I wanted to tell you about my favorite machine for making your own natural products at home – a.k.a. being a “kitchen witch.” If you are crafty and like to make your own things, you can save loads of money and create many different herbal remedies and beauty aid products for your own personal use or even to start your own little cottage business. That’s what I did with the help of my Vita-Mix 12 years ago.
I became a Certified Herbalist in 1995 and purchased my first Vita-Mix “Total Nutrition Center” machine then, too. This machine still performs amazingly well for me 14 years later even though I’ve now upgraded to the new Vita-Mix 5200. I formed my company, Magical Botanicals, Inc in 1997 and have sold thousands of handcrafted organic herbal products over the years both wholesale and retail. I’ve made the majority of my products in small batches with my Vita-Mix. I mainly used the dry container for grinding seeds, roots, bark, flowers and leaves to use in many different preparations such as tea blends, incense, bath salts, bath bombs and an organic herbal smoke blend. I used the liquid container for making lotions, creams, massage oils, edible elixirs and to mix tinctures.
A good kitchen witch knows that besides making all of her own herbal beauty aids, you need to eat a healthy diet, too. Beauty comes from the inside. The Vita-Mix 5200 helps you to easily achieve this.
My diet is all plant based and I make many raw vegan recipes. My Vita-Mix has helped me to quickly prepare everything such as green smoothies, salad dressings, sauces, soups, grinding flaxseeds, making nut milks, ice “cream”, frozen fruit sorbets and other delicious items in such a fast, easy way.
Making your meals from scratch is very economical and it’s also much healthier for you and your family. Whether you are grinding your own grain in the dry container for bread making or pizza dough or making a frozen dessert in the liquid container, the Vita-Mix 5200 processes your food in such a complete way that it uses the whole food so you are getting all the vitamins, minerals and fiber in your meals and you are not wasting anything. Its biggest asset to me though is really as a time-saving device! Cooking from scratch can take a while but that’s why I use my Vita-Mix 5200 which does the majority of the work for me!
As much as I loved my original Vita-Mix TNC, upgrading to the 5200 has been great. The hard plastic containers used in the 5200 contains no BPA, a known hormone disruptor. The material is also sound damping which makes the powerful motor sound quieter. The lids are easier to use and have a really nice tab over the container for easy on/off and the removable center lid piece actually gets locked into place much better than before. The handles on the containers are now padded and feel better in your hand, too.
I’ve put it to the test this spring with grinding different roots I wildcrafted to make tinctures, powdered dried leaves for capsules and made several batches of my best selling organic herbal smoke blend, Organic Smooth Smoke. As always, it performed beautifully.
Investing in a piece of equipment that is durable, high performing and long lasting that is able to create hundreds of healthy recipes quickly is a smart move for the do-it-yourself kitchen witch. You really can’t go wrong with owning the Vita-Mix 5200!
Since an ordinance was passed in my town allowing backyard chickens and permits were issued, we went ahead and took the plunge and got ourselves 4 baby chicks on March 21st! We now have an expanded garden, made new garden beds on the side of our house, built a small greenhouse (8′x8′) last fall with all reclaimed materials and are going to be building a movable chicken coop (with reclaimed materials, too) to fit in next to our greenhouse. It will be like a coop/chicken tractor so we can move it around the yard and the girls can graze safely on grass. I will let them out inside the garden to eat bugs and let them run around the yard while I’m out there with them. I’ve noticed a red tailed hawk in my neighborhood recently which doesn’t make me happy!
My husband grew up raising chickens so I am getting lessons first hand from him even though caring for them on a day to day basis will be up to my son and I. My husband has lots of other projects lined up to do!
We also built our son a funky tree tower next to the greenhouse because there was an Aspen tree in bad shape that needed to come down. My husband decided to make the tree tower for our son’s birthday in February and built it on any weekend that was not frigid this winter – and we had lots of nice weekends, actually.
Here are some pix of the peeps from 4 days – 2.5 wks old:
The two golden colored ones are Buff Orpingtons and their names are Daisy and Lulu. The two brownish ones are Easter Eggers – Americana’s, specifically and their names are Iris and Acorn. All 3 of us named them. They really are so very cute at this age!
