Food Security: It Is Everything

February 3, 2023 Sarah

Between inflation and supply chain issues that seem to have no end, eating well these past 3 years has become harder. Even if you can afford the food, simply finding what you want has become so much harder. When we look at prices, sigh, and keep moving, that isn’t a good thing. Especially if it is fresh food you are looking at. Passing up produce, fruit and berries and buying starches instead.

I shop at many stores and take photos nearly every trip to show just how expensive food is these days in Western Washington.

Fresh salad kits? Not at this price. Sure, it serves 2. But a year ago these were 3 for $10.

$7.99 for 5 pounds of red potatoes. Potatoes are poverty food. This isn’t poverty pricing anymore. (The potatoes sold by the pound next to it were $2.29 a pound!)

When $5.99 at the discount grocery store is a “sale price” it’s an issue. For strawberries that taste like plastic, and are barely ripe. They will mold fast as well. Buying fresh produce out of season is expensive and it often travels 1000’s of miles to get to you. It isn’t fresh at all.

Yes, eggs are this expensive here. There is NO difference between these eggs and white ones. It is just different breeds.

The real issue in all of this is we are too reliant on the Top 10 multinational food companies and going to grocery stores:

Nestle
Coco-Cola
Unilever
General Mills
Kellog’s
Mars
Associated British Foods
Danone
PepsiCo
Mondelez (Formerly Kraft Foods)

Or how this flow chart explains it only too well:

Check out Behind The Brands for more insight.

And when you buy what you think is still a “small company” and don’t remember it was bought out nearly a decade ago – it’s General Mills hiding behind a beloved classic of one’s youth. And is so very expensive.

But their regular lines are nothing more than cesspools of crap ingredients (bioengineered is the term you want to avoid). High in sugar, sodium, artificial coloring and flavorings and preservatives, this isn’t food anymore. It is just calories to shovel in. And the organic/natural lines? They can’t be trusted either. At the end of the day, profit is king. Not how well you might eat.

That being said you can even find things in the stores these days (notice that empty shelf – in this store that hasn’t had stock in 9 months).

I often think worse than none is the semi-rotting produce sold these days in stores. Prior to 2020, this would not have been even been put out! (It is hard to see, but the entire display was was full of yellow and orange, and the smell was awful). It was $5 a pound.

When I shop, it is often a cycle. I go in hopeful. Then I see how few choices I have. Then I see how low quality the produce is now. Then I look at the prices. I cannot justify $8 for a head of cabbage. Or $6 for a head of cauliflower. Or $1.49 a pound for bananas that everywhere I go, they are sickly green and never taste good now.

I come out of the store angry and sad. A weird mix of emotions. I feel like how do I feed my family and not go broke? How do I feed them food that is good for them? A feeling that I have never known in my life. Even as a child and teen raised in poverty – food was still affordable, with what we had. I knew we could still GET food. I watch people shopping and I wonder, how long can they keep this going?

And I often wonder…how do people not see this? How is it they go through their days, and the rising prices become nearly unbearable? Do they just ignore it, willing it to be a bump, before good times come back?

So What Can YOU Do?

Start growing food.

It’s what we talk about here quite often. Nearly all of us can grow something. You might not be able to grow acres of food, and be self-sufficient, but every time you don’t have to buy produce, you have beat the system again.

Save Seeds.

I cannot express that enough. Save back yearly from your heirloom/open pollinated plants so that you don’t have to buy seeds (or well, at least not as many seeds…hahaha. If you are like me and love finding new plants yearly, we still buy.) If you save back, then in years of lean, you will still be able to plant.

Preserve the food you grow.

Be it you create a cellar for garlic, onions and potatoes. Or you dehydrate produce. Or you can. Or you freeze-dry. When you can “shop” out of your pantry you are winning. You are saving money, gas and time. What you need is in front of you.

Build a community of people who have similar goals.

Being a lone wolf is exhausting. You have to do everything. Find people who have similar goals, who are trust worthy. Learn and share with them, to gain new skills. Learn to garden and preserve food with them.

Bartering.

Let’s say you grow cucumbers well, but want tomatoes? Find someone in your community who wants to pickle, but is drowning in tomatoes.

