Gardening, Food Preservation, and the Freelance Life

I just got back from the farmers' market, where I bought 9 pints of fresh raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.  While Mr. FC&G and I will certainly eat our fill from our "berry bowl" that we keep in the fridge, I will also be turning some of these into the yummiest of preserves and the best of frozen fruit.  We know that we'll enjoy them in winter.

While this is a step toward living sustainably, it is also a natural outgrowth of the fact that we are both small business owners.  Read any article on freelancing, and you almost certainly will see the advice to sock a chunk of your income away in savings to guard against the inevitable unevenness in workload.  But what most people don't tell you is that you also have to have mechanisms in place to lower your outflow of cash when times are rough.  For us, gardening and food preservation help bridge any gaps.

As you know from reading this blog, I keep a fairly obsessive tally of the retail value of my garden harvests. Even in the worst years, the garden more than pays for itself, giving us fresh, organically-grown produce that has a retail value far above our investment in seeds and plants.  Obviously, this decreases our food bill overall by that amount while we eat healthy, fresh food.

By preserving some of this bounty (and supplementing from the farmers' market), we are also guarding against income fluctuations in non-harvest months.  If neither of us are having a particularly productive February, for example, we know we can cut back our grocery budget and still eat well by relying on our stocks of tomato sauce, chili sauce, soup stock, jams and preserves, and relishes, all of which add nutrition and interest to very inexpensive meals.  Some of our preserved food, like my bread and butter pickles, are also popular gifts in our family.

It is unconventional advice, but I swear by it.  If you are contemplating a freelance/small business career, you simply must garden as much as your property allows and preserve food to the best of your abilities.  Your budget and your business will thank you.

In Praise of Basil

In These Happy Golden Years, the final "official" volume of the books from Laura Ingalls Wilder, there is a charming scene in which Laura and her new husband Almanzo are visiting another couple when they are caught in a hail storm.  Almanzo, always equally charming and annoying (or so I've always thought), tries to put a good spin on things by commenting that "the rich man gets his ice in the summer, but the poor man gets his in the winter."  He then suggests making ice cream.  I've always kind of hoped Laura gave him a good earful in the buggy ride home for that irresponsible comment.

Anyway, I always think of that when I harvest basil, but in reverse.  If you grow basil in your garden, you are simply awash in the stuff this time of year.  The bushes are huge, and if you take your fresh basil by pruning them right above where they fork, they will continue to spread and get bushier and bushier.  I eat as much basil as I like all summer long, and I freeze a good bit in oil for winter pesto.

Contrast this with the store-bought version.  On the one hand, I'm happy to see fresh basil leaves sold in grocery stores like Trader Joe's.  But I must say that one look at the price should send you straight to buy your own plant.  Fresh organic basil leaves are $2.99 for 2.5 ounces.  Yikes!  Of course, this must reflect the absolute difficulty of transporting a very fragile, temperature sensitive herb from where it is grown (Florida and Massachusetts by the label) to a Trader Joe's, then keeping it in any kind of condition until purchase.  I figure, based on my experience with basil leaves, that these are good for maybe a week from harvest to eating, even assuming modern packaging and transport.

I'll be using this price this year in "How Much Does a Garden Grow," although I'm going to cut it a bit to $1.00 per ounce to take into account that I bring my basil into the house on the stem, which weighs up a little.  Even so, I can easily eat $1.00 of basil a day for the entire summer, which makes it a luxury that would start to get pricey if I got my basil anywhere but my back yard.

I guess the rich can have their basil in the winter, but I have mine in the summer.

The Analysis
Fast:  Trimming basil from your own garden or container is way faster than going to the store.

Cheap:  Look at those prices!  You pay for a basil plant within 3-4 ounces of harvested basil; the rest is pure garden profit.

Good:  I can't imagine the store-bought kind will have the aroma and flavor of fresh-harvested, with the leaves full of their aromatic oils.  Yum.  Affordable luxury indeed.

Five Sustainable Ways to Live Healthier

As promised Wednesday, here is my "prescription" for fighting unhealthy obesity and living a healthier life. Please note that I am not a doctor, a dietician, or a Certified Diabetes Educator.  You should consult one or more of the above if you want to try an idea you think might conflict with an existing health condition, prescription, or lifestyle plan you already have in place.  This is what works for me, and I will certainly admit I don't check all of the boxes all the time!  Try these ideas and see if they work for you.

Five Ways to Live Healthier

1. Consider fruits and vegetables to be "free foods." You have to be responsible for anything you put on them -- salt, sugar, dressing -- but you can eat as much of the underlying fruit or veggie as you want without counting calories or feeling guilt.  Most are pretty low in calories anyway, especially compared to the nutrition they provide. I suppose it is theoretically possible to eat enough avocados to gain weight, but I honestly don't think anyone can sustain that level of consumption for very long. Too often, we hear advice such as that I once heard repeated that one should decrease one's consumption of yellow and orange vegetables because they lead to weight gain.  Even if I thought that was true, I'm going on the record to say that I don't think that excess consumption of carrots and squash are part of this country's obesity problem.
2. Avoid food with HFCS or preservatives; meat from animals who received growth hormones, prophylactic antibiotics, or an inappropriate diet (such as all corn for cattle, which are ruminants and eat grass); and plant foods that have been exposed to herbicides or pesticides.  Avoid food from GMOs, and try to cut your exposure to BPA in your food containers and other places in your environment.  Some of these will ultimately be proven to be absolutely safe.  Some of these will be thought safe until that is disproven some years in the future.  Some we are pretty darn sure right now are unsafe.  But all of these things raise caution flags, and cleaning up your diet in this way can't hurt.  Far better to eat three cookies made at home from unbleached flour, turbinado sugar, organic butter, and free range eggs than to have three cookies filled with HFCS and a bunch of stabilizers and preservatives.
3. Pick a hobby that requires you to move your body, and practice that hobby for its own sake, not for the exercise.  We dance, swim, and garden, but I am perfectly happy to recommend golf, shuffleboard, or darts-throwing if that is where your heart lies.  Just get up out of your chair and start doing something you want to get better at, and along the way you will move around a little or a lot. If you need to, treat yourself to the gear that goes with your hobby, like the proper equipment or a magazine dedicated to the subject.  Just watch out for your attitude.  If you find yourself saying "I've got to X tonight" about your hobby, you are not doing it for enjoyment, and you will quit.  Pick another hobby.
4. Build in some movement during the day, especially after meals.  This doesn't have to be a big thing, either.  Go out and walk around the yard after dinner, or walk to a sunny spot to eat your lunch rather than driving to a restaurant. Bike to a local errand, or swim a couple of laps in the pool when you take your family on the weekend.  I'm a big fan of the "non-smoking break," where you take 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon to get up from your desk and walk around outside, just as you would if you were taking a smoke break, but without the tobacco.  Make that an expectation at your place of business if you can.
5. Find a way to get in touch with your soul.  We practice yoga once a week at least, but you may like to build in some meditation or a religious service if you are so inclined.  Whatever helps you deal with stress and get back in tune with the moment is a great thing and can only help you live a healthier life.

What are your favorite healthy living tips?