Here is a picture of our (still unfinished) greenhouse that will be painted this spring and the funky tree tower to the left of it:
It’s located right in front of our newly expanded garden space, that’s the garden fence behind it. The tree tower looks like it’s all open in the picture but there is lots of cable wire going through the Aspen branches and it’s a 4 ft tall fence so my son won’t fall out! It’s very secure and he loves it!
The greenhouse was built so we could walk in there through a door (on the left side), it’s about 8′ tall at the highest point and has 2 large beds on the ground as well as a big shelf on the back wall under another window that can hold 4 large pots (or 7 flats of seedlings). The roof windows open for ventilation, too. There is a sprinkler head inside it from our sprinkler system so we can run a drip line off of it to the beds. We are also hanging up heavy duty hooks to hold large hanging pots in there, too. I want to grow the upside down tomato plants to have a longer tomato growing season in the fall (I admit I’m a little obsessed with growing tomatoes!). We have also worked out our glitches from last winter’s trial garden and will use the back of the greenhouse to help anchor the hoop house for better winter gardening this year. We are pretty excited for all of this additional growing space we’ve got now!
Many seeds have been started indoors this past week and my husband just rototilled in a mix of compost and top soil into all the new beds we created so now we are ready to plant! We will be direct seeding the new greenhouse beds this weekend with several varieties of cool weather greens and peas. This growing year should be a good one since we are done with the hardscaping now and can successfully do year round succession planting.
Now with the chickens, we will have free range, organic eggs from happy birds (and my son & husband eat lots of eggs), new fun pets to hang out with and we will be able to feed them many veggie scraps from the garden and compost their waste and bedding to eventually be put back into the garden. The cycle of life. Love it.
The thing I love most about gardening is all that you learn from nature. Everything is trial and error and you find what works best for your individual space and then when it clicks, you get to watch the magic of nature unfold in front of your eyes and reap the bounty! I find this to be so much fun!
For the past few years I’ve been feeling like I need to join a food co-op again (I was part of a home based one 14 years ago then part of a store front one in the mountains for many years and again when another store front one opened in my current town but closed down). I did find a co-op group last summer that was located about 20 min away from where I live. It was what I was looking for but it didn’t work out for us for different reasons. I was left with the fact that I would have to take on this job myself and start something here in my town. I was given the different distributors’ info and set up accounts with them right away.I already had a group of interested friends wanting to do this and since I was doing all the coordinating work for it, I chose to keep it small and manageable for me to deal with – we have 11 families in our group and have had others ask to join in but have turned them down until we think we need to grow. We’ve been ordering about 2x/month. The produce selection changes with the seasons so it’s been fun for us to see what’s on the list each week.
I like the distributor we are with who provides the fresh fruit and veggies. They also carry all of Organic Valley’s dairy and eggs, too as well as locally made gmo-free tofu and locally made organic tortillas. For me, a co-op (or buyer’s club) is better than being part of a CSA (which I was part of for a couple years) because I can pick and choose which veggies and fruit I want and if it’s a price I want to pay. Since it’s a group buying these items, we all split the large cases they come in and get just how much we want for amazing prices. And the quality has been excellent for mostly everything. It’s a win-win for me personally since I really look to always save money especially in an unstable economy and still get to have the best quality food for my family that’s mostly local, wholesale and organic.
There is another distributor located near our produce distributor that carries all the bulk organic dry goods such as: nuts, dried fruits, grains, flours, legumes, etc. If we don’t have enough items to meet their minimum order, we can pay a markup on the price of our dry goods items to the produce distributor and they will go and get it for us and deliver it with our produce order. It really has been great having this option for all of us! Last summer I replenished my dry goods depleted stock here at home and split a variety of grains, beans, flours and nuts and we have been eating from our stores all year making fun and delicious ethnic food and other recipes – even homemade pizza night! Since I eat all vegan (and about half raw) and my husband eats an omnivore diet, we agreed to make vegan family dinners from all this bulk and preserved food we invested in and we’ve been really enjoying the variety of recipes we’ve tried out. The fresh produce we get 2x/month is a really nice addition, too.
Since we live in CO, in winter there isn’t that much growing here on a large scale besides potatoes and indoor herbs, sprouts & mushrooms so more items are brought in from organic farms in CA and other states like TX or even Mexico that we will buy (like citrus, greens & now artichokes!) but during the warmer growing season, our distributor really tries to work with as many CO based organic farmers as possible – several are even from the town I live in which makes me happy to support those farms as well as other organic farms from the surrounding 100 miles of our town. And CO is known for its amazing western slope fruits like peaches, nectarines and cherries and they distribute these as well!