Supporting Small Companies.

This one connects back to growing actually. You might be thinking food, but even when you buy seeds and plants, buy from companies with an actual face. Use seed companies that grow in your region, and use small farms who grow the seed, versus a company owned by a multinational fertilizer company that has many tentacles. Your seeds will be for where you live, producing better crops, but you also help them earn a living and a shaking fist at “the man”.

But it also applies to food. Buy regionally produced grains instead of supporting General Mills. Buy food that is companies who are truly independent. Look for employee owned. For the small family run, who ignore buyout offers often daily. They need you!

And maybe the most important after growing food?

Knowing How To Cook.

It’s winter. You have time. Learn to make basic food to get off the system. Learn to bake bread. How to make jam. Learning to cook means you are less reliant on the system. Less bioengineered ingredients. Eat a lot of soup. Live like you are a peasant who can afford a few nice things such as honey and vegetables, rather than boxes of sugary cereal brought to you by Coke. And when you are gardening, you will have fresh produce to cook with. Learn how to use spinach, tomatoes, bok choy, swiss chard, and so much more.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

February Garden Task and Seeds To Start

February 1, 2023 Sarah

January slips by fast, and once you see February looming, you know it is time to start planning again. Overall, I don’t plant much in January, my push is come February. I start some seeds this month (though I have learned to hold back the majority until March).

We live in grow zone 8b, which much of Island County, Washington is in. We are overall temperate, with wet winters, but not a lot of snow or freezing days (we get frosts, but rarely get deep freezes) with sunny days sprinkled through to dry out. February tends to bring 1 to 3 days of snow, so plan for that before you get too ambitious in planting.

And on the last day of January we got a light dusting:

It reminds me to not push to fast, even though I really want to plant everything!

Garden tasks to get done this month:

Figure out what you want to grow in the coming year, and purchase seeds. Now is your chance to get the best (and freshest) selections. This year do not hesitate.
Plan your garden layout for the year. Go walk outside, take photos, make sketches, even measure if need be. Work it out on paper, or online, using a program (there are a number of free ones, I prefer paper myself).
Clean up your garden work storage space – whether it is a shed, garage or a greenhouse.
Sharpen, and clean tools. Things get dirty in storage, and rust can set in. This gives you time to purchase new tools if needed, if something is broke.
Clean up tree debris, such as fallen branches and pinecones.
Assess fruit and nut trees for minor pruning, if needed.
If the ground isn’t frozen, plant bare root trees and shrubs. Bare root items tend to show up in nearly February in nurseries and stores. Buy early, before the items sit in hot stores.
Plant asparagus bare roots.
If using raised beds for crops, start making them. If existing, turn the soil over and remove weeds. Add more soil if needed.
If planning on in ground gardening, consider getting it ready – cover with cardboard to smother weeds, or get garden tarps down. Working in amendments can be tricky this early due to heavy rains in the PNW.
If you have ignored your compost bin, work on it. At minimum, start turning it weekly. Add in leaves if you have them. If you have animals, work in their manure and any wood chips.
If planning on acquiring chickens, consider ordering your chicks this month, so that by spring they will be old to put outside in their coop. Hens take 9 to 16 weeks to start producing eggs, so plan for this. Chicks should be at least 5 weeks old before being put outside in a coop, I let mine stay in the “chick” coop till they are 10 weeks or so, before they are allowed to go outside in the general population, unless they are hatched by a mama hen, as she will do that for you. During this time, get their coop and run built if you don’t have one already.

Below are seeds you can start in February, which are either colder-weather crops, or need a longer start time, especially crops with a grow times of 80 and up days, in shorter grow time zones. The dates are not set in stone of course. Needless to say, the start of February is a good time to have seeds on hand, potting soil, and small pots ready – and a sunny window, greenhouse or grow light system on hand. And if you start them later? It’s OK for many crops. And for temperamental ones like broccoli, you always can grow those as a fall crop, where they often fare better than in spring, if you miss the window, or late winter is too warm and they bolt to seed. It’s hard though to ignore the call to start growing seeds.

