Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Carrie Shepard <carrieshepard@yahoo.com>]

This year I've learned a bit more about adding in macrobiotic knowledge about foods -- like fruits cool down the body, so are best eaten in the summer months only, winter squashes warms the body, so it's an excellent food for cold winter months.

 

The coolest info though about food in season is what we've been learning about high brix foods NOT rotting, they only dry out, but are still excellent.  In other words, we've got a whole group of people thinking that preserving food is too much work, and really if we could get them to wrap their minds around yr round growing projects and soil building, it takes a lot of the work out.  I'm looking at an heirloom winter squash (I think the gentleman who shared it with me for seed saving purposes told me it's called a cimmarron squash) that's over a year old and it's beautiful.   This man's been using some sort of trace mineral and soil activator mix he got from some Amish neighbors.

 

He also shared a slice of moon and stars watermelon that lasted a lot longer cut and in my fridge than any others I had this year -- best tasting award of the season goes to his melon.  The only reason it lasted was that I had served up all but a section to save for DH when he got home from work and it got moved and forgotten for over a week.

 

Another friend reported that for the first season -- even though gardening was difficult due to the drought -- her bell peppers have not been rotting or having black spots that then rot, they've been drying on the counter waiting for her to put them up (she dehydrates and freezes and such).  She was diligently applying all the soil building info she could.  We both had been to a Westonaprice foundation meeting where the speakers stressed soil building for produce that doesn't spoil, it only dehydrates.

 

Our favorite simple cooking cookbook is now Extending the Table:

 

http://product.half.ebay.com/Extending-the-Table_W0QQtgZinfoQQprZ765764

 

These recipes support substitutions of ingrediants and still come out delicious, allowing a lot of variation from whatever you have still growing in the garden to what's in the freezer, etc... They also don't require too many ingrediants and are from scratch.

 

blessings,

Carrie

---

 All-new Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster.