I’ve been thinking of writing about this for a long time. I don’t talk much about preparedness on this blog but it is something I am very well informed on and we have been prepared for anything since the late 90’s. I’ve been reading many different preparedness blogs for the past year and I always get a sense of urgency when I read those posts and that urgency for me is based from fear. I won’t live my life in fear mode but I do live by the old saying of “tie the camels” which means to be prepared for anything but live your life normally.
Here is where I’m at with all of this: yes, we all need to have some preparedness skills in our tool box of life skills and supplies at our homes in case there are going to be food shortages or if there’s even a chance you or your spouse will be laid off from your job while prices are rising and winter will be here soon.
There are many blogs and websites to read up on all the details of what to store and how much, etc so I’m not going to go into all of that here. One thing I will touch on that those sites do not is to add sprouting seeds to your food storage because many sprouts are so easy to do in just a couple of days and only require a glass jar with mesh screen lid or even cheesecloth with a rubberband and water and only cost you pennies. The vitamins, enzymes and just life force energy you will get from sprouts is very important in my opinion. You could live on sprouts if you had to.
What I wanted to really talk about is actual skills. What can you do? What do you want to learn about but rely on others to do for you instead? This comes up for me a lot because my husband is one of those renaissance men that really can do anything – he’s got mad skills both the blue collar and white collar type. I, on the other hand, have learned many things from him over the years in terms of developing my own sustainability life skills and being pretty much a city girl, this was big for me. I always have a little fear of what if he’s not around and I have to take care of everything myself for me and my son in bad times? This drives me to keep learning even the stuff I don’t really like but it’s all good because it makes me more confident and feel self-reliant and like I can survive anything but in a good way!
So, can you work with power tools or even manual hand tools? Can you make a fire in a fire pit or a wood stove or even a fireplace? Can you cook basic foods like grains and beans correctly and store them properly? Can you sew? Do you have camping skills/basic wilderness skills? Can you fix a flat tire on a car or a bike? Can you grow food? Do you know CPR and basic first aid? I can go on and on but you get the idea. I still have more to learn in different areas but I try to watch and observe as much as I can and try to practice some things or just file it away in case I need to use it by myself or get someone to help me if for some reason he’s not around. That is a gloomy thought, I know but anything could happen and we all need to be responsible for ourselves.
When I first moved to Colorado to transform my life and become an Herbalist 14 years ago, I became obsessed with permaculture and self-sustainability and medicine making, too. I did not know my husband then but I read and learned and surrounded myself with others on this same path and learned more from them. For my graduating final project (almost like a mini-thesis, we worked on it for a long time) I did an entire very detailed permaculture design for a piece of land my friends and I wanted to buy in the mountains of CO. Once I graduated, I went right into getting a permaculture certification and worked for a year with a landscape designer that also did xeriscape and permaculture designs in her work so I got hands-on training, too which taught me even more.
At the time, many people I knew thought this was fringe and unnecessary – everything in our country was going so well, life was easy, etc. I felt differently, kept having visions of a different way of life and also felt that it was the most natural way for a human to live in harmony with all of nature. I still feel this way and thankfully, so does my husband. I kept expanding my skills and knowledge and still to this day I keep pushing myself to learn more and more – even if I don’t really like what I’m learning! I feel that bartering for goods and services is going to become something big in the not too distant future and people with needed skills will be in high demand.
The first book that I bought for myself when I went to herbalist school to start learning the “old ways” of self sufficiency was Reader’s Digests’ “Back To Basics” book. I highly recommend this book as a good place to start to learn if you are just getting started and you can usually find a copy in a used bookstore – that’s where I got mine. My husband got to grow up with a mother that basically embodies this book – she is a real homesteader and this is where he’s learned the majority of his life skills. Not a bad way to raise your children and something we are trying to slowly teach to our son in our daily life. I was raised the exact opposite way and really felt like a fish out of water a lot of times. So much about our consumeristic society always bothered me and feels shallow and pointless, really.