I don’t plant outside this time of year due to the seasonal rains. The seeds just don’t do well. The soil is often waterlogged this month, and can/will still have overnight freezes. For seeds and delicate plants, this is often too much for them.

Artichokes
Asparagus, from seed
Beets
Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts
Cauliflower
Celery
Chard
Collards
Herbs
Kale
Kohlrabi
Leeks
Lettuce
Onions, from seed (Sweet onions take so long to grow, early start times can actually matter)
Peas
Peppers (They can wait until March)
Radishes
Rhubarb, from seed
Spinach
Strawberry, Alpine (Can take 14 weeks to just germinate)
Tomatoes (I find you can wait until March and they catch up with no issues)

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Growing Potatoes: The Easiest Vegetable To Grow

January 23, 2023 Sarah

This meme always makes me laugh. Because it is so true. Every garden group I am in for self sufficiency always ends up on the topic of potatoes.

And why?

Because potatoes are so easy to grow. They are possibly the easiest vegetable to grow. Potatoes have in their code the drive to reproduce. They are not finicky like an artichoke that probably won’t even flower at all, much less produce food. They are not like corn, that will take a lot of resources (space, water and food) to produce 2 ears of corn and then die off. Nothing touches them outside of a few insects.

No, they will grow sitting in your pantry, putting out eyes that look alien and freaky. They literally have the code in them to grow if they go bad. They will grow in compost piles, and 1 bad one will produce 10 or more potatoes for you to harvest when you notice what is happening – that what you think is a tomato plant shooting up isn’t. And if you take the same potatoes and put them in the ground, they will produce forever. For they will make baby potatoes you don’t see when digging up, and those continue to grow. And repeat forever.

You don’t have to do anything honestly, after planting. It’ll take care of itself. If you have chickens, you will find potatoes halfway across your property growing, where they moved it on accident. I find them everywhere. Sometimes the boys have fun taking rotten potatoes and using them as baseballs…and I find plants growing randomly on the edge of the forest.

One Bonus:

Potatoes are in the Nightshade family (Solanaceae). Most animals won’t touch potato tops. I’ve found that rabbits, deer and chickens won’t touch the tops. This means you can plant them outside of fencing.

For example, this group starting to send up tops? Nothing touches it, even though it is right in the open. Chickens will try to scratch in it at first, due to it having worms (it was an old worm bin), so I put a piece of metal fencing around the top for a few weeks, but once it is filled in, they stay out of it. And it says a lot, as our chickens love eating rhubarb leaves. There isn’t anything good about potato leaves, as they contain glycoalkaloids, which solanine is the issue. Animals seem smart enough to leave it be. Always teach children to not eat leaves of plants unless they ask first. There are people who hate on the Nightshade family, some people are far more sensitive to eating potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant and it can lead to inflammation. I can eat them, but I wear gloves when handling leaves (my skin reacts especially to tomato leaves, and my skin gets very itchy and inflamed if working in the sun in tomatoes, and so with potatoes, I always wear gloves and long sleeve shirts because of my history.)

Just harvested new potatoes.

How To Grow Potatoes (Easily):

Buy your potatoes.

While not the cheapest way, buying sterile seed potatoes (they are potatoes, not actual seed in general) will ensure you having healthy plants for a number of generations. I buy from Irish Eyes Seeds in Eastern Washington State. The big box stores will carry shiny boxes of potatoes – usually white, yukon gold, red and blue, but those boxes are over priced and the potatoes are often soft and rotting. If you do buy that way, be sure to peek in the box and run the price in your mind for per pound. You may well find buying online is better. Do not buy them if they are displayed inside the store, or in the direct sun outside. (Again, peek inside. If it is all humid in the bag, pass on it.)

The other method is using grocery store potatoes. Which, yes, does work just fine overall. However, you do run (a very small) risk of potato diseases. I don’t worry about that too much to be honest. But there is a catch, overall you will want to buy organic potatoes. Standard potatoes are treated with chlorpropham, that inhibits sprouting. You can tell which ones are treated, as they will sit on a counter in light and never produce eyes growing, yet will turn a sick shade of neon green eventually. Toss those in the compost pile. They will eventually grow or rot, but don’t waste your time! Organic ones (in theory) should not be sprayed. I tend to plant store ones in buckets and pots, to keep them separate from the rest of the growing area. Far cheaper as well, you can often get a pound for $2 to 3 this way – and that’s a lot. I have found that Washington State grown Russet potatoes are not sprayed, as they put out eyes seemingly instantly. 5 pounds for $5 is pretty hard to say no to…..

