Updates and Future Endeavors

While we have neglected our blog for a very long time, our adventures in urban farming and sustainable living are alive and well.

A few highlights since our last blog:

Garden

• In and effort to start seeds indoor, we purchased grow lights from the local hydroponic store  Last year's effort was an epic failure. We had maybe 10 little plants out of the hundreds that we had hoped for. So much for our plans to sell plant starts at our driveway market.
• We planted 9 or so dahlia bulbs last year and enjoyed fresh cut flowers all summer long. At the end of the season, we dug up the bulbs and stored them in our garage. It's amazing how much those buggers multiply.
• We're still eating the potatoes we harvest last year.
• It was a great year for our strawberries. We still have some in the freezer.
• Thanks to some calcium amendments to the soil, we had our best broccoli crop ever.
• We didn't have nearly enough driveway markets.

Food

• We got a butter churn for Christmas. Michael made butter without me. When we bought some cream to make some more, the cream went bad. I can't believe I still haven't made butter.
• Those frozen chicken carcasses became the makings of yummy chicken broth and homemade chicken pot pie.
• For the sake of convenience, we shopped at the grocery store a lot more and the markets a bit less.

Chickens

• I can't believe we ate Lucy, Gigantor, and (what was that other girl's name...?). We've come a long way since Rita (Michael's first backyard slaughter).
• A chicken or two died (from sickness/injury), but I can't remember their names.... funny how that happens when they die.
• Spot hurt her leg and now she's all out of alignment. Her tail leans to right (or is it the left?).

Well, there you go. That's your 2012 year in review.


Endeavors, adventures, and goals for the coming year:

• Preserve more, waste less. Use our money more wisely.
• We're trying to start seeds again this year. I thought we had it dialed in this year, but now I'm not sure. Those little plants aren't looking so lively lately. 
• This year we plan to sell our beautiful dahlia blooms at our driveway market (that is if our bulb preserving efforts work in our favor).
• Michael wants to add a few dahlia flower beds in the front yard and maybe a fruit tree or two. 
• Make butter a little more often before the cream goes bad. Maybe we'll milk a cow.... or a goat. I think we should try making yogurt and cottage cheese.
• Market Harris Farm & Garden a little more, sell a little more, and maybe make a little spending money. We picked up some old cupboard doors from an architectural salvage yard. These are going to make some really cool signs to advertise when we have veggies and flowers for sale.

-Trisa

Really? Another gadget? Yep.

Today found me once again distracted from my day job... Good thing I work at a computer with the entirety of the interwebs at my fingertips. Well, all the non-blocked production-sapping interwebs - supposedly...

I just ordered another necessary accoutrement to our new lifestyle: cheese making equipment. I went to cheesemaking.com and bought the beginner set with the dvd and recipe book as well as the hard cheese kit and the gourmet kit. Now, if I can just find the cobbler kit... My rationale - my excuse for this purpose is that it's a birthday present to myself. Fshew, Trisa is off the hook. I am literally quivering with anticipation at the thought that my food mill kit and cheese kits are on their way to my house as we speak! Besides Trisa, Pi (yep, Pi), Roy, cobbler and wine, cheese is my very favorite. I'm passionate about cheese. I love everything cheese. Cheese.

We're finally getting the home-based infrastructure in place to make food that'll last us through the winter. It's odd that to our grandparents this would seem perfectly natural. So many of that generation were so self-sufficient. They tread lightly, so to speak, when it came to consumerism, self producing food, not wasting things, etc.

I've begun to analyze (please note: I use this term liberally here) the unintended consequences of our experiment. Here are some:

• Last month we threw out about 10% of the food we bought - In the past our average monthly food waste was near 45%. This is a 78% reduction in our food waste.
• We threw away about 4 bags of non-food waste. In the past we usually averaged 2-3 bags per week. There was one week that we had less than a bag to go out to the curb and so we didn't put any garbage out. This is a 60% reduction.
• Our recycle bin has been filled up once since starting (three months ago). I should say that we've filled it once over a two-week period and every other two week period it's been less than 2/3 full. Except this week - I've stuffed it full of some cardboard boxes ready for recycling. Before, we filled it nearly every two-week period. This is about a 30% reduction in our recyclable waste.

I am amazed at just how much we threw away that things came packaged in, or that went bad before we could eat it. The reduction of food waste has reduced due to us buying less food, buying non-packaged food, producing our own food and harvesting it the day we eat it, etc. So even though the food we buy costs more, we buy less, and spend less to produce our own small quantity. Check out how much we spend on a weekly basis to the right. It's the same (maybe a little more some weeks), but just about the same on average as we spent before. The resources we spend, like time and gas has gone up slightly to get the same end net results, but the waste reduction and the lower cost of the lower amount goods we purchase brings down the total net resources consumed -significantly. We never intended to save money, or reduce our waste. We never intended to spend more either, but thought that it was likely that we would. That hasn't been the case. In the end, more of our spent dollars are going to LOCAL producers who produce food and stuffs with a higher rate of resource use, but lower overall environmental and cost impact due to less transportation, less chemicals (virtually none), less packaging and so on.
I love that the dollars stay here, that I'm getting to know the producers and farmers in my community, and that they pay for people to practice a more healthy production cycle than big business uni-crop farms. I LOVE IT. Plus we're getting to know some great people in the process. Sam, the pasta guru is AWESOME. Deborah, she may or may not be real, but was really cool that one time. The blog followers - and the casual readers - have made contact and sent us links, told us of their experiences, and made suggestions or recommendations. The cheese kit is the very version used by a coworker and his girlfriend. This weekend we're planning on going berry picking with another blog follower.
So far it's been a great adventure. We're three months in as of Sunday this week so we've got three more quarters to go. I can't wait to try making cheese and pasta sauce and jam and jelly and more bread. I can't wait to review those products on the blog either. I hope they live up to my expectations.
That's all for now. Next blog I might have more to say about upping our production by renting out some farm land...
Mike

Well, I've gone and done it

I've officially become obsessed with urban farming and (self) sustainability.