Obesity, Disease, and Sustainability

I'm going to step outside my normal, self-imposed editorial guidelines here and get mildly political with you.  I don't do this lightly.  I have always tried to keep this site pretty neutral on hot button issues, because I think sustainable living is an important lifestyle choice that can be embraced by a wide rage of individuals with an equally wide variety of opinions on a number of issues.  I want everyone to feel comfortable here.  I know I'd get more hits on my blog and marginally increase the small amount of money I make from it by taking controversial stances and inviting contentious wars in the comments section, but frankly, I have enough anxiety in my life without inviting more of it here.

But this business of classifying obesity as a disease makes me a little nervous.

In case you haven't heard, the AMA recently declared obesity, widely defined as having a BMI (body mass index) of 30 or above, as a disease.  That means that the actual condition of obesity is considered a sickness, if you will, instead of just the conditions -- like diabetes, coronary heart disease, joint pain, etc. -- that can result wholly or partially from it.

Better commentators than I am have identified some of the obvious problems with this.  For one, BMI is a wildly inaccurate measure of health.  Since it is a number derived from your height and weight only, it has a tendency to produce some pretty bad results at either end of the curve.  Professional athletes with lots of heavy-for-their-size muscles tend to be declared obese, while fashion models starving themselves into anorexia might be declared simply "underweight."  Even if you eliminate these populations, there are perfectly healthy people whose bodies are simply tuned to carry more weight on them than others.  If you doubt me, you should visit any dance studio I've ever been in.  I'm in pretty good physical shape, and I regularly meet dancers who have a good 50 pounds or more on me (often without my height) who can keep up a technically perfect Viennese Waltz (note for non-dancers:  read that as "fast, spinning sprint of a dance") for round after round, while I'm winded in the corner.

(Digression #1:  One of my major concerns is that our society is more likely to consider overweight a problem than underweight.  It is very, very true that we have an obesity "epidemic" in this country, and marginal overweight probably causes more health problems than marginal underweight.  But I also think that we are far more likely to criticize someone with a BMI of 26 -- one point into "overweight," than we are a BMI of 17.5 -- one point into "underweight."  The first person will be asked, "how could you let your body get this way," while the second will more likely be told, "you look great, but you could use a sandwich."  The pressure to measure ourselves by numbers is a contributing problem to the health issues we have.  How can you stay inspired to keep taking care of your body if the feedback you get is overwhelmingly negative?)

I understand why some parts of the medical community are happy to have obesity be named a disease.  After all, if you are a primary care physician (and if you are, you are indeed a hero), you have maybe 15-20 minutes per patient visit, and it is hard to get insurance coverage and ultimately payment to counsel said patient about lifestyle choices that impact obesity.  Recognizing it as a disease would mean making this time for counseling and any resulting therapies something that the physician is less likely to have to do on a near-pro-bono basis.  And the last thing I want physicians to do is not be able to run their businesses and make a good living.  They are too important to us for that.

(Digression #2:  We are pressuring our primary care physicians way too much.  It is no wonder we project a shortage in that profession happening very soon.  My primary care doc is fabulous, but, knock wood, I'm a generally healthy person, so I see him once or twice a year.  It is hard for him, conscientious as he is, to amass a lot of background information about my life that would let him make good suggestions to me.  I would love to have the option to schedule 30 or 60 minutes where we just chat with no attempt to solve an underlying problem -- just talk about my lifestyle and my hobbies and my family and my worries and anything else that might impact my health.  Then, I'd like to walk out of that appointment and write a check for the value of that time to his practice.  I would be happy to pay out of pocket to give my doc information that could help him do his job better in a no-stress situation for us both.)

I'm over-simplifying here, but overall, our medical establishment is far more likely to pay for a prescription than a suggestion to visit the farmer's market.  And that's really the problem here.  Once you classify something as a disease and attach a handy-dandy numerical measure to it, the system starts rewarding an over-reliance on a single measurement.  Look at blood pressure.  Normal is 120/80.  Most primary care docs I know see this as a general target, not an absolute, but I have definitely talked to over-zealous physicians who would start to suggest prescriptions for 125/85 and pat you on the back for 115/75.  (Again, this is not all physicians, so if you are one and feel your hackles rising while reading, I seriously doubt if you are doing this.  I do a lot of medical writing, and I hear this kind of thing once in a while, so I know it is out there.  But I don't think it is representative of the profession as a whole.)

(Digression #3:  And where the money is, Big Pharma will follow.  Again, I have spoken to far more ultra-conscientious pharmacists and drug researchers that money-grubbing ones, but we are building a system that will reward the development of and the prescribing of drugs, because that's where insurance reimbursement will be.  I'm pretty sure that none of this will result in your health insurance reimbursing you for buying a bunch of carrots at the farmers' market or for paying your gym membership.)

And this is where I'm afraid we are headed with obesity, only our numerical measure is an inaccurate one.  So, more insurance coverage and ultimately more money for prescriptions and for surgeries and other therapeutic measures that all have their place.  But you can bet that money isn't going to go into addressing systemic issues, like whether there are enough bike paths and bike racks, why there are food deserts in this country, what impact HFCS and glyphosate (an herbicide used widely in preparations like Roundup) has on the human metabolism, and the like.  And it almost certainly won't be used consistently to differentiate the person who is healthy and obese from the many whose lifestyle has led first to obesity and eventually to life-shortening conditions.

So I'm not sure what to do to fix this, other than to say that identifying another disease to code in medical billing probably won't solve the problem and is probably unsustainable.  Obesity is a definite problem in this country, and it needs to be addressed.  Luckily, there is a lot that you, the individual, can do to impact your overall health and, consequently, your chances of developing obesity or remaining obese in an unhealthy way.  I'm just not sure whether more policy and procedure is the way to solve this problem.

(Next post will be my own tips for a healthier lifestyle, worth every penny I paid for my non-existent medical degree!)

Your thoughts?  (Keep it respectful  -- remember, different viewpoints are valuable and my anxiety level needs to stay low!)

How Much Does a Garden Grow: June 2013

Now the old spreadsheet is getting wide enough that I will have to split it in two parts next month!  But I think you can see some of the salient points for the harvest coming in for June.

• The cucumbers just started to come in at the end of the month.  I found a store-bought price of $0.99 per pound, which I reserve the right to change later if I find an organic equivalent.  They are cheap, but they weigh up quickly.
• The zucchini, of course, is practically a cash crop around here.  We have started to eat zucchini daily. 
• Blueberries have been a pleasant surprise, with the farmers' market equivalents coming in at $5.00 per pint volume, which weighs out to 11 ounces on my scale.  Our bushes gave 15 ounces of blueberries in June and, as of this writing, are still cropping.
• Radishes turned out to be a disappointment, bolting quickly before I could get very many to eat.  Sigh.  First real loss of the year. 
• Peas and strawberries are container crops that I don't try to grow a lot of.  Nonetheless, they made for some great snacking while gardening.
• Finally, the first harvests from my container potatoes brought in over a pound of fresh new potatoes, which were seriously yummy.  I currently have four containers growing and a number of volunteer potatoes in the garden.

There were no expenditures to report in June, so we are working off the initial investment and heading for some profit.  A total harvest of 4.75 pounds doesn't sound like much, but just you wait!  I have a good feeling about this gardening year!

Blueberry Preserves

With high gardening season upon us, it is time to start putting up some of the harvest for later months.  My three little blueberry bushes don't give enough for me to need to preserve the overage, but I picked up a few pints of blueberries at the farmers' market so I would have some to preserve.

