It's Seed Catalog Time

The first seed catalog of the season has arrived -- High Mowing Organic Seeds. Most years, the little kid-at-Christmas comes out and I get uber excited with the arrival of that first catalog. That's not the case this year after overdoing it a bit this past season and growing weary of constantly spending time in the garden. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore picking dinner and now that it's colder, hitting the storage bins/shelves and eating what I grew (not to mention fretting in the grocery and farmer's market aisles over the lack of organic produce). But my time needs to be more shared between garden work and playtime, so the garden will be a little smaller next year, thus less seeds to order. But there might be a pack or two I simply must have -- like spinach and carrots -- or maybe some cherry tomatoes or heirloom peach tomatoes. And I believe I have to give some new varieties of winter squash a try -- like acorn. I have plenty of butternut squash seeds left over from last year. The nice thing about the organic seeds from both Fedco and High Mowing Organic Seeds is they'll keep if you don't use the whole pack in one year, and I have a good bit from last year. They are good quality, non-GMO seeds that last for several years. And non GMO Is what its all about. Remember, be careful where you get your seeds because over half of the seed market (2005 statistics - can't find more recent data) is controlled by the top 10 seed companies, including Monsanto, the GMO giant. Fedco and High Mowing Organic Seeds are two good starts. Seeds of Change is another good one and many others are out there. Lots of local folks are starting their own organic seed exchanges - those are good sources too. So next season is about to begin. Winter is the perfect time to plan the garden for next year.

Fall Garden - Not Much Left

The sleeping bed for winter where the tomatoes, potatoes, beans, eggplant, and butternut squash were growing this summer. Swiss Chard and spinach. These will survive a couple more light frosts. I initially was going to cover this entire row for the winter, but have since changed my mind. Just not sure I plan to eat swiss chard all winter (I'm not crazy over it).

This is raddicchio ready to cover for the winter. It too will survive some light frosts; but come a hard freeze, a storm window will go over the straw bales.

My pride and joy to eat all winter -- carrots and spinach. This spot is in a south location with the brick wall protecting it. Once it freezes, I'll cover it with storm windows and if all goes as planned, I'll be eating fresh carrots and spinach all winter.

Kale! Yuk. But I can't pull it 'cause its SO nutritious. One of the top 10 super foods in the world.

Putting Gardens to Sleep for Winter

Fall garden clean-up to prepare for winter is much easier than spring prep. Just pull and cover. Well, maybe it's not quite that simple, but it really is a piece of cake compared to the spring time chores. I'm going to focus only on the vegetable gardens.

• Pull and compost all spent vegetable plants that will not survive winter. Make sure you get every bit of debris - sometimes disease hangs out in what is left behind (i.e., tomato blight).
• Weed the beds.
• Mulch or plant a cover crop. I found cover crops to be cumbersome. You need a good-sized patch and easy access with a rototiller to turn it back under in the spring. That was the part that was hard for us -- rototilling it back under. Experts claim cover crops are tremendous soil builders and I don't doubt them. My preference for soil building is a thick layer of mulch with compost and horse manure.
• There are many other types of mulch to use and you can find a nice list here. The idea of mulch is to keep weeds at bay and more importantly, prevent soil erosion over the winter. Depending on the mulch you use, you'll feed your soil well over the winter also.
• Enjoy winter's rest. I know I will!

Really, that's all that's to it. The important thing is to do it. If you don't, by spring you'll have an amazing crop of weeds in the soil that isn't dried out and parched from winter's freeze-drying process. There are some excellent cold-hardy weeds out there that will love taking hold and growing in you mulchless garden.

Using Organic Coconut Oil for Cooking (Frying)

I know, I know, it certainly isn't local, is it?! But neither is olive oil, nor any of the other plant-based "good" oils used in cooking. My food focus this year is healthy, organic vegan (90%), thus, no butters used in cooking. But what oils to use? There's so much hype about olive and canola oil - oils in general - you don't know what to believe anymore. I've used olive oil for many years, and recently I'm finding it's not all its cracked up to be when it comes to the heating process. Many oils are broken down during heating and lose their beneficial properties and nutrition. Here's an excellent article on cooking oils from the Best Natural Foods website. My latest cookbook, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, uses coconut oil nearly exclusively in everything. They believe olive oil is bad for your health as does Dr. Joel Furhman of Eat to Live. I think olive and flax oils are just fine -- when not heated. But for cooking and frying? Enter organic coconut oil. I thought I'd give the Skinny Bitch's recommendation a try and pick up some organic coconut oil -- direct from Fiji. (No, I didn't GO to Fiji.) OMG. I can't stop frying things in it. First, I made a broccoli stir-fry which turned out heavenly. The smell of coconut oil cooking is delightful, not be mention the hint of coconut flavoring in the food - yummy (if you like coconut). Next, was toasted sliced almonds. OMG (again!). Very, very tasty almonds with a hint of coconut flavor. I believe the bitches might know what they are talking about on this one. I'm hooked on coconut oil for frying and cooking and would recommend it to anyone. Remember though, it needs to be organic and cold-pressed. Here's a site with some good prices. Here's another good article on the benefits of organic coconut oil.

