Its Snowing Outside: Perfect Time to Work on the Garden

As I write this post I am looking out my window onto my backyard which is covered in 6inches of snow and I'm thinking "perfect time of year to work on the garden."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go trudging through the snow to plant seeds or anything but late Autumn and early Winter are crucial times to work on your garden; although, its not what most people think.

The first lesson when it comes to gardening is that making an effective garden is a year-round activity, at least if you want it to be healthy and fruitful. Sadly the majority of hobbyist/backyard gardeners only think of their garden when they walk by the potted plants at Lowes in early Spring. But if you haven't done anything with your garden by then, its too late.

You may recall from some of my dumpstering exploits that I procured a reasonable amount of lumber by which I was able to make two nice new garden beds. Because last year I spent way more money buying dirt and manure trying to fill the bed than I could have ever imagined (let alone the fact that nothing makes you feel more like a fool than buying dirt) I vowed to utilize only free sources to fill these new beds.

An added benefit to using this approach instead of buying commercial top soils and fertilizer is that you can have a healthy organic garden which can produce as well, if not better. To achieve this free, organic, biodiverse soil for your garden bed you first have to understand few things. Well... really only one thing actually: decomposition.

For decomposition of organic materials (the crucial ingredient in any good soil) you need: life (worms, insects, bacteria etc.), water (to encourage the life and to expand the cellular structure of the organic material) and time (often much less than you'd think if you have enough of the other two).

Soil is simply a combination of minerals, decomposing organic matter, water and filler material. If you look at your average commercial bag of topsoil and you'll often see manure, humus, peat moss and vermiculite. Translation of all of those things? Rotting stuff and filler. Just because it is simple though does not mean that it isn't vital in fact Colorado State University is currently engaged in a global campaign to revitalize soil. Plus, as President Roosevelt once said during the Dust Bowl crisis in America, "A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself."

When starting a new garden bed there are several schools of thought in regard to preparing the site, many people will recommend things like tilling, either by hand or with a powered tiller. This is a good idea, as it loosens the soil and introduces air into the soil (something that many people neglect to realize plants need too). However, I'm a bit of a pragmatist when it comes to work, in as far as I don't care to do more of it than necessary. That being said, I prefer the "lazy man's" approach to preparing the site: laying down cardboard.

Charlotte helping flatten out the cardboard scraps.

Cardboard is easily sourced from.. just about everywhere, dumpsters, your own packaging refuse, or any grocery/department/liquor store will gladly give you more than you can take.

(photo credit)

The cardboard that I laid down in our new beds serves a few important functions. First of all, it creates a barrier for preexisting weeds so that they do not spring up from below when it comes time to plant your edibles. While this dense cardboard barrier is enough to keep weeds from popping up it is also permeable, organic matter. Once it has had sufficient water and time to decompose it will provide additional nutrients to the soil as well as be soft enough for the roots of your jack-o-lantern pumpkins to reach down through.

Charlotte's jack-o-lantern "Nice Guy" (ps. thats not a real knife she has)

However, the most important function which this wet layer of cardboard provides is an ideal habitat for worms. Worms are the hard workers that do the tilling and aeration for you, if you just give them the right environment, food and time to do the work. Not only is allowing worms to till your garden for you a less work intensive approach, but it is in fact more effective than hand tilling because it gives the added benefit of worm castings (aka. poo). I'm not enough of a scientist to know precisely how or why, but decomposed material which has been consumed, digested and expelled by worms has a significantly higher amount of certain important garden nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen than if the organic material were left to decompose by itself.

This is part of the reason this snowy, cold, wet, time of year is ideal to do these kinds of garden preparations, because enough moisture (by means of snow), time (by means of passing through the non-growing season) and encouraged decomposition (thanks to expansion and contraction of water logged celluar structures) takes place that by the time next spring rolls around you'll have a lovely dark, rich, worm ridden soil to plant your delicious lovies in.

Enjoying the fruits of last year's soil preparations.

The next step, after laying down your cardboard is to lay alternating layers of "greens" and "browns". Greens are things like: grass clippings, kitchen scraps, rotten jack-o-lanterns etc. Browns are things like: dead leaves, corn husks and mulch.

This time of year is often a great time to layer your kitchen scrap sourced "green" heavy compost because it has already had several months of hot weather, insects (flies, pill-bugs etc.) and moisture to allow for the scraps to compost nicely. Its a perfect time of year to empty out your compost bin into your aspiring garden beds.