I have found myself making more and more preserves in lieu of jam.  I have seen differing opinions on definitions, but for me, I consider jam to be whole or crushed fruit, sugar, and pectin.  What I call "preserves" is just whole or crushed fruit and sugar, with no pectin.  It is easier to make because you don't have the additional pectin step of the process, and it is more scalable because you don't have to have an exact amount of fruit to match up with a package of pectin.  (Note that you can buy bulk pectin that solves this problem too.)

Preserves will not be as thick as jam, which is fine with me because I can then use them in many different applications, from topping peanut butter to making smoothies to making desserts.  They will gel a little bit because of the natural pectin in the berries themselves.

One thing I like to do with my fruit preserves is pack my jars full of fruit, which often leaves me with a jar or more of plain syrup.  I can this syrup as well, and we use it in the winter as coffee flavoring or ice cream topping.

Blueberry Preserves
2 pints blueberries, washed and crushed
Equal amount sugar (you can get by with just a bit less, but sugar is essential to the preservation process)

Heat crushed berries and sugar until sugar dissolves, forming syrup.  Continue to heat until to a low boil.

Pack in hot, sterilized jars.  Seal with lids, and process in a water bath canner for 15 minutes for half pints.  As you can see, I got three half-pints of blueberry preserves, and one half-pint of syrup from my quart of berries, but your yield will depend on the juiciness and size of the berries.

The Analysis
Fast:  Making preserves is super-quick.  I have even been known to put up a couple of jars of preserves while I'm making dinner.

Cheap:  Surprisingly, making your own preserves is typically not a money-saver.  Generally, your finished product will come in about the same as store-bought gourmet preserves once you factor in fresh-picked berries and new jars.  (Reusing your jars season to season helps bring down the cost somewhat, so you really are only paying up when you want new jars for gifts.)

Good: Flavor and freshness are where it is at with the berry preserves.  I've never tasted a store-bought brand, even the gourmet varieties, that have that intense, cobbler-y flavor you can get when you make your own.

Zucchini Au Gratin

Zucchini season is finally here!  This weekend, we started taking the first small zucchini from our plants, which I think is one of the less celebrated joys of gardening:  you get immediate access to young, small vegetables that would sell at a premium as "fancy" baby varieties in a grocery or restaurant.

Anyway, the high summer veggies are some of our favorites, and I was really looking forward to trying this idea this year.  Zucchini au gratin is a great way to get some zucchini into your diet.  It tastes almost exactly like the cheesy flat bread you get from pizza delivery places, but obviously with fewer carbs and more fiber and vitamins.  Yum!

Zucchini Au Gratin
1-2 small young zucchini, sliced thin
mozzarella cheese to cover
Italian-flavored bread crumbs

Place sliced zucchini in a baking pan in a single layer or a slightly overlapped layer, depending on the size of your pan and the amount of zucchini you wish to use.  Cover with mozzarella cheese in a thin layer (slices work well for this), then sprinkle Italian-flavored bread crumbs over top.  (If you wish to make this even lower carb, you can omit the bread crumbs and sub in some Italian herbs, but it won't have quite the crunch.)

Bake at 350 until cheese is bubbly and brown, about 15-20 minutes.

The Analysis
Fast:  I've been making this along with our normal dinners, and it is a snap to assemble and bake beside something else you have in the oven.

Cheap:  Way cheaper than delivery cheesy flatbread, and much healthier.

Good:  Healthy and yummy.   Let the high gardening season begin!

Mulch, Part II

So last week I wrote a bit about using grass clippings for mulch in the garden, which I believe is going swimmingly.  My plants seem pretty happy, and the weeds are more or less under control.

One mulch project that has definitely worked is using pine needles around the blueberry bushes, something I've been doing for about three years with good results.

Blueberries are tough to grow in these parts, because the soil is not acidic enough for robust growth.  Pine needles, on the other hand, increase the acidity of the soil if you apply them at pretty great depths -- everything I've read suggests you have to pile them thicker than 3 inches in order to get any change to soil pH.  I mulch my blueberries to about 5-6 inches, spring and fall.  Sometimes, I put an additional layer on in the summer if I'm getting too many weeds popping through.

Since I've started doing this, our blueberry bushes are growing nicely.  Even better, they all survive the winter, which wasn't true before I started mulching.  And since I get my pine needles for free from under our pine trees, it is an easy project!

The Analysis:
Fast:  I have a small blueberry patch, so mulching doesn't take much time.

Cheap:  Free mulch from the pine trees means better blueberry growth.

Good:  I'm still buying blueberries to supplement our tiny harvest, but maybe one day I'll have enough bushes to give us all the berries we want!

The Longest Day of the Year

It is June 21, the longest day of the year.  Arguably, it is one of the days I wait for all year long.  I'm not the only one.  Papa FC&G starts counting down on December 21 each year, reminding me that "after this, the days start getting longer!"  We both wait for the day that we have the maximum available daylight available.

I promised myself I was going to write a nice long post for you today.  But it is 5 p.m. on the longest day of the year, and I have at least four more hours of daylight ahead of me.  I'm heading out into my garden, which you can see above, and top dress my tomatoes with freshly sifted compost, train cucumber vines up their trellises, and see how many fresh blueberries I can pick.

What are you doing in the garden this weekend?

A Mulch Experiment

I'm not a huge fan of mulching the garden paths, but in the years since we started using the broadfork, it has made more and more sense to put down some sort of mulch that will decompose into the soil, hopefully enriching it while holding in moisture and controlling weeds a bit.

For the last couple of years, I have put down paths of pine needles at a shallow depth (so as to not change the pH of the soil).  But this year, I'm trying grass clippings.

Another thing I'm not a big fan of:  mowing the grass.  But this year, there have been a number of weeks that the task has fallen to me because of Mr. FC&G's work schedule.  I can't mow the entire yard with the push reel mower, and I am allergic to grass particles to a certain extent, so it became a necessity for me to use the bagging attachment just to save me from a miserable night of sneezing.  So, I seem to have a great deal of grass clippings.

Since we don't chemically treat our lawn, I have felt pretty secure using the clippings to mulch the paths, or, in the case you see in the photo, around the raised beds.  My plants seem to be doing well, but time will tell if I can see any impact on the garden, positive or negative.

I'll hold off doing a Fast, Cheap, and Good analysis on this until I get results.  Until then, do you mulch your garden paths?  What do you use?

How Much Does a Garden Grow: May 2013

OK, really moving along here on the garden.  Of course, May is not a big production month for me, but you can see that we are starting to add some variety.  My greens that lived in the sun room, which I started in February (I think), finished up.  I got more than a grocery-sized bag of greens out of that small raised planter, so I'm happy with an extra eight ounces of greens in our diet.  I also got a few peas off the container vine that I planted, and a few strawberries off our largely-decorative container plants that flank the sun room doors.  None of the peas or strawberries even made it into the house, as I ate them while I worked.  There's some local eating for you!

In expenditures, I did spend some extra getting some plants that I either wanted for back up (like extra cucumbers) or some herbs and seeds for areas that I discovered remained unplanted even after the carefully-planned initial round went in the ground.  I would expect that I am done with expenditures for the year, give or take being tempted by some orphan plant on the shelf or some seeds for indoor greens.

So that leaves our tally for the month of May.  With just 19 ounces of garden produce harvested, I have saved a total of $8.22 over retail.  My balance stands at a loss of $270,49, which I do expect to recoup fairly rapidly.  If history is an indicator, I should break even some time around the Fourth of July, and August through October should be pure profit!