Even though there are 2 large farmer’s markets near me, the exact same produce from some of the same farms are carried through our distributor at much better pricing for us. We only have to meet this company’s minimum order of $200 and they deliver the order to my home for free (where a few of us divide it up for the group) since we are on their delivery route for stores. Since everything through the distributor is sold by the large case or pound sacks (50#), we are actually buying bigger volume from the farmers than if we just bought a pound or two at the farmer’s market or if I had a CSA share. I still like to support other farms and enjoy the farmer’s market atmosphere so we go to the really big market on Wednesday nights in summer and buy assorted items from the booths for a picnic dinner and watch live, outdoor music performed nearby.
We are also growing a much larger garden this season, too. I’ve been trying to figure out how much I might want to purchase outside of the bulk buying of certain fruits and veggies for preserving for winter. We increased the amount we preserved last summer (by canning, drying, freezing & lactofermenting) and have been really good about using our frozen veggies, canned sauce, salsa and pickles and other lactofermented foods like sauerkraut. Even the dried produce and herbs are being used up well. The seasonal food cycle really makes such logical sense to me to live like this and eat really high quality food all year. You can totally taste the difference – even my frozen veggies still have such good flavor and crispness when we cook with them. The frozen fruits (mostly used in smoothies) have been delicious, too.
Don’t believe that eating organic food has to be more expensive – for us, it’s cheaper than buying conventional produce & dry goods at the supermarket. We are also supporting organic farmers from our state as well as a few other locations by buying large quantities from them. Our distributor even gives back to the farmers they work with through their annual profit share program. The more we buy from the distributor, the more the farmer’s make.
And what about me and all my hard work in coordinating all of this? In lieu of payment for me I’ve asked that the co-op members chip in and buy an extra case of fruit each time we order to donate to the food bank in our town. It’s our way of giving back to those less fortunate and who pretty much rarely if ever get to eat fresh fruit or veggies. I am very lucky I don’t have to worry about that so I wanted to donate my “fee” and give fresh, organic food to those who desperately need it.
I saw this recipe posted on a blog this week and wanted to try it out. I have a few butternut squashes left from an organic produce share from our co-op (that I bought in November) and this looked like a perfect recipe to use some of that squash. I love risotto and did I mention that this dish is vegan?
The author said he intentionally left out the white wine that is traditionally included in risotto dishes because he was on a budget and he didn’t even notice it was not in there when eating it. Bonus! A gourmet Italian dish that’s also low cost. And organic. Eating organic does not have to mean expensive.
Butternut Squash Risotto
Serves 6
1/2 (large) Butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2″ pieces
2T olive oil
3/4t salt (1/4t for squash and 1/2t for risotto)
1/2t pepper
1 shallot, finely diced
2T garlic, minced
2T rosemary, roughly chopped
16 oz Arborio rice
64 oz (8 cups) vegetable stock
Juice and zest of half a lemon (I used 2t of juice)
Heat oven to 400*F. Toss squash in 1T olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in oven until fork tender, about 25-30 minutes.
Meanwhile, bring vegetable stock to simmer. Heat medium pot over med-high heat and add 1T olive oil, shallot and garlic and stir frequently until shallots are translucent and garlic is fragrant, about 2-3 minutes. Add rice and rosemary, stir to coat with oil. Add enough stock to cover rice (about 2 ladles) and stir rice until the pot looks almost dry. Repeat this process several times until rice is cooked. Risotto should be done in about 30 minutes.
Once squash is removed from oven, place half of cooked squash in a blender with 2 ladles of vegetable stock. Puree until smooth.
Combine risotto, squash pieces, puree, lemon juice and salt in pot and stir to mix evenly. Serve immediately and garnish with lemon zest.
We made it for dinner tonight and yeah, it’s really good. I used rosemary that I dried from my garden this summer and there is a lovely yellow/orange color to the rice from the squash puree and the bright orange cube accents made this dish look so pretty.