The other option is to grow Clancy Potatoes, which are actually grown from seed. I have grown them for 3 years and they are so much fun. First you grow the seeds (great for a greenhouse in late winter), then into a pot or the ground. They are delcious potatoes. (They can also be grown from potatoes held back, after growing the first year.)

Figure our your last frost date for your grow zone and your microclimate.

This can vary wildly even in a single zip code. For example, where we live on Whidbey Island it can be March 15th to April 15th, depending on the micro pocket you are in. You want to plan your first crop to be ready to plant about 2 weeks before the last frost date. For our place, I’d plant around mid March.

Why grow early?

Potatoes like cool to warm temperatures. They don’t like hot weather, especially if they are in pots above the ground. Also, more importantly, if you grow early, you can get 3 to 4 separate crops per year of potatoes cycling through.

Get your potatoes ready.

If your potatoes are hanging out in the dark, that you want to plant, bring them out into the light. If small, you can leave them whole. If large, cut chunks around each eye. Place these in a sunny window, or in your greenhouse on a shelf. This will activate them to start growing, and the eyes will get growing. You want to do this a week before you plant. The pieces need sun to activate, to say to them it is time to get growing.

Get your grow area ready:

There are many ways. But one key note is when putting the potatoes in the ground, be sure to face the eyes up. Just like garlic, you want it to have the easiest time to grow the right way.

The most easy is old 5 gallon buckets, with holes drilled into the bottom for drainage. Toss a piece or two in the bottom, fill with light soil/compost blend. Water often and otherwise ignore

Or use old plastic swimming pools, or cloth grow bags. Even old garbage cans. Or raised beds.

In ground, dig a trench and walk along dropping pieces in, then cover.

Watering:

Keep potatoes watered as you would most things in your garden, but if in pots, keep a far closer eye on it, so they don’t dry out. You want well watered, but not soggy. I tend to keep the 5 gallon buckets all together, where they sit under the irrigation wobblers, so they are watered daily (I put them on the edge of a row, in the fenced in beds.

Mound Up:

Over time you will want to add more soil or mulch (or both) as the plants surge up. Each time the stems are another 6″ high, add more around the plants.

Once the plants go to putting on flowers, stop mulching.

Harvesting and Storing:

If you are growing in pots or bags (or garbage cans), harvest will be a one time event. Dump out and pick through, I do this in a cart, so I can reuse the soil.

If you grow using mulching, you can harvest early potatoes, from the top, and then later on, get the big potatoes, digging up.

After harvesting, I gently brush off as much dirt as I can, then I lay the potatoes on a screen we built, of hardware cloth, framed with spare wood. A good rinse gets the dirt off. Then I air dry in the shade (not in the sun!).

Once dry, they either go into the cellar where it is dark and 55* year round, or into paper bags in the pantry to be used up soon.

Light is your enemy with potatoes, so keep them out of it, especially the sun.

Don’t store in plastic bags or tubs, unless they are designed for produce and are nothing but ventilation. All it takes is one sweaty potato to send the whole group into growth cycle and you will have planting potatoes, not eating potatoes.

Replanting:

Hold back 20% of your harvested crop. Look for the really ugly ones. Maybe you cut one on accident while digging. Leave those in a sunny area to activate, and then plant right away.

Do this, and in many areas you can grow 3 to 4 separate runs every year.

Ready for market.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

First Look: AeroGarden Farm 24XL

January 12, 2023 Sarah

I was gifted an AeroGarden Farm 24XL this winter, the largest hydroponic system that AeroGarden produces. (Hydropondic is where the plant is grown in water, rather than in soil.)

Kirk got it on a fantastic deal for half the retail price for Black Friday. It’s not cheap though. But it also has the features for the price. This isn’t small by any means, it’s no table top device. So if you have seen the small AeroGarden setups, this is far different. It can grow taller items, such as dwarf tomatoes and green peas as well, that the smaller units just cannot.

What led me to wanting to try out hydroponics was last years growing. With the skies darkened due to (what I consider the issue) ash from Tonga, we struggled all year. This fall/winter I have been trying different methods outside to grow year round. From our greenhouse to raised beds (this bed is wrapped with plastic sheeting, around its fence, but has an open top). While the romaine lettuce has kept growing, even through 2 snowfalls and a week long minus freezing event, the lettuce is small. Till spring comes, this lettuce won’t be good eating to be honest. It keeps alive, but is tough as can be. Good for it, but not good for us…..ha.

I realized I needed to explore growing systems again. Overall I don’t use grow lights on our homestead, but with lettuce prices and even finding lettuce in the stores this winter, something had to give. And after this last year of having so many fails, I will embrace it.

It is:

46″ high (nearly 4 feet high!)
36″ across (3 feet)
14″ deep (this makes it easy to have it on a wall)

Features:

2 separate 12 pod grow tanks (each 12 pod is separately controlled)

2 60 watt LED grow lights

Runs on a computer on the unit

Has an app to control remotely

Automatic lights

Built in reminders to add water and feed

Has a magnetic trellis system for taller items

Has a kit you can buy that can stack the systems to create a wall of growing (if I had unlimited money I would be all over this…..)

You can use the machine to start seeds and then transplant them into soil (for tomatoes for example) if you desire.

The Building of The System:

When the unit showed up, Kirk had to hide it for a few weeks – and that wasn’t easy as the box was big enough for a kid to get into. But he did it….

I won’t lie….I did get on the struggle bus a bit with assembling the unit. For one, sitting on the floor doing the assembly sucks. It helped having a kid to help me hold up the sides when screwing them together.

Some of the screws were just awful to get in, using a tiny Allen wrench. This screw was in the storage compartment at the top. And worse, I had put the wrong arm there, and had to remove it, and do it over. My knuckles hated me. My hands are not big overall, and I was cramped. I am not sure Kirk’s hands would have fit in there.

I highly suggest using cardboard under it while building. And have good lighting so you don’t swap the left and right sides. Or better, build the stupid thing on your dining room table so it is at eye height, which is what I ended up doing, so I didn’t have to sit on a hard floor anymore. It went a lot faster that way. And I could see the markers on the parts a lot better.

Overall, it wasn’t that bad to put together, just a few frustrations. One of those “once you build one, you are a pro at it” things.

Then it was on to setting up the water tanks and cords down below and getting the unit into position.

After that, we set it up to a secured entry onto our wifi and set up the system. I put the app on my phone and it would work even better on a tablet I feel (bigger the better), so I will add it to my tablet I use here and there.

Each side takes 2 gallons water to get it started. The computer screen lets you know when you have added enough water.

Each side is separately controlled, and you can toggle back and forth.

I added in the required feed per side (4 capfuls).

Then I opened up the 2 boxes included of pre-loaded seed pods. Each box is 12. One was a salad bar of lettuce and herbs, the other was 2 types of cherry tomatoes. The pods are marked on top.

I wrote down what I planted on paper (because I know in a short matter of time, I won’t be able to read the labels, once the plant grows). Also read the boxes the pods come in, on the side is a breakdown of the actual names of the seeds and germination rates, when they tested the seed lot.

We are Day 2 into the cycle, so I will update in a few weeks how it goes.

Let us hope it looks like this soon enough 😉

The company does guarantee germination, and if it doesn’t happen after 21 days, to contact them. We shall see what happens. I am not terribly concerned though. I plan on using the machine instead for growing my seeds, that I have hand picked for what we like to eat.

They sell the parts as well for this (of course). I did find buying through Amazon was considerably cheaper. I picked up the 50 count kit, which includes the plastic baskets, the peat moss cones, plastic domes, labels and 6 bottles of liquid feed. I paid with tax $30 for this. On the AeroGarden website it was out of stock, but retailed for nearly $60. The 6 bottles of liquid feed are nearly $60 on their website! So the Amazon set is a bargain, and is directly sold by Amazon, not a 3rd party.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

No Garden? Small Garden? Grow Dwarf Plants

January 9, 2023 Sarah

Have you ever grown dwarf plants? There are many seeds on the market to try out now, with more showing up yearly. If people show an interest, they become viable for seed companies to stock, instead of being hard to find.

They can be grown in pots, 5 gallon buckets, hydroponic systems, and in raised beds where space counts.

Many dwarf types can be started in late winter, getting an early start to the growing season, while their tall cousins take their sweet time growing. It lets you eat more densely. That is another bonus for small plants. You can grow the plants very close to each other, so a higher output of food.

(On the floor are a number of micro tomato plants growing, where’d they stay until late summer.)

There are many reasons to delve into growing dwarf versions of produce:

Need to grow indoors (apartment/condo) living.
Growing on a patio.
Limited growing space – small backyard of raised beds for example.
Growing in a greenhouse for year round production.
Growing in a hydroponic system inside.
Square-foot gardening is a snap.

Examples:

Red Robin Tomato (these seeds will show up in stores soon!) We have grown these robust mini tomato plants for the past 3 years. They are heavy producers of full size cherry tomatoes.

Spoon Tomato. An ultra tiny tomato, the size of a green pea! Yes, kids will love it.

Orange Hat Tomato. These are tiny plants, topping out at 9″. These can be grown in patio boxes easily!

Forgotten Heirlooms is a small seed company that specializes in dwarf tomato plants. Like MANY. I grew quite a few in the summer of 2021. What’s neat is the packages of seeds are not big, so you don’t feel overwhelmed that you are buying too many types.

Dwarf Siberian Kale here and here. Unlike regular kale, this tops out at 16″ or so. It’s quick growing, and you can cut and grow multiple times. I find the leaves to be so much more tender. It’s one of the few kales I like eating.

Tiny Bok Choy. Bok Choy can grow quite large, and in early season can bolt to seed and bitterness if we get a hot spell. The dwarf version allows quick growing and harvesting. It’s also perfect for soups!

Little Gem Lettuce. A tiny romaine lettuce that is super crisp. Great for early season growing.

Mixed Mesclun Lettuce Mix. While not necessarily dwarf, you can cut early and keep growing, and they can be used for microgreens.

Tom Thumb Butterhead Lettuce.

Kelvedon Wonder Garden Pea. I have grown this one multiple times. While the pole peas are taking their sweet time to grow their long plants, these are putting on food. They can flop over, but really do produce heavily. You can easily have 2 crops come and go before the pole versions are even doing one. And they are a great late summer planting, sow around August 1st for early fall peas.

Sugar Daddy Snap Peas. These are semi-dwarf at 24″.

Sugar Bon Snap Peas. 12″ to 24″ high, these work well in square-foot beds.

Bush Green Peas. Just look for bush, and under 24″ high.

Dwarf Tamarillo. I have not grown this yet, but hope to try it out.

Dwarf Lemon Cilantro. Cilantro loves to bolt to seed as soon at it sense any heat approaching, but often that’s right when the plant is finally close to being grown enough to harvest. Grow a dwarf version and you may well be harvesting in time.

Butterbush Butternut Squash. While not what most think of dwarf, for squash this is. It takes up a lot less space, where most butternut loves to sprawl.

Henderson’s Bush Lima Bean. Bush beans are a good use of space. They produce a lot, but don’t take the time of pole beans.

Bush Beans. Many of Ed Hume’s green/purple/yellow beans are bush. They grow well in square-foot beds and even pots. Nice production and the beans don’t take long to grow.

Biquinho Yellow Pepper. A 24″ dwarf hot pepper plant.

Radishes. Most types are naturally small, making a great container crop. Just avoid Japanese types that grow super long (these are for breaking up hard soil and feeding pigs with).

Microgreens. You can grow these in a window sill, in a flat container. Cut and enjoy, in a very short time. You can grow them over and over in the cold months inside.

Garlic. Short on space? You can grow garlic, both soft and hard neck, in any container that has depth.

Ozette Potatoes. No, they are not a dwarf, but compared to many other potato types, these grow very well in 5 gallon buckets and are delicious.

I hope this gets you thinking about new things to grow.

~Sarah