Cultivate Simple 7: Going Local
Sourcing food and products from local producers is good for the local economy and it makes you feel good. In this week’s show we discuss local eating and buying, how we got started, and the many benefits of doing so.
Books of the Week
Around the Run
Buy a calendar – click on the image in the sidebar
Help Us Out
- iTunes Reviews – Give us a review!
- Support Page
- Amazon Affiliates Link
- Song in the show: I’d Rather – Ellery
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17:50 — 54.2MB)
Share this:
Quote of the Day: Carol Deppe
The resilience of individual gardeners working for personal satisfaction and joy in ordinary hard time can thus be transformed into resilience during more extraordinary hard times, for both the individual and his or her community. Life is full of hard times. By learning to garden our way through the small and ordinary hard times, and passing that knowledge on, we can help our children, our children’s children, our country, and our species through both the ordinary as well as the extraordinary hard times that happen through the generations.
Carol Deppe The Resilient Gardener
I was thinking about this quote as I was out planting the cuttings I had take from my hydrangeas earlier this summer. Each and every cutting had a mass of lovely roots. While these shrubs will not produce food for my table, they have provided education and learning.
I’m certainly glad that I don’t have to grow all the food that we eat. If a crop fails, we don’t go hungry. This gives me the freedom to experiment and hone my skills. Not only does that make me a better gardener, it gives me the confidence and knowledge to teach others as well. I hope none of us ever have to rely on our garden in order to survive, but I’m certainly glad I have spent time learning just in case. It’s kind of like having insurance, it provides a little peace of mind and makes us more resilient in tough times.
Do you think you’ve honed your gardening skills through the years you’ve been gardening? What do you want to learn next?
Share this:
The Tour: The Chicken Coop
No doubt you’ve seen glimpses of the chicken coop here and there but not in it’s entirety. From what I understand, this coop used to be the shed. It was then converted to a coop. A wooden structure in it’s natural form, it nestles quite easily into it’s surroundings and looks right at home.
It’s quite rustic and charming, buttoned up well against predators to keep the chickens safe and sound. Thankfully, there is an attached run, which is very nice because we can leave the chickens for a while without worry (though we do have the neighbor come check on them when we do).
There’s storage on one side, it came pre-filled with a variety of feeders, waterers and other interesting things, some of which we are not quite sure what they are for, no doubt we’ll figure it out.
The interior is good enough for the chickens, though we might reconfigure a bit to make cleaning a little easier. The ladies seem to like it well enough as is.
We need to build a few new nesting boxes for them, these are showing their wear. The chickens don’t seem to mind, though with the waning daylight hours and molting they’re not laying much at the moment.
In the spring, I plan on whitewashing the walls and scrubbing up the windows to brighten it up. If I have time, I may try to tackle the windows yet this fall. I’m sure the chickens would appreciate the extra sunlight!
Someday we might end up building a newer larger coop, but this one is quite functional until we do. It will most likely be used as a breeding coop if we go that direction. It’s certainly nice to have such a structure already in place. Now we can focus on other infrastructure like planting lots of fruit trees and other forage for the chickens. Next year we plan on getting a whole flock of new chickens as well.
Do you have any recommendation for a variety of chicken for us to get next spring?
Other Stops on the Tour:
The Driveway
The Tour: Chicken Coop
Share this:
Friday Favorite: My Stove
About 10 years ago I got a new stove. My previous stove had been a hand-me-down from my mom that never worked quite right. You had to turn on the oven before starting to mix anything up because you never knew if it was going to come on or. There were times it would turn off in the middle of baking and not come back on. I’d been saving for a newone for quite a while. I didn’t get the Blue Star I wanted, but I knew this Kitchenaid would be a good stove for many years.
Now that we’re in Maine and my stove is back in Ohio, I’ve been sorely missing it. It’s kind of like being without your favorite tool, or in this case I feel like I’m missing my right arm. I know my stove like the back of my hand, I’ve learned how to cook everything to perfection on it. Getting used to a new stove can be a big challenge, especially when you loved your old one so much.
I strongly believe that a good stove is of great importance for anyone who loves to cook, I realized that when I purchased this beauty. Having a good stove will make cooking much easier and much more pleasurable. These last two months of cooking on a less than ideal stove have really taught me that. I’m actually starting to think that perhaps many people think they don’t like to cook simply because their stoves are less than ideal.
We will have to make a few modifications to the kitchen to get my stove to fit. The one that is here is a small apartment stove. After than an exhaust fan that vents outside is on the list.
Thankfully, my stove will make it’s way back to Maine in two weeks. I’ll certainly be very thankful to be able to use it once again.
Do you have a favorite appliance?
Share this:
Neat and Tidy
I’m a big fan of the traditional rowed vegetable garden, perhaps it’s my inner tendency to OCD rearing it’s head. Usually, I try not to be too crazy about spacing, though I do like to use my square foot gardening templates to keep things neat. When you’re doing long rows of vegetables it can be tough to keep those rows straight.
Earlier this fall, I purchased a seed bed preparation rake from Johnny’s Seeds along with the little pieces of tubing for row marking. I must say, I LOVE THIS TOOL. It’s super wide, thus allowing me to prepare a large area very quickly. I also love the little plastic tubes, they can be put on different tines depending on the spacing you want.
This tool makes seeding an entire bed while keeping the lines straight go very quickly. I’m really looking forward to using this in the spring for nice rows of beets, carrots, and lettuce! Although my grandpa always did say, “You can fit more in a crooked row.”
When it comes to the vegetable garden, do you like neat straight rows or do you like things a little more natural?