One thing about risotto is that you have to stir and add liquid for about 30 minutes so I made a double batch of this to freeze some for other dinners so I don’t have to stand and stir again for a while. It did take me more than 30 minutes but not much more and now we get to eat all this creamy risotto goodness for several more dinners.
Well this should be good news to women everywhere – both gardening and yard work helps to boost a man’s sexual performance according to a study by the Medical University of Vienna. Hear that men? Now not only can you be helping both the planet and your wallet by growing some tasty organic veggies in your backyard, you will be improving your sex life and making your partner very happy at the same time. I say that’s a win-win for everyone!
As little as 30 minutes a week tending the garden or allotment can dramatically improve men’s performance in bed, according to the experts in the field.
Digging, weeding or mowing the lawn for half an hour reduced men’s risk of failing to live up to expectations in bed by more than a third, the survey found.
I find this news very promising for the women who may have to deal with issues in either category. Your man too lazy to want to garden? Tell him it will improve his sexual performance in bed. Ditto for men who have any kind of performance issues in the bedroom.
Not only does the act of gardening benefit a man’s health in so many ways, it also benefits their partner who would like free, local, organic produce out their back door and more intimacy in the boudoir. Whoever said that women were less interested in sex than men clearly does not really know much about women!
And for the record, both my husband and I like to garden….a lot ; ) And the phallic tomato pictured above grew in our garden last summer!
Please take a few seconds and sign this important petition today! The sustainable agriculture community has developed a list of six names that would be appropriate choices for the new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. There is a nationwide effort underway to get as many signatures as possible on this petition that will be sent to our President-elect in the next 24 hours and time is of the essence.
An excerpt from their letter to President-elect Obama:
Today we have a nutritional and environmental deficit that is as real and as great as that of our national debt and must be addressed with forward thinking and bold, decisive action. To deal with this crisis, our next Secretary of Agriculture must work to advance a new era of sustainability in agriculture, humane husbandry, food and renewable energy production that revitalizes our nation’s soil, air and water while stimulating opportunities for new farmers to return to the land.
We believe that a new administration should address our nation’s growing health problems by promoting a children’s school lunch program that incorporates more healthy food choices, including the creation of opportunities for schools to purchase food from local sources that place a high emphasis on nutrition and sustainable farming practices. We recognize that our children’s health is our nation’s future and that currently schools are unable to meet these needs because they do not have the financial resources to invest in better food choices. We believe this reflects and is in line with your emphasis on childhood education as a child’s health and nutrition are fundamental to their academic success.
This could be a breakthrough for our organic farmers and sustainability in general if the right person is chosen to be the head of this department. We already know that Obama/Biden have a “Plan For Rural America” which I have blogged about before so now we just have to ensure there is a really great US Secretary of Agriculture chosen to make this vision a reality. Please pass this on to gather as many signatures as possible today! Spread the word! Thank you.
Last week I read the article, “Farmer In Chief” written by Michael Pollan. It is probably the most thorough article about our current food and agricultural system here in the U.S. and what we need to do to shift the agriculture policy to make it better. Pollan calls it his “Sun-Food Agenda” and it is written as an open letter to the next president. In my opinion, this article is simply amazing. And even better, Obama read it and even quoted from it before he was elected:
There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy. I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.
Willie Nelson, the musician and the president of Farm Aid, wrote a letter to Obama offering him every resource that Farm Aid has available to assist him in creating a new farm and food policy that supports a sustainable family farm system of agriculture.
From the letter:
There is broad agreement that our farm and food system needs to be drastically reworked. The good news is that the work of building an alternative to the industrial food system is well underway and Farm Aid is proud to have been a leader in this work, something we call the Good Food Movement. The Good Food Movement has grown and thrived almost entirely without the support of the federal government. However, now is the right moment for the leadership of our country to take a role in this important movement. In fact the future of our economy, our environment and our health demand it.
I am waiting to see how this all will unfold once Obama takes office. The way things are run now is clearly not working for anyone on any level anymore. This has to and will change at the policy level and thankfully we have a very aware president-elect that will make sure at least some major agricultural changes take place at that level. It’s already been shifting at the grassroots level as you can tell by the huge surge in consumers buying organic produce, pasture raised meats, attending farmer’s markets, joining CSA’s and the rising awareness of people wanting to take charge of their health starting with nutrition and knowing where their food comes from.
