Locavore Progress

While at this stage we're still partially depending on grocery chain store produce to keep our diet reasonably balanced, we have been able to have a few meals that were either all or mostly local in content. Last night's dinner was a big spaghetti squash from an organic farm only about 133 miles away, with a spaghetti sauce made from a quart jar of our own diced tomatoes canned last year, plus bits of red onion from the above mentioned farmer. The shredded mozzarella cheese was, regrettably, neither organic nor local, and I have no idea where the herbs/spices came from. Gradually, I hope to do better. But at least the main components were relatively local, and our home-canned tomato sauce was amazing. When I opened the jar, the contents smelled as fresh as if we'd just picked the tomatoes. Tasted that way, too. It was the first time I'd had homemade tomato sauce from home-canned tomatoes in a very long while...and it reminded me again part of why we're going to be doing this in the first place. Commercially canned tomato sauce is practically tasteless in comparason...and I had both kids go back for seconds. The Huz had thirds. I dunno...was it a hit?

We finally got back in contact with our friend who raises his own grass-fed steers, and we're all signed up to buy a share of half of one, which we'll eventually slaughter this fall. So come fall the freezer will once again be full of natural lean (and safe) beef. Good thing, too. I'm seeing the amount of meat in the freezer get lower and lower; we're nearly out of roasts and hamburger, and as usual, it's mostly down to the various cuts of steak. Now I need a good source of local humanely raised chicken, pork and turkey, and I think I have a good one in mind--less than 30 miles away, too.

I found the grapevine I want, and bought it...now I just need to get its spot ready so we can transplant it soon. I know that's putting the cart a little before the horse, but I didn't want the nursery to be all out of stock before I had a chance to clear the spot where I want to put the grapevine. And whether that all goes to disaster or not, we still have our friend with the old, well-established grapevines. The deal is that we can have the grapes if we want, in exchange for a few jars of the jam or jelly we make from them. Pretty sweet deal for both of us, really.

And then there's my recent impulse buy. I was shocked to find myself actually visiting two local nurseries within the month of March. Usually, I wait until the last minute--May, sometime--and get what I can get and miss out on everything else. I guess that's why I've never seen rhubarb rootstock available before. I don't like the stuff, personally, but the Huz does, and it might be good added to something else. I've heard people swear by strawberry-rhubarb jelly. So I brought home a rhubarb root--partially as a gift for the Huz, and partially because I've been going a little crazy waiting for the first local produce to appear. The funny thing is, even after I plant this root, we can't harvest hardly any of it this year. But if we never plant one, we'll not have any next year, either, so...there's now a piece of rhubarb root awaiting transplant as well.

March has decided to go out like a lion, and after a brief hint of spring the weather has been cold and rainy with freezing nighttime temperatures for well over a week now. I dare not take the tomato seedlings outside much due to rain and gusting winds, so of course they're growing like weeds inside my 68 degree house. They're gorgeous, but they need to not get too big, or too tall. So I'm hoping our cold weather evens out soon. Great news on the water-in-the-mountains front, but here in the valley we're still waiting for the first asparagus. If that means we must eat more organic lettuce from California for another month, well...one step at a time, I guess.

New Seedling Pics

Okay, here are the most recent seedling pictures. Those from the initial mid-February sowing are now five weeks old. The tinier ones are probably about three weeks old; I planted some seeds in the pots where I thought nothing was coming up; then the ones I'd been waiting on from the first planting came up, and then even later, the new seeds I'd tucked into the flat to replace them came up--so I ended up with many extra seedlings. In view of our locavore plans, that's good--I can trade the extras to friends with larger gardens in exchange for some of the veggies they grow that I don't have room to.

GMO's

Read this article. I beg you. If it doesn't scare you as much as it scared me, then I'm not sure you're even human. I don't need to say more here, because the article pretty much says it all.

Some days I really fear we're doomed as a species, but I'm trying to hang onto my optimism with all my might.

As soon as they're downloaded from my camera, I'll post pictures of my heirloom tomato seedlings. I don't know if they'll make you feel any better after you've read the aforementioned article, but it's worth a try.