The Ten Best Things About Sustainable Summers

It's an odd time of year for the blog.  Most of the blog-able projects have either already occurred (winter and spring chores, garden prep) or are yet to come (food preservation, winter readiness, harvest glories).  But it is still my favorite time of the year.

I love the next three or so weeks.  The hardest garden chores are done, and most of what I am going to grow is in the ground, save a few fall and secondary plantings.  Now, whatever will be, will be.  (Cue "Que Sera, Sera")  Now I can just enjoy walking out into the garden every day, pulling a few weeds, sawing a few logs for the growing wood pile, and waiting anxiously for tomatoes and cucumbers.

With that, my top ten things I love about my sustainable summers:

1.  Bouquets from the cutting gardens, fresh on my kitchen counter.
2.  Laundry drying on the line.
3.  Dresses and skirts every day, with no tights or thigh-high socks.
4.  Bare shoulders and tan lines that grow darker all summer long.
5.  Answering the question "what's for dinner?" by walking outside.
6.  Wondering how many servings of fruits and vegetables a day are too many, rather than too few.
7.  Grabbing just flip flops and the bike lock key to run an errand.
8.  Tomato blossoms.
9.  Zucchini in everything -- pasta, bread, pizza crust, pies, etc.
10.  A tangible reminder of the kind of life I want, in a place where the temperature never dips to freezing and I can garden and salsa dance outside, all year round.

What are your favorite things about summer?

Surprise Potatoes

I love this.

Remember this guy?  This was my sanity-preserving potato plant, which I grew by shoving a sprouting potato into a hanging basket over the winter just to have something green I could look at during the gardening off-season.

Yesterday, I finally got around to hauling all of the furniture out of the sun room so I could sweep and steam clean the floors, wipe down the furniture, and generally repair the damage from planting season, and I emptied that pathetic hanging basket and its pathetic potato vine.

I found two small, new potatoes.  What fun!  You can bet I will slip those into my dinner tonight, and just enjoy one last chuckle at the potatoes that have kept me sane all winter and now have kicked off the potato harvest for the main crop part of the year.

Two Sisters Planting

There is a gardening technique called "three sisters" planting, which supposedly refers back to a technique the Pilgrims learned from the Native Americans in their first years in America.  Supposedly, you plant corn, squash, and beans in the same hole, and let them grow. The squash controls the weeds at the base of the corn, the beans use the corn stalk as a pole, and you get three crops in the same area you would use for one, not a small consideration when you are working your soil by hand (either as a Pilgrim or as a glutton-for-punishment microfarmer).

It's a great idea, and I'm sure someone can get it to work, but I never have.  If I plant all three crops at the same time, the squash shades the corn when it is young, the beans grow faster than the corn (knee high by the Fourth of July, and all that), and I wind up with a tangled mess.

Of course, one should always be wary of trying techniques that have been passed down in that sort of lore.  After all, the same type of story of the first Europeans in America also has the Native Americans giving the absolutely ridiculous advice to put not one but three whole fish in each corn-planting hole.  Now, I will readily believe that the Pilgrims were told to enrich their soil with fish heads, tails, and guts, as fish is one of the best soil amendments around, but if anyone ever said to put perfectly-edible fish in their corn rows, I hope they followed that suggestion with the words "April Fool!"

Anyway, since "three sisters" doesn't work for me, I thought I'd try "two sisters" this year.  I planted my rows of corn, using a new hybrid that is meant for small spaces and gardens, and then I planted butternut squash between the rows, not in the same holes.  So far, the two crops are getting along famously.  (This picture was taken about a week ago, so I'm further along than it looks.)  I might very well do a late planting of beans in July, once the corn passes that "knee high" point, but right now I'm hopeful that I will be able to get at least two crops in the space intended for one.

What traditional planting methods have you tried?  Have you had to alter them at all?

A Cautionary Tale

Over the years, I have avoided telling this story on my blog because it is pretty embarrassing.  But today I finally decided I should tell you all, in the interest of letting you learn from my mistakes.

About five years ago, I was out in our compost bins flipping and sifting compost on a fine May afternoon.  Our bins are open and free-standing, cordoned off into bays by garden fencing attached to garden fence posts and open on one of the four sides.  We have three such bays, so that we can always have one for very tough matter (like vines and fibrous things) that will take a while to break down, one that is actively working, and one that we can dig into for finished compost.

Anyway, I was reaching the bottom of the finished compost bay, scooping out the last of the good-smelling humus to sift and put on the garden, when I caught my shovel under a tree root I didn't know was there.  In my attempt to lift up, I unbalanced myself, and I threw myself sideways and was unable to get my footing back.

I landed right on the top of one of the fence posts, right on the edge of my ribs where my undergarments have an underwire.  If I had landed an inch forward, I could conceivably have impaled myself in a very tender spot.

Well, the U-shaped top of the metal fence post left a U-shaped cut surrounded by an angry purple U-shaped bruise that took a couple of weeks to heal.  I couldn't even look at it for a few days without freaking out a little, because of how close that cut and bruise were to such a sensitive area.

Did I mention that I did this less than a week before Mr. FC&G and I competed in our first ballroom dance competition?

Anyway, after the comp we came home and found a tube of old, dead tennis balls, slit them open, and used them to cover the ends of the garden posts so that any future falls would meet with a little bit of protection and padding.  Nothing has happened since, but I promise I will never again have a garden post shorter than I am that doesn't have a tennis ball protector on top, even if I have to go buy new tennis balls or other padding to do it.

Consider yourself warned.

The Time Warp Garden Bed

See those beautiful, meaty leeks?  I planted them by throwing some seeds into my cold framed raised bed in February.

LAST February.

Welcome to the raised bed that time forgot.  Without fail, this particular raised bed, which is the only one over which we erect a cold frame, takes two years to produce a crop of anything.  I generally use it to grow carrots and leeks (and radishes, which, thankfully, mature at normal time frames), and it typically takes many extra months for the produce to mature.

This really isn't much of a problem.  As soon as I harvest all of one crop (I generally divide the bed in two and plant two different crops on two different schedules), I reseed the bed, regardless of the time of year.  In this case, I harvested the last of the last crop of leeks in February 2012 and just threw some leek seeds in there and quickly covered them up (it was February; I was cold!) and closed up the cold frame.  We had small leeks to eat all last summer and winter, but we still have plenty on that side that are growing fat and happy.  I'll certainly enjoy eating them all summer, although I'll be darned if I know quite how they overwintered (twice) and why they are now getting their serious girth to become the big boys like you see in the stores.

I don't know.  Every time I think I understand gardening, something strange happens.  I guess that's why I love my hobby.

You're a Good Gardener!

I recently read a Facebook post, clearly a quote that I have not been able to track down, that attempts to reassure women that in spite different techniques and approaches to different issues, they are good moms.  Somehow, this hit home with me, joining up with the comment by another of my Facebook friends that I'm a good "plant mama."  The result is below, an homage to the original that I hope inspires you to get your hands dirty this spring, however you choose to do it.

You're a Good Gardener!

To the gardener who saves seeds and starts them in the dead of winter:  Isn't it amazing the way we can take a little piece of summer and save it for the time of year we need it the most, nurturing it til planting time again?  You're a good gardener!