I especially love that he wants to make school food come more from local farmers and be of higher nutritional quality. This is going to really help the low income families who rely on this food program sometimes as their kids’ only source of calories for the day.
Bring Farms to Schools: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will support providing locally grown, healthy foods to students as a part of the school meals program. This will both reduce childhood obesity and grow vibrant rural economies, supporting community-based food systems and strengthening family farms. They will support funding for farm-to-school projects for food, labor, equipment, and staff training. They also will allow schools to give priority to local sources when ordering food. Currently the USDA prohibits schools from requesting local products during the bidding process. Finally, they will expand commodity support to include the school breakfast program as well as the school lunch program.
The farm to school program is already being initiated in one school district in my county right now and I’m hoping my school district will be next to embrace this program.
This is just so great, I’m completely excited that finally I can be happy my government has listened to We The People and will act upon what is best for it’s citizens and not the corporate greed system that has been destroying us and our planet for so long.
This past weekend I attended a Sustainability Fair that was sponsored by my town and was completely free for us to attend. They even served a free lunch. The info I have below is really important and I feel very lucky that it was presented to us. This Sustainability Fair was a major highlight for me to have right here where I live since this lifestyle has been a passion of mine for the past 13 years.
Having lived in my conservative town for the past 6 years, I really never expected the concept of real sustainable living to reach the mainstream consciousness here so soon especially since this town is not as liberal or environmentally friendly as other places in my county. Attending this entire day long, well coordinated conference with expert speakers talking about all areas of sustainablility and how do we work together to achieve this for the single purpose of making this town the most sustainable and eco-friendly place to live was just so deeply rewarding to me on so many levels.
At the fair, they had an expo area with lots of companies explaining what they do in different areas relating to environmentalism. They also had presentations in different rooms by a few different panels of experts, most of whom were local to either my county or state. The topics covered were: Agriculture, Water, Alternative Energy and Recycling. There was also a keynote speaker and then lunch then a breakout session where we went to brainstorm and give ideas on each topic.
Since there was only time to go to two presentations out of the four, can you guess which two I picked? If you read this blog regularly, you can tell I’m pretty passionate about healthy food especially seasonal, local and organic plant based foods. Agriculture was my first stop and it was great.
There were 3 presenters and the first was a man named Tom who owns a large, local farm and builds solar powered farm equipment. His designs have been patented and he is now developing a solar powered tractor. His description about his whole way of living was inspiring to me.
Another man, Adrian from our county commissioner’s advisory board spoke about better farming practices and the need for younger, sustainably aware farmers since the average age of farmers now is 55. He spoke about how all of the confined animal feedlots (CAFO) are just so cruel to the animals and horrible for the environment also use the most fossil fuels and contribute to the the largest output of greenhouse gasses (including dairy and all kinds of meat production). That’s huge and the sooner we do away with these inhumane ways to raise livestock and go back to the local farms for pasture-raised flesh foods and dairy, it’s better both for the people’s health and the greatly minimized environmental impacts. We should not be eating animals everyday, 3 times a day. Plant based foods are healthier and better for you and the planet. Limit the intake of animal based foods (especially the cheap, antibiotic-laden factory farmed meats & dairy) because they are the biggest contributors to our planet’s degradation. CAFO also uses and pollutes enormous amounts of water (which I will speak about in part 2).
Next, a woman named Cindy spoke that runs our farmer’s market here in my town of which it is part of the larger county run farmer’s markets organization and there are many of these markets here in my county which is a great thing for the people and the local CO farmers. She said on the last day of the season (Nov.1st here), our largest farmer’s market in the county made $80,000 just from selling produce. Not from the arts and crafts vendors or the prepared meals food carts. Just the farmers themselves. That is astounding to me (and to them, too!) because it shows how many people are really interested in fresh, regional, seasonal, organic foods. It is what we need for our health and what is also good for our planet. So glad it’s on the upswing.
She also spoke at length about how many people are considered “food insecure” and how food banks and shelters are adding 200 people every week in our county and it’s only going to get worse as we go into this economic depression. There was talk about some trial programs my town just did with growing potatoes in a public park area on only about an eighth of an acre and volunteers came and dug them up a few weeks ago and donated all of the potatoes to the food bank. They grew several hundred pounds with very little effort so more of this type of growing on public land will be happening in the future to benefit the food insecure.