Re-potting

Today I re-potted the tomato seedlings, as the greenhouse advised me to do. Each of the Amish Paste tomatoes now has its own 3-inch pot. As it turns out, I had just enough plastic pots left over from prior plant purchases to house the transplants. In every case, when I removed the seedlings from their starter pony pack, the dirt they were growing in crumbled apart because the seedlings hadn't had enough time yet to form a root ball. This turned out to be a good thing, because I had to gently separate the roots of the two (and sometimes three) seedlings in each compartment of the pony pack. They came free easily and no roots were broken, as far as I could tell. Had they grown together for enough time to form a joint root ball, they wouldn't have been as easy to separate.

Before the transplanting, they'd spent three or four hours outside in the sunshine, and weren't displaying anywhere near the shock they'd shown the day before when they went outside for the first time. Today, since they were already outside and I had the dirt and new pots available, I went ahead and transplanted them. Then I brought them inside. Before long, some of them had started to droop, but I watered them gently and turned the sunlight gooseneck lamp on them, and by nightfall, most of the droopers had already righted themselves. Two of them, I didn't even transplant out of the pony pack at all--both because I had no more pots and because they were each in their compartment alone in the first place. They were also smaller than the others--neither has its second set of leaves yet. In order to have the right number for the spots in my garden, I need a total of six healthy Amish Paste tomato plants. That leaves space for two Burbank and two Principe Borghese.

One tomato plant can easily cost from $1.79 to $3.49, depending on size and rarity. So the total savings for me to grow my own from seed is negligible. I'm doing it more for the experience, and for the fact that not all varieties of heirloom tomatoes are available from the greenhouse or other local nurseries. This way, I can grow the varieties I want, and I don't have to be limited to anyone else's whim. Also, it's fascinating--being involved in the process from the very beginning to the end when I harvest the tomatoes. This'll be the first tomato-growing year where I haven't grown Roma, and although it's proven to be a prolific producer in the past, I wanted to go with Amish Paste this time--so we'll see.

Stunting the Tomatoes

The seedlings now have their second leaves, and are about 1 1/2 inches tall. I called our local greenhouse to check for sure whether they'd be growing Principe Borghese this year, and mentioned the seedlings. The helpful lady who came to the phone told me that I should start taking the flat outside daily in sunny weather, because even with the gooseneck lamp with its special "sunshine" bulb, the plants probably aren't getting quite enough through that east-facing window, and could do with some direct overhead sunlight. Apparently, when they don't get enough direct sunlight, they start to "reach", growing too tall and developing long, spindly stalks. Of course, they get brought in at night, because we'll still be having frosts in our area until about May 10.

Also, since the temperature in my house is in the high 60's, the cooler daytime temperatures outside will keep the plants from getting too large too soon and then not doing as well later. So I'm being advised to deliberately stunt my baby tomatoes--for their own good. We'll see how that goes. I did take them outside for a little while this afternoon, and when they came in, a few of them looked a tiny bit shell-shocked and wilty. Most of them recovered by nightfall. The cole crops--cabbage and broccoli--loved the cool weather exposure. They came in looking extremely chipper and not leaning over as much as they had been--they'd all been leaning east, in the direction of the window (which makes a great demonstration of tropism for my daughter's science class.)

I also wasn't aware that I didn't want them to get too large. I've always come home with 4 to 8-inch pots from the nursery before and transplanted those with no difficulty. Now the nursery tells me that when their tomatoes are ready to go home with customers, they'll likely be in 3-inch pots, and that tomatoes often don't do as well being transplanted if they get too big while still in the pots. I've never had a problem transplanting quite large tomato plants, but I don't mind if they stay a little smaller longer. They're easier to handle that way, and if they all got too big, there likely wouldn't be enough room and light for them in the house anyway. The greenhouse is just now starting their seeds, while mine were started mid-February. They're expecting their tomatoes to be ready May 15, which is right around the time I was supposed to transplant mine outside anyway, so it should work out just fine.

There's baby spinach in one of the garden boxes outside (from last fall's planting), still very tiny but already trying to grow. I found a live purple pansy blooming in the flower bed next to the kitchen, and the chives in the pot on the patio--the only herbs that survived last summer and winter--are looking nice and healthy despite the lack of water in the pot. Tough little things; I'll be sure to harvest some this year when they're big enough, and maybe I'll get a few more to help fill the whole pot with chives. Couldn't hurt, if they're that resilient!