Sustainable Eats

Chicken Little came home from school one day with something he was so exciting to give to me. He handed over a slip of paper covered with little cut out hearts and a poem of sorts penciled in newly learned letters of #2 lead.

It took me awhile to make out what it said but it gradually dawned on me it was about me. It read “Cook Hug Garden. She makes me feel loved.” It was one of those moments where I get all weepy and all I could do was throw my arms around him speechlessly.

If I died tomorrow I would want this on my tombstone. I know he’s only six and a half and his opinion of me will change dramatically over the years but right now this is more than I ever dreamed he would get out of this lifestyle of urban farming and cooking everything from scratch. We constantly talk about food, what the seeds look like, what the plants look like and how you prepare it. Despite that he never seems to tire of it.

It got me thinking about two years ago before we started this experiment and how our relationship with food has completely changed. Before we would go through the grocery store. Anything he would point to and whine about we would stop and read the labels, discuss what was bad in it for his body and put it back. We would drive by McDonald’s and Baskin Robbins, more whining ensued, we would discuss toxins that were sprayed onto McNuggets or the merits of grass fed beef and keep driving. We constantly argued about food with me wielding ultimate power since I had the money.

But I felt awful about it. I felt like I was denying them simple childhood pleasures. At times I felt like I was a terrible mom and he assured me frequently that I was.

Fast forward one year into this buying local or growing all inputs and making everything from scratch. We always have an arsenal of homemade ice cream or pudding or homemade breakfast cookies made from just a few pure ingredients. If they want french fries or potato chips I happily fry them up using local potatoes and pastured lard. I’ll barbecue them grass fed burgers or make homemade jerky till the cows come home…

We don’t argue about food anymore. Now that they know they can have things at home they’ve stopped begging for things and instead talk about why our version is so much healthier. They are beginning to value health because it doesn’t involve giving things up.

They still miss the prizes and the packaging but in time they’ll grow up and leave home. What they remember won’t be those prizes they missed out on. It will be the experience of choosing seeds, planting a garden and eating sun ripened cherry tomatoes, blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries fresh off the bush. They’ll remember wandering through the garden and picking crisp, sweet peas or carrots to eat when they are hungry. And in a few years they will remember climbing up the apple, pear, peach, plum, fig and cherry trees to hide in the branches and eat fruit.

Even though I think of this often, it’s hard for me to fathom how life changing this is in the eyes of a child. How empowering for someone who needs to frequently ask help getting something from a high shelf in the fridge or cupboard or help pouring from a full carton of milk to be able to forage their own food with no restrictions.

This is how so many kids grew up just a few generations ago. And hopefully we’ll recognize some of the health benefits those kids had a few generations ago as well. Longer lives and better health. Stronger family units who grow and eat and cook together. Kids who value food and health and spend time out of doors. Just imagine if this is the wave of the future!

As soon as I wrap up the chicken feed giveaway I’ll be launching a kid’s garden giveaway and am working on a down-loadable gardening plan for fail proof 3 season gardening with selected seeds kids will love. It’s my hope to build the materials into something that schools and home schoolers can use for gardening units so that as many kids as possible can enjoy the experience of gardening. It would even be a good plan for adults new to gardening. I can’t wait!

I’m so excited to bring you this first guest post by reader Auburn in southern New Hampshire.

Buying Bulk Meat – What you Need to Know

There’s a lot of info online about “freezer meat” or “bulk meat” and many people blog about their experiences buying 1/4 or 1/2 cow, though most focus on the meat itself (quantity and quality), having to buy a second freezer and the many “new” cuts they get to try by purchasing meat this way.

So I thought it would be useful to write about the buying process, from my own experience.

I started reading FAQs on freezer beef, pork, lamb and goat and, while some of the information was very useful, some of it was also inconsistent and, at times, downright misleading.

So I decided to contact the beef and pork farmers in my area (Southern New Hampshire), asked a lot of questions and, surprisingly, most of them took the time to reply with the answers and an invitation to visit their farm. Nice.

Then, when I was sure I knew everything I needed to know about buying bulk meat, and was about to place an order with the “farmer” who offered the cheapest deal for pastured beef ($3.25/lb hanging weight) and pork ($2.40/lb hanging weight), by chance, I happened to find out that she was a middle person. Aha! And this lady is not the only one who does this in my area – a greedier middleman wanted $4/lb for the beef and $3.50 for the pork!