So, if you are starting to feel worried about the economy or natural catastrophies possibly happening in your area, let that fear drive you to prepare with the basics in taking care of yourself and your family better. If nothing happens then great, you can still use all of your stored vegan foods which are healthier for you anyway, having extra warm clothes, blankets, flashlights, solar-rechargeable batteries, water, firewood, etc is all going to be used and you have saved money in the long run, too. The life skills you aquire will always be put to good use, too and makes you feel better about yourself. If nothing else, it will give you more to talk about at a party!
Live your life with joy and consciousness in harmony with nature but always remember to tie the camels, just in case.
We went to an organic “pick your own” berry farm this past weekend with my friend Amy’s family (Crunchy Domestic Goddess) in hopes of picking lots of luscious strawberries and raspberries. Boy were we sorely disappointed! The strawberries were slim pickins but we did get about 4 quarts worth (around 5#) and the raspberries were still 2 weeks or so behind schedule. Thankfully all was not lost and we wound up with a buttload (30#) of juicy peaches instead!
I remember going peach picking when I was growing up and really enjoyed it and it was really fun for my son and his friend Ava to get to pick an abundance of ripe peaches from the trees. They were so cute to watch and of course, we all ate peaches and strawberries as we picked them. Yum. Ava’s little bro, Julian was covered with berries and peaches. Needless to say, the toddler had a great time eating his way through the farm, too!
When we got home, I selected the most ripe fruit to work with that day and made some fruit leather, dried slices for use in granola, cereal and desserts and we also froze a bunch of slices for smoothies and raw ice cream. For my measly 4 quarts of strawberries, I made fruit leather and dried the rest for winter recipe use. Man did my house smell amazing with all of that dehydrating going on!
I am planning on making a bunch of raw peach cobblers and pies and freezing them for future desserts. I bought the low sugar pectin for my husband to make jam but he only wanted to make himself strawberry or raspberry jam and doesn’t like peach jam. He also doesn’t like canned peaches. Figures. So, we will be preserving the rest (that we don’t inhale fresh over the next couple of days) using the methods that work best for me and the raw vegan diet.
This organic farm also grows many things that they sell in their storefront so we also bought a huge watermelon, freshly roasted green chilies, purple green beans, roja garlic, candy onions and a melon (that was marked as a cantaloupe) that was called “Israeli Perfume” and when we cut it open it had green flesh and tasted very similar to a honeydew. I saved the seeds from it because it was so tasty I want to grow it in my garden next summer! They sell many other items but were already sold out of much of it by the time we made it into the store.
It was a fun yet hot day in the sun and Leif definitely was tired by the end. He finally got to experience real fruit picking at a farm. We like to expose him to lots of different activities in nature and especially have him learn about where his food comes from. I know he enjoyed it and would love to do it again, as would we!
I have been hearing about how great zucchini hummus is from different raw vegan websites as well as seeing a few recipes for it in my raw cookbooks. I am quite a Middle Eastern food snob having lived in Israel at one time as well has having dated Israeli men and have dined at many of their recommended Middle Eastern restaurants both in NY and in Israel or ate their homemade food. I still have Israeli friends in NY that I visit when I go there and we inevitably go to one of the Middle Eastern restaurants where only Hebrew is spoken and they have some of the best food I’ve ever eaten there. I think besides Italian food, Middle Eastern food is my favorite and I’m very picky about it.
Since I’ve been scoffing at the idea of eating a hummus made without chickpeas, I’ve never bothered to try this recipe. I kept thinking, “How can it be good without beans?” Well, it is! It’s awesome, actually and I’m so glad I tried the recipe because I was not eating any beans (until recently) and I’ve really missed this dish!
This past weekend, I made 3 different versions I found for zucchini hummus. One was even a sundried tomato version of hummus (using zucchini) from Ani Phyo which was good but my favorite one is from Alissa Cohen. I’ve adapted the recipe just a little from Alissa Cohen’s book “Living On Live Food” and it really tastes and has the body of a chickpea hummus but is just a touch lighter, not as dense feeling and is easier to digest if anyone has a problem with digesting beans.
Boy am I stoked!! I’ve frozen 5 containers of this so far to eat throughout the year cause I have so much squash and zucchini coming out of my garden. I find that most patés freeze well.
Zucchini Hummus
by Alissa Cohen
5 cups zucchini or squash, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup tahini (I added an extra 1/4 cup more which really helped)
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/8 tsp. cayenne
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. cumin (I added this to mine, Alissa didn’t have it in hers.)
