After a week or two of rain and cold temperatures, known in New England as Mud Season, we are now into full summer with 80 degree temperatures. Technically it's not summer for another month, but close enough. Tomatoes that are hardened off (gradullay accustomed to the harsh UV of the sun and the temperature extremes of night and day) can be planted outdoors now with almost no risk of frost kill.
Already growing in our gardens outdoors are:
strawberries (blossoms forming now)
Concord grapes (flower bud clusters forming -lots of them!)
apples (several varieties- blossoms fading now)
asparagus (We've already harvested two batches this spring.)
chives (ready to harvest)
garlic (from outdoor overwintered bulbs)
leeks (second year for seed)
chocolate mint
cilantro (tender to frost, but it self-seeded from last year and I guess it knows when it's safe to start growing)
lemon thyme (ready to harvest)
oregano (ready to harvest)
lovage (ready to harvest)
wintergreen (growing wild throughout our forest)
rosemary (freshly planted)
blackberries
garlic chives (ready to harvest)
(I had also planted Jerusalem artichokes, but they were eaten by moles (or voles or some other such little burrowing beastie)
Today, May 26th, I planted:
red cabbage
summer squash (yellow straight-neck)
cucumbers (Marketmore)
fennel
pickling cucumbers
tomatoes (roma, brandywine red, and another indeterminate heirloom variety whose name escapes me at the moment)
In the house I have:
1 large brandywine red tomato which I plant to grow throuhg the fall and into winter as long as I can keep it healthy and fruiting
6 miscellaneous miniature hot pepper (chili) plants in an Aerogarden
two freshly cloned brandywine red tomato plants
Those are the edilbes that we have growing at present. I'll add more soon, beets, green beans and others to be determined.
Showing posts with label eat local. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eat local. Show all posts
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Bartering turkey for rabbits
In addition to vegetable from our gardens, we raise both chickens and turkeys for eggs and meat. Recently, we traded with another family we know. We gave them a dressed turkey a few weeks ago, and today they gave us the first of two dressed rabbits. That way we both end up with a wider variety of locally grown food than we would if we only ate what we raised ourselves.
We are lucky to live in a rural area where there are many small farms, and farmers' markets at least four days a week with easy driving distance, so we have access to a wide variety of localy grown produce and other food products. Bartering, however, lets us trade something we have in abundance with someone else in a similar circumstance with different commodities.
At any rate, we are looking forward to our rabbit dinner. I was surprised to see how big the rabbit is, it has much more meat than I thought it would. The only other dressed rabbit i had seen up close was a wild rabbit from a hunter about 30 years ago. It was much thinner and smaller than the domestic meat rabbit which we just received.
We are lucky to live in a rural area where there are many small farms, and farmers' markets at least four days a week with easy driving distance, so we have access to a wide variety of localy grown produce and other food products. Bartering, however, lets us trade something we have in abundance with someone else in a similar circumstance with different commodities.
At any rate, we are looking forward to our rabbit dinner. I was surprised to see how big the rabbit is, it has much more meat than I thought it would. The only other dressed rabbit i had seen up close was a wild rabbit from a hunter about 30 years ago. It was much thinner and smaller than the domestic meat rabbit which we just received.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Food Supply Safety: Exploding Melons
This article about exploding melons in China points out another reason to try to grow as much of your own food as possible and to buy the rest from trusted, preferably local sources. In many countries laws governing which chemicals can be used on food crops or even livestock intended for human consumption are very lax. Even if such rules are in place, enforcement is often spotty at best.
In the case of this specific example, farmers in China were adding excessive amounts of forchlorfenuron on their watermelon crops. This chemical is designed to make the fruit grow faster, rapidly expanding its size and weight. For crops sold by the pound, this can mean additional profit for the farmer.
While forchlorfenuron is used in the United Stated for certain fruits such as kiwi and grapes, amounts are regulated. In China, it seems, at least some farmers got the idea that if a little is good, more is better. While much of the fruit so treated has burst and become worthless, thanks in part to the heavy rains that magnified the effect of the chemical causing the melons to grow so quickly that the rinds split open and ruined the crops in the field, different weather conditions could have resulted in a different outcome.
Here are the USDA safety findings for forchlorfenuron. Studies on animals show that it can result in low body weight, low birth weight, and some significant kidney problems in animals. No comprehensive human tests have been conducted. It's not clear how much of the chemical was being used in China or what concentrations were found int he flesh of the fruit. So there is no way of knowing how the dosage compares to that used in the animal tests.
This, unfortunately, is not the only case of tainted food supplies from China and other sources. Melamine has been found in milk, eggs, baby formula and other food products in China. In one famous case, a supplier was even marketing the toxic by-product of plastic manufacture as a protein content enhancement to food processors. Because a chemical in it mimics one tested for in protein tests, it essentially caused a false positive result in protein testing for foods.
Only a very small percentage of food entering the United States (or even food produced within the United States) is ever tested for these kinds of contaminants. As a consumer, you simply can't know what's in most of the food you eat if you buy food produced in large commercial operations, especially those from regions where the existence or effectiveness regulations and oversight is dubious, at best. If, however, you grow your own food, you are in control of what goes in it. If you buy from local farms, you can often actually visit them as see their operations or at least talk to someone from that farm and ask questions abotu their practices.
Eating local foods, gardening and raisng your own food are not just good for the environment, they can protect you, individually, from the risk of dangerous chemical contaminants that may be added to the food supply without your knowledge or consent.
In the case of this specific example, farmers in China were adding excessive amounts of forchlorfenuron on their watermelon crops. This chemical is designed to make the fruit grow faster, rapidly expanding its size and weight. For crops sold by the pound, this can mean additional profit for the farmer.
While forchlorfenuron is used in the United Stated for certain fruits such as kiwi and grapes, amounts are regulated. In China, it seems, at least some farmers got the idea that if a little is good, more is better. While much of the fruit so treated has burst and become worthless, thanks in part to the heavy rains that magnified the effect of the chemical causing the melons to grow so quickly that the rinds split open and ruined the crops in the field, different weather conditions could have resulted in a different outcome.
Here are the USDA safety findings for forchlorfenuron. Studies on animals show that it can result in low body weight, low birth weight, and some significant kidney problems in animals. No comprehensive human tests have been conducted. It's not clear how much of the chemical was being used in China or what concentrations were found int he flesh of the fruit. So there is no way of knowing how the dosage compares to that used in the animal tests.
This, unfortunately, is not the only case of tainted food supplies from China and other sources. Melamine has been found in milk, eggs, baby formula and other food products in China. In one famous case, a supplier was even marketing the toxic by-product of plastic manufacture as a protein content enhancement to food processors. Because a chemical in it mimics one tested for in protein tests, it essentially caused a false positive result in protein testing for foods.
Only a very small percentage of food entering the United States (or even food produced within the United States) is ever tested for these kinds of contaminants. As a consumer, you simply can't know what's in most of the food you eat if you buy food produced in large commercial operations, especially those from regions where the existence or effectiveness regulations and oversight is dubious, at best. If, however, you grow your own food, you are in control of what goes in it. If you buy from local farms, you can often actually visit them as see their operations or at least talk to someone from that farm and ask questions abotu their practices.
Eating local foods, gardening and raisng your own food are not just good for the environment, they can protect you, individually, from the risk of dangerous chemical contaminants that may be added to the food supply without your knowledge or consent.
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