Organic Gardening = Making Groceries At Home

Even though it snowed last night, the sun came back out today - finally in a position to shine on the organic garden area! I decided it was time to get started on my spring/summer preparations... first, finish raking in the donkey poop I had been dumping over the fence all winter... and churning up the top soil & donkey poop I had layered into the garden beds last summer.

DONKEY POOP + TOP SOIL (removed from around the barn) = amazing black composted dirt !!!

I made a new garden bed too today! As ya'll can see, I dont go for the high class look in my garden... i use whatever i have around to build with (meaning no $$$ is needed, no store has to be driven to). Sticks, old lumber left over from building, and rocks are how I put it together --- and its filled with 100% donkey doo doo.

I had some hay that got moisture in it, and was no good to feed to the animals... so i started using that for my paths I walk on, in between garden beds.

In the pic below... are some of the semi-raised beds I have slowly been filling up. If you are not impressed with how it looks, take a look at the work I had to do to get it to this point...

click here ::: Flashback to A YEAR AGO!

Some of the donkey poop had grass seeds in it, that have begun to grow.

I weed it out, then give it back to JuJu and the chickens!! The hens looooove to run off with the whole clump of grass .... :))))

THINGS THAT CAME BACK! :::::

so my fall winter garden didn't work out at all, because i had the big depressing surprise of having no sun during that time of the year (due to the placement of the mountain ridges). But many of the things i planted during that time stayed alive under the snow, they didn't die when wind & temperatures hit -20 f ...

My dwarf fruit tree have survived! The pear, peach and cherry!

and in my gardens beds...

the kale! the spinach!

the carrots! the rutabaga!

and many herbs are poking their first leaves through the leaves and soil - oregano, parsley, thyme, mint, bee balm, comfrey, chives, lavender and sage!

Xoxoxo

Are Duck Eggs Yum Yum?

I decided to try my duck eggs, and OHhh MY GAWD! I am forever ruined. I will never really like a chicken egg the way I LOvEd the duck eggs, ever again.
The shells were harder to crack open, and when they did the biggest darkest yellow came gooping out into the pan. Perfectly firm, perfectly shaped. In fact, when i was cooking it, it held it's shape impressively better then chicken eggs - so i got to make two flawless "fried eggs" with the wet dippy middle! My favorite kind, that never seems to work out... until now.
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The duck eggs taste soooo good, I could not believe how much richer, healthier, more dense, flavorful, and delicious they were ... it was like tasting what I always wished a chicken egg could be but had always fell a little short of being what i wanted.
Ok...
so basically, i fucking love duck eggs!!! mmm! If you have not tried them before, do it.
XOxoxox

Duck Eggs Too!

This is so fun! This morning I went out to see if the chickens had left some more eggs in the nesting boxes... when i noticed a little nest built underneath. When I looked closer I realized my lady duck has started laying some eggs! The brown ones in the basket are the chicken eggs, and the white ones, only slightly larger in the ground nest are duck eggs.

So amazing, i did not gather them up yet, the nest with it's two eggs was so beautifully made, so beautifully set... and I have more eggs then i even know WTF to do with.

But of course, i am going to have to do a taste test ASAP, i have never eaten a duck egg before!

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You can see only the slight difference in the chicken and duck eggs, in the pic below:::

(duck egg on the left, brown chicken egg on the right...)

XOXOxooox

Making Use Of My Halloween Pumpkin

I made sure to buy an organic pumpkin this year and carved it with my lovable faux Frost knife....
I don't like being wasteful and could have done better with utilizing my jack-o-lanterns' sacrificed pieces parts...
so here is what I did do, and wish I had done ::::

1. Save the seeds to plant next summer (win)
2. Save seeds to roast & eat (fail)
3. scoop out innards and cook it down to eat (fail)
4. light a candle in it and feel total artistic pumpkin carving bliss (win!)
5. feed the carved pumpkin to my chickens when it's face starts to cave in (future win)

Ya'll have any more ideas??!
xoxox

Mystery Squash!

It totally looks like a watermelon, but since I had collected the seeds to this winter squash last year myself and watched it grow on a distinctly winter squash vine I knew what it had to be. I just didn't know what kind of squash it would be on the inside. It appeared that a buttercup & a spagetti squash mixed genetics...
but ya can't judge a squash by the color of it's skin.
I finally opened one up this morning to find that the inside looked just like a spagetti squash, but smelled a bit sweeter. (If ya think I look proud in the picture, it's cause I am super proud of my mixed up squash! Should I call it buttergetti or spagetticup?)

I get really into saving seeds from just about any food that holds them, winter squash are not only delicious but they are also way too expensive in the store (sometimes costing $16 for one organic butternut!)...and if you buy the seeds in packets to plant they are even a bit pricey considering how many actually come in one squash.

