Rain, Rain Go Away

We’ve been getting rain every evening here in Northeastern Ohio. Not just light rains, thunderstorms that dump several inches of rain with golf ball sized hail.

It makes working outside a little difficult. The poor chiots can’t get outside to run around, at least we have this door that she can look out of.

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New Documentary

Mr. Chiots and I LOVE documentaries, we are videographers by trade (2nd Mile Productions is our company). We really enjoyed King Cornand In the Shadow of the Moon.I just read on Path to Freedom’s blog today that there is going to be a documentary made about urban homesteading called Homegrown. Looks like one that Mr. Chiots and I are sure to love.

Watch the trailer.

HOMEGROWN follows the Dervaes family who run a small organic farm in the heart of urban Pasadena, California. While “living off the grid”, they harvest over 6,000 pounds of produce on less than a quarter of an acre, make their own bio diesel, power their computers with the help of solar panels, and maintain a website that gets 4,000 hits a day. The film is an intimate human portrait of what it’s like to live like “Little House on the Prairie” in the 21st Century.

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Great Gardening Book: Four-Season Harvest

I’ve been slowly reading through Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long. I’ve always wanted to put in a cold frame to grow some spinach & other greens through the winter, and this book helps explain the intricacies of winter gardening. Eliot goes into great detail about which winter crops to grow in the northern climates. He includes a lot of information about specific cultivars of plants and their favored growing conditions. I’m interested to see what I can grow this winter. I’m not going to install a greenhouse quite yet, but I am going to build a cold-frame. MMM, I can almost taste the sweet carrots & spinach already. If you’re interested in growing things throughout the winter give this book a read. Even if you don’t want to participate in winter gardening, it’s a great resource for types of heirloom plants and their best growing conditions.

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Victory Gardens

I always enjoy hearing about Victory Gardens from times gone by. It’s fascinating to think that our government and the governments of Canada and Great Britain encouraged people to grow their own food to help with the war effort during WWI. During that time, nearly 20 million Americans planted Victory Gardens. These gardens produced 40 percent of all the vegetable produce consumed nationally. I wonder if the citizens of today would rise to that challenge should it be put forth?

I’ve always enjoyed eating healthfully and thus started growing some of my own food because it’s so much healthier than what you buy at the grocery store. I guess that means I have my very own Victory or Freedom garden (as they’re also called). Freedom from what? I suppose pesticides and homogenized produce. It’s nice to know that I don’t have to buy a no name tomato at the grocery store, I can have Amish Paste, Black Krim, Brandywine, or whatever heirloom I want to grow. It’s also liberating to take responsibility and to be a better participant in society and world, I grow some of my own food because it’s better for me and for the world I live in.

I recently joined the Freedom Gardens of the World. I love the idea, while I don’t grow all of my own food, and probably never will, I do try to grow some of my own and buy as local as possible.

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Here Come the Squash!

I noticed my squash plants are starting to show the signs of baby squash! How exciting.

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