Eat. Drink. Better.

Guest contributor Pamela Price is the founder of Red, White & Grew, a blog devoted to “Promoting the Victory Garden Revival and other simple, earth-friendly endeavors as bipartisan, patriotic acts in an age of uncertainty.”

A couple of weeks ago, I contemplated the role personality might play in how one approaches the creation and cultivation of a contemporary Victory Garden.

Because one reader expressed interest in a simple guide to creating a garden, I wanted to follow up with a couple of recommendations.

Keeping in mind the over-simplified contrast of messy vs. tidy (a contrast that I first started to contemplate by looking at these two books side-by-side!), allow me to suggest two very fine books for the newbie gardener’s shelf.  Together with Heather Flores’ outstanding Food Not Lawns, they are my favorite go-to resources.

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Fair Trade Coffee. Certified Humane Raised and Handled Chicken. Organic everything.

Anyone not living under a rock in a remote, sandy location for the last five years has seen the prodigious rise to prominence of eco-labels at their local grocery store. You may not pay these little badges much attention, or if you do, you may be wondering what the heck they mean.

Read them or not, the badges of virtue on everything from cereal to chicken to laundry detergent are bound to get more prevalent, and represent an attempt by many companies to find a niche in an ever-expanding food and food products market. Join me for a stroll down the aisles as we try to decipher what these insistent insignias truly stand for.

Let’s start with an easy one (please note the sarcasm, as it is surely merited) after the jump:

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What is an former LA chef and B&B owner to do when midlife crisis hits?

Move to southern Oregon, buy a two-acre, defunct berry farm in need of lots of work and start a boutique, hand-made chocolate company of course.

First, you need to plant some fruit - gold raspberries, marionberries, boysenberries, purple raspberries, red raspberries, three varieties of strawberries, blueberries and four varieties of grapes - farm organically, make deals with a nearby sustainable-certified dairy,  and source top-quality ingredients like organic chocolate couverture.

Then you start with amazing fruit preserves and work your way up to making chocolate truffles out of your home kitchen (legal in Oregon) and sell them at local farmers’ markets out of the back of your pickup truck. The rest is history, as they say.

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Using a nifty technique called sub-irrigation, the folks over at Inside Urban Green have been growing all sorts of things, including two tomato plants that yield a half-pint a day, in a Rubbermaid container, or grow box. They’re doing so while conserving water and taking up very little space.

Anywhere there is sun, you too can have fresh tomatoes, basil, eggplant, radicchio, sunflowers, whatever your heart desires, for less than the price of ten* local, organic heirloom tomatoes at your local farmer’s market. And it’s organic if you want it to be. And please believe it’s local. And it’s damn convenient if you ask me.

Though their specific technique involves Rubbermaid and polystyrene, there are a number of different ways to put together sub-irrigation, or self-watering pots. Learn how after the break.

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Someone needs to review first grade math. Talk about an unequal equation: Women make eighty-five percent of household food purchase decisions and own fifty-percent of our nation’s farmland. Women, particularly those over 55, add up to the largest and fastest growing group buying new farms today. So why then have women, historically, been so underrepresented in agriculture policy and national farming agendas?

Ask Iowa farmer, Denise O’Brien. But she’s not trying to teach the old farm dogs new math – she’s advocating for women to organize and reinvent the system.

For the past twenty years, O’Brien has led the charge of organizing and promoting the voice and face of women in agriculture and is founder of the Women, Food and Agriculture Network. “Finally, the tides are starting to turn for women farmers as policies just start to change,” explains O’Brien. “But it should have happened a long time ago and there’s still much we as women, from growers to grocery shoppers, can do to create a healthy food system for future generations.”

O’Brien racks up a history of seeing opportunity in crisis. Read the rest of this entry »

Just because summer days are on their way out doesn’t mean the gardening has to end. In climates like mine on the Northern California coast, certain plants can be grown year-round. Through my experience growing organic veggies in a plot in my local community garden, I’m starting to learn the ins and outs of growing plants in my local climate. Even if your climate gets too cold for a year-round outdoor garden, you could try gardening in a greenhouse, hoophouse, under cold frames, or indoors during the colder months. I wanted to share an update on my community garden as well as a handful of things I’ve learned from my community gardening experience.

My local community garden, the Noyo Come-Unity Garden, is a very busy place in the summer. Each family plot is blooming with a variety of veggies and greens, and since each garden is different we are all able to trade with each other. Along the edge of our community garden are community beds, where we grow all kinds of veggies to feed the hungry in our area as well as flowers and beneficial herbs. We have donated pounds and pounds of fresh organic veggies to the local food bank and homeless shelter. Community gardens are a great way to help and grow your community!

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This is another one of those wonderful books that will get tattered and worn because it is so oft referenced. Food Not Lawns, by Heather C. Flores appeals to food and community activist that is sometimes buried underneath the suited business exterior that I don more days than I would like.

Her approach is very accessible and not aggressive, the writing style is friendly and inspiring, and the hand-spun illustrations are not only descriptive, but fun.

As I read through this book, I started applying sticky notes to areas I want to not only reference for myself, but share with my fiancee who is starting to become somewhat obsessed with our compost experiment in the back yard. There are like 50 sticky notes already . . .
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Artists keep stocked with paint, pencils and other supplies so they can craft a masterpiece whenever the creative muse hits. Likewise, as someone passionate about food and cooking, your palette is your kitchen. Keep it stocked with the core ingredients necessary to whip up anything from bag lunches for the kids to an impromptu dinner party.

Stocking the pantry saves time and money – two non-renewable resources and drains on greening our lifestyle. With a little planning and organization, your pantry will never let you down. I recently gushed about my pantry passion in an article for Hobby Farm Home magazine, going into more detail on stocking the kitchen.

Here’s a few starter tips: Read the rest of this entry »

Ukrainian Immigrant Farmer Alexander Velikoretskikh - Mercy Corp NW

As I’ve commented on in the past (see What is Sustainable Cuisine? - Part Two), one tenant of sustainability and sustainable cuisine is social responsibility. The problem that many of us have is motivation and the need for good examples. I know that there is no lack of causes but how can we go green by doing good?

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I’m not one to usually pile on the sarcasm when someone is down but it’s no holds barred when it comes to the cult of celebrity. Instead of seeking virtues or talents we have bought into the artificial importance being created by the media in order to promote a product, a person - or in this case a “yummo” catch phrase.

The people over at SeriousEats alerted me to the latest parody book in the genre of Is Martha Stuart Living? Run, don’t walk and get yourself a copy of Every Freaking! Day with Rachell Ray by Elizabeth Hilts, author of the popular Getting in Touch with Your Inner Bitch. This “64-page full-color parody is jam-packed with laugh out loud takes on the things that make her (in)famous, like”:

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