"Local" Organics - The Locals Ain't Buying It

For the past year I've been on a high horse seeking out local "organic" food. I'd like to consider local being my immediate "valley" of approximately a 25 mile radius in the Lykens and Hegins valleys; but for a wanna-be vegan, that's near impossible when you live in rural Pennsylvania with a bumper crop of meat and potato eating Pennsylvania Dutch who really like growing things in Miracle Gro. So I expanded my "local" to a 100 mile radius. Several stores I found to carry organic foods are either not carrying organics any longer, or are just shutting their doors. Most recently, Natural Acres closed their doors. I can't say I'm surprised at this one because their prices were way, way out of line for organics. $3.95 for a dozen organic eggs? $8.00/lb for organic chicken? The entire farm is for sale -- 500 organic acres. Boy if I was wealthy I'd be sticking this farm in my back pocket and growing organic food and selling it CHEAP to compete with conventional food. One of my other weekly visits is Nude Food at the Broad Street Farmers Market in Harrisburg. They too have slowly been downsizing over the past two-three years and more recently they stopped restocking their shelves. When I asked when the next shipment of raw nuts was expected, I was told, "Pam is slowly closing down." Drat! Another one biting the dust. Last winter, I inquired at yet another local bulk food store as to when they will be stocking their organic shelves and they also said, "we're rethinking the organic food section and will not carry as much." Prior to that, the local Weis store completely eliminated their entire organic section AND another store cut their organic section in half (BG's in Millersburg). It's SO disappointing, but understandable - people simply aren't paying the prices. The most recent edition of Organic Matters (Pennsylvania Certified Organic's quarterly newsletter) has an editorial about organic milk losing steam -- folks are struggling financially and when they see a wall of choices of milk, they are going to pick the cheap one and let the organic milk sit. Hubby said the same thing and it certainly makes sense. BUT, I continue to believe that organic food does NOT have to be higher priced than conventional. I continue to believe its cheaper to raise a grass fed cow than a feed lot cow. Organic advocates will argue that point until the cows come home, but there's absolutely no reason a consumer should be denied better health with organics just because of the higher price. Health wise (and isn't that what its really all about?), it's not fair. So my garden will have to continue even though I really wanted to downsize next year. There's just some things to important to eat organically that simply aren't available locally (all the vegetables!).

Clean Food and Skinny Bitch in the Kitch Book Reviews

My extremely thoughtful boss got me not one, but two vegan cookbooks for my birthday. The first is Clean Food by Terry Walters. It's laid out like my favorite cookbook, Simply in Season, by the season so you know what to eat by what's growing in Spring, Summer, Fall, or even Winter. Not sure what make with your bumper crop of spinach? Open the index to Spinach, and you'll have a list of recipes to choose from. I love a cookbook not only indexed by the type of food, but by season. Cooking in season, having a full-course organic garden in the backyard (and preserved organic food from the backyard for the winter!), and being a 90% vegan makes this a perfect gift. The other cookbook is Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. This book is part of a series of Skinny Bitch books written by two whimsical writers who just so happen to have been models. The original best seller, Skinny Bitch, basically exposes the food industry and what you eat -- nothing new there. They go on to talk about the benefits of vegan eating which is what Skinny Bitch in the Kitch is all about. Some of the recipes are little long, but the shorter ones make up for them. Word to the wise, don't get it if you have something against cussing. These girls LOVE to cuss (thus, the title?!) and I find it amusing and adds interest to the book. I can't wait to read Skinny Bitch -- my boss promised she'd share hers with me when she's done. She too says she is about to go vegan after reading about all the crap out there people are consuming (and getting fat in the process). I must say, I now think of eating corn every time I see doughnuts, or tasty cakes, or any other processed food with high fructose corn syrup. Thank god for Erik Schlosser and Michael Pollan, and now, the Skinny Bitch girls.

The Annual Eat Local Challenge

October has become the traditional month for the annual Eat Local Challenge. Last year I started 5 days into the challenge and this year it looks like it'll be 7 days into it -- I simply lost track of time and hadn't thought about October being the eat local month. I learned a ton last year taking this challenge -- the biggest lesson being I needed to grow more of my own food. This year I put the task to test and had a bigger-than-ever garden and am grateful I did so and this year's challenge will be a snap. But the garden came at a cost of too many hours in the garden and not enough hours of recreation -- so I need to think through that magic balance of work and play for next year. Overall though, the garden did pay off and I'm ready for winter with jars and bags of my homegrown, preserved produce. I'm proud to say I won't be buying canned tomatoes anytime soon... nor corn from China! Eating local is important for our economy and our environment. If you can, think about getting out of the grocery stores and into the farmer's markets to buy the bulk of your food. You helped the local farmer and yourself.