The real test though was to cook it and see if the taste of the mystery squash was altered...

it has the shape, texture (forking out the spagetti shaped strands) and inside color of a spagetti squash, but the outside green stripes and the taste are sweet like a buttercup! How rad is that!?!

This is something I am gonna dork out over for a while. :)

Xoxoxo

Do You Forage For Food?

...cause it's kinda exciting and fun. Not to mention probably some deep biological drive that feels super satisfying to fulfill. While I am working on having much of my own food growing at the Luck Cabin by planting dwarf fruit trees, having seasonal veggie gardens, planting a variety of culinary herbs, and learning about edible forest plants... I also am a food foraging scout for at least 2 miles around me.

Meaning, alot of the folks who live in these parts don't actually live here anymore. Farmers get old and die, the family holds onto the land but doesn't want to live there, or there are the once popular vacation homes that are for sale & abandoned now. These people just are not around, and with all the walks I take in the area I can't help but scope out every plant, fruit tree, nut tree and take a mental note of when it will be ready to drop a good meal.

Pictured above are a ton of small white peaches on the ground at a house no one has lived at for quite some time. I picked through them to find the best looking ones. I wanna make peach sauce! :)

Pictured below are HUGE delicious turnip greens I found in a field down the road, the cabin & property there is a vacation spot I have yet to see anyone stay at. The field is mostly overgrown.

There are some places where neighbors DO live, and have such an abundance of apples and chestnuts they are willing to share. :)

Another "food" I forage for is seeds. I find seeds to other herbs, plants, and wildflowers that I want to take back with me to my cabin. In my hand (pic below) is the seed head for the herb YARROW. I use yarrow alot during the summer in the natural bug repellent I make for my skin.

Usually while I am out on these walks I find tracks from native animals, and sometimes I find the real thing...

These are wild turkeys that were very close and within perfect range to get for dinner, but I don't have those kind of hunting skills yet. Or rather I only had a big knife on me at the time and not a gun, or a bow & arrow. But the potential to forage some good turkey meat is easily available...and for me personally one turkey would last me 6-8 months.

FOOD I GATHERED :::::::::

I got a pretty good variety of free foods to eat. Think about it.. it's FREE. Free food and free therapy because giving in to your inner hunter/gatherer just feels good, feels peaceful, and right.

And since these foods are wild, they are not only organic but they are even better then organic!

Chestnuts, apples, peaches, acorns, turnip greens (and wishfully a turkey, maybe next time)! And there is so much more to be had, this is just what I can fit in my backpack and carry on each trip. Had I bought all this at the health food store I would have spent a fuckin' TON of money, just organic apples alone woulda broke me.

But now i can have yummy peach and apple sauce, and enjoy the fruits & nuts of my scouting labors. :)

Xoxoxox

Diggin' Blue Taters!

YAY! My organic garden made me a lil' pile of blue potatoes! Pretty neat-o!

Xoxox

Planting My Dwarf Fruit Trees

I recently had to cut down some trees at the Luck Cabin in order to have a little sunshine, internet service and a spot to build my mini barn for the donkey and chickens. Can I just say no matter how hard I fought it, I felt terrible with every moment of every cut when the wintergreen smell of the birch tree's bark hit the breeze as it was chainsaw'ed into.... don't really care if they are renewable resources (and all other justifiable arguements like my big stacks of firewood) it still hurt my heart to cut them down.

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SO now I am planting some new trees to replace the ones I cut! I had already put in a white peach, regular peach and mulberry tree I brought with me here --- but then I read a Homesteading Book I got as a gift, a book that shows you how to make elaborate food gardens in a very small space...this book had me hooked when they mentioned Dwarf Fruit Trees! Yay! The perfect solution to my small spot of sun, so that they won't shade my veggie garden...

Introducing::::::

(above) My Tart Cherry Tree! This one is my very favorite, not cause of the fruity yummy cherries I will get next year but because when I was carrying her to the garden I had to lean my face against her trunk and all i felt was love.

The Pear Tree (below) was not happy about being put in a box and brought VIA Fed Ex.... but whatevs, he'll get over it. :)

Annnndd here is the lovely PEACH tree! mmmmm.

The rad thing about planting these dwarf fruit trees are they will be making fruit by next year! I don't have to wait 10, 15, 30 years before seeing some fruits - next season I will happily have just what I need (and ya'll know i love feeling like I don't have to depend on the stores to give me food!)