I've been on the cusp for quite some time, but I find my mind wanders more and more to the ideas and ideals of that sort of simple life. So while I'm working - writing procedures for power plants, pouring over financial information to glean if they're covering up any maintenance issues, drawing plant instrument and flow diagrams, I find that in VERY short order I'm distracted and reading Grist, or looking at Amazon for a new kitchen gadget to help make better use of our harvest, or thinking of where else to put in a new garden bed, or how I could use the small green patch between a sidewalk and a street...

Today, I bought some educational materials to once again step up our farm's production. I'll read it and review it on the blog as soon as I'm done, but it's giving me all sorts of ideas. Since start of work this morning, during my lunch and breaks, I've read 3 of 7 "chapters" and also bought those new kitchen gadgets from Amazon.

Which brings me to another conclusion - we're going to have to go to a cash/envelope method of handling our personal finances. We definitely spend way more than we need to. I just looked at our monthly bank statement and in about 4 weeks we spend like crazy on lunches, beer/drinks/movies - etc, small store purchases, gas, consumables, and all sorts of various and sundry items. Seriously there's probably about 75 transactions that average $7.50 that we can and SHOULD do without. By we, I mean me. I'm horrible when it comes to using my debit card and I'm finally convinced that the cash/envelope method could be the answer.

Today, at Amazon I bought some things that we really could use, things we've been thinking of purchasing for a while and just haven't yet. I ordered a sauce maker - basically it's a food mill to process our fruits and tomatoes. In the long run it'll save us tons of time when we're making red sauce, jams, jellies, fruit mush, etc. No coring of apples is necessary with this bad boy. Simply quarter and drop them into the hopper and twist the crank and whammo: apple sauce. So, we do "need" it and it was time to order it as harvest is quickly approaching.

I can't wait until it comes in the mail and I get to go to a market for 100 lbs of tomatoes to make 100 quarts of spaghetti sauce.

I also can't wait to start utilizing the tips and techniques I'm finding in this urban farmers guide.

If anyone knows of someone who wants to install a small scale intensive farm, or wants to learn how to do it at their own property, or wants someone like me to farm their property (or a piece of it), please please please let me know. I'd love to get started soon teaching/coaching and working on more space(s) soon so we're ready for next year.

That's all for now.

Mike

The Beginning and the Rules

After little deliberation and even less thinking, my wife and I decided to begin a journey and a blog. For one year we will live by a few simple rules regarding our food. This idea came to both of us at the same time: in our hot tub, drinking Gin Bucks and waiting for our store-bought frozen lasagna to get done.

Our biggest rule, rule number 1: The following seven (7) rules will apply for 1 year.

Rule 2: ZERO food may be purchased from a grocery store. No food that passes our lips from this point on (after our lasagna and what we bought at the grocery store today, or have in the cupboard already) will be from a grocery store.

FYI: We did not prepare for this journey. We have some things that will last a year in our pantry already that we will eat or cook with from time to time, but we in no way stocked up for this. Chicken stock will come from a chicken carcass that is what'll remain form our farm-bought chicken.

Rule 3: Only items that are non-food, like beverages and household cleaners and shampoos and various and sundry other items may come from a grocery store. This only applies to beverages that are not produced locally or by a farm (i.e. milk is NOT to come from a grocery store, but Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice cocktail may).

Rule 4: Effort must be made to source all grocery (food or otherwise) items locally and/or from a farm. In other words, we will search for locally made milk, olive oil, cranberry juice, soap, tooth paste, etc. Since we can't spend all day every day on the internet or in a library some items may be brought to our attention by others, or after some time of us buying them from a grocery store. The intent here is to work diligently toward finding equivalents to what we have bought in the past from a grocery store at a farm or a local producer knowing full well it'll take time to find and to get. So if we end up buying SOMETHING at a grocery store that we later find is available at a farm or farmers market or from a local producer, we'll let you know that we did and that we'll purchase it there going forward.

Rule 5: The grocery list and costs for food items must be posted at least monthly. We will make every effort to post weekly, or when we go to a farm or market, but we want to give ourselves an out just in case we don't feel like it.

Rule 6: Both of us will hunt, fish, slaughter, grow, harvest and produce as much food as we can with literally zero preparation (except our already built home garden) than we have done already. In other words, I will take a basic hunter's course when I can and get a hunting license. The both of us will go fishing from time to time. We will (and already do) grow vegetables and fruits in our garden. We will (and already do) gather eggs from the chickens we keep in our backyard.

Rule 7: We both must blog about our adventures at least once each week other than to post our grocery bill and neither may read the other's blog (or tell what they are going to write about) until after both are posted that week. This is to encourage us to both write weekly and to not sway the other to write or not to write about a particular event. Some blogs of our may be about the same event, but from different perspectives.

Rule 8: It is not imperative to turn down food purchased by others from a grocery store, but we may not ASK for it. In other words, we may from time to time go to a party and eat a chip or fifty. We might go to a pot luck or to dinner at a friend's house and we will not turn down their hospitality. What we must not do for one year is ask our friends to buy us stuff at a grocery store to get around our rules.

We hope you enjoy reading about our journey as much as we are about to enjoy living it.

Mike and Trisa