Our Own Little Square Foot Garden..

One of the big things people talk about when they visit our little postage-stamp size lot in Vancouver is our backyard garden. I have spent several years, trying many different methods of growing things, and by August each year, I have an absolutely amazing, large, varied crop of vegetables, berries and fruits that my visitors covet!

In fact, each year, we get requests to help folks build their own high-yield, organic city gardens, and when we can, we happily oblige them, at least in the planning and building. :) Folks ask us often what our secret is to getting so much happening in such a small space, and probably the biggest difference is that we use the 'Square Foot Gardening method', designed by Mel Bartholomew, combined with some crop rotation and soil balancing methods we learned from the resources listed at the bottom of this post.

Each year we learn a little more, and our gardens get even better as we add our lovely compost from our kitchen scraps (as vegetarians, we have a LOT of kitchen scraps!!). I'm going to spend the next few posts, helping you design your OWN postage stamp gardens using what we've learned over the years. If you are planning to get started yourself, the one resource I encourage you to start with is Mel Bartholomews, "All New Square Foot Gardening Book" that is a great place to get started. I will be posting pics of our garden from this late spring-time throughout summer, and explaining what we did and how. Keep watching!

Aero Garden??

Yep - we bought it. Do I know what we are getting into? Not really. What is it? Ummmm..

Kidding. It's actually an Aero-garden. The basic concept is growing food in your kitchen, regardless of season, in optimal conditions and with very little intervention. The hood on top contains a couple of growing lights (flourescent), and the bottom is a base filled with constantly cycling water (by a pump). Each of the plants (7) have a small base (like 1.5" wide, and about 2" deep I think), and they are filled with a little piece of foam, and a few seeds.

The basic concept is that you fill it with water, drop the seed baskets in, and for the next 6-12 months you have a garden that is more prolific than it would be outside, by growing in a medium of water instead of soil. For us, this might be good, because we are in West Coast Canada, and while there are some things we can grow outside in the winter months, many things just won't grow this time of year. Our lattitude keeps that sun low in the sky and it's hard to coax life into your plants!

Now, will this replace your garden in the summer? No. But, it can grow lots of veggies like tomatos, peppers, herbs, lettucs and more, and they say that the nutrients are higher than in soil-grown food (due to the amount of time passing before the veges are consumed after picking).

It runs at a kw cost of less than a 60w light bulb/day, so $2-3/month I believe, and is really quite a cool thing. It's an experiment, and I'll tell you how it goes over time! I'll take some snaps and we'll see what happens together, eh?

In the back of my head, I keep thinking - what if something like this could be developed for the kitchen - like a wall unit of growing veges, instead of purchasing them at the store?? Wouldn't that be cool??? I wonder how many products like these we will be seeing hitting the shelves over the next period of time????

Crazy Sexy Life

I just found this incredibly cool blog called 'Crazy Sexy Life' - you may have read a book or seen a movie by the same name in fact! Kris Carr is a media master who discovered she had an 'incurable' cancer on her liver in 2003. She decided to seek out alternative therapies, and to live her life to the fullest. She made a documentary of her journey, and 6 years later she is blogging to the world with positive oncept and images. VERY cool site and I HIGHLY recommend it! :)

Are Plants and Bugs Running the Show?

Ok, first off, Tom (hubby), sent me this link to what seemed at first like an innocent little article on permaculture vs. agriculture. Well, I have to say, it is one of the most interesting ideas I've read! Here's the link:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/michael_pollan_gives_a_plant_s_eye_view.html

In nutshell, Michael Pollan brings a conversation to the forefront, based on his question one day while gardening: "what do I have in common with this bumblebee working next to me?" Michael was planting potatoes, the bee was pollenating an apple tree. However, he quickly points out that the evolution of the plants themselves have actually manipulated both we as the gardeners as well as the bee.

I highly recommend this article, and for that matter, www.ted.com is really a neat site with a lot of interesting thoughts you might want to pursue! Love this idea! It takes 18 minutes, so be sure you sit down ready for it! :)

On the Topic of 'Stuff'

About a year ago, a vocal student of mine (and friend!) told me about something her and her partner started doing that was making a big impact on their lives. They have been going through their house, item by item, holding each thing in their hands, and asking themselves 'Do I love this?'. If they can't answer 'yes', then off it goes to charity.

Now, my house has a lot of little things in it which I have collected over the years - candles, little decorative items, and of course, scads of kitchen tools and more. When I close my eyes for a second and feel my house, you know I can actually feel that 'clutter' and excess! So, I started doing their 'love' exercise, to see what would happen.

