A Trip to Griffith’s Greenhouse
There’s a small local greenhouse that I like to go to each spring to get my annuals. I love it because it’s a small family owned greenhouse and Mr Griffith is always there to greet you and help you load your car. I also love that the greenhouse is right behind their house, so you drive past their gardens on your way in.
The main reason I love going is because they always have a great selection of plants that you can’t find at your big box greenhouse. They specialize in annuals with only a few perennials and they are only open spring and summer.
They also cater to people that grow food, so they have tons of edible plants as well as all those annual beneficial plants that you need for around the garden, like nasturtiums, alyssum and marigolds.
You have to get there not too long after they open because if you wait too long all the other locals will buy up all the plants. One year I made the mistake of going too late and the pickings were slim! This year I went right before our last frost (May 15) to make sure I got what I wanted.
I made it home with a whole bunch of plants, some tried and true things I buy each year and a few new and interesting plants to try.
Do you have a special place to buy your spring plants?
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One Happy Localvore
I’m one happy localvore. Why?
I went to the farmer’s market yesterday morning. It was a beautiful morning, in the high 60’s and overcast.
There were a lot of plants for sale this week, I think a total of 4 vendors were selling all different kinds of plants; veggies, perennials, annuals, herbs, trees and shrubs.
I bought some euphorbia that I’ve been looking for and I bought a plum tree from Mr Vincent.
Mr Vincent has an apple orchard and sells apples and other fruit all season long at the market. This plum tree is an offspring of one of the old plum trees on his farm (he even had some photos of his old tree). He says they’re some of the best juicy plums you can find, I bought some from him last summer and they were quite tasty!
There were also a lot of baked goods and crafts for sale, as well as soaps and lotions.
So what else did I buy? Some apples and some delicious baby radishes. I also got a bar of olive oil soap, I can’t wait to try it. I was surprised that I didn’t see any lettuce for sale at the market, since it’s such a quick and easy crop.
I love going to the market, I really don’t need to buy veggies because I grow a lot of my own, but I love supporting local people that are growing things for the community. I encourage you to head on down to your local farmer’s market (or several) and buy a few things from the vendors. In this way you can strengthen your local food system and let the farmers know that people are interested in buying the things they grow!
What kinds of things are sold at your local farmer’s market?
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Eating Locally
“China wants to be the main producer for the world. The implications are huge. Cheap Chinese labor will provide mountains of “bargain” lettuce to be shipped by freighter around the world. More and more, North American consumers will eat produce from distant places they will never visit, though they might easily have grown the vegetables in their own backyards. In fact, they might be eating that imported produce at exactly the same time that it’s growing just a few miles away. This is called “redundant trade”; consider, for example, the fact that international strawberry imports to California peak during that state’s strawberry season.
No region feeds itself anymore: we all stand in reference the same global food system. Wherever you may choose to go, the same trucks zip across the landscape filled with the same chicken nuggets or canned cream corn, and the fertile fields are turned into housing tracts. The lettuce was grown in Asia and came to port under a Panamanian flag of convenience. All is hidden and anonymous.”
-Plenty (Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon)
It’s farmer’s market season in most of the country, ours opened today. Unfortunately I missed it because we were on our way back from Washington DC, that’s why the posting was sporadic this week (sorry). The internet at our hotel was less than perfect so it was difficult to get things uploaded. I’ll fill you in on the wonderful things we saw on vacation soon, and I can’t wait till next Saturday morning to head to the farmer’s market!
Are you excited for farmer’s market season?
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Storing Winter Squash
A while ago Meghan asked me how to store winter squash. I kept meaning to write a post about how I do it, but I kept forgetting (sorry Meghan). It really couldn’t be simpler to keep these lovely veggies around all winter.
I’ve heard that some people store their winter squashes under a bed, others in a pile in the living room. I simply put mine on top of a dresser that acts as a sideboard in my dining room. They are lovely to look at and since they’re in plain sight, I remember to check them often to make sure none of them are going bad.
Different kinds of squash store for different lengths of time. That’s one thing I love about butternuts, they seem to last forever. If you want to learn more about the different kinds of squash, what they taste like and how long they keep check out this site.
Where do you store your winter squash? Any great tips & tricks for the rest of us?
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Another Reason to Go Local
If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time you know I’m a dedicated localvore. I try to eat as locally as possibly for health, economic, and environmental reasons. The main reason we eat locally is for our health and safety. When you read about tomatoes, spinach, peppers, some peanut butter is tainted with salmonella, and that high fructose corn syrup contains mercury, it makes you really want to know where your food is coming from. I’m surprised more and more people aren’t searching out locally grown and raised products the more we hear about tainted food.
I know that the peanut butter I grind at the health food store isn’t tainted with salmonella. I know that the peppers and tomatoes I pick in my garden aren’t full of bacteria or pesticides either. I know that the pastured beef and chicken from my local farm are not filled with hormones, chemicals, antibiotics and other weird stuff.
Daphne Miller, MD is a family physician and associate professor at the University of California San Francisco, she wrote this great article on Civil Eats. Give it a read, I’m sure you’ll be heading to the health food store for your next jar of freshly ground peanut butter! Here’s a quick quote from her article:
Who knows. Perhaps this latest outbreak of salmonella, along with a will for change, is finally the catalyst we need. We will become a much healthier nation if our community health programs and community food systems team up, if our family doctors and family farmers link arms and, most importantly, if the two Toms, our Secretary of Health and our Secretary of Agriculture, take each other out for lunch and discuss ways to collaborate—hold the chicken satay, please.
Do salmonella outbreaks make you consider eating more locally or growing your own? If you already eat locally or grow your own, what are your reasons?
