Suburban Homestead Store
Picking up where FRESH and FOOD, INC. left off, FARMAGEDDON explores why Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under attack and answers the question: “Why is local food pricey and hard to find?”
This hard hitting documentary by filmmaker Kristin Canty will answer that question and make the viewer think about who owns their body and what kind of terror do America’s food polices inflict on heritage food providers?
farmageddon-small © by quantumbutterfly
Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods safely and free from unreasonably burdensome regulations. The film serves to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive.
garden tools © by Pleuntje
The tools you purchase for the garden and how well you maintain them will, in part, determine how enjoyable the gardening experience will be for you. With care, a spade or pitchfork or lopper can last a lifetime. The key, however, is regular maintenance. It only takes a few minutes at the end of a gardening day to clean a tool so it will be in good working order and easy to use the next time you need it.
To quickly and easily clean tools with teeth, blades or tines place a 5-gallon bucket near your tool shed, greenhouse or where ever you store your tools and it fill with clean sand. Now, mix in enough motor-oil so the sand is damp, about 2/3 of a quart. Each time you come in from the garden scrap off any excess dirt and plunge the tool into the oiled sand several times. The friction of the up and down motion will gently scrub and oil the tool, protecting it from rust and corrosion. Brush off the sand and the tool is ready for storage.
With each cleaning take the time to check the handle for cracks. Minor cracks can be wrapped with hockey-stick tape, found at most sporting goods stores. Start a few inches below where the crack begins and wind the tape tightly around the handle, overlapping with each turn, and ending several inches above the crack. Replace severely cracked or damaged handles before they break and a metal blade or head flies off injuring someone.
When tools are ready to store, don’t just throw them in a shed or garage, hang them up, off the floor so they don’t get damp during colder winter months.
And so it begins! My favorite month of the entire year. Every day the weather changes just a little bit more, signaling the end of summer and the beginning of my most favorite season.
October holds most of my favorites; weather that is cool and crisp, on the verge of shifting into winter; favorite smells like damp soil turned and mulched and put to bed; favorite signs of chimney smoke as the seasons’ first fires take the chill off cold houses in the early morning hours; favorite air, with the heady aroma of fallen leaves and spices. October also marks the beginning of favorite traditions and holidays.
We close a chapter now, taking time to reflect on months of planting and growing; harvesting and preserving, and look forward to hearty warming meals, a strict contrast to the vegetable or salad laden meals of warmer months.
There will be days of apple picking and gathering of pumpkins, but there will still be time to practice with our shotguns…skeet shooting and target practice at the local gun club. We’ve gotten dead on accurate with the .22 rifle, but are still working on getting comfortable with the shotgun. A 20 gauge seems easier to manage than the 12, but the weight and out stretched arms pose some balance issues. Kevin and Warren, our coaches, work with us on stance, posture, position, but a well fitted stock would probably resolve most of our troubles. But, that’s for another time.
The beginning of fall is about apples and pumpkins. Apples will be pressed into cider, sweet and cold and crisp; pumpkins will be made into butter, pies and quick breads. I found a new recipe for Pecan-Praline French Toast and was intrigued. Can’t wait to try it!
So there you have it folks…the first weekend of October is about shooting guns, seasonal baking, pressing cider, pork roasts in the crock pot and jonesing for the best this season has to offer. To help kick start your October try one of our seasonal favorites below. Read the rest of the story »
Green + Brown + Water = Black Gold for the garden.
No garden is complete without a compost pile! A compost pile acts as a giant recycling bin for most decomposable yard and kitchen waste. What’s more, compost does triple duty as a soil conditioner, mulch and fertilizer. All this wrapped up into one spade full of rich, friable black gold! It’s referred to as black gold because compost feeds the soils’ microorganisms that help to keep plants strong and healthy and adds nutrients like nitrogen to the soil, and helps less than perfect soils like clay and sand drain better.
Fall and winter is a great time to start a compost pile. With gardens being pulled up and put to bed for the winter and leaves falling in all those brilliant colors there is plenty of ingredients handy to feed your soil making bin.
Compost piles can come in all shapes and sizes too. Some can be made from shipping pallets or wire, others from scrap lumber or bottomless barrels. Still others can be purchased from home improvement stores or city parks departments. With the surge of home food production and recycling there is a wide variety of compost barrels and bins to choose from.
Compost housing aside, the main focus in producing good quality compost is the kinds of ingredients you add to the pile.
To build a compost pile that is easy to make, fast to decompose and doesn’t smell follow these simple steps. Read the rest of the story »
It’s September 23rd, the fall equinox slowly jogs across the southern sky towards a time when day and night seem to become equal. From here on days will become a little shorter, the sun will linger a little less; night will come a little sooner.