Wow. Let me just say that after 2 van loads (we're talking a FULL van too!) of stuff to a local charity, I am realizing how many items we have that our in excess of our needs, and even our wants! What's really funny is that we have been called 'minimalists' before, and still we were getting rid of bags and boxes of items, seemingly without end! And I can say that when a full bag of stuff was ready to go, and sat by the door, there was a certain lightening when it actually left the house - almost like it too was ready to go, and needed to go to the next person who maybe really did need it!

Of course, a house with less stuff is easier to clean, and easier to decorate! But not only that, I think sometimes our 'things' distract us from ourselves. With less stuff to look at or put in the 'I'll deal with it later' stack, I suddenly started focusing on more interesting things - gardening, cooking, spending time with my family, dreaming.

So, if you want to take a trip down this 'eliminating the excess' road with me, try the following!

1. Pick a room in your house to spend time in.
2. Pick up each item in your hand and ask yourself 'do I love this?'
3. When the answer is 'no', in the bag it goes.
4. When the answer is 'maybe', try putting it away for a month, and see if you miss it. In a month, go back to that room and repeat the exercise.
   
5. Once you are finished with that room, make sure that bag goes to charity immediately - don't let it sit in a corner or in a garage - you've said goodbye, and it needs to be a closed story.
6. Take your extra items to a thrift store benefiting your favourite local charity, Value Village, or even use 'freecycle' to put it up for grabs to someone else who might want it.
   

Good luck!!

Becoming Vegetarian

So a year ago, I had a vocal student who asked me a very interesting question: where is your life not in line with your values? It's a question that I thought I could answer easily, as the keystone to my life is living in accordance with my values, more and more each day. But I found myself answering, without thinking, with "I still eat meat, and I should be vegetarian".

Wow. Now don't get me wrong - I have toyed with the idea of becoming vegetarian for a number of years - you know, kind of like you toy with the idea of buying a Ferrari, or becoming the Prime Minister - as in 'something I'd like to do, but never will'. For me, I love the taste of meat! When I was a kid, my mom would cook anything you wanted for dinner on your birthday, and every year, she would buy me a t-bone steak (hey, what did I know about cuts?) mashed potatoes, and cooked carrots in butter. Yum - comfort food to its extreme!

And then sometime in University (over a decade ago!), I read half a book, called 'A Diet for A New America'. I say half, because I was so physically ill from the first half, that I couldn't read anymore. It talked about exactly what the meat industry is about, and the 'city person' in me wasn't ready to really consider that my meat was from *animals*. LOL - this sounds so obvious, but if you asked me to take a knife and slit the throat of a cow myself, so I could have some steak with my dinner, I couldn't do it! Hmm - it begs the question of 'have I gotten so far from the source of my food that I don't consider what it takes to put it on the table?' The obvious answer being YES. But, as I said, I LOVE steak. I do! So, I buried those uncomfortable feelings, and went back to the grill, somewhat less happily.

Fast forward 10 years down the road (ok, a bit more), and my vocal student asks me that question. Well, that night, I sat and thought to myself, 'do I *need* meat? Why am I so addicted to it that I can't break free? I went to Chapters (a book store), and picked up a couple of books on it, and decided to research a bit - I mean, I wasn't committing to ANYTHING - I was just looking.

So, I bought this book, called "Becoming Vegetarian" by Vesanto Melina. And opened the first chapter. Oh my gosh. There was no going back. While my empathy for animals wasn't quite enough to push me over, nor was all the guilt trips I had in my soul/yoga magazines, the *hard facts* of the environmental effects of raising meat was. Not only that, but my husband read it as well, and without a second thought jumped onto the vege train. I have pulled some of the major concepts of that book, and put them at the end of this email, for you to 'digest' at your leisure.

We are happily vegetarian as a family now - all 4 of us (a 2 year old, a 5 year old and us). We have eaten the BEST FOOD of our lives, and haven't looked back! Now, when our friends invite us over for dinner, we are like Buddha, and we accept the food offered and are grateful for it (i.e. we eat meat and enjoy it). But what comes into our house by our own hands is meat free. We're not vegan yet, but may become so in the future - baby steps for now.

I can say that I am happier, I feel healthier, and I can finally say I am fully living in line with my values! YAY! So now, I want to share some of the incredible resources I have found on vegetarianism:

Becoming Vegetarian, by Vesanto Melina. This is the book to read FIRST when you are considering making the leap. It talks yes, about the environment, etc, and all the reasons we all know it is better to be vegetarian, but more importantly it also addressess the nutritional concerns about becoming vegetarian in an open, frank, honest way. Specifically, getting enough B12 and Omega 3 in your diet - here I had thought the concern was protein and iron, but it's actually pretty easy to get that in your diet! This book actually teaches you *exactly* what nutrients your food has (both meat and vegetarian options), and what your body needs. Definately a resource for your shelf!

