Eating Organically on a College Budget

It's not easy trying to live as impact free on the environment as possible when you're a college student....one of the reasons why I'm glad I'm attending a college where they've done their best to make sure that the food served in the cafeteria is not only cooked well, but as organic and locally sourced as possible. There's just one problem.

Although I may only weigh approximately 100 pounds, and stand 5'2", I have been told by the cafeteria staff that I eat about as much as a linebacker does. While all my friends say that they would love to have my metabolism, it's really not as great as it seems. It means that although I have a great resource with the meal plan I'm paying big bucks for, I often have a schedule that means I can't use to to its greatest effectiveness. My college has what they call 'meal replacements' that I regularly make use of instead of going to the cafeteria. This makes my schedule easier to handle, particularly when I'm running late and can't get to the cafeteria for breakfast as often as I would like.

When I can't get a meal replacement, or go to the cafeteria, I generally have to find alternatives that are both as healthy as possible, and within my budget. If I didn't have the ability to eat mostly organic at the cafeteria, I'd probably be relegated to the traditional college student foods. Yuck!

Hello After a Long Hiatus

It's been such a long time since I've posted to this blog; clearly, everyday life and a few dozen other things have gotten in the way.  But I believe in the ideas behind it, and I'm still just as passionate about trying to live in a way that benefits this planet and the beings living on it.

That means getting healthier, wiser, and more connected.  It means leaving light footsteps on the surface of the earth, not razing its resources to the ground.  It means realizing that living and eating "green" is a step in a much healthier direction.

Because life can be busy and being green is a job for more than one person, I've added another writer to this blog.  My older daughter is currently at college, and she may have many insights not only about the values with which she grew up, but also about just how it might be possible for even a busy college student to make a difference and live as "greenly" as possible in the midst of busy schedules and other important life events.

Welcome, Ayuh! (Our affectionate nickname for her.  Her baby sister called her that when they were younger and it stuck.)

Seedlings

The tomato and pepper seedlings are up--or at least, many of them are up.  Unfortunately, all but two of the Roma Paste tomatoes did not sprout, and one of the two that did is small and seems a bit sickly.  I fear the rest were non-viable, and that's a pity, because there should have been ten Roma Paste in total and I've ended up with only two.  There's not really enough time to replant successfully and have them get large enough fast enough to be effective this year, so I will have to purchase the eight I need from a greenhouse.

Fortunately, the Principe Borghese heirloom came up strong and beautiful, as did three of the Marglobes, and they will fit the four topsy-turvies that I plan to hang from the patio.  So it's only most of the ones that go in the garden that I will have to buy from someone else.

The huz is happy because all but two of the super-hot peppers I planted for him have sprouted; he warmed up the seed pots under a blanket and a light for a day, and the seeds he had saved from peppers we grew last year sprouted.  He has over a dozen of these pepper plants now, and he is the only one who really wants to eat such hot peppers.  But that doesn't matter.  He's happy, and he'll have his peppers, and that's a good thing.

Kicking Off A Year of Flat-Broke Eating

It doesn't seem like several months have gone by since the last post. Where does the time go? The economy being what it is, even food has to be on a strict budget. That got me to thinking that it might be good to share any tips or experiences I come across for the backyard gardener and people who want a greener lifestyle even on a shoestring budget.

It's mid-February, and time to start our seedlings to go into our small backyard vegetable garden this year. I'll start with that.

It isn't that seeds are horribly expensive, but it's better if you can save seed from heirloom plants--that way you aren't laying out even $1.50 for a packet of maybe 20 seeds. This year, I can't really afford that much, so I'm using seeds that I have either saved from last year's garden, that I already had on hand from previous years' purchases, or that were given to me a couple of years ago by the wonderful people at Wintersown.  Without them, I would not now have seed for the tomato plants I will need to help feed my family this year.  It's my goal to grow as much of our food as possible in the limited space we have. It's going to take luck and planning.

I'll post more soon as we go through the process of planning our garden, choosing which foods will give us the most bang for our buck, and taking the seeds through the indoor sprouting process so that they will be ready to go into the garden when the weather warms up.

Savory

Why is it that no one seems to know what the herb called Savory is? It's not important or anything--it's just one of the main herbs that help flavor the best-tasting tomato-based pasta sauce. It also adds the perfect flavor to cream of tomato soup. Tonight it was one of just three herbs (savory, parsley, and thyme) that I used to flavor the ham and broccoli crustless quiche we had for dinner. These are just the first few uses for savory that occurred to me. There are many more; hence my earlier sarcasm. I know I've heard many TV chefs mention it. So why is it that the big-box grocery store in our area does not even stock it with the culinary spices? And why do only a very few of our garden centers even stock the seeds, much less sell it as an annual along with the rest of the spice herbs? I've lost count of the people who've looked at me strangely and repeated, "Savory?"

Yes, savory. There are two varieties: summer savory and winter savory. The first is an annual and must be started anew every year, while the other is a perennial. If we were in Italy, I'd be willing to bet that this blog post would never have been written. I'm sure the Italians know what savory is. I'll bet that even if they didn't speak English and I asked for it by name, they'd still know what I was talking about. I, yi-yi!

Strawberries at Home

Here are the strawberries, all tucked into their new bed. There were more like three dozen plants, not two, and there are more where they came from. We're thinking about building another planter box in a different location so we can get the rest of the strawberries--maybe something that can hang on the fence and keep the plants away from the slugs.

Homeless Strawberries

For those not into New Age thinking or who may not understand how the principle of manifestation works, here is a practical example of the process and how it sometimes happens.

It's strawberry season in Idaho. But I have no money for strawberries. I might be able to justify buying a few, but not in the numbers I'd prefer if I had a choice. We've been on a very tight-to-nonexistent budget for almost two years now, and strawberries are not the main staple of our diet, and are therefore hard to justify purchasing. Strawberries are also things that you really need to buy organic, because they can be laden with pesticides if produced commercially. Some fruits and veggies tend to soak up more pesticide than others, and strawberries are on the bad list. Anyway, I wanted strawberries, and had been thinking about how I'd like to go pick some organic ones at the Berry Ranch, but was going to have a hard time paying for them. I hadn't really thought much about it beyond the fact that I wanted some and that I was going to have to limit how many I picked and purchased.

That was when the Universe manifested the strawberries. I have a friend who had planted a whole bed of strawberry plants in her backyard, but her husband had grown tired of them being there. They were in a yard with large mature willow trees, and the strawberries were constantly falling prey to squirrels, slugs, and other pests. There was nothing wrong with the plants and they were prolific, but they just weren't working out for my friend. A couple of weeks ago she announced that she was going to dig up all of her strawberry plants, and asked if I wanted any of them. I hastened to assure her that I would be happy to take them.

Today my friend called me and said that she was digging them up, and could I come get them? So this evening, after my day doing readings at a psychic/healing fair downtown, I stopped by her home to pick up the strawberries. Two whole flats and a round plastic planter full of them. I estimate more than two dozen plants, and most of them laden with little strawberries already forming on the vines. If they transplant well, we'll not only have them for this year, but for years to come, and at no cost. (Well, other than the bag of sand we need to buy to amend the soil in the part of my flowerbed where they need to take up residence.)

This, then, is manifestation. Beautiful, seamless manifestation, hand in hand with synchronicity. And the beauty of it is that everyone benefits. My friend gets rid of her unwanted strawberry plants. I get my strawberries--plants and all. And the homeless strawberries get a new home so they can keep on living and doing what strawberries do.

Imagine what the world would be like if we all functioned like this--sharing, giving, being provided for, all without the stress of money, scarcity, or worry about both.