We’re in an Indian summer here. Not wholly unexpected for our area. The days are warmer than usual and the nights hang still, not a breath of wind blows across our parched farm. I long for the damp cool fog that rolls in from the coast forcing us to wear a sweater while attending to night time chores. It serves as a reminder that October isn’t far off, my favorite time of year.
As the sky turns dusky behind me my mind turns to last winter—long and cold with rain that lasted well into spring. It was not bad, but preparations were not up to par for a winter that lasted so long. It’s September though and we already have 3 cords of firewood stacked. One more will be collected and brought in before the weather turns.
The final market lamb has been sold off. Unlike last year when timing and delays with the butcher forced us to feed lambs well into October, a costly and time consuming proposition.
We will be going into winter with a freezer full of lamb and chicken, along with a larder full of summer’s bounty. The barn will be empty of meat animals, unlike last year when Sandy and I butchered chickens right after the New Year. Cold doesn’t even begin to describe our adventure. Only the laying hens, Sophia, our goose, and one rabbit will join us this winter.
There is still much to do though. The new raised beds are only half finished and the coop and barn still need to be dug out, the contents of which will be the base soil for fall planted onions and garlic, and early spring peas and greens. There’s a barn window to replace and a goose-size nesting box to build. Lamb pens need to be dismantled and re-arranged to accommodate a feeder pig come spring. For most of the year, my entire garden area served as an exercise pen for Brianne’s lambs. But, not now. The wilderness that has grown up will be pulled out or cut down to make way for a greenhouse and new vegetable beds.
The thought of all this work, with winter breathing down my neck, makes me feel uneasy and more tired than usual. But, even I have to admit that cleaning barns and building vegetable beds is a pretty dam nice way to fill a plate. It keeps me grounded. Keeps me busy. Keeps me happy.
Everything will get done—somehow. And, in the end, winter will come and we will be ready for it. You’ll see, a few weeks from now I’ll be baking bread in my kitchen while a storm stirs outside my window. Just you wait and see. Just you wait.
Yesterday was a day of winter preparations. Brianne and I were out the door while the day was still cool. We headed to grandpas for a load of seasoned and split firewood, the first of four cords we will lay up for winter. We backed into the massive pile spanning at least a hundred feet and measuring four feet wide. We slid into our leather gloves and began tossing wood into the bed of the truck. No matter what anyone says, 2 cords of firewood thrown into the back of a half-ton pick-up is an awesome sight.
Back at home we hauled and stacked our winter warmth on the south side of the house. Dutch investigated the stack, looking for lizards that found it to be the perfect home, but no luck.
By the time we had finished, the sun was high overhead. It was hot. We stopped for a cool drink, to wipe the sweat from our faces and to rest in the shade of the Sycamore tree. We’ll need four cords to get us through winter. I know this isn’t as much as colder areas require, but it will help keep the house warm and the heater off.
So, today we have a big chunk of winter under our belts. Firewood is no small thing at our house. As long as I’ve lived in California I’ve had forced air heat. I hate it; with a passion. The hot air dries out the house, your skin and causes Brianne and me to develop sore throats. I much prefer the warmth that an open fire brings.
By late fall there will be warm fires in our little farmhouse, and it’s soothing white smoke will rise from the chimney, greeting the long days of winter. Before any of us knows it winter will be here. I can now look forward to that time with a little less stress, with a little more anticipation.
Let’s hear it for seasoned wood and strong women!
photo: Ryna Tir
How appropriate to have this holiday on the first day of the work week. To be free from the confines of an office job is a heavenly reminder of a life moving toward simplicity. The peaches we bought on a mountain day trip yesterday were turned into peach jam and spiced peaches today, with a few left whole for eating fresh or for making into cobbler.
We ate roast chicken, corn and biscuits on the patio tonight. The chicken was one of our own. Raised free and butchered by its owners. I realized tonight that I, more often than not, bake or roast a chicken rather than fry it. Force of habit I guess. Seems easier to pop it into the oven then stand over a skillet of scalding oil on a hot summer’s day. The breast and thigh meat had a crispy skin and was dripping with juice. Delicious. The corn was succulent and the biscuits flakey. We watched the chickens and goose scour the yard for tidbits then run to us begging for a treat. No treats to be had this night, unless you consider eating your own a treat.
Small patches of life are dwindling now; the little farm is slowly readying itself for a long nap. Except for a short hike, we spent the whole day at home, all of it. It was a Labor and a labor day spent on a small suburban homestead at the edge of town. We ate food we grew and cooked ourselves. We worked up a cleansing sweat. Took naps in the shade where the wind and sun could replenish our souls, and felt pampered as the iPod sang sweetly into our headphones.
During evening chores, we saw wisps of clouds quietly roll in, the forefront of some far off storm that might materialize into rain. I liked the way it felt like a season changing. Afterwards we came in to a soothing lukewarm soak in the tub with lavender soap and candlelight and emerged cool and refreshed. We poured ourselves a glass of cider, the last vestiges of the previous fall and fell into the sofa for a movie; an epic mini-series, long and meandering; a peaceful end to our humble day.