Guess what? The farmer these middlemen buy from also has an internet presence but he doesn’t list the prices. You have to call, which I did. He charges $2.50/lb for beef and $1.80/lb pork, hanging weight, butcher fees included. See?

Also, the hanging weight the middlemen “estimated” was 50 pounds higher than what the farmer quoted me – they both claimed that a side of beef would be about 350 pounds. This is very important for you to know because when you deal with a middleman, you may not get the invoice from the original farmer stating the actual hanging weight of the animal.

So be sure to do your homework and ask the right questions because that can save you a lot of money and headaches.

Buying from the cheapest middlemen, a side of beef would have cost me $1,137 ($3.25/lb) with an “estimated” hanging weight of 350 pounds and about 210 pounds dressed weight (what you take home).

Buying directly from the farmer I paid $750 ($2.50/lb) for 300 pounds of beef which yielded 240 pounds of dressed weight.

The middlemen “cut” would have been almost $400 plus 30 pounds of dressed weight. Yep.

And how do you know when you are dealing with middlemen? When you land on a website and read something like “I purchase steers from another local farmer who also raises his animals humanely and naturally” or “I raise my own lamb and chicken here but I do not have the facilities or hay fields to raise beef and pork. I buy from a friend who raises them the way I would if I could.”

Buyer beware.

Other things I’ve learned:

You will get a lot more for your money if you tell the farmer that you want:

- All cuts “bone-in.” This will get you plenty of roasts and steaks with bones that you’ll then use to make wonderfully nutritious stock.

- A thick “fat cap” on all cuts. You want them to trim as little fat as possible. You can use that fat to cook with or you can feed it to your birds, chickens and other animals.

- No ground meat. Instead, you’ll want all scrap meat packaged in 1 lb or 2 lb packages. This way you don’t end up with 80 pounds of hamburger but with scrap meat that you can grind yourself as needed or shave/cube it for use in dishes like quesadillas, stir-fry, etc.

- Flank and skirt cuts whole. You can make delicious recipes with them.

- All bones: dog bones, lower leg bone/heels and tail which you will use for stock (braised beef tail is exquisite, by the way).

- All organ meats. If you don’t cook these, you can feed them to pets or give them to people who appreciate them.

If you decide to buy half a side (1/4 of the animal) ask if they’ll include cuts from the front and also the back of the animal, otherwise you’ll end up with all roasts or all steaks.

The standard thickness, at least in this area, for steaks is one inch. If you happen to like thinner steaks (say, 3/4″) you can ask for this at no extra cost.

This is very important: Be sure to ask if the meat will be vacuum packed and if it will be fresh or frozen. This you really need to know because 200+ pounds of fresh meat is a lot more than what you can safely freeze at once in a regular freezer. Non commercial freezers can only adequately freeze no more than 3 pounds of fresh meat per cubic foot of freezer space within 24 hours.

Here’s a nice beef cuts chart, very helpful to have at hand when you are going over the cut sheet with the farmer over the phone.

Thanks Auburn for the great meat buying tips!  We saved a lot of money by buying a local 1/4 cow and 1/2 pig this year as well.  And now I don’t have to frantically check the freezer for bar codes every time there is a meat recall.

This also popped up in my google reader today about buying in bulk.

Before introducing this local chicken feed company I need to make the caveat that the giveaway is restricted to this company’s delivery area which is basically from Olympia up to Bellingham and includes the peninsula and greater Seattle area. I’m sorry for anyone out of that range!

I’ve been using this chicken feed since the insanity of trying to make my own chicken feed last summer. What I love about it is that all the ingredients come from a fairly local area but even as I write this the proprietor is sourcing ingredients from even more local sources. Yet another thing I love about this company – one of the blends contains no corn or soy at all. I’m ok with using some corn in the winter to fatten the birds up and help them weather the elements but corn is not a part of a chicken’s normal diet and soy is something I want in no way, shape or form in my family’s diet.

The only way I can truly get soy out is to raise my own chickens on a soy free feed and be sure that any meat we eat is 100% grass fed or wild. So I heart Scratch and Peck Feed from the bottom of my soy-free heart. Here is some info on them:

My name is Diana Ambauen-Meade and I own a local, small feed company called “Scratch and Peck … an eggsellent feed company” www.scratchandpeck.com.

I offer Certified Organic chicken feed in Starter, Grower and Layer Blends as well as my own proprietary whole grain Non-gmo Grower and Layer blends.

Both brands of feed are soy-free and the organic feed is also corn-free. Please take a look at the Products page on my website for the full lists of ingredients.

