LJ Idol Season 8 Week 11 Open Topic 1 - Give Us Our Daily Bread

[walkertxkitty]

o/` "We are the multitudes
Lend us a helping hand
Is there no love any more
Living in the Promised Land o/`

-- " Living in the Promised Land performed by Willie Nelson

Comments

[beldarzfixon]

I love that you're able to do this. I never caught the gardening bug, but we had a huge garden growing up. Nowadays I live in town, but I can at least patronize the farmers' markets when they're open -- and the buy-fresh-buy-local movement is big in central Indiana.

[walkertxkitty]

Frankly, it took us a while to get around to this. I think we were hoping the garden would produce more quickly than it did but it's taken me eight seasons to get the hang of the natural patterns here. Doesn't help that our little farm, because it's in a 'holler' has its own microclimate which also has to be accounted for.

Farming and gardening are in my blood. My mother's folks were farmers who worked the land in the west and distant cousins still own huge tracts of land in Idaho; they're one of the major suppliers of the nation's potatoes. I'm good at it in my element but Florida has quite a learning curve.

I really wish I'd thought to take the family to the market months ago; it's saving us money and the stuff tastes so much better. My husband, who won't eat vegetables, hung around the skillet picking them out of there before they can hit the plate. He had three helpings of the vegetarian dishes we've been serving.

[basric]

Being an avid flower & vegetable gardener I too have tried to force the native soil to grown what it never grew before. I finally admitted defeat and only planted what the soil wanted. I made raised beds for the ones or flower boxes to get the others to grow. I love the entry. (=

[walkertxkitty]

Now that we're working with native and regional species we're getting better results. We have stuff already ready to go in the garden, growing like weeds. We have a home grown loose green buffet. I have high hopes for the rest of the seeds though it's too early to even start them yet.

We have two 4x8 beds, only one of which is in use right now and we're planning on putting in two more just for herbs and medicinals. I haven't given much thought to flowers but we do have a small potty garden on the side of the house (it's literally planted in an old toilet!)

Thanks for reading!

[ecosopher]

Exactly. It is so important to hold onto these things, and not to lose the knowledge or the seeds. It's also very empowering, isn't it?

We shop as sustainably as possible too, and grow our own where we can. I'm quite delighted that when S asked for oranges sometime in summer last year, I said, "No we're not getting oranges, because --" "They're not in season!" he finished off.

Ah, indoctrination is a lovely thing ;D

[walkertxkitty]

I can't spend as much time as I would like in the garden, but I do get down there to supervise once in a while. I am thinking we finally got it right and this is the year the garden actually starts producing. Last year we only got a handful of tomatoes and Dee's epic cayenne crop (plus the basil, which we dried) but that's proof enough we can manage more. I'm excited!

Being in Florida I take advantage of the citrus season. The nice part about that is, it's all almost always in season except the hottest months of the year. They either stagger the crop or develop fruits which mature at different times of the year. My favorite is something called a Honey Bell; it's a really sweet tangerine.

[jacq22]

I am happy to see someone who actually lives this lifestyle, not just writes about it!
You do a great amount of good, supporting markets and recycling. Great entry.

I live in a country town, fresh produce and fish is on our doorstep, not that I am as zealous as you are, But markets are regular and I buy produce, we have apples and lemons on our trees, I grew more once; but a bad knee and other health problems prevent me doing too much else now, apart from herbs. Is Seminole squash like a desert pumpkin?

Pumpkin can be encouraged anywhere here, and quickly takes over, sadly blackberries are poisoned as they grow wild and take over in Australia. They were free food in England when I was a child

[walkertxkitty]

Until recently, we've been lazy. I visited on a whim, thinking it would be too expensive for us to afford eating from a farmer's market regularly (it's a sixty mile trip into the city, where the market is located on the waterfront). Now that I know how little it costs, I am never going back to the groceries again unless the market just does not have what I need (there are no dairy products available and no meat and they don't have a lot of herbs either).

Seminole squash is actually a swamp plant (I live in Florida now, though I'm told I can grow the Hopi varietyhere too; we'll try that next year). It's akin to a pumpkin but the flesh is not as sweet and the older plants are only good as gourds for storing things.

My berries are all wild; we didn't plant them. I share those with the wild critters, particularly the cranky old black bear who lives here too.

I can't get down into the garden to dig any longer but I can sit there in my chair and supervise. With the raised beds, I can also hoe the outermost plants and pick from them.

[jacq22]

Thanks for informtion and happy growing.

[creature_girl08]

You guys have a good life with all that fresh food to feast on. Made me hungry reading your entry.

[walkertxkitty]

I'm very grateful for the life we've built here. It's been a long time coming and we've made some mistakes, been lazy but I think we're on track.

I actually eat a bit more than I normally would because the fresh produce and fish tastes so much better. Mr. Shapeshifter doesn't even like vegetables and he stood in front of the skillet picking things out of the pan before we could serve them!

I ought to post some recipes; we have quite a few which are inexpensive, easy, and tasty.