To the gardener who picks up multi-packs of plants at the hardware or grocery store:  Good for you!  It's pretty cool that you can pick up something growing right where you shop and enjoy it for an entire season.  You're a good gardener!


To the gardener who composts all year round:  Something valuable from something wasteful.  You are ensuring that your garden is fertilized by something you've created yourself, over which you have complete control.  You're reducing waste and turning it into something beautiful.  You're a good gardener!

To the gardener who buys bags of manure at the store:  Who knew you could buy poop?  You've taken the time to go out and get a natural fertilizer for your garden, and you are willing to invest in your plants.  You're a good gardener!


To the gardener who grows only vegetables:  You're taking your time and your hard work and using it to directly nourish yourself and your family.  Better nutrition while saving on the grocery bill.  You're a good gardener!

To the gardener who grows only flowers:  The prettiest things in God's creation!  Isn't it wonderful that you care enough about beauty to nurture it and share it with others?  You're a good gardener!


To the gardener who uses a broadfork or spade and tills the ground by hand:  How mighty!  You are getting some serious exercise while cutting back on pollution and fossil fuel use.  You're a good gardener!

To the gardener who fires up the rototiller:  Way to get the job done!  You can deal with a larger area more quickly, and you are more likely to keep up your gardening hobby with a few power tools to help you along. You're a good gardener!


To the front yard rebel, who displays edibles for all to see:  Make a stand!  Let your neighbors see how beautiful and functional a front yard can be, and maybe they'll join you.  Imagine what a neighborhood full of front yard veggie gardens could grow!  You're a good gardener!

To the gardener who obeys all the HOA rules in a "gardening mullet:" business in the front and party in the back:  You keep going!  No reason to start a fight in the neighborhood or incur an unnecessary fine.  There's plenty of room for flowers in the front yard and veggies in the back, and you can have the best of both.  You're a good gardener!


Finally....
To the gardener whose garden is measured in acres
To the gardener whose garden is measured in square feet
To the gardener whose garden is in raised beds
To the gardener whose garden is in containers
To the gardener whose garden is on the windowsill

You are all contributing to growing something for your health, your pleasure, your taste buds, your eyes, or your sanity.  You have connected yourself to something bigger than you, all through nurturing a plant.  You're a good gardener!

Companion Planting: Carrots Love Radishes

Companion planting is more of an art than a science.  Take my garden, for instance.  Contrary to what a very popular book would tell us, my carrots don't love tomatoes.  (Presumably, other people's carrots do -- that's why the book is popular.)  My carrots, on the other hand, love radishes.

Carrots can be a pain to grow, especially in the clay-y soil that we have in Ohio.  They take so long to sprout, and if that ground gets rained on and solidifies, it is hard for the fragile little carrot seedlings to break through.  Plus, carrot seedlings look like grass, and they take a long time to get those characteristic frond-like tops, so it is very hard to weed the carrot bed until it is almost too late.

Enter the radish.  Everything carrots lack in speed, the radish has.  They sprout quickly and finish quickly, often up and out within a month.  Along the way, they provide some shelter to the fragile carrot seeds and loosen the soil while displacing weeds.  Plus, you will yank and eat the radishes just when the carrots are needing the room to form their roots.  Finally, planting carrots with your radishes lets you start two crops simultaneously in the same space, so less use of your precious garden space and less effort spading or tilling or broadforking up the land.

What companion planting works in your garden?

I Think We Have Apples

As part of the micro-orchard, we have two dwarf apple trees.  I selected these trees because they were recommended as able to pollinate each other, and they are in their second or third year in our care.

Last year, they blossomed at wildly different times, which we attributed to the fact that they wintered in different parts of the sunroom.  This year, we were careful to keep them close together, and we trotted them outside to enjoy the attentions of the bees as soon as it was warm enough, bringing them back inside to avoid any frost.

And lo and behold:  I think we have baby apples.  Certainly, I don't see anything else that could account for these cute little swellings that formed at the base of the blossoms.  Some never got much bigger and eventually fell off, but some have continued to grow to grape size.  Fingers crossed that they hold on, continue to grow, and ultimately give us some apples.

But what do I know?  I'm nervous because last year was a bad fruit tree year in our area, with several tree and orchard owners reporting that their trees never set fruit or never finished gestating a crop.  I'm as anxious for these little darlings as I am for every fruit and vegetable from my garden, and I hope everything works out.

Is it wrong that I pray for my garden right alongside my prayers for friends, family, and country?

Broadforking Update

Three years ago, we bought a broadfork with the intention of discontinuing the annual rental of a rototiller -- we hoped we could leave the soil structure a little more intact while avoiding any petroleum residue in the garden and foregoing the cost of the rental.  Three years later, I'm happy to say that it is a real success.

The first couple of years we broadforked instead of tilling, it was not hard, but it was some work to get the soil into a nice consistency.  As you can see at right, this year the soil really forked up nicely.  I did a significant patch of the garden last night, broadforking in two directions (at right angles), then working the soil over with a warren hoe.  The soil looks and feels like we tilled it, but we just used the power of muscle and fuel of body fat instead of relying on a machine.

The Analysis
Fast:  Broadforking is not faster than tilling, but as Mr. FC&G always says, it is slower, quieter, more pleasant work.

Cheap:  No investment in a tiller either through purchase or rental.  At the end of three years, I'd say the broadfork has nearly paid for itself in foregone rental fees.

Good:  A little (well, a lot, really) of exercise means the garden is already paying off in better health this year.  And I have the peace of mind of knowing I'm not dripping petroleum on my soil.

How Much Does a Garden Grow: April 2013

Oh my gosh, y'all, I am so excited!  The garden is making money!

With $200.44 in initial seed and plant expenses, we probably have a bit more to come in the negative column.  I need to get basil plants, a rosemary plant to replace the one I accidentally killed this winter, and no doubt a few other things that I just have to try.  But I think the expenditure part of the year is nearly over.

In the positive column, you can see that in April we brought in 2 oz. of potatoes, 3 oz. of leeks, and 5.5 oz. of greens, for a total of 10.5 ounces and a store value of $4.05.  Wheee!!!  Now we're starting to make some money.

The reality is, I do consider this my summer job.  Even though we are currently sitting $196.39 in the hole, I am looking forward to a day very soon that we are in the positive column.  I believe that took until mid-Summer last year, but I have my fingers crossed it will be much sooner this year.  Early positive indications include a fairly wet spring, so there is a lot of moisture in the ground, and a wonderful compost year, so I am able to put fresh finished humus on all of my garden beds.

What are you harvesting right now?

Top Ten Things I Love About Line Drying

I have finally gotten to dry a load of laundry outside for the first time this year; this has been a strange year in that regard.  We've had a pretty cold spring, and even when it was warm enough to line dry, I wasn't in a position to do laundry.  So I'm getting my first load out there about a month late this year.  If past experience is any guide, I should have a good five months of line drying yet ahead of me, and I will love every minute of it.

Why do I love line drying?  My top ten reasons:

10.  The bamboo sheets have a wonderful texture after line drying.
9.  I finally get to whiten my whites with sun bleaching after a long winter.
8.  I get a chance to walk outside and clear my head during the work day.
7.  I don't pump any drier heat into my house to make it harder to sleep at night.
6.  I don't use any additional electricity beyond that I used with the washer.
5.  I get a smidgen of exercise and burn a few extra calories.
4.  Hanging laundry is a good chance to stretch!
3.  I can get a fair amount of sun in a couple of 20-minute bursts, so I work on my tan while I get some extra vitamin D.
2.  Sunshine wards off depression.
1.  Hanging laundry on the line means summer is here!