I am in the process of studying the feasibility of building a feed mill in which I will produce various feeds with grains sourced directly from Washington State organic farmers.

Locally sourced, locally milled and soy-free will be my focus.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to email me at drameade(at)gmail.com or call me at 360-981-8597

So to enter the drawing, which is for 2 five pound bags of chicken feed (that’s right, there will be 2 winners!) please comment to this post and on Sunday, February 21 at midnight I will close the drawing and announce a winner sometime the next day. The winners will be chosen using www.random.org’s truly random number service. Again, feel free to comment but do let me know in your comment if you are outside the delivery area to make the process a little easier on me.

Good luck!

We have a winner – according to www.random.org it’s number 15.

KnitMomma – please email me at annettecottrell(at)yahoo.com so I can get you your package and make sure I have the right size gloves for you.

Be watching either later this week or early next for a new gardening giveaway geared towards kids. I’m hoping to kick start a garden which I’ll choose fail safe and fun seeds for – something exciting for spring, summer and fall and easy to grow in a small space with full sun in at least one corner of the gardening space.

Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing and generous thanks to Uprising Organics for donating the seeds!

This month Tigress’ challenge for the Can Jam is carrots. I recently harvested a bed of overwintered Purple Dragon and Scarlet Nantaise carrots and Javelin parsnips. Since I have a whole other bed to harvest still it was nice to use up the last of that bed we ate from all fall in this challenge so I can move on. It’s almost time to plant new carrots anyway!

I did have to buy the ginger for this but in another month I’ll be buying my hardy ginger start from Rockridge Orchard which will be nice. Ginger is one of those things I love but it only grows in tropical climates. There is a vendor in the summer at the farmer’s market who sells fresh ginger grown during summer temps in his hothouse in Eastern Washington which I should have pickled. Next year, right?

The hardy ginger is not the same plant, which is why it grows in Seattle. Instead of harvesting the roots you use the leaves to flavor things. I’m hoping between dried ground ginger, fresh leaves part of the year and pickled ginger root I won’t be buying any more imported or Hawaiian ginger root.

These pickles come together quickly and only require a 10 minute water bath. In fact, almost all the labor is in the peeling. The original recipe called for julienning them which would make this more of a condiment than a pickle. We like pickles around here so I cut them into sticks for munching straight out of the jar. I imagine they’ll be nice in school lunches for Pickle Man or diced into Loki salmon or St. Jude tuna sandwiches.

Vietnamese Carrot Pickles (adapted from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving)
Makes 6 pint jars

3 cups Rockridge Orchard apple cider vinegar
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups organic sugar
2 teaspoons grated ginger root
2 pounds cut carrots
2 pounds cut daikon radishes or parsnips
1 small hot pepper or pinch crushed dried red pepper (optional)

Sterilize jars and lids.

In a large stainless steel pan combine the vinegar, water, sugar and ginger root. Bring to a boil until the sugar dissolves.

Add the cut vegetables and cook for 1 minute.

Pack the vegetables into the jars and fill not above 1/2 inch from the top of the jar.

Ladle the hot liquid into the jars to 1/2 inch from the top of the jar.

Wipe the jar rims, place the lids on and screw on the bands until fingertip tight.

Place the jars in a water bath canner, completely covering the tops with water. Bring the water to a boil and process the jars for 10 minutes.

You will be able to eat these within a few hours but the flavor improves after a few weeks.

Week 13 of dark days and the end of week 4 of being sick. I’m beginning to think I may try to find a doctor but I’m still stubbornly resisting.

As a result of that and my preoccupation with starting and sorting seeds we’ve eaten a lot of breakfasts for dinner, more take out but I did manage to make a few all local meals.

This is what happens when you ignore a huge pot of chili on the stove in order to start your seeds. Can you say “intervention”? Step away from the seeds and cook mom. Luckily I was able to pour off all but the bottom inch and salvage it.

This was made with kidney beans grown in Dufur, OR, Casade Range grass fed beef and Italian sausage which I made from our Akyla Farms pig. I also used home canned, home grown tomatoes and local merlot.

Vietnamese Pickled Carrots & Parsnips from our overwintered garden as part of the Can Jam challenge.

More chocolate pudding. Because who doesn’t love that? Made with Dungeness milk and backyard eggs. Using my Jedi mind powers ** you don’t need to know about the non-local chocolate chips**

Cheesy farro rissoto and oven fried chicken. The farro is from Bluebird, Golden Glen cream, Beechers aged cheddar, purple sprouting broccoli, kale and carrots from the garden, chicken from Pastured Sensations soaked in home clabbered buttermilk and AP flour from Azure Standard in Dufur, OR. That’s my beet/carrot/cabbage/apple juice that even Pickle Man likes. I just don’t tell him that there was anything green in it.