Cindy also spoke about the farm to school program aka – the “School Food Project” that they are trying to get established in my school district. Currently, in the bigger city in my county their school district is being trained by none other than Ann Cooper from Berkeley, CA’s school district (and I posted a great TED video of her speaking a few weeks ago). This woman is an amazing dynamo in terms of getting off the processed, subsidized food bandwagon which helps to make kids fat and unhealthy and she is also teaching the kitchen workers how to cook real food again from many locally sourced food items from farmers and it’s all done on the school’s budget. She also advocates teaching and growing a garden at each school and educating the children about where food comes from. I truly admire this woman and am so excited she is working with our neighboring school district because this means that program will come to my school district at some point and I would love to help out with getting that going. This is especially great for all of those children that have to rely on the free breakfast and lunch program and who have to consume many highly processed foods everyday. This will help turn the children’s health around by eating high quality, nutritious food which will also increase their mental acuity as well as educate them about sustainable living skills, too. All win-win.
Next, in part two I will write about the water and climate change presentations I went to and the very enlightening info I learned there.
Here is a Ted Video of Ann Cooper of the Berkeley, CA school system giving a talk about what she’s done and how she has changed the way kids eat school lunches. She teaches cooking classes for kids, shows them where food comes from, and has basically overhauled everything including a pie chart of what should be on a child’s plate for meals, etc. Her talk is very informative and passionate and I loved it. I feel just like she does about this subject and was so happy to see someone here in America making a difference like this and also supporting the local farmers, educating everyone on child health through good nutrition, the dangers of chemicals in our food especially on a child’s body, growing gardens at school, etc. A great video and clearly a great woman.
Well this is yet another bit of highly disappointing information I learned today. The Path To Freedom Blog posted today that Monsanto owns about 40% of all the fruit and veggie seeds sold in the U.S. and they are growing. It’s not bad enough that they’ve taken over grain production and made it into frankenfood and are destroying many family farms in the process but now they are invading the fruit and veggie seed market, too.
Here is what the PTF folks have to say about this:
We aren’t talking genetically modified seeds here were are talking about who is supplying the seeds. Even if you purchase non gmo seeds from a seed company who touts a ‘Safe Seed Pledge’ that variety may still be OWNED by Monsanto. Sorry to break the bad news to you, but that’s the facts folks. We, yes even PTF, is supporting the big M by purchasing seeds from our favorite seed companies and you probably are too.
Out of the 2,500 varieties that Monsanto has acquired from the Seminis takeover, here are a few of the published veg varieties that we know that Monsanto owns:
Beans: EZ Gold, Eureka, Goldrush, Kentucky King, Lynx, Bush Blue Lake 94
So what to do? Start saving fazing out listed Monsanto owned varieties, reach where your seeds come from and or save your own.
Taking Back Our Food Supply
Before agriculture became an industry, every gardener, farmer was responsible for the availability of seed for next years crop. With this recent merger and marketing tactics that has allow a certain “M”-onopoly to take over over the majority of the seed population. Seed-saving is one among many tactics of reclaiming our power (and freedom) to grow our own food, and an indispensable step towards fully sustainable and secure future.
I kept having insights and dreams about saving seeds before this growing season started. I was shown a local seed bank happening in my area and really, I’m not that skilled at seed saving and all it entails even though we have owned the book, “Seed To Seed” for many years just for this reason that one day we would have to rely on ourselves for ensuring our food production. Needless to say, we’ve slacked in that department over the past few years what with moving to the ‘burbs, major home renovations and having a kid and all. I’ve even discussed this a few times this past spring with different people in my area (including my friend Julie, a master gardener) to find out if there was a seed bank already happening where I live – there isn’t. Clearly why I’ve been shown this over and over again before we started growing anything this season was for a reason and we have been diligently saving heirloom organic seeds this summer the way my husband learned from his homesteading mom and step-dad.
This is bad news, people. Being more self-sufficient even with your own garden is becoming increasingly more important everyday. I recommend that you read up a bit on this topic if you don’t already know about what’s going on. It’s a big deal and I’m not kidding. Those who control the seeds of life control everything and they definitely do not have our best interests at heart.
Btw, which political party do you think they are affilitated with? Just saying.
Butternut Squash Risotto