Place all ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth.
It’s such an easy recipe and it tastes so unbelievably good! Now when you have a glut of squash or zucchini coming out of your garden, you have another great way to use it up!
I’ve been trying out different recipes for my son to eat that are both healthy and tasty for him. He thinks he’s getting a treat and I’m happy that he’s getting more produce.
Since he’s so picky, I’ve kept it pretty simple. Simple seems to work best and then I try to add on if he will allow it.
His favorite treat of all in the summer is a popsicle. We have some popsicle molds that we use and last year, he would only eat it if I put fruit juice or lemonade in it for him but this year, I’ve been buying so much more fresh fruit and he seems more interested in what I’m doing with it that I’ve made popsicles out of just whole fruit and a little raw agave nectar which has a very sweet taste and is low glycemic, i.e. does not raise your blood sugar like regular sugar does.
So here are a few simple but tasty treats for the kiddos:
Strawberry popsicle:
1/3# fresh, organic strawberries, washed
1T raw agave nectar
1/4 cup water
Puree in a high speed blender til smooth. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze.
You may need a bit more agave depending on how sweet the berries are. The first time I made this for him, he wanted it more sweet, of course so I just brushed on a little agave on the outside which made him a happy camper and he ate the whole thing. He asks for popsicles everyday and eats at least one a day especially after he comes home from camp.
His new favorite popsicle flavor is watermelon. We got a huge organic watermelon from the health food store the other day and it was so sweet. I could eat watermelon all the time, I love it! Whatever fruit we are eating he will ask me to make it into a popsicle now. It’s really funny to me.
Watermelon popsicle:
2 cups organic watermelon
1T raw agave nectar
Blend til smooth. Pour into molds and freeze.
If it’s not sweet enough, just brush a little agave onto the outside and that does the trick.
I have tried blending flavors and also adding in diluted supplements but that never goes over well and I end up having to eat it so I just stick to the basics. It’s cheap, nutritious, the whole fruit is eaten not just juice and it’s a fun food for the kiddos.
We have also been making lots of raw lemonade. Super easy and tasty.
Lemonade:
1T freshly juiced lemon juice (this is best, otherwise get unfiltered organic lemon juice)
1T raw agave nectar
Water to fill glass
Ice
1/4 tsp. Sea Salt (or Himalayan crystal salt is better). Add this if it’s really hot out for more electrolytes and water retention
Mix really well and drink. Tastes great like regular lemonade but you are using a low glycemic sweetener so your child won’t bounce off the walls and it’s also an electrolyte balancer to prevent dehydration. It’s really like a healthy Gatorade. Lemons also replenish electrolytes. This too, can be frozen as a popsicle.
We have been making sun teas, too. My favorite flavor for the summertime is Mint. Just put a bunch of washed fresh mint leaves in a gallon sun tea container, fill with filtered water and let sit in the sun all day. Refrigerate in the evening and the next day you have really cold mint tea which really cools you off when you drink that on a hot day. You can sweeten it, too but we all like it plain. Even my picky son loves cold mint tea. If you combine that with eating some cold watermelon, you will really cool down pretty quick.
Some cultures drink hot mint tea for cooling down in the heat but I still prefer the cold version best. Mint is a diaphoretic herb so drinking it hot opens the capillaries and helps you sweat which cools you down. It is also very good for the digestion.
The other snack my son Leif is loving is actually going into the garden and picking his own cucumber or greens, etc and we bring it inside and I wash and cut it up and he’s so happy to eat the food he’s watched grow. He will eat large amounts, too. He’s ecstatic that his little yellow pear tomatoes that he planted the seeds in a container himself in May and watered (a lot!) all summer are now bearing fruit and so are the cherry tomatoes growing right next to them. He goes and looks everyday and sees if they are yellow enough and when they are he picks it and pops it into his mouth. He does the same with the red ones, too. I think it’s the cutest thing ever, of course! He’s really into living foods and likes having them around him, just like his parents. The garden is one fascinating place to him.