One of my favorite breakfasts or lunches – a home made spelt English muffin with Mt. Pleasant gouda and homemade marmalade. We just won’t discuss where the citrus came from since my trees are too young to bear fruit yet. Although I think I may be getting some baby lemons on my indoor Meyer lemon tree. Not counting chickens yet though.

A breakfast of homemade bread (Bluebird hard red wheat and Lentz spelt) with scrambled backyard eggs and homemade breakfast sausage from our Akyla Farms pig and home dried apples. The apples are from Tonnamaker last fall but in a few years we should be getting plenty off our 6 apple trees to keep us in apple sausage.

There you have it. Not very inspirational but there has been a whole lot of snot and coughing and not much sleep in this household. I’m really looking forward to getting better. Sleep might help that out…

I’m getting questions on when things can be planted outside and I know some of you are from other parts of the country so rather than post this in timeline format I’m posting by soil temperature.  I know you can buy special soil thermometers but you can also use a digital meat thermometer and call it good.  Just clean it well before you stick it in your roast next.

These temperatures are the minimum soil temperature the plants require for germination and I’m lumping them in groups.

When the soil is 32 degrees Fahrenheit (if workable) plant these:

• lettuce
• onions
• parsnips
• spinach

When the soil is 40 degrees Fahrenheit plant these:

• beets
• broccoli
• cabbage
• carrots
• celery
• chard
• parsley
• peas
• radishes
• turnips

When the soil is 50 degrees Fahrenheit plant these:

• corn
• tomatoes* (I will cheat on this with black plastic to warm the soil and a hoop house so these I’ll start sooner since our summers are so short)

When the soil is 60 degrees Fahrenheit plant these:

• beans
• cucumbers*
• melons*
• peppers*
• squash*

*All these things are suited to warmer climes so I will be starting the seeds indoors long before the soil reaches these temps.  After hardening off for 1-2 weeks I will plant these out when the soil reaches the right temperature.  If you put the plants into soil cooler than they enjoy they won’t really grow anyway, hence the black plastic & hoop house.

My orchard isn’t big but it is mighty. I have big plans for this formerly useless strip of land between city houses. I expect it to produce enough fruit to feed my family and several others. Where there was lawn there will be food!

I’m planning on creating an intensive orchard here, meaning the fruit trees are all grafted on dwarf fruit stalk so that they can be maintained between 10 and 15 feet tall. I will be trimming judiciously to keep the branches from becoming unruly so that I can fit many varieties in this small space. I’ve got 18 Tulameen raspberries along the drive, 5 sets of asparagus, 3 apple trees, 2 cherry trees, 1 plum tree, 2 soon to arrive sea berry bushes (for Vit C juice,) and grape vine, a Bay Laurel tree which I’ll likely move the shady back yard, an Aronia bush, a tea plant and a fist full of seed packets. I’m also planning to purchase a black pepper plant and a horseradish start.

Right now the groundcover is creeping thyme and pachysandria but that’s not edible so it’s about to start competing with tougher stuff. I’ve chosen large, unruly species that are perrenials or will reseed at will. Sorry neighbors. I may even plant some edible dandelions. Here is my list:

Magentaspreen
Strawberry Spinach (beetberry)
Orach
Claytonia
Garden Purslane
French Sorrel
Malabar Spinach
Amaranth
Arrugula
Marshmallow
Echinacea
Chammomile
Borage
Chickweed
Comfrey
Sunflowers for seed
Cammelina
Vetch

These things will feed us or the chickens and it will be nice not to worry about weeding or sowing them year after year. This makes me giddy, reclaiming useless space and growing so much food on it. The best part about these sorts of plants – they require minimal effort if you set up a drip watering system. The fruit trees need to be pruned in the spring and I’m still reading up on dormant spraying which is done again in the spring/late winter.

Otherwise consider this laid back landscaping. I expect it to be a raucous, sprawling jungle we’ll need to cut through with machetes – but then again that could be the form of harvest. This will truly parallel that overgrown “cottage” style of landscaping. And hopefully the bees and lady bugs will love it too!

Are you an urban farmer, gardener, food putter-upper or someone who is striving to be more sustainable in a city or suburban environment? Then I’m looking for YOU!