What are your favorite things about line drying?

The Sock Loom Revisited

One of the things that is fun about blogging is that you have access to so many analytics.  It is really cool to spend some time getting to know which posts are the most popular, where your readers come from, and even what kind of browser they use.  (In case you are wondering, my readers come, predictably, largely from English-speaking countries, and they typically use Internet Explorer.  You can see the most popular posts in the sidebar to the right.)

Somehow, over time, a post has gained unexpected popularity:  my post on my  hatred of the sock loom.  I'm a little surprised, but I'm also pleased that so many readers have written in to suggest ways that I can knit our socks without jamming this hard, rectangular piece of wood framing into my stomach while I sit watching TV.  (Apologies to those of you who love it -- if it works for you, you should absolutely ignore me and keep rocking that sock loom!)

As for me, I am still not using my sock loom (anyone want to buy a gently-used sock loom?).  Instead, I have tabled the project because most of my free time for needle arts is now spent crocheting yoga socks for my Etsy store, Carrot Creations.  However, I'm thinking it would be easier for me to crochet socks since I'm more comfortable with one needle than with two.  I plan to give it a try pretty soon.

So let's hear from you again -- are you knitting your own socks?  Crocheting?  Using a loom?

Shifting into Spring

See that scraggly vine?  That's what happens when a gardener has a long winter to get through; at one point in January, I shoved a potato in a hanging planter just to see what would happen and maybe add a little green to the sun room.  The result is a long, ugly vine.  But hey, I hadn't grown a potato vine with no hopes of getting a potato since that awful experiment they have you do in elementary school; you know, the one where you suspend a potato in a cup of water with toothpicks?  I still don't know how the teacher could stand that, with the smell of 30 rotting potato pieces filling the room.

But now it is officially spring, and the microfarm is up and running.  I have potato and tomato seedlings growing in the greenhouse, and we are eating regular salads out of the greens bed in the sun room.  This weekend, I plan to start some of the squash that is ultimately destined for the garden.  The dill is started, as are the peas and the container potatoes.  We are starting to bring some of the early crops in as harvest, so I will have a true "How Much Does a Garden Grow" column at the end of the month.

I feel so much better being able to get out and work on our property.    What are you working on this month?

Not Quite: Winter Potatoes

Remember the winter potatoes I was growing in the sun room?  I had it on pretty good authority that one could grow potatoes in one's garage, so of course I had to try it.

And there you go.  When the vines died back and I "harvested" Sunday, I had a whopping two ounces of potatoes.  Yippee.

And yet, you know that I'm going to try it again.  Given that I only used potatoes that had already sprouted in my potato bin, there were no "seed" costs involved.  I think perhaps starting the winter potatoes during the late summer, so they get some growth on them before winter hits, will be the better approach.  Also, since we now have grow lights in the sun room, a little extra light and heat are sure to help.

And, as Mr. FC&G points out, anything that preserves my sanity in the winter is worth it.

The Analysis
Fast:  The whole winter to get 2 oz. of potatoes?  I can do better than that.

Cheap:  Thankfully, there were no seed costs, but there is the expense of foregone space in the sun room that potentially could have been used to grow something more successful this winter.

Good:  Time to rethink and try again.  But I'm sure this is a viable idea, somehow.

Sustainable Pin: Regrowing Romaine

Normally, I try to link these sustainable pin posts to a particular site or blog that was my original Pinterest inspiration, but I've seen today's idea so many times that I can't pick just one source.  I'm glad to see it and to contribute to the flock of people pinning and promoting this idea, because this is a game-changer.

You can regrown romaine lettuce by sticking the unused root end into some dirt.

Now, I know that regrowing some vegetables is not a shocking idea.  I've already hoed this ground, so to speak, when I talked about regrowing green onions.  But most of the regrowing-from-compost-leavings ideas involve veggies that are typically used in small quantities, like onion tops and celery (I have to try that one...).  This, however, is actual food.

Now, I'm excited for myself because I pretty much just jammed a couple of the bottom ends of romaine hearts into some moistened dirt in a pot in the sun room after Easter dinner, and about 10 days later I had some small, but legitimate, leaves.  Along with the mustard and spinach that are growing in the sun room, this is going to make for a tasty side salad this weekend.  (My romaine is larger than the picture shows, and I'll only take a leaf or two at first.)  But I think the implications go much farther.

This is the tip for every person who says they can't garden because they have no land, or they can't bend or reach, or they don't have a green thumb.  This is the tip for everyone who lives in a city apartment without any outdoor space who wonders what can ever be done on just a window sill.

This is the tip for every food pantry lucky enough to be able to hand out fresh greens; in fact, I call on someone to find those food pantries, and make sure they are stocked this spring with recycled plastic pots filled with potting mix.  Tell your patrons to take that romaine home, make a salad for dinner that night, and then jam that end into the dirt, water it, and put it in a sunny window.  Soon it will regrow.

Will it single handedly solve anyone's food or poverty crisis?  No.  Will it provide enough veggies for a family every day?  No.  Will it substantially reduce food transportation costs by allowing everyone to grow everything at home?  No.

But what it will do is put a leaf or two of lettuce on a sandwich where there is none currently.  It will save a few cents off the grocery bill in a kind of living coupon that is easy to cash.  It will teach someone that they can grow their own food and be just a little bit more self-sufficient than they were yesterday.  It will ignite an interest in botany, an interest in frugality, and an interest in independence.

I tell you, it may look like something for the compost pile, but I promise, this can be a game changer.

The Analysis
Fast:  Let me repeat:  Cut end off store bought romaine, jam into dirt, water, and leave.  Doesn't get much faster than that.

Cheap:  Given that the end of the romaine is otherwise headed for the compost, every leaf I harvest is pure, if small, profit.

Good:  I love tips like this, because they are a great way to foster the values of sustainability and self-sufficiency.

Can I Take My Own Candy to the Movies? The Ethics of Frugality

Frugality and sustainability often cross paths, and discussions of frugality sometimes head into questions of ethics.  One of the most common of these is whether it is ethical to take your own candy to the movies, and similar questions like what your ethical responsibilities are regarding the complimentary toiletries in hotels, and the like.

I have read some fascinating articles that attempt to address these issues in terms of classical philosophy, but I try to employ the Golden Rule and leave it at that.  My ethical guidelines for such situations include:

You must respect the core business of the company or service provider.  
We often visit a restaurant/bar that hosts the occasional salsa dance.  It is possible to dance at these events all evening, only sipping water and tipping the wait staff a minimal amount.  Sounds like a frugal evening, right?

Remember, the core business of this establishment is restaurant/bar; the salsa dancing is just a draw to get you in the door.  Dancers are often a difficult group to deal with, because we tend to not want to weigh ourselves down with huge meals or over-imbibe and lose coordination before we hit the dance floor.  Nonetheless, Mr. FC&G and I make sure that, at these free salsa events, we at least buy a couple of drinks and split an appetizer or dessert.  We also tip the wait staff generously, aiming for at least 25% to compensate for the smaller-than-dinner check we are running up.