The cool clamminess of the evening air reminds me of the thunder storms I saw in Colorado. Thunderous exhales of light and sound that bumbled across the night sky, lighting up the horizon as it moved through the Estes Valley. These are the kind of fireworks shows I like…thunder and lightening; the perfect combination of flashing light and crashing sound for a day when we can all look back and be grateful. There were no people on this land during the difficult times of our country’s history. Not the Civil War of the 1860’s nor WWI in 1916, not even the Great Depression. The same holds true for WWII and Viet Nam. It’s too new, too modern. Tonight we can relax, safe from the worry of men gone to war in some far off land.
Tonight it’s just a mom, a girl, a dog, a farm and a glass of aged cider.
It’s strange, I think, how Memorial Day and Independence Day and Labor Day can stir such emotions in me, make me feel so patriot, so grateful of those that came before me and how much I owe them for the life I lead. Small thanks from a homesteader in suburbia, I think, but thanks is all I’ve got.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend. I really mean that.
De
stined for demolition, raised to a new day, the Comstock, Ferret & Co. celebrated its 200th anniversary of selling quality heirloom seeds this past June. After much negotiation this time capsule of American agricultural history was purchased by the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. in 2010.
Now open for business, Comstock Garden Seeds will continue its tradition of selling a variety of heirloom seeds to New Englanders and the rest of the country.
If only Connecticut wasn’t so far away, I’d plan a trip to their historic gardens and growing farm, soaking up the past from the treasures that were pulled from the attics and storerooms.
Our summer weather continues to be cooler than normal, with few days in the 80’s much less over 100. Many of our heat loving vegetables are slow to mature, but cool weather crops like lettuce and peas are flourishing. We have been enjoying the chance to work the farm throughout the day, no need to break during the hottest hours. But, I am still nervous that our temperate summer will turn into a firestorm of searing heat come September and October.
Late summer rows of beets, radishes, and carrots are in the ground. There’ll be big salads well into fall. Onions and garlic will find a home in the newly built beds, later in September. But — the two zucchini plants, started late, are doing well.
When it comes to zucchini nothing compares to a squash picked minutes before eating; not store bought nor farmer’s market. The zucchini along with the single Patty Pan are providing enough squash for this farm of two. It is a delight to fill the house with the smell of zucchini bread baking or the heavenly aroma when we sauté zucchini in lemon juice and garlic.
If I am tempted to pick some up out-of-season it’s usually because we have a craving for this rich and moist quick bread with the warm spicy kick; it’s perfect on a cool fall day or a cold winter night, toasted and slathered with fresh churned butter or a bit of sweet honey.
Since I know I’m not the only one over-run by these prolific little green sticks or golden saucers I’m including our two favorite recipes. Enjoy! Read the rest of the story »
I consider unprocessed pickles, those made without water bath canning, a special treat of the summer growing season. When the garden or Farmer’s Markets are overflowing with cucumbers we make enough to enjoy from summer’s end well into fall, then like most homesteaders and gardeners, we start looking forward to the next growing season. It’s not that they go bad in the fridge, but they do lose that fresh crispiness that makes them a rite of the summer harvest. If you want pickles all year long, use a recipe that calls for water bath processing, so the jars will be vacuum sealed.
Our favorite recipe is from a retired railroad conductor. It was handed down from generation to generation and couldn’t be easier.
THE RECIPE:
The Jars: Thoroughly wash quart- size canning jars either by hand or in the dishwasher.
The Brine: Determine about how many quarts of pickles you will be making. Boil one quart of water for each jar, plus a little extra for evaporation. Keep brine simmering. For each quart of water, add ¾ cup distilled white vinegar and 4 heaping tablespoons of kosher salt. NOTE: Do not use reactive pots (like aluminum) for making brine, use stainless or glass for making pickles.
Packing The Jars: Wash cukes. Cut or leave whole. Layer the bottom of each jar with fresh dill and crushed or whole garlic (3 or 4 cloves, more if you want a lot of garlic flavor). Pack cukes tight into jars.
Seasoning The Pickles: To each jar, add 1 Tablespoon of pickling spice and a dash of crushed red pepper flakes, or 1-2 small hot red peppers slit open lengthwise (if you like), plus plenty of fresh dill flower heads (it makes a pretty presentation).
Pour The Hot Brine: Cover everything with the simmering brine.
Put Lids On. Leave jars at room temperature for two or three days then put in the fridge for at least a week before eating. Two weeks is even better, if you can wait that long.
Storing Pickles: Pickles will keep for a couple months in the fridge. Of course, if you see anything funky going on in the jar you should not eat them.