I started this blog as a way to challenge myself to stick to my guns – because I was fed up with food companies and the larger industrial agricultural system.

Yes, it’s challenging to grow what you can. Yes, it’s challenging to can, freeze, lacto-ferment or dry what you can. Yes, it’s challenging to find local sources for real food that fit in your budget when you live in the city with it’s inflated food and property prices. And yes, it’s challenging to do all these things with kids. The real challenge for me is to do it while living in the city with all that entails.

I try to fit it in between driving to T-ball, meeting the school bus, soccer practice and all my “city” errands. I work full time from home so I try to squeeze things in between phone calls, emails and necessary hugs for small beings that need a lot of lap time and haven’t yet started school.

I try to fit the vegetable garden in between the end of the sidewalk and the beginning of my house, on a small portion of my 1/4 acre city lot. I try to make the garden look pleasing so that the neighbors won’t remind me that I’m breaking neighborhood ordinances against farming and having chickens. I’m not sure what they’ll think about the meat rabbits and broiler chickens I want to tractor in the backyard, the tilapia I want to raise in my garage or the honey bees I need to fit between the sandbox and my next door neighbor’s in ground swimming pool (yes, in Seattle I bought the house next to the only one.)

I try to fit the orchard in between that narrow swath of property between our two city houses, the minimum necessary easement size required by law.

I try to fit this blog into my already crazy life because if I let it slip then I know I will slip.

So many of you are struggling, and succeeding in making this fit into your lives too. I know you are doing it because I read your comments and visit your blogs. I’m impressed beyond belief that we are so many doing so much, all on our own.

You are all so inspirational that I would love to start a new weekly blog segment with guest posts. I would love to have YOU tell your story and show your pictures. I would love to hear about your successes and your failures so that we might all learn together.

Momentum only continues as long as there is forward movement. Frequently that means people getting in the back of the line and pushing the ones already in line forward. I’d love you to help keep pushing us forward by joining and sharing your energy and enthusiasm, your skills and experience.

If you are interested in writing a guest post and sharing your story please email me or leave a comment and I’ll contact you! I’m hoping there are enough of you that we can keep this going week after week.

Yes, I know there are so many online communities out there already. But this challenge of doing what we can in the city, some of us living in apartments with balconies, while others might have barely enough land for a goat is what excites me and unites us.

Sure, I’d love to be a hobby farmer with acreage. But that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Let’s do what we can given our existing lives and circumstances and all learn together.

Momentum, momentum, momentum!

It’s time to start planning for what you’ll eat next year! For many who can’t grow all their own food that may mean simply taking stock of what pantry items you are going through so that you can make plans to buy from a local farmer and preserve as much of that as possible.

For others, however, that means planning for the spring/summer/fall garden. I belong to a rocking group of Seattle urban farmers and gardeners. We buy as many things in numbers as possible to get the best possible prices on chicken and goat feed and seeds. It’s also an invaluable chat group where you can take questions about which peach trees and grape vines to buy or what to do with sick chickens.

The last few weeks I’ve been organizing seed orders from many of the members and this week they all came! It’s total garden porn for me and I can’t keep my hands out of the boxes.

The first order I placed was with Uprising Organics, which is like a Seed Savers for the Pacific NW. I can’t say enough good things about the fine people running this company. They are committed to planetary stewardship and the preservation of heirloom seeds. They have 10 varieties from the ARK of taste which is impressive considering they are only a few years old.

And not only are they cool by virtue of profession but they just cool folks. When I explained to them that I wanted to save some of my seeds to design a starter garden as a giveaway they offered to send me some packets in contribution. When I got the box I couldn’t believe how many packets they had included – what a great garden package for one lucky reader! I’m even throwing in these cool new garden gloves that I saw and couldn’t resist.

These seeds were specially selected to do well in our short and cool Pacific NW summer but they should work equally well in any northern garden.

The seed list includes:
Super Lakota Tomato (missed the first time)
Siskiyou Sweet Heirloom Onion
Bulls Blood Heirloom Beet
Rainbow Carrot Mix
Marketmore 76 Cucumber
Spring Raab Rapini (Broccoli Raab)
Uprising Lettuce Mix
Blacktail Mountain Watermelon
Rainbow Swiss Chard
Flemish Antique Heirloom Poppy

Of course I had to plant my seeds right then.

To win this giveaway simply leave a comment on this post. Anyone commenting by midnight, February 14 will be eligible to win. On Monday I will do a random number generation using random.org and announce the winner.

Good luck!