches of chilli.

What I'm going to do instead is just save all the kidney beans, as I did last year. Next year, I'll plant all 100 of them in the garden, and have a really big harvest, enough to save as dried beans for future use!




Have you dried and saved any seeds from your garden?  


If so, what was the easiest to save or the most successful plant the next season?

Drying and Curing Veggies & Herbs from the Garden

There's lots of things growing in your garden right now (or waiting for you at the Farmers' Market) that you can dry and essentially preserve for use later on in the season. I personally think that is one of the most awesome aspects of growing your own- the ability to have a Winter's supply of some great thing you worked hard to grow! I know, I know- I'm a nerd. While I won't cover all of them in detail, and this isn't an exhaustive list, there's a lot to be saved from the garden come late summer/fall time!

Produce/Herbs that you can Store by Drying:

Almost any herb

Beans

Chamomile blossoms

Cilantro (into Coriander)

Garlic

Onions

Potatoes

Squash

Cilantro

When to Harvest:

You can simply let the plant flower. Little white flower clusters will form, which will soon form seeds. At first, these seeds will be green but then they will slowly dry from green to brown, then they will harden. 

How to Cure/Dry:

The nice thing about cilantro is it's very low-maintenance to dry. When the seeds are dry, you can just pull the whole plant out by the roots, and harvest the seeds from it. 

Long-term Storage:

Put seeds in a glass spice jar or air-tight plastic container. Grind into a powder as needed, and use in asian dishes (or any dishes, for that matter!)

Chamomile

When to Harvest:

The chamomile plant will produce little white flowers with yellow centers- they look sort of like daisies. Plants bloom in mid June-late July. When the petals begin to droop down, time to harvest! Pluck off the individual flower heads and new ones will grow.

How to Cure/Dry:

Spread flowers across on a dry surface in a warm, dry area for 72 hours.

Long-term Storage:

Store in a glass jar, a tin, or an air-tight plastic container. Put a tablespoon of blossoms into a tea bag for chamomile tea any time you desire!

Garlic

When to Harvest:

Garlic plants have corn-like stalks. When stalks start to turn yellow-brown with 5-6 green stalks remaining, it's time to harvest. Grab each plant firmly, near the base of where the plant meets the ground and pull.

How to Cure/Dry:

Garlic needs to cure (dry out) for a week + before it is stored permanently. If you don't have pest problems, harvest your garlic and simply lay it on top of the soil to dry, on your porch, or bring it in and lay it out in your mudroom.

Long-term Storage:

Once the stalks are completely brown and feel like parchment paper, you can cut them down to several inches in length. Garlic needs good air circulation in order to store well. I recommend a wicker basket, or if you only have a few heads of garlic, one of those ceramic garlic containers.

Onions

When to Harvest:

You can harvest onions then the tops/stalks have start to brown and droop towards the ground. (Or if you're impatient, whenever you want, as demonstrated in the picture) The longer you can be patient, the larger the bulbs will be. If you harvest them too early, just use them as a bulb and a green onion too!

How to Cure/Dry:

Lay onions flat out on paper or some other type of dry surface. Onions are like garlic in that they need to cure for several days for optimal storage.

Long-term Storage:

Again, like garlic, onions need good air circulation to prevent them from rotting during storage. A hanging wicker or mesh bag could work well for storage.

Best of luck as you try out some drying/curing at your own home.
I hope the tips are helpful!