Xoxoxo

CSA Saturday! (Community Supported Agriculture)

Every saturday I go out, down the road to an organic farm that's in my 'hood - a farm that has a box of freshly picked organic veggies, herbs and fruit waiting for me! This year I was not able to get my own organic garden prepared fast enough to grow most of my own food, and I was lucky enough to remember that a few years ago at the Waynesville NC Farmers Market there was this awesome lady named Julie who was bringing boxes of food all the way from Hot Springs for her CSA members......
I totally called Mountain Harvest Organics up on da' phone and joined!

So here is how it works for me - since I am local instead of picking up my organic box of goodies at a market I go to the farm every saturday. I look forward to it all week long! I pull up to a barn, which has a second story that was converted into a house for the farm interns. (Neato, right? Right on...) Underneath that barn house are the freezers where my box is kept --- but before I show you that, check out their awesome greenhouses ... There are several greenhouses where food is being grown, to extend the seasons for their CSA members and their own kitchen table. This is in addition to the 4 acres of farmland they recently fenced in high enough to keep out the deer. There are also pigs and goats - which I hope to get to pics of another time for ya'll!

Inside this greenhouse is tomatoes - which I totally can not eat... the cool thing about a small organic CSA is that the owners Julie and Carl are kind enough to replace/substitute some other veggies for the shit I am allergic too...YAY!

I usually pick up some potted herbs and flowers too, for discounted prices - they said late in the season people don't buy them much at the market so I have been building an herb empire at the Luck Cabin for a very small fee --- herbs i use in cooking every single day.

After getting some live herbs, I go down under the barn house to the big industrial looking fridge to grab my box!

I buy the big box - there are two sizes and the big one is really for a family but since I cook every single meal from scratch every single day and rely heavily on vegetables as the part of my diet I CAN have - I pay $25 for the week of cornucopia. Pretty sweet deal when you realize how much you pay for all this in the store - I get things like bok choy, chinese cabbage, broccoli, onions, kale, lettuce, kohlrabi, radishes, turnips, squash, cucumbers..... and even had two weeks of the most DELICIOUS strawberries of my LIFE!!!

I stick my money in an envelope - for this farm, I pay either per week, per month, and I bet they wouldn't mind if you paid for the year too! ;)

BTW- my last name is kinda mis-spelled here .... it's pronounced REE_SHARD.

Thanks to Julie and Carl for making my life 100x's easier, better, and tastier!!!!!!!!!!

XOXO

Clearing A Space For My Organic Garden Part 3

Remember this crazy sh*t? I have been clearing this spot slowly for the last month, because it is the only sunny spot on my land and was already somewhat clear due to it being under the rural power lines. I lucked out majorly when my cousin Matt came over the last 2 weeks with a chainsaw to move all the big trees that had already been felled - then he came and tilled the space yesterday!!!!

Most the clearing was done with just clippers and a handsaw - the chainsaw & tiller are the sprinkles on my happy cake! I have already started to put out some seeds including carrots, collards, lettuce, turnips, broccoli raab, green beans and red onion sets. And I am not going to stop there, in about a week I am going to set out all the hot plants like squash (winter and summer varieties), cucumbers, melons, and those unreal penis shaped peppers I bought ... :)
In the large tree stumps that were hollow, I filled them with dirt and planted lettuce, kale, dill and chamomile in them ... the kale is already sprouting! Dead tree stumps are like big awesome pots to plant in. (Thanks Matt for the cool idea!)
Woo! Can't wait till it all grows and I can eat it all up! It's worth every second of 'hard' work.

XOxoxo

Macrobiotic & Gluten Free Carrot Spaghetti Sauce

Holy Carrots! These are some organic carrots that grew in the garden here, aren't they girthy? I decided to make one of my favorite macrobiotic recipes with these big boys, a delicious carrot spaghetti sauce that uses NO tomatoes and gives this traditional (american-ized) Italian dish a sweet yummy twist! This carrot sauce can be used on anything you would use regular spaghetti sauce on- like noodles, lasagna, or gluten free pizza crust!

You will need:

• a bunch of carrots
• one small beet (to turn the sauce red!)
  
• red onion
• herbs (basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, bay leaf, sage etc..)
• celery
• shittake mushrooms (optional!)
• olive oil
• sea salt or ume paste
  

When I made this dish yesterday I didn't have all the ingredients on hand to get a picture of (no beets to turn it red and no mushrooms for extra flav'ah) , but it still came out delicious as always! Here is what you do:::

• Chop up the carrots, celery, and beet to simmer down till soft (30 mins or so)
• Put in a blender or smash up the carrots with a fork
• Add in herbs, salt and mushrooms to the carrrot sauce and cook in a pot another 10 mins
• In a separate pan saute the chopped onion (with some herbs) till soft (7 mins)
  
• Add onions to the blended carrot sauce and serve over noodles!

Voila! A tomato free spaghetti sauce that tastes better then the 'real' thing eva' did!
XoXOooo