Raking in a year's worth of kitchen compost

As for this time of year being a good time for "browns", I think you can look out at your leaf covered lawn and only guess. There are lots of good ways to get "browns" but frankly I can't think of a more universally beneficial strategy than to use the leaves from the trees around you, which so graciously have decided to fall down for easy pickings. You get to clean up your lawn, you get to add nutrients to your garden, you get to provide a insulation to the decomposing "greens" between each layer, and you don't contribute to our already over extended landfills. If you're nice I bet your neighbors will even let you have their leaves too!

(photo credit)

Once you have laid alternating 2inch layers of "greens" and "browns" until your garden bed is full, the last step is: wait. Simply let the worms do their job underneath, the organic materials throughout decompose and the snow, rain, and sun encourage the whole process.

Thanks to a little proactive work in the late Autumn and early Winter you can enjoy soil that retains water, but allows it to drain and is full of rich organic nutrients but resists the growth of unwanted weeds by next Spring when you're ready to plant.

Sustainable Patriotism

I recently heard a story on NPR regarding the first televised presidential address, despite economic woes and post-war needs for revitilization President Truman's address was about food, well... more about eating.

Photo Credit

During his address he recommended (well...recommended like the guilt inducing recomendation of a stern grandmother) to the American people that they should adopt a few simple eating rules so that those in Europe (and America for that matter) would have enough to eat as nations rebuilt after the war.
The food rules he suggested were:

1- No meat on Tuesdays.
2. No poultry or eggs on Thursdays
3. Save a slice of bread every day.
4. Public eating places will serve bread and butter only on request.

I was intrigued by these rules as soon as I heard them. Partially because I already ascribe to a modified version of them (fasting on Fridays etc.) Also, having grown up in Colorado during a decade of drought I am familiar with a similar "by request" imposition at restaurants in an attempt to conserve water.

As a patriot (not a nationalist, mind you, a patriot) I am deeply interested in the notion of growing toward not self-sufficiency but community sufficiency. While doing some more research on President Truman's food rules I stumbled across an article which expanded on the fruits of reducing the national consumption of meat by means of reducing the household's consumption of meat.:

"If every family will reduce voluntarily its consumption of meat, whether it now has meat on the table three, four, five, or six days a week, the nation will achieve a maximum saving of meat and reduce the demand for grain to feed cattle and hogs. This will also produce a downward pressure on meat prices, and help curb living costs."

I know that the news is rife with the pros and cons of the dreaded "austerity measures" that certain countries (including our own) are seeking to adopt but frankly as the old cliche' goes "all politics is local". If every family utilized less resources and also shared the surplus resources with those in their community there would be ample food(/shelter/housing etc.) to go around, regardless of the unemployment rate, the threat of double dip recession or whatever politician jargon is currently a "threat to the nation's future."

photo credit

That being said, we have come up with our own, amended and expanded, food rules list so that we can reduce our own consumption and allow for less fortunate members of our community to have enough when we have more than enough. I'm not a big bumper sticker slogan guy but "live simply so that others may simply live" is just too poetically true to be ignored.

Anyway here they are, the Catholic, Patriotic, Sustainable Family Food Rules:
1- No meat on Fridays.
2- No poultry or eggs on Wednesday.
3- Use "cheap cuts" of meat for at least 1 meat meal each week.
4- Monday is soup/stew day.
5- Make only enough food to feed the family at each meal.
6- Treats only on feast days or important family holidays.

The break down of our motivation for these food rules is relatively simple.

First of all, we already ascribe to a meatless fast on Fridays as our form of Friday penance. While our diocese does not require meatless fasting it is a nice way to nod to tradition as well as share in sacrifices of our brethren around the world who are obliged to the meatless fast.

Fasting on Wednesday is also something traditionally Catholic in honor of St. Joseph. Rather than extending an additional meatless day outright Britt and I have been discussing options for other small sacrifices we can make. This one may actually be more difficult than the meatless Fridays because a substantial amount of our protein comes from chicken, turkey and eggs. With that in mind though, it should make the fast more efficacious both spiritually and secularly.

