Fresh Foods

[MaineFarmMom]

I don't want to hijack Sharon's thread on canning jars.

I'm interested in hearing about the fresh foods you eat, especially other than from the garden in the typical growing season. It's snowing hard right now, 30°, and I have cold weather crops growing in an unheated hoop house. I didn't get them started as early as I could have so we aren't harvesting much yet. I'm still learning about late winter/early spring possibilities.

Not quite fresh, but not processed - we store potatoes, carrots, rutabaga, cabbage and winter squash in the cellar.

How about cold frames? I've started using mine again. I'd gotten a little lazy about it. This fall I'll build a large one by the back door.

What are you doing to increase the fresh foods you eat and decrease the processed foods? Beyond gardening too - raw food diet? Giving up ______? Adding ____?

[Sharon in NY]

You are welcome to hijack my threads anytime, Robin .

This is a good question, because it is something I've been thinking about a lot. I'm debating a whole bunch of possibilities for expanding/reorganizing our CSA, and one of the things I'm wondering is whether I could offer a winter CSA season - that is, offer root cellared produce (we have a garage that doesn't freeze so can store a lot), put up a couple of hoop houses for greens and things like parsnips and carrots, and also offer sprouts, eggs (I'd have to light our hen house, but that might be doable) and maybe some other things. I was thinking that rising interest in local eating might make it worthwhile. But I need to do more experimenting - I need at least one winter with a hoophouse, rather than just our cold-frames and pop-up greenhouse to learn the ropes. And in order to put up the hoop house, I have to drain about 1/2 acre on the side of our yard which floods every spring during melt off and heavy rains. And right now I don't have the money for that, so it is on hold.

What we're doing for ourselves - we manage to eat fresh food out of the garden from cold frames and greenhouses most years until the end of December - this year it was mid-January. And I've got spinach in my cold frame (and actually some came back uncovered) and kale and asian greens in big pots on my sunporch. We grow potted tomatoes late and early, so that we have at least cherry tomatoes from about June 1 to December 31. We sprout, of course. But so far, we're mostly living on stored things from January until April, which is a pity. I need to work harder on this. We certainly root cellar - although I just ran out of potatoes, am nearly out of onions (I grew about the same amount as last year, but Asher is now eating solids and all the boys got bigger, so I think I have to remember to up the quantities every year!). We still have winesap apples, beets and turnips, and a couple of saddish carrots, and during the thaw I dug some parsnips. The kale is also greening up and we had a little the other day.

Thats about it, though.

Sharon

[Callieslamb]

I am also interested in doing some of this "Winter harvesting". I have Eliot Coleman's book and it is great. I even bought seeds this year for asian cabbages, spinach, lettuces, beets to use this fall/winter.

I like Coleman's idea of putting hoop houses inside hoop houses for extra protection. He moves the outter hoop house from bed to bed according to the season.

Question: how do you get your seeds for cool weather crops to germinate when it is still hot? Do you do it inside? My outside frame is way too hot to get good germination. I would love your ideas and timetables, etc.

Callie in TN

[MaineFarmMom]

Eliot plants the winter crops outside in late summer. When the summer crops are done in the greenhouses he pulls the gh's over the established winter crops. http://fourseasonfarm.com/main/photos/greenhouse.html The first picture on the top row is cold weather greens about to be covered. It looks like the rows were planted with a 12 row seeder.

We got a foot of very wet snow yesterday. The hoophouse with my greens and peas is almost flat this morning. We braced it Wednesday but all that did was delay the collapse. I need to invest in a greenhouse like Eliot's by the end of summer.

[Mid Tn Mama]

I think you all have the right ideas. I am able to grow pretty much year round (except maybe jan-feb) lately. We have turnip greens all winter.

Have you thought of Jerusalem Artichokes? Just dig when you need them.

Sharon: Before we ran electricity to the barn our hens would molt in the winter and not produce much. I considered using solar lights that are used for pathways. Set the light collector outside and rig up the lights inside.
I've seen these for less than $30 lately.