Well we have been busy around here this week! Michael and I have been doing all sorts of preserving of our garden and finding really good deals on organic produce at the store and farmer’s market. We are looking at this season as more of one of experimentation because we are trying not to water bath can or pressure can (what we normally do each year) but to do more low tech preservation methods that keep the enzymes alive and nutrients intact since this is very important to me now.
So here’s the recap of what we’ve been doing every evening and last weekend: First, Dehydrating – both solar dehydrating outside and also with my new-this-year-and-I-love-it-so-much dehydrator. I purchased an Excalibur 9 tray dehydrator with teflex sheets back in January when I went raw and I couldn’t be happier with it. What an amazing investment this was – it has a temperature control on it and it’s square shaped so it feels like an oven so I can even put a lasagna pan in there to dehydrate a raw, living lasagna recipe. The 9 trays don’t have to be rotated since a fan blows on each individual tray from the back, there’s no dripping onto the trays below and I’ve dried both sweet and savory at the same time on different trays and there have been no crossover of flavors or any problems. The electricity usage when it’s on is low, too. It uses the same amount of power an ordinary light bulb uses when you dry at the lower temps.
I’ve been dehydrating herbs especially culinary ones like rosemary, mint, parsley, basil, dill, etc in it at a low temp and then crush and store it in little glass bottles for seasoning especially for this winter. I will continue to do this as the harvest progresses because it’s so damn easy and quick and I get a superior product to what I can get at the store – it’s still technically raw and organically grown, afterall – not to mention cost savings! I usually hang dry my herbs but wanted to try it out on the spiffy machine this time.
We also bought several pounds of local, organic apricots from a coop recently and ate a bunch right away but we wanted to preserve some, too so instead of just dehydrating them, Michael wanted to try to dip them in something to preserve the color, too. He mixed up some raw, local honey with some lemon juice that I had juiced that day (we go through lots of lemon juice here, I’m always juicing lemons!) and dipped the apricot halves into that mixture then dehydrated them at a low temp for a couple of days and they came out awesome! So tasty and with a bright color.
We’ve been drying berries, too. Organic strawberries are on sale in my town for $2.19/pound which is ridiculously cheap for here so I’ve been stocking up for the winter – we of course ate all the berries we grew in our garden already! I make smoothies with frozen organic berries a lot in winter but we also wanted to try dehydrating them and using them in recipes more that way. Oh man, so delicious! I will have to go back and get more because dehydrated strawberries are unbelievable. We plan on trying out dehydrating more produce, too over the next 2 or so months.
We’ve also been Freezing produce – ok, not low tech but we do have an energy star freezer and I like my frozen, organic fruits in the winter so this is a large and important step for us to do during the height of cheap produce season. I’ve been freezing mangos, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc. I will freeze some organic corn when it becomes less expensive and other veggies, too. We wash and vacuum seal pretty much everything we store in the freezer. We’ve experimented with juicing some fruits and greens and freezing them right away, too. It’s not as good as fresh juice but may be pretty good still – we’ll see in a few months.
We purchased 10 pounds of local, organic snap peas and 10 pounds of local, organic green beans and we 3 literally ate several pounds of each fresh already this week and have tried out different methods of preserving the rest. We have dehydrated a small amount, froze some (we soaked in hot water but did not blanch and will see if they will be ok in the winter. If not, we will blanch then). We also have lactofermented some of the beans.
Lactofermenting is how you make real sauerkraut and pickles and any other kind of pickled produce or Kimchi but without heat or vinegar. All you add is sea salt, good water and the vegetable then let nature do it’s thing. Once fermented, you then add in other seasonings if you like. We have glass bowls all over with plates fitted on top and a weight on that with either beans or assorted greens from the garden lactofermenting right now. The beans are at the fizzy and fermenting stage and we just transfered them into glass jars. They need a bit more time to sour.
This is a super cheap and easy method to do and very healthy for you. The good bacteria is in there, you are eating probiotics which help your digestion and immune system stay healthy and strong. Vitamins, minerals, fiber and live enzymes all are in there and it’s very tasty and a living food, too. Some Kimchi contains a natural antibiotic to e-coli so that would be good to consume with meat if you eat that. Sauerkraut is one of my favorites and once the cabbage harvest comes in, I will be lactofermenting like crazy! We have some beets to process and we are going to try out lactofermenting some of them, too. This could possibly become a new addiction for us!