You may take what is offered to you, but you can't ask for more unless you need it.
This idea comes into play in hotels, which typically offer trial size bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and hand lotion in your room.  As you can see above, I have no problem with tucking a partial bottle of hand lotion in my purse and bringing it home from a trip.  The same is true for the other toiletries; if I have shampoo left at the end of a visit, I will bring it home.

However, I draw the line at purposely asking the attendants and maids for more of a product unless I run out during my stay.  It is not fair to ask for a few extra shampoos to tuck in your luggage, or to help yourself from the maid's cart.  It is true, as some say, that the maid  may not care, but you will ultimately pay the price for this when the extra expense the hotel incurs from these little nibbles to the bottom line result in rate hikes.

The same is true for the complimentary breakfast buffet, if one is offered.  I don't have an ethical problem with smearing peanut butter on a bagel and bringing it back to my room to eat at 10 a.m. rather than 6 a.m., and if this means I get to skip buying lunch, so be it.  But it is wrong to eat a full breakfast and then pack yourself a lunch.

You have to play by the rules of the business you are visiting.
So what about taking your own candy into the movies?  Surprisingly, this has been a fairly contentious topic among some people, and I can see both sides.  On the one hand, the core business of the theater is a movie, so one shouldn't feel compelled to buy food and drinks just to support them.  On the other, theaters often make a substantial portion of their money from food sales, so bringing your own harms the business.

For me, if the theater has a sign posted disallowing outside food or drink, then I don't bring any.  In fact, I really don't like to eat or drink during a movie anyway.  It is perfectly ethical to eat a nice, cheap, healthy meal at home before treating yourself to a movie; the price of the ticket gives you entry into the movie, which is all you want in that situation.  No one is requiring you to eat.

And no fair sneaking into another film after yours is over.

What are your frugality ethics guidelines?

How to Make Sustainable Food Choices

If you pay enough attention to advice on sustainable living (yes, even mine), you may quickly get to the point where you can't eat anything at all, because nothing ticks all the boxes. As an example, the other day I wanted to find something to replace the wheat-based pasta that I have too frequently during the week, and I remembered Japanese buckwheat noodles.  The only kind I could get had been produced in Australia and imported here.  I bought them anyway.

When I'm trying to make food choices for my family, I tend to think of a hierarchy of priorities.  I make selections based on these criteria in order, but if I can't hit them all (and I usually can't), I don't worry so much about the ones I missed.

1. Did I grow it?  This is the top choice.  If Mr. FC&G and I actually forked dirt, weeded, and harvested, that effort will not go to waste.  When in doubt for dinner, look at the produce basket on the counter, the table in the sunroom, and the garden just outside.  Eat everything that's ripe.
2. What is the nutritional value?  Obviously, stuff from the garden is nutritious, but if I'm not in the garden, I have to think first of nutrition.  In the extreme, think of the pit stop at the Flying J or other similar truck stop/convenience store you might make on a long road trip.  If your choices are down to a candy bar or a box of raisins, take the raisins even if they were imported and grown by questionable means.
3. Can I avoid unwanted additives?  Big things that I don't want to see in my food include HFCS, meat or dairy from animals raised with supplemental hormones and antibiotics given prophylactically, and produce raised with pesticides/herbicides.  I also try to avoid GMO soy products (that is to say, most products with soy) and products with multiple types of sugar in the ingredients (like a list that says sugar, fructose, dextrose -- I mean, really?).  
4. Is it local? This is perhaps the first criterion that addresses global sustainability, but I try to buy as local as possible.  This means, the bulk of our meat comes from the farmer's market, and the majority of our yearly produce comes from my garden.  In some cases, this means I choose US-produced over something produced in a foreign country.  However, I don't worry too much about imports that are characteristic of a certain country and that we rarely purchase in any quantity; for example, Mr. FC&G has taken a liking to Digestive Biscuits after our recent orgy of watching British television shows, and I don't feel too bad about picking up a package imported from the U.K. every other shopping trip or so.
5. Is it organic?  Surprised this is the last thing on the list?  I turn to the organic certification only as a proxy for some of the items above.  Specifically, an organic certification is shorthand for the third item above in the list, in general, in that organic products don't have HFCS, pesticide/herbicide exposure, or GMOs.  However, I'll take the word of an Amish baker at the farmer's market over an official certification any day.

And what about price?  Well, I'm price sensitive like everyone else, but I generally use price as a tie breaker or as something to tell me where to stop on this list.  For example, a gallon of Meijer brand milk (from cows not given growth hormones) is less expensive than Hartzler's milk (which is local, non-homogenized, and from cows raised under sustainable methods) which is less expensive than the boutique brand of organic, grass-fed cow milk in the little quart carafes.  Mr. FC&G drinks the Meijer milk; we make sour cream and yogurt from the Hartzler's brand (especially since it seems to have lots of cream).  We just chuckle at the boutique grass-fed brand, which, the last I checked, would come in at something like $16 a gallon.

Not Necessarily Fast and Cheap: Peanut Butter Frosting

This is not necessarily frugal.

This is not necessarily sustainable.

This is some of the best-tasting frosting you will ever put on a boxed chocolate cake.

Inspired by Buckeye Bark:

1 stick organic butter, melted
1 t. organic vanilla
16 oz organic creamy peanut butter
1 c. powdered sugar

Mix with your mixer until fluffy and creamy.  Spread on cool cake.

You're welcome.

Epsom Salts for Pain Relief

Hope springs eternal; no pun intended.  With temperatures finally climbing into the 50s this weekend, I'm ready to declare the official beginning of gardening season.  And if you are like us, that typically means finding muscles you never knew you had and abusing them in ways you haven't done since last October.

Actually, Mr. FC&G and I are always finding new ways to abuse muscles and joints.  As you may know from reading this blog, our hobby is ballroom dancing.  It is a wonderful activity to share with your spouse, and it is tremendous exercise, but you can believe what you see on Dancing with the Stars when otherwise healthy middle aged people start sprouting strains and injuries like crocuses popping through the snow.  Done correctly, dancing can be strenuous; done incorrectly (like while you are learning a new technique), it can be inadvertently painful.

But you hate to come home from a night of doing something good for your body and pop a handful of pills.  It kind of seems counterintuitive, don't you think?  So I have been investigating non-medication aides to help with sore joints and muscles.

Epsom salts are a traditional home remedy that is recommended for use in soaking baths and in hot compresses to help with sprains, strains, sore muscles, and bruises.  It also has a variety of other uses, as you can see on the bag above, including as a laxative and as a gardening aid.  I haven't investigated those.

Somehow, Epsom salts, once a staple of everyone's home, somehow has sunk into oblivion as we reach over the bag at the store and for the OTC pain relievers and for the prescriptions from the doctor.  It is too bad.  I fully intend to investigate the mechanisms of action of this simple salt, as well as its other uses, but right now let me say that I have tried it a few times in a hot soaking bath for pain relief for my bad knee, and I am pleased with the results.

Two cups in a tubful makes a nice bath and an excuse to read a book for 20 minutes.  The times I have tried it, I have had significant pain relief.  Now, this is not the kind of dramatic pain relief you get when you pull out the big prescription guns, but it is a slow easing of the pain that seems to last very nicely through the night if you do it right before bedtime.  It certainly has allowed me to avoid hitting the OTC pain killers a couple of times.

Two cups sounds like a lot, but the whole 6 pound bag was only $3.29 at the grocery.  A bargain for some natural pain relief, I say.  I'm definitely going to keep us stocked up and maybe see what other wonders this simple remedy has in store.