Cranks Fast Food by Nadine Abensur. WOW, this has to be the best cookbook, hands down, that I have EVER had. Not only that, but it is all vegetarian! I have made almost every recipe in this book, and I think there was only one that wasn't something where we were looking at each other with amazed eyes saying 'oh my gosh, can you believe this is so good???!' This is a must have for ANYONE who enjoys cooking, and the best thing about it is that all the recipes are designed to be completed in 30 minutes or less, but are still fresh, flavourful and delish - no shortcuts! MUST HAVE! I recommend this book if you want to 'try' vegetarianism (after you have read 'Becoming Vegetarian') - just to dip your toe in the water. It's a small book, and inexpensive, and a great way to test the waters.

Vegatarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. 1,400 recipes+ in this book, and seriously, we've tried a lot of them, and they are all fantastic! I can't believe the success rate of what we make from this book. I now go here *before* I go to my old standby of 'Martha Stewart' or 'Better Homes'. They are dusty now, and THIS is my cooking bible. If you decide to GO Vegetarian (after trying Cranks and reading Becoming Vegetarian), this is your first book to own. Think of it as your Betty Crocker standby.

Happy Cow Website: HappyCow's vegetarian restaurants guide is a global, searchable vegetarian dining guide and directory of natural health food stores, including nutrition & health tips, vegan recipes, raw foods, travel, veganism and other vegetarian issues. We used this on our trip to Germany and France in '08 to find good restaurants that served vegetarian food, and it was invaluable!

Grist Website and Email List - This is a phenominal resource - they have the unique ability to combine humour with real issues, and they really lay out the 'real' issues underneath our day to day life. Their byline: " Grist: it's gloom and doom with a sense of humor. So laugh now -- or the planet gets it."

David Suzuki Foundation Environmental Blog/Newsletter: Since 1990, the David Suzuki Foundation has worked to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us. Focusing on four program areas – oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and the Nature Challenge - the Foundation uses science and education to promote solutions that conserve nature and help achieve sustainability within a generation. They are SO on top of issues, and if you sign up for their list, they will email you the minute you can act, and tell you how!

The Reasons We Went Vegetarian, from 'Becoming Vegetarian':

1. Health of our Family
• Vegetarians are leaner than nonvegetarians, which translates to better overall health.
  
  
• Reduced risk of chronic disease (heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and certain forms of cancer - all of which are present in our families).
  
  
• Vegetarians live 7-9 years longer than non-vegetarians, and are healthier in their senior years
  
  
• Lower risk for contracting food-borne disease (E. coli, salmonella, listeria, campylobacter, and other food-borne pathogens)
  
  
• Lower intakes of environmental contaminants (heavy metals, DDT, PCBs and other environmental contaminants) - generally reduced in vegetarians as these substances accumulate as we move up the food chain.
  
  
• Improved nutritional intakes relative to current nutrition recommendations - when compared with non-vege diets, vegetarian diets provide a balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat that is closer to current recommendations. Plant-based diets are also lower in saturated fat, cholesterol, animal protein, and possibly trans-fatty acides, and higher in viatmins C and E, carotenoids, folate, fibre, magnesium and phytochemicals.
  
  
2. It Promotes Reverence for Life

• Every year, 10 billion animals are slaughtered for food. Hello - 10 billion!!! That doesn't even include fish!
  
  
• Food animals are raised inhumanely - overcrowding, confinement, isolation, and brutality become commonplace. I can't even go into the specifics, as it makes me sick.
  
  
• Food animals are transported to slaughter in apalling conditions - often going without food or water for extended periods of time. As a result, millions (millions!) die each year en route to slaughter!
  
  
• Food animals are slaughtered inhumanely - there are laws which require them to be rendered unconscious before being killed, but violations are rampant, due to 'the need for speed'. 'nuff said - can't go there either.
  
  
• Animals have rights. Funny that none of us can picture killing our pets, but we can so easily kill our food animals. Food animals feel pain just like we do - and fear. Dr. Albert Schweitzer has an amazing quote:
  
  
• "The thinking man must oppose all cruel customers no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies."

3. It Protects the Environment (the biggest one for us)

• It assists in the preservation of water resources. It is estimated that almost 50% of all water consumed in the US is used for the raising of livestock. On average, it takes about 100 times more water to produce a pound of beef than a pound of wheat. It takes less water to produce the food that a vegan needs for one year, than to produce the food that a meat eater needs for a month!
  