There are lots of resources on the web and in books for more info but a really good blog to read for lots of detailed info on all things food preservation is Casaubon’s Book. Sharon is really very talented in explaining all that you would ever need to know on this subject whether you are a suburban gardener or have a small scale farm. She also talks about Peak Oil and all that entails, too.
We also have recently purchased bulk dry goods from the coop for our food storage. I always like to have dry goods on hand for some reason – it gives me a sense of security, I guess plus it’s the most economical way to buy it, really. This year, we purchased several items that can be either sprouted to eat in recipes for my way of eating or cooked for my husband and son to eat. At Leif’s camp, they have been preparing both quinoa and millet for snack time so he has gotten used to eating those two grains which he has been refusing to eat here at home. Now he will let me make them for him so we will buy more quinoa this fall and have already bought millet, buckwheat groats (my favorite for raw recipes), black oil sunflower seeds for sprouting & eating the greens, assorted beans, popcorn, some brown rice and some whole wheat & rye flours – we store both flour and brown rice in the freezer.
Quinoa is technically a seed and can be eaten sprouted or cooked. Buckwheat groats, too and millet can be sprouted or cooked as well. All are considered non-allergenic, too. All healthy, versatile foods and organic, mostly locally grown and pretty cheap! We vacuum sealed everything in smaller 1-2 pound packages and store all of it in bins in our root cellar closet. We do always rotate through what we store over time and many of these dry foods when properly taken care of can be stored for years without going bad.
We feel that with the rising cost of gas and food (and availability), it’s better for us to put in the effort and stock up now with replenishing our dried food stores. The glut of fresh produce takes effort to preserve but when winter rolls around, I am always happy to eat something preserved from our garden or the market at the peak of flavor and obtained at the cheapest possible price. And no, I don’t have to do it, I can live like most of America and not put up any food, ever. It just feels like the right thing to do since I live in a colder climate, there are weird climate changes happening affecting the food supply everywhere you look and gas is only going to keep increasing so less driving to the store for us. I think this is a knowledge that needs to be taught and passed down because everyone’s health and finances could improve by doing this every year. These type of vegan foods are healthy for most people to eat at least several times a week and they save you money and time if you do it right.
Michael and I have been doing this for as long as we’ve been married (except the lactofermenting – we failed at that sev’l years ago and haven’t bothered to try again til now). It only takes some focused effort in the summer and fall, you can even do little bits each night like what we have been doing all week that will supply us for months in the winter.
Next, we are on to conquering the cucumbers coming in!
I’m sure you’ve read by now all about how the bees are “mysteriously” disappearing and not returning to their hives. It’s called Colony Collapse Disorder. Well, there seems to be a real answer instead of all of this false speculation to lead us off the trail of the true culprit – pesticides.
A group of German beekeepers noticed that two-thirds of their bees died following an application of this pesticide called clothianidin. In Germany, they find this to be an emergency situation and have suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn. Fifty to sixty percent of the bees have died and some beekeepers have lost all of their hives.
The tests performed on the dead bees showed that ninety nine percent of the bees had a build up of clothianidin in their body which is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. The US Environmental Protection Agency also considers this pesticide to be highly toxic to honeybees.
Bayer, one of the world’s leading pesticide manufacturers (as well as pharmaceutical manufacturers) makes this pesticide and imidacloprid, sold under the name Gaucho in France. Imidacloprid has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers in that country since 1999, after a third of French honeybees died following its use. Five years later it was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment in France. Recently, the company’s application for clothianidin was rejected by France. Clothianidin and imidacloprid are both members of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. They are well known as insect neurotoxins, especially with regard to bees.
In the U.S., beekeepers in North Dakota are taking Bayer to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995 when rapeseed in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed at that time and the term “colony collapse disorder” began.
Representatives for Bayer say that their pesticides are safe for bees if applied correctly. This involves using a glue that keeps the pesticides stuck to the seeds on which they’re used.
Agricultural corporations are known to evade anything that costs them money. All the glue, the personnel to apply it correctly and the equipment used requires extra money. Obviously, they are not applying these popular neurotoxins correctly because now we have an epidemic of dead bees on our hands.
