Parking lot farmer’s market

Posted on July 2, 2012 by

I’ve been to a lot of farmer’s markets, and they tend to be in large public spaces. But really, a farmer’s market could be anywhere–how about a parking lot?

Millwood parking lot farmer’s market

Craig Goodwin, at the Millwood Farmer’s Market

I was in Spokane recently to visit family and timed my arrival to stop at the Millwood (just outside of Spokane, WA) farmer’s market on a Wednesday afternoon. I was familiar with this market from reading “Year of Plenty“, by Craig Goodwin, pastor of the church that started the farmer’s market in their parking lot. I absolutely loved the book, and wanted to see the market and maybe be lucky enough to talk to him. I did get to meet Pastor Goodwin (after confessing that I felt kind of like a groupie seeking him out), and he was extremely friendly and nice, and took some time to chat with me about our shared interest in sustainable food.

What I loved about this market, besides the small-town feel and the variety of good food, was that it showed that you don’t have to be an expert to do something very positive to promote local and healthy foods–the farmer’s market actually came into being thanks to an eighth-grade parishioner who thought there was a need for some interesting activities in her small town.  Her parents and Pastor Goodwin listened, and now there is a thriving farmer’s market in Millwood. The church also started a community garden. The lesson to me is that we don’t have to wait for the industrial food system to change itself; we can get together with our local church or community group and start mapping out alternatives. And have fun doing it.

Friendliest produce vendor ever–and great food

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Malt Barrel to Rain Barrel

Posted on June 29, 2012 by

My husband  brews his own microbrew, along with a group of loosely organized brewing friends. But this posting isn’t about brewing beer–it’s about rain barrels. (However, if you are more interested in the brewing, I have details below).

The rain barrel idea started with our friend John, one of the faithful brew crew. As he was heading home after brewing one night, I noticed he had an empty malt barrel in his trunk. Turns out he had been collecting them to make rain barrels at home. I didn’t really know anything about rain barrels, but water conservation has always appealed to me, so it seemed like a great idea. The basic plan is to direct water from a drainpipe into the barrel, and then save it to water plants during the drier weeks of the summer. Yes, in spite of Seattle’s well-deserved rain reputation, western Washington is actually mostly dry during the summer months.

My husband got intrigued, went online to get directions, and set up our first rain barrel, pictured above. (If you want other ideas for rain barrels, there are lots of videos on youTube). But one rain barrel didn’t supply enough water, so we begged for a couple more malt barrels. My husband really had fun with this project, settting up a rain barrel series, which last year collected enough water to make a significant dent in our water needs. I realize that these aren’t the most attractive hardscapes in my garden. They are in an out-of-the-way side yard across from a raspberry patch.

Since you are collecting rain from the roof, it will contain contaminents like bird poop, so even though we have a screen at the bottom of the pipe, I don’t use this water to water my vegetables. It’s fine for watering your flowers, lawn, shrubs, or trees.

Now, for those of you more interested in beer-making, my husband and his brew crew go to Gallagher’s-Where-U-Brew. They have all of the equipment and supplies, and you can make just about any type of beer you are interested in. And no mess at home, or trying to find a room with the correct fermention temperature. Gallagher’s has a group of regulars, but there are always new people there as well. It’s a fun place, with a lot of camraderie among regulars, employees, and newbies. Don’t go there for malt barrels, though; their supply has been tapped out! See the rain barrel links above for ideas on where you can get a free or low-cost barrel.

Posted in Rain barrels, Water conservation | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Meet a local organic farmer

Posted on June 25, 2012 by

In spite of the fact that the US has a lot of agribusinesses, this unsustainable state of affairs is being countered by the trend toward small organic farms. I am lucky enough to know an organic farmer that I buy from. Eric Fritch is the owner of Chinook Farms, an organic farm in Snohomish County, Washington, in its third year of operation. He also raises chickens and grassfed cows. For me, this is about as local as it gets–the farm is about 5 miles from my house.

Eric is just as friendly and nice as he looks in his picture. I like doing business with people who care about their customers and their community, and Eric is a model of that. He also owns two other businesses, a sawmill and a lumber business, so I asked him why he decided to start an organic farm. His reply was that he thought it was important to have local food. Even though we live in a traditional agricultural area, many local farms have to depend on agri-tourism to make a living. He wanted to focus on the food. His farm operates a CSA, and they also sell at the Everett Farmer’s Market, and sometimes at the Snohomish Farmer’s Market. His produce is also featured at a Seattle hotel restaurant.

Solar-heated hoophouse with tomato starts

With a CSA, you might get some vegetable that you haven’t even eaten and get a chance to try it and learn some cooking skills. I always said it was like Christmas, getting unexpected presents in my weekly box. I hadn’t eaten eggplant for years, and have to admit I wasn’t too enthusiastic about that particular vegetable at first. But I learned that it was much better than I remembered it tasting–that’s the beauty of fresh-picked local foods. Plus I got my favorite Swiss chard recipe from Eric’s wife Sharon. If you live in Snohomish county, look for Chinook Farms at the farmer’s markets. If not–find your own local farmer. Supporting local farms is a good way to support the local economy, to preserve farmland, and to encourage a sustainable way of farming.

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Saved by the freezer

Posted on June 15, 2012 by

For years, I resisted buying a freezer, even though I did some summer fruit freezing, and shopped in bulk for foods on sale. I was skeptical about the convenience. I was sure that foods would get lost and wasted. Even though opening the small freezer compartment of our refrigerator was a hazard–watch out for the crammed-in-frozen-food falling out on your head!!–I couldn’t really see the reason to purchase a freezer.

semi-disorganized pre-summer freezer contents

Fortunately, I finally saw the light. My well-used freezer might not be a necessity, but I love being able to freeze a lot of my produce. Every summer, I stack unbaked pies made from back-yard fruit trees. Strawberry and blackberry freezer jam take up another corner. This doesn’t sound very dietitian-y, does it? But I also have bags of shredded zucchini and diced rhubarb, frozen berries, and jars of pureed pumpkin. My husband’s specialty flours are in jars on the top shelf. And recently we bought grass-fed beef from a local farmer, so that is taking up a lot of space–and we don’t eat a lot of meat.