  
• It helps prevents water pollution. Agriculture is the biggest polluter of America's water systems. It is responsible for 70% of waterway pollution, its damage exceeding that of sewage treatment plants, urban storm sewers and pollution from contaminants in the air. The major offenders are livestock-feeding operations. Manure which can't reach distant farmlands all too often ends up poisoning rivers, causing severe oxygen depletion, and devastating fish populations. Furthermore, waste from North America's 9 billion chickens and 150 million other farmed animals is permeated with hormones that propel the bird 'from egg to fryer in 39 days'.
  
  
• It helps preserve the planet's most valuable ecosystems. Tropical rain forest are ecological treasures, housing 1/2 the world's plant and animal species. According to the Rainforest Action Network, 2/3 of the rain forests in Central America have have been cleared primarily for the purpose of raising cheap beef to stock American fast-food establishments. They estimate that for every fast-food burger made from rain forest beef, 16.75 square metres (55 square feet) of tropical rain forest has been cleared. With the trees go 20-30 different plant species, 100 different insect species, plus dozens of birds, mammals, and reptile species.
  
  
• It provides powerful protection against desertification. Overgrazing is considered the leading cause of desertification worldwide. In the Western US, 70% of the entire landmass is used for grazing livestock. When land is overgrazed, the soil is compacted, decreasing its ability to absorb water. When heavy rains fall, the topsoil is carried away. 6" of topsoil are needed to grow healthy crops. It takes approximately 3,000 years for nature to produce this amount of topsoil. Every 28 years in the US, 1 inch of topsoil is lost as the result of current intensive farming practices. At this rate, it is estimated that there is as few as 45 years of farmable soil left on the planet.
  
  
• It may help protect against catastrophic environmental changes. Intensive animal agriculture is a significant factor in global warming, increasing all major global warming gases: CO2, Methane, nitrous oxides and chloroflourocarbons. CO2 emmisions come largely from fossil fuels. Raising livestock requires huge amount of fossil fuels - for transporting feed, heating shelters (often large buildings) and transporting animals to slaughter and the products to meat-packing plants and stores. According to Worldwatch Institute, 15-20% of all methane emissions come directly from livestock. In addition, the chemical fertilizers used to produce food for grain-fed animals are important contributors to nitrous oxides. Finally, the increased refrigeration necessary to preserve animal products releases chloroflourocarbons into the atmosphere.
  
  
• It reduces consumption of the earth's dwindling resources. It is estimated that if every inhabitant on this planet used as many resources to produce his/her food as each American does, we would need 3 planet earths to sustain the current population. And, that's just where we're heading. Tragically, more and more of the world's resources are used for raising livestock to feed the wealthy, while one in every 6 people go hungry daily. Today, our plane is home to nearly 1 billion pigs, 1.3 billion cows, 1.8 billion sheep and goats, and 13.5 billion chickens - more than 2 chickens for each man, woman and child. We have altered vast ecosystems and devoted massive resources to support this inefficient way of eating. The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people - more than the entire human population on earth.
  

Sourdough Bread

Ok, so one of the things I vowed to do over the last year, and for the most part have successfully done, is make bread for my family almost daily. Pretty easy - most often I just toss the ingredients in the bread machine, and a few hours later a loaf of bread magically appears! Gotta love technology (especially the lower electricity used in making the bread in THAT device, as opposed to my big oven).

I also have experimented with making my own hamburger buns, english muffins, bagels and more, and yes, I've gotten fantastic results, and it was not too difficult! Remember, I'm of the generation where I somehow grew up thinking that if it didn't come in a bag at the grocery store, you couldn't make it at home. Weird, as my mother canned, made homemade bread and more!

So, while lots of beautiful, yummy loaves have magically appeared from my oven and bread machine, at quite a reduced cost from the grocery store model, there is one bread which seems to elude me - Sourdough. I mean, I have a starter in my fridge, I faithfully refresh it every few days, and it even SMELLS like sourdough. But alas, it resembles something more like a hockey puck, and depending on what I've done to damage it, it doesn't even always taste like bread, let alone sourdough. :/

The first loaf smelled SO yummy, and even tasted yummy, as long as you could get past the fact that it was also gummy, and had NO gas inside whatsoever. Like a big lump of tasty clay. Well, it was my first.

My second and third batch didn't rise when it should have, so in desperation I added yeast (bye bye sour dough flavour), and then I got gassy (air pockets galore) flat clay hockey pucks.

I'll keep you posted on my 'sourdough saga', and hope you cross your fingers for me!