Colony Collapse Disorder is a name given to mislead the public from finding out the real, simple truth that toxic pesticides are to blame. If we knew this fact right off the bat instead of being directed to look for a bacteria or parasite or environmental stress on the bees that could possibly be causing the die-offs we would have been cutting into the enormous profits that these manufacturers gain. Bees are necessary for our food supply and therefore, human survival and are being allowed to be killed off just for pure greed and profit. It’s sick, really.
This is just another reason to go organic – whether you grow an organic garden, buy only organic foods from the supermarket or buy direct from organic farmers through a CSA or a farmer’s market. Pesticides are just toxic to all of life period. In the end, they affect us all and are not safe, no matter what the greedy chemical companies say.
As I have mentioned in other posts, we like to eat some of the wild greens (weeds) growing in our garden. Lamb’s Quarters is also known as wild spinach and very tasty and nutritious. We eat it in salad, sandwiches and it goes really well in pesto. We also eat young Dandelion leaves in our salad as well as Purslane leaves. Those have a lemony taste. There are other wild volunteers we don’t eat but they too have lots of nutrients and you can make medicinal teas out of them for different ailments. If they are growing in our rich, organic soil and are good for our bodies, why not eat them?
We were really excited to see garlic scapes last week at our farmer’s market. Scapes are the tops that grow from hard neck garlic. We love these and they are only available for a short time in June around here. They are like a delicacy. Since the scapes were available, we have been making batches of raw pesto using the scapes and putting it on raw spaghetti noodles or spreading it on some flax crackers and topping it with tomato.
I make so many different sauces for raw spaghetti, it’s so easy and quick for me when I don’t have much time. You can use zucchini, summer squash, jerusalem artichokes, etc. as the noodles. To make the spaghetti, you can use a knife to cut it down into thin strands but that is very time consuming and tedious! I have 2 different tools I purchased this past year to make different kinds of noodles. The first one is called a “saladacco” spiralizer and it makes angel-hair pasta and also there is another setting on it for making very thin circle cuts like for ravioli cases or potato chips. The other tool is called a “mandoline” and is another type of veggie slicer that has 3 different, changeable stainless steel blades for different sized noodles as well as the big slice opening (no blade inserts) to make big slices like for lasagna noodles. I like both and found the mandoline at my local Asian market and it’s pretty inexpensive – around $20. They are quite handy tools for the raw kitchen.
This has been one of my favorite raw recipes because you can make it in under 10 minutes for everything and I love pesto on so many things and you cannot even tell there is no cheese in here. Here is my version of of raw spaghetti with basil-wild spinach pesto:
Spaghetti:
Make noodles out of 2 zucchini (feeds 3-4 people)
Basil-Wild Spinach Pesto:
2 cups basil, packed
2 cups wild spinach, packed
6 garlic scapes (or 2 big cloves), diced
2 large handfuls raw walnuts (already soaked and dehydrated – about 2/3 cup)
large handful pine nuts (about 1/3-1/2 cup)
1/2 -1 tsp. Celtic sea salt or Himalayan crystal salt
1/4 cup e.v. olive oil
1T lemon juice
diced tomatoes
Process basil and wild spinach first then add everything else and process all ingredients until smooth. Mix pesto with the noodles and sprinkle with diced tomatoes on top. Enjoy!
(You can use your food processor or a high speed blender to make pesto).
I have not posted in a while on what’s going on out my back door. My garden is rocking – we have so many greens that we are trying to keep up with! I have been making all different kinds of salad dressings and eating salad (or juicing them) to keep up with my garden. The strawberries were prolific and we made many raw strawberry desserts like ice cream, pies, smoothies, etc. The other fruit is not really happening in my yard yet but is plentiful at the store and some now is at the farmer’s market so I’ve been having fun with that, too. I’ve been going through phases of wanting to eat the produce more than drink it and vice versa.
All of our tomato plants have little tomatoes on them and my son Leif is overjoyed that his very own yellow pear tomato plants have little tomatoes on them. He checks on them everyday to see if they are bigger and turning yellow yet. I can’t wait to see him eat one!