Motley assortment of foods in freezer door

And food doesn’t get lost too often. I try to empty it somewhat before I defrost in early summer in preparation for summer. That’s when I use up all of those little items that may have been forgotten, which seems to work well.

And rhubarb alone is a reason for a freezer. You aren’t growing rhubarb yet? In our climate anyway, this is easy even for a novice gardener, and it’s a very productive plant. My goal for this summer is to make sure that I harvest it frequently so none goes to waste. Rhubarb is the easiest fruit of all to freeze–wash, dry, chop and pack into freezer bags or cartons. If you look closely, you will see that I already have a few bags frozen from earlier this season. Time to get this freezer organized so I have room for the rest of my anticipated summer bounty.

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Urban gardening book

Posted on June 8, 2012 by

In search of more inspiration for my garden, I started reading The Urban Farm Handbook. I have to admit that it’s making me feel a little inadequate. One of the first chapters in the book was about grinding your own flour. Wow. I thought we were doing well since my husband bakes virtually all of our bread. For now…..no flour grinding, I just want gardening advice.

And this book, by Annette Cottrell and Joshua McNichols, does have a lot of very good tips on urban gardening. I especially loved the gardening map of the Cottrell’s front yard–it was amazing to see how many edible plants could be grown in such a small space. Seeing that map got me plotting how to fit a couple more fruit trees in our front yard. And both authors live and garden in Seattle, so they have lots of ideas for dealing with our climate. I especially love Cottrell’s ideas for getting ripe tomatoes in early July. This may not seem impressive to anyone living in a normal summer climate, but usually we get no tomatoes till mid-August in western Washington.

This really is not a book for the beginning gardener; I see it as geared for somone with more experience. So why am I reading it? I am definitely not an experienced gardener. Which is probably why I require a lot of reading inspiration to keep me motivated. And some of the other information may come in handy in the future–who knows, maybe someday I will be writing about my flour grinding adventures.

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Bee Friendly

Posted on May 25, 2012 by

Bees love this purple columbine

I confess that until the last year or two, I totally took bees for granted. I enjoyed watching them on my herb plants, but other than that, I didn’t give them a second thought. But it’s time for me to start paying attention. Bees are in the news lately, with the problem of colony collapse disorder. Since we rely on bees to pollinate an amazing 40% of our food, anything that affects bees affects us as well. And it’s a problem that we can all do something about, in our own small way.

If you have any interest in bees at all–or in food for that matter–”Queen of the Sun” is an excellent documentary. It discusses many of the problems that are facing our bee population now, and also features the visionary people who are working to solve the problem. The most amazing part of the documentary to me was the segment on almond trees. An incredible three-quarters of the bees in the country have to be shipped to the central valley of California in February to pollinate the almond trees. And why do they have to send bees to California for just two weeks? Well, bees can’t survive there year-round–after the 600,000 almond trees quit blossoming, there’s nothing left for them. Instead of a diverse environment with many plants, the central valley is a monoculture of almond trees. The very definition of an unsustainable system.

Herb flowers are bee-friendly

Getting informed on the issue is the first step to saving bees. And the next step is planting some bee-attracting plants. I also recently read that it’s a good idea to leave some dandelions or other weeds that flower early in the ground to give bees some year-round flowers–an excuse to not weed! So we can counter monocultures in a small way by promoting diversity in our own yards. And another important step–quit using pesticides on our lawns. We think of pesticides as something used by farmers, and unfortunately they are, but “crops” of suburban grass also use copious amounts of pesticides. Those pesticides don’t spare beneficial insects like bees. Enough said.

So take the pesticides to the local hazardous waste recycling station, stop on the way home to buy a few flowering herbs or some flower seeds, rent “Queen of the Sun”, and you can do your part to save the bees.

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Ultra-mini greenhouse report

Posted on May 18, 2012 by

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my husband’s mini-greenhouse (this idea is apparently in use by others, who knew?) It seems to be a good way to make use of the deli/bakery plastic that people sometimes bring to my house.

Happy squash plants started in a plastic deli castoff

And it is a fast way to start seedlings. Lettuce seeds were up in a flash. Then we planted squash–this worked SO much better than putting them in a pot in the windowsill, which never seemed to be too successful. They have since been transplanted into larger quarters. Next up: sunflower seeds, those were up in a week. We were on a roll. Love these little plastic containers that I used to whine about.

Sad little sunflowers trying to make a comeback

Then we had a setback. Western Washington experienced a rare week of sunny and hot (in our area, we consider the mid-70′s a heat wave) weather. We put our containers outside to soak up some sun. Busy schedules and viruses intervened, and after a day or two of being forgotten, the sunflowers were given up for dead. Lettuce and peppers were shriveled beyond recognition. We did manage to resurrect a few sunflowers, but lesson learned. You can’t take little seedlings for granted–they still need a fair amount of TLC in their first weeks.

I’m trying to remind myself–it’s ok to experiment, and you are bound to make some mistakes along the way. And really, these mistakes are very low stakes when it comes to gardening. Seeds are inexpensive, and the time investment was relatively minimal. But it’s easy to get attached to little plants that you have seen pop out of the dirt. So in the future, I need to remember that spring gardening requires a little change of routine for seedling nurturing.

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