I hit my first major stumbling block with eating locally when the flu season hit our area last month. First, it was me...down for a full week and then weak for one more. Then it was Kira, hit hard and put in quarantine in her room so as not to spread the flu to the other members in the house. Needless to say, cooking and shopping were put on hold while we all healed. So was blogging. Unfortunately, getting to my computer was not a priority, and I spent most of my free time resting in bed. Luckily, this was good for reading. I was able to check out a few good books from the local library and research some good ways to improve the way I buy and cook our local foods.
I also read a few books on homesteading. Of course, now I can't wait until the day I can begin to raise my own chickens and maybe have a beehive to collect fresh honey. Ok, maybe not the beehive, but I would sure love fresh eggs ready and waiting for me! Homesteading might be something in my far off future, but being self sufficient in raising all my own food is not going to happen on my little hillside property. And not while my time has to be divided between my interest of growing food and working full time, raising a family, and trying to manage a household. More on that later. I am in the midst of a chapter of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that is describing perfectly my concerns.
So, just to catch up my followers: I am officially in the planning phase of my goals. There is little to be harvested in our garden now except for the few (yet crisp and tasty) green leaves and radishes that are hardy to frost. And my one surviving broccoli plant has just begun to flower. The farmers markets in the area are thinning to mostly apples and winter squash. Upstate NY is just not good for long growing vegetables ad fruit. My planning phase is going to have to take this into account. There are, apparantly, good ways to save most of the end of harvest root crops for use through the winter. Of course, this would have required us to have a space to put them!
This winter season, we are taking inventory of what we eat most, so as to know what we will need to plan for next year. And of course, I have bigger plans for the gardens in my own backyard. I see successtion planting and cold frames in their future!
The other part of this time of year is the clearing and cleaning of the gardens. Even recovering from the flu, I managed to take down the withered plants and spread a layer of homemade compost into the salad garden to give it plenty of time to soak into the earth before spring. And there are some carrots and onions set out to overwinter...hopefully...I've never tried this technique before! And the making of good homemade compost requires shredded leaves...lots of them. Luckily, our part of the world has lots of leaves to spare, and I've been out there raking them into bags to store, shredding them with my mower, and heaping them into big bins to layer in with our leftover green scraps. It just kills me to watch people trying to "get rid of" the leaves in their yard when they are so valuable to me!
Stay tuned to my blog if you are interested in knowing what goes into planning for a year of local, seasonal foods!