All of our corn is in a new bed we made and doing really well “knee high by the 4th of July” and my zucchini and cantelopes and cucumbers, beets, broccoli, peppers, tomatillos, beans, peas, assorted herbs, basil, kale, chard, garlic, onions, cabbages, green onions, chives, etc, etc are all doing well and we have been eating lots of herbs, greens, kale, chard, green onions and even many of the wild green volunteers (aka “weeds”) in our garden.
Some of the wild greens are so very good for your body that I actually cultivate them wherever they show up and harvest them like any other plant. Wild spinach (Lamb’s Quarters) has to be our all time favorite and Leif eats that straight out of the garden. He loves it. Even if I see it in our flower beds, I leave it and harvest it when it gets a bit bigger. I put the leaves in salad, juice them and the other day I made a raw basil-wild spinach pesto to go on top of raw spaghetti (usually made out of zucchini).
Michael has built a “spanish trellis” this year for our tomatoes and cucumbers. It’s working well, they are climbing up. I think next year we will do this for more climbing vine type plants like the melons and zukes, too. It saves space so you can grow more.
Next to our corn, we added another new bed and filled it with giant sunflowers. Thanks to the squirrels burying sunflower seeds we gave them from last year’s crop, we had many volunteers in our garden as well as the starts we grew inside the house so we filled the new bed and just recently thinned them out.
Out our front door, we have rototilled out more front lawn in the shape of a big circle around our tree, added soil, amendments, drip irrigation and broadcast a whole bunch of flower seeds we had and thought they may not sprout due to the age of the packets. We really didn’t think much would sprout because the packets were sev’l years old but it looks like everything sprouted because we have a crazy plant situation going on in that bed. I think it’s going to be wildflower mania once they get tall enough and start blooming. I’m excited – this is our third flower bed out front and the other two are doing great – all the roses and my new daylilies are all blooming and the hollyhocks are trying to take over every thing and are gigantic. They just started blooming, too. I bought some hanging baskets for my front porch area of my house like I do every year and they are already huge this year, too.
Our next garden project we have lined up is actually building our cold frame which is now turning into a small greenhouse. We have been holding onto materials for over 5 years (since before living in this house) and we’ve received more materials this summer from freecycle for this, too. So this year will also be my first year trying to do a fall garden. We are going to start planting seeds now for fall plants. Michael also said he would work on our lame root cellar closet – add some shelves to get the most room out of it as possible for better food storage. We used to keep the food stores in a corner of the garage but since we have taken over our basement apartment rental last year, we moved it all into a storage closet that has a wall of concrete on one side.
All in all, we have lots going on and more interesting ways to learn to be more self-sufficient. I’ll be updating when we harvest and on my forays into fall gardening.
Mark Bittman, a NY Times food and cooking columnist and best selling cookbook author spoke at TED last year about the link between our food and global warming, environmental degradation, and human health problems. His talk is really well done and is worth watching.
We went to an organic “pick your own” berry farm this past weekend with my friend Amy’s family (
When we got home, I selected the most ripe fruit to work with that day and made some fruit leather, dried slices for use in granola, cereal and desserts and we also froze a bunch of slices for smoothies and raw ice cream. For my measly 4 quarts of strawberries, I made fruit leather and dried the rest for winter recipe use. Man did my house smell amazing with all of that dehydrating going on!
I am planning on making a bunch of raw peach cobblers and pies and freezing them for future desserts. I bought the low sugar pectin for my husband to make jam but he only wanted to make himself strawberry or raspberry jam and doesn’t like peach jam. He also doesn’t like canned peaches. Figures. So, we will be preserving the rest (that we don’t inhale fresh over the next couple of days) using the methods that work best for me and the raw vegan diet.
This organic farm also grows many things that they sell in their storefront so we also bought a huge watermelon, freshly roasted green chilies, purple green beans, roja garlic, candy onions and a melon (that was marked as a cantaloupe) that was called “Israeli Perfume” and when we cut it open it had green flesh and tasted very similar to a honeydew. I saved the seeds from it because it was so tasty I want to grow it in my garden next summer! They sell many other items but were already sold out of much of it by the time we made it into the store.