Rule 3's adoption on the other hand was strongly influenced by my (albeit brief) research into the Truman food rules. From the article I mentioned earlier: "...suggested also that housewives buy the cheaper cuts and grades of meat, rather than choice steaks and chops, to bring down prices and reduce waste...75 per cent of the cheaper meats were not being used on the average American dinner table. If the housewife will make greater use of the cheaper cuts we will have about 25 per cent more use of the entire animal. This will help feed starving Europe and cut our meat bills at home. All that is needed is for the housewife to learn how to cook the cheaper cuts. They are fully as nutritious as the choice cuts if properly prepared. Unskillful cooking will, of course, produce unpalatable dishes. It is time the American housewife learned how to cook the cheaper cuts." Beyond the sustainability and economy of using the whole animal, our self-education regarding Whole Food diets has shown that some of the "less desirable" cuts of meats are in fact more nutrient dense than others. Boneless, skinless chicken breast for example is actually pretty weak when it comes to chicken options. My housewife has already begun some of this by making wonderful, nutrient dense bone broths from our "left over" bones. I'm sure she is also eager to investigate other ways to incorporate "mystery meats" into our regular diet.

Which brings us to soup/stew Mondays. Part of the reason is that if we are making these splendid broths from bones, fat, celery trimmings, carrot tops etc. we might as well take advantage of them and get a fully gamut of meals out of our food (stay tuned for a future post about how to make an entire week's worth of dinners from one roast chicken!). The other thing is that soups and stews are notorious ways to make a little bit of food go a long way. If you start with a nutrient dense bone broth, you needn't add any meat, or if so, very little and the rest (beans, carrots, potatoes etc) end up acting as texture and filler more than needed mineral and nutrient contributors.

Rule 5 has a loose association with the Truman food rules in that rather than "saving a piece of bread" each day, we only make enough food to feed us each day, thereby saving bread (or meat or veggies or whatever) because its not even set on the table. This has an added benefit of healthful portion control and digestive health. We should eat until we are no longer hungry, NOT until we are full.

The final rule is probably the most sensible, but strangely the most difficult. Americans love treats, snacks, novelty foods, easy foods, appetizers etc. But frankly a lesson I know from our Catholic fasting practices is that feast days are always more delicious and celebratory when they are special...go figure. The interesting thing is that our Faith is all about feasting, in fact a big feast is one thing we're all looking forward to for eternity. So this rule boils down to no special treats (beer, ice cream, cake, going out to eat etc.) unless it is Sunday, a feast day or a very important family holiday. By abstaining from those special treats day to day we allow them to remain special when the time for celebration comes.

Finally, beyond consuming no more than our share of resources, saving money, reducing the strain on our farm/graze lands, there is a wonderful side effect that our family is looking forward to: aid in planning. Britt mentioned that she is undertaking the Plan-It-Don't-Panic meal planned challenge. How much easier is it to know that Friday will be meatless, Wednesday won't use eggs or chicken and that we're having soup on Monday? It just becomes a game of fill in the blank after that.

Linking up with GNOWFGLINS

Guess what landed in our backyard: The Sequal

For all of you who were stumped by the images from our Guess what landed in our backyard post then brace yourselves for the answer:

*drumroll*

...I have no idea either.

What I do know is where it came from, which is certainly something and even more certainly less disconcerting. It was another dumpstering find, one that I wouldn't have taken home had Britt and I literally not just been talking about material to build an awning for our back porch that morning.

The object is... well, huge. I'm not particularly certain about its dimensions but spread out it nearly fills our backyard. That being said its likely somewhere around 1/4 acre. What is more shocking, and subsequently perplexing, about its size is that the piece we have is only about a quarter of the whole (I know because I saw the other 3 pieces laying near the dumpster as well.)

When I first picked it up I surmised it to be a billboard since many companies opt to use tarp style billboards instead of paying for the cost of painting and/or installation of more permenant billboard material. However, the dimensions on this thing are waaaaay too big to be a billboard. The "small" piece of it which we now poccess is probably a billboard size itself.

The other odd thing is that some of the text on it is only 2 or 3 inches tall, making it ineffective for billboard distances. What was this used for really? No idea, honestly. Based on the text and imagery it seems to have been some kind of advertisement for a phone company but this piece of material would have been seriously enormous.

Nevertheless, for our purposes its awsome. The material itself is some kind of rubberized plastic which makes it (as I'm sure was its intent) weatherproof. It also is actually a small mesh, which will allow for both (some) light as well as air to pass through the (for lack of a better word) fabric.