The Analysis
Fast:  I starting feeling pain relief within about 20 minutes with an Epsom salt bath, which is about the amount of time required for pills to hit your bloodstream.

Cheap:  Epsom salts are cheap, but you do use a lot.  However, I think the cost is manageable to avoid taking medications when possible.

Good:  Anything that soothes those sore joints and muscles is a good idea to me!

Progress on the Money Challenge

So it's time of year, folks.  The time of year when I start to feel I have nothing new to share with you.  That's not true, of course.  Even if I repeat some topics, I'm still practicing sustainable living techniques.

But mostly I'm kind of bummed because this is the time of year I should be starting to share new developments in the garden with you.  Last year, by this time, we were starting to get unseasonably warm days, and I was planting potatoes and peas.  The year before, we started broadforking the ground in February.  This year, we are watching a 5 inch snowfall melt and I am trapped inside.

So I am doing what I always do when the weather is untenable, and I am saving my pennies for my next trip south.  Remember the 52 Week Money Challenge from New Year's?  It is still going strong.

For those of you who didn't see this idea around Facebook and the like, the idea of the challenge is to put aside, each week, the number of dollars corresponding to that week's number on the calendar.  So, in week one, you save $1; in week 2, $2; and so on until the last week of the year you save $52 and have a total of $1,378 in your account or envelope.  Many people are using this to bolster emergency savings, but I'm in the group that is using it to add to the vacation fund.  So, in addition to my normal savings into retirement accounts and my main savings (that pays for household improvements and emergencies), I am putting aside money from my weekly cash to do the challenge.

If you follow the plan exactly, we are on week 13 and you should have $91.  I have been skipping around a bit, as you can see from my chart, because sometimes I have a $20 bill and slide it in the envelope and then check off whatever week or weeks that corresponds to.  I currently am running a little ahead at $113.

Of course, things are going to get more interesting when the weekly amounts are in the $40-50 range, because my weekly cash is usually in the $50-75 range, so I might feel I'm shorting myself a bit.  But as of right now, I am on track, and I'm looking forward to taking my cash and making quarterly deposits into the vacation fund.

How are you doing on the 52 Week Money Challenge?  If you haven't started yet, please jump in where we are and tell us how you are doing!

Grow Lights

Years ago, we found this wonderful wooden planting box that was discarded by a neighbor, and we snapped it right up.  It is about a foot deep and about four feet long by two and a half feet wide, making it the perfect size for growing greens, both in the sunroom and out.  But even though our sunroom is sunny in the winter, we knew we could grow our greens faster with the addition of a little bit of light.

What you see suspended over it is Mr. FC&G's new grow light.  It is constructed of two shop lights that each hold two grow lights, making it four lights wide.  It is possible to buy a four-light fixture at the hardware stores, but we could not find one of the length we wanted that would hold the grow bulbs we wanted to use.  So, Mr. FC&G, with his ultra-detailed craftsmanship, attached the lights with two metal bars and fixed chain to suspend the light from the ceiling.  The metal attachment bars, per Mr. FC&G's detailed nature, are filed until all rough edges  are smooth and rounded.  And, of course, the light hangs perfectly level.

Oh, and that screen you can barely see over the planter box?  That is the critter guard that Mr. FC&G constructed last year to protect our greens when they are outside.  We really don't need it on there now, but it is as good a place as any to store it.  It is constructed of a wood frame and metal screening, and he has tailored the screen edges so they are all rounded and so there are no rough pieces of screen sticking out to hurt hands and bare legs when we remove it.

The Analysis
Fast:  It didn't take Mr. FC&G long to construct the grow light to his preferred dimensions and his exacting standards in his shop.  He worked on it a couple of hours each of two weekend days.

Cheap:  Certainly, it will take a while to recoup the cost of the two relatively-cheap lights just in wintertime greens, but the project in total was probably less than $50.  "Anything for more greens," said Mr. FC&G.

Good:  I've wanted a large grow light like this for years, but commercial seed-starting racks can be expensive.  This was within budget, does the job beautifully, and allows me to enjoy some more of Mr. FC&G's detail-oriented craftsmanship!

Hybrids and Heirlooms

If you are ordering your garden seeds, you are probably trying to sort out whether you should order hybrids or heirlooms.  There is a lot of advice out there.  On the one hand, people will tell you that hybrids are more readily available and often more reliable, which can be true.  On the other, people will urge you to go for biodiversity by growing some heirlooms, also a valid argument.

There are many beliefs on both sides of the debate, so I thought it would be useful to examine a few.

Hybrids are evil.  Well, no, probably not.  After all, a "hybrid" is just a cross between two parents; you are a hybrid.  In the seed world, a hybrid has been purposely crossed and bred to exhibit certain characteristics, such as disease resistance, cold tolerance, or early fruiting.

Where you get into trouble, just a bit, is the so-called F1 hybrid, which is a first generation hybrid.  If you save the seeds from these, they will not "breed true" to the mother plant.  So, if you love your F1 hybrid zucchini and save the seeds, the resulting zucchini you get next year will not necessarily have the characteristics you want.  In some cases, the seed won't germinate at all, or will do so poorly.  But if seed-saving is not your concern, hybrid seed is not a big deal in your own garden.

Hybrids are destroying biologic diversity.  It is true that the number of commercially-available varieties of plants has decreased dramatically, and this is partly because of the ubiquity of certain hybrid varieties.  On the macro level, this is of concern because the way we adapt to a changing world is to have a big "library" of genetic diversity available.  So, if you are concerned about climate change warming your area in the near or far future, it will be useful to know there are tomato plants out there that someone has carefully nurtured for generations to grow in a hotter climate.

This doesn't mean, however, that you should never grow a hybrid.  Just make sure you include an heirloom or two; since heirlooms are open-pollinated, they will also cross with other plants in your garden, and soon you will have a variety that is suited to just your little neck of the woods.  As I have stated many times, my most robust tomatoes ever year are the volunteers that spring up like weeds from the compost pile.

Heirlooms are fussy:  Sometimes.  The real issue is that there are so many possibilities that it is easy to pick an heirloom variety that doesn't love your particular garden, while commercial hybrids are generally bred to withstand a wider range of climate differences.  For example, last year I grew a beautiful tomato called Ukranian Purple.  The fruit was lovely, but the poor plant didn't really love the wave of 100 degree days we got, which I should have expected from a hybrid that came from the Ukraine and was bred for a short season with a cold spring.

You aren't  a "real" gardener until you grow heirlooms:  Nonsense.  Yes, like any hobby or sport, gardeners quickly get into little competitions about who is growing the most arcane variety of the most arcane plant.  I have talked to Italian gardeners who won't make sauce from anything but paste tomatoes descended from Italy, and home gardeners who are trying to grow paleo-grains for grinding into their own flour.  I'm guilty of doing this, somewhat.  But if it isn't your thing, don't let it hold you back from gardening.  Sure, I want a bunch of garden nerds who want to spend hours talking to me about their seed choices, but what I really want is for everyone who reads this blog to go out and grow an edible plant or two on their land, whether that is in a pot, a raised bed, or the back 10 acres.  If what that takes is you going to the hardware store and picking up a bunch of commercially-grown hybrid seed, then do just that with no guilt whatsoever.

What varieties are you most excited about this year?