Zucchini Hummus
So here are a few simple but tasty treats for the kiddos:
The other snack my son Leif is loving is actually going into the garden and picking his own cucumber or greens, etc and we bring it inside and I wash and cut it up and he’s so happy to eat the food he’s watched grow. He will eat large amounts, too. He’s ecstatic that his little yellow pear tomatoes that he planted the seeds in a container himself in May and watered (a lot!) all summer are now bearing fruit and so are the cherry tomatoes growing right next to them. He goes and looks everyday and sees if they are yellow enough and when they are he picks it and pops it into his mouth. He does the same with the red ones, too. I think it’s the cutest thing ever, of course! He’s really into living foods and likes having them around him, just like his parents. The garden is one fascinating place to him.
I’ve been dehydrating herbs especially culinary ones like rosemary, mint, parsley, basil, dill, etc in it at a low temp and then crush and store it in little glass bottles for seasoning especially for this winter. I will continue to do this as the harvest progresses because it’s so damn easy and quick and I get a superior product to what I can get at the store – it’s still technically raw and organically grown, afterall – not to mention cost savings! I usually hang dry my herbs but wanted to try it out on the spiffy machine this time.
We’ve also been Freezing produce – ok, not low tech but we do have an energy star freezer and I like my frozen, organic fruits in the winter so this is a large and important step for us to do during the height of cheap produce season. I’ve been freezing mangos, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc. I will freeze some organic corn when it becomes less expensive and other veggies, too. We wash and vacuum seal pretty much everything we store in the freezer. We’ve experimented with juicing some fruits and greens and freezing them right away, too. It’s not as good as fresh juice but may be pretty good still – we’ll see in a few months.
Lactofermenting is how you make real sauerkraut and pickles and any other kind of pickled produce or Kimchi but without heat or vinegar. All you add is sea salt, good water and the vegetable then let nature do it’s thing. Once fermented, you then add in other seasonings if you like. We have glass bowls all over with plates fitted on top and a weight on that with either beans or assorted greens from the garden lactofermenting right now. The beans are at the fizzy and fermenting stage and we just transfered them into glass jars. They need a bit more time to sour.
We also have recently purchased bulk dry goods from the coop for our food storage. I always like to have dry goods on hand for some reason – it gives me a sense of security, I guess plus it’s the most economical way to buy it, really. This year, we purchased several items that can be either sprouted to eat in recipes for my way of eating or cooked for my husband and son to eat. At Leif’s camp, they have been preparing both quinoa and millet for snack time so he has gotten used to eating those two grains which he has been refusing to eat here at home. Now he will let me make them for him so we will buy more quinoa this fall and have already bought millet, buckwheat groats (my favorite for raw recipes), black oil sunflower seeds for sprouting & eating the greens, assorted beans, popcorn, some brown rice and some whole wheat & rye flours – we store both flour and brown rice in the freezer.
As I have mentioned in other posts, we like to eat some of the wild greens (weeds) growing in our garden. Lamb’s Quarters is also known as wild spinach and very tasty and nutritious. We eat it in salad, sandwiches and it goes really well in pesto. We also eat young Dandelion leaves in our salad as well as Purslane leaves. Those have a lemony taste. There are other wild volunteers we don’t eat but they too have lots of nutrients and you can make medicinal teas out of them for different ailments. If they are growing in our rich, organic soil and are good for our bodies, why not eat them?
from hard neck garlic. We love these and they are only available for a short time in June around here. They are like a delicacy. Since the scapes were available, we have been making batches of raw pesto using the scapes and putting it on raw spaghetti noodles or spreading it on some flax crackers and topping it with tomato.
I have not posted in a while on what’s going on out my back door. My garden is rocking – we have so many greens that we are trying to keep up with! I have been making all different kinds of salad dressings and eating salad (or juicing them) to keep up with my garden. The strawberries were prolific and we made many raw strawberry desserts like ice cream, pies, smoothies, etc. The other fruit is not really happening in my yard yet but is plentiful at the store and some now is at the farmer’s market so I’ve been having fun with that, too. I’ve been going through phases of wanting to eat the produce more than drink it and vice versa.
Michael has built a “spanish trellis” this year for our tomatoes and cucumbers. It’s working well, they are climbing up. I think next year we will do this for more climbing vine type plants like the melons and zukes, too. It saves space so you can grow more.