This is wonderful news for two reasons: First of all, this material will be essentially ideal for the awning which we are looking to make for our back porch. Allowing some light, but providing shade, and also able to stand up to sun and other harsh elements.

The other benefit of the material, since we have more than enough to spare, is that it should also function as a pretty useful cold frame for our garden bed. We have a funny growing season here, we have enough sun for many months, but frosts come in pretty early sometimes. Hopefully this material will be both insulative and permeable enough to give us another month or two of growing for our new crops of spinach, swiss chard, beets, kale and winter squash. Maybe pumpkins too, providing our dachshund doesn't eat any more of them.

Farmer's Market Monday

Farmer's Markets are so pretty!

Mondays are Farmer's Market days for us.  Since we'd had my cousin and her family over for dinner Sunday night, we were completely out of vegetables.  And since one of our original rules allowed me to spend money on fresh veggies and the like to keep our family running on a healthy Real Food diet, away we went to visit with our favorite Farmer's family, mentioned here in Joey's post. Unfortunately, Darrell is still not doing so well, so please keep praying for him.  But Alice and Alicia were there and ready to enjoy a quick snuggle with Beatrice while Charlotte munched on a slice of their delicious Rocky Ford Watermelon.

Bea's got their attention!

Mrs. Alice and Beatrice get a good cuddle in

Charlotte enjoys her Rocky Ford Melon with Joey

Alicia's turn to cuddle while Mrs. Alice helps another customer

We got away with enough tomatoes (ours aren't turning red in the garden), red potatoes, yams, and an onion to last us the week for just $4.  I also bought a spaghetti squash and a bunch of dill for the dill pickles I needed to make at the stand a few down for $4 as well.  We love our Farmer's Market for sure!

The Power of a (super cute, irrisistably adorable) Smile

Britt briefly mentioned the other day the sweet score we got on discounted butter because our daughters are cute. Today, we continued to reap the benefits.

As I alluded to on my last post, we have a crab apple tree. I was just excited to have access to something that is fruitful (literally and figuratively) on my own property. However, an unexpected benefit to our harvest was that we were able to arrange a trade of crab apples for some peppers and a handful of other produce from one of the vendors at the farmers' markets which we frequent. Beyond access to free peppers, the biggest benefit was that this transaction opened up future barter possibilities.

Today we asked the mother/daughter duo (typically a father/daughter duo but he is struggling with kidney troubles, please pray for him) if they had any fruit that was past its prime. The mother, who incidentally is an awesome old southern grandma, said that she had some peaches that were pretty much not going to last past the end of the day. Since we've lately been trying our hands at both wines and canning (thanks to some seconds tomatoes which we got from this same vendor a few weeks back) we were all over getting these soft soft peaches.
The icing on the cake though wasn't these fuzzy lil delights, but rather the fact that both the mother and daughter couldn't resist how pretty Charlotte and Beatrice were in their bonnets. Because of our past conversation and interest in these peoples' lives, our frequent patronage of their stand, and our pretty little girls the sweet southern grandma threw in a bag of free pickling cucumbers which we were eyeing. She said we could grab anything else we wanted too, but not wishing to be greedy we said that our peaches and cucumbers were already more than sufficient. In response she pinched Charlotte's cheeks and then threw in a tomato and a clove of garlic, completely unprovoked by us.

The point of this post isn't to brag about my daughters (well...not exclusively) but rather to emphasis the importance of building relationships as not just a means to procure resources, but rather as a resource themselves. People are always more likely to give you deal, lend a hand or just in general help you out, if they know you. In short, people will treat you like a person if you treat them as one.

Next time you are at the Farmer's Market at Havana and Yale in Aurora on a Monday, or at the intersection of Colfax and Peoria on a Tuesday be CERTAIN to stop by and get some great deals on fresh fruits and veggies from Alice, Daryl and Alicia.

I gotta tell you, this kind of interaction, and the bag of free garden squash at church yesterday, is precisely the kind of thing I dream of in our world. I think that "self-sustainability" is both a pipedream and worse, disordered. However, I am a BIG advocate of community sustainability, some might call it distributivism, I just call it loving your neighbor.

Bonus!

We aren't going to make a habit of Sunday posts since it's our Family Day and we're busy with church and all, but guess what?

Free Veggies! 

Somebody left a bag of yellow squash in front of our church steps with a sign that said "free garden veggies".  Score 1 for us!  I was just starting to feel a little low!