12 Steps to Whole Foods
Reaping a Gardener’s Rewards fence next to my garden, but we did build metal trellises at our last home), how to plant quick-to-grow small vegetables such as radishes in the same square around a plant like bell pepper that takes some time to mature, and much more. How Do I Keep the Pests Away without Using Chemicals? Lots of natural and safe techniques can help you leave the good organisms in your garden thriving while killing the bad ones. TIP: Feel free to mix and match, making teas of a variety of the natural pest-repelling compounds listed below. • Employ companion planting. Plant a square of marigolds, onions, or garlic interspersed throughout your gardening boxes, because pests tend to avoid these plants. • Use garlic, onions, hot peppers. They kill soft-body insects and paralyze flying insects, as well as serving as a fungicide and repelling rabbits. Liquefy some of these vegetables in water in your blender and spray the mixture on plants and soil. You can also pour boiling water mixed with garlic onto ant mounds. • Use apple cider vinegar, ground cloves. Use 1-2 Tbsp. per gallon of water for a mild fungicide or acidic liquid fertilizer that also contains many trace elements as a fertilizer. Cloves kill flying insects. • Use corn meal, diotomaceous earth. Sprinkle on the ground or work into the top inch of soil. Diotomaceous earth can work in your soil for many years; it is the petrified remains of insects and shreds the digestive system of bugs and dehydrates them. Note that it will kill bees, so avoid spraying it, as we have a honeybee shortage. • Set traps. Place a can containing rotten fruit inside a larger can or cut-off milk jug. Around the can, pour a liquid made of water with 2 Tbsp. dish soap and 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil to kill pests. Optionally add 2 Tbsp. molasses to the rotten fruit to attract more pests. • Kill snails and slugs. Sprinkle calcium carbonate products like lime, dolomite, or crushed egg shells on soil where snails and slugs live. Their anti-fungal properties are another advantage. • Use acidic water. You can also spray the leaves of your plants with acidic water if you have a water ionizer (see Chapter 12) to kill many pests. • Plant vines later. According to old-timer gardeners, cucumbers and squash do better when planted on June 1. Often when I jump the gun and plant on May 1, they end up dead of pest problems. When I wait, they grow and bloom quickly and produce well. 132 12 Steps to Whole Foods © Copyright Robyn Openshaw
Reaping a Gardener’s Rewards How Can I Get Garden Produce in the Winter? If you want to extend the life of your garden and grow cold-weather greens without an expensive and complicated greenhouse, I highly recommend the following book: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long, by Eliot Coleman The author lives in Maine and gets hardy greens like mache (lamb’s lettuce) and spinach throughout the winter, using modifications to the square-food gardening boxes that protect plants and allow the sun to warm them through Plexiglas. You can also interact with others and ask questions about four-season harvesting online, where support communities are thriving. Keep in mind that we will be learning about fermented vegetables in Chapter 8 (page 223). We will “put up” cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, and beets while preserving and enhancing all the raw-food nutrition! Money-Saving Tips Using the Produce of Your Garden Long after the Growing Season Make sure to grow as much as possible of cabbage, carrots, beets, and pickling cucumbers. In August, when fermented foods become your focus, you will have plenty of “free” nutritious food for the winter, without having to invest in new canning lids and without having to pressure cook, steam, or boil the food. The following is adapted from a blog on my Web site, www.greensmoothiegirl.com, that I wrote one Saturday in October 2007 on extending the life of the garden to have raw foods past the first frost. Since I quit putting up sugar-added, processed food in jars years ago, I’ve learned new ideas to preserve nutritional value in my garden’s yield. Here’s how the garden will “keep on giving” its raw food in the winter months—this is what I did today with the help of my family: • We made sauerkraut. It’s both raw and preserved for the winter, and it provides good lactic acid and healthy cultures your body needs to aid digestion, when used as a condiment or side dish at dinner. You will read more about the importance of fermented foods and how to make sauerkraut in Chapter 8 (page 223). • Emma and Kincade cut down all the chard, washed and dried it, cut it in thirds, bagged it in gallon freezer bags, and put it in the freezer. It’s months’ worth of green smoothie ingredients. [Note: I used the last of it on Apr. 24, the next spring!] You can’t preserve greens for other uses, but who cares if wilted, formerly frozen greens go into your green smoothie where it gets all blended up anyway. • I made 3 quarts of pesto sauce in our high-powered blender with spinach and basil from the garden. I put enough for individual family dinners in containers and stuck them in the freezer. • The kids brought in all the bell peppers—red, yellow, and green—as well as jalapeños and Anaheim peppers, and I chopped and bagged them in sandwich bags to add to big pots of vegetarian chili this winter. • Kincade pulled most of the beets—some as big as softballs!—and washed, bagged, and froze the beet greens for use in green smoothies. I peeled the beets and froze chunks for my Hot-Pink Breakfast Smoothie (page 285) and Chocolate Beet Cake (page 305). [Don’t use frozen/thawed beets for steamed beet recipes in this chapter, though—they just aren’t the same.] I think I have enough to last the year in my freezer. © Copyright Robyn Openshaw 12 Steps to Whole Foods 133
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Reaping a Gardener’s Rewards<br />
How Can I Get Garden Produce in the Winter?<br />
If you want <strong>to</strong> extend the life of your garden and grow cold-weather greens without an expensive and<br />
complicated greenhouse, I highly recommend the following book:<br />
Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long, by Eliot Coleman<br />
The author lives in Maine and gets hardy greens like mache (lamb’s lettuce) and spinach throughout the winter,<br />
using modifications <strong>to</strong> the square-food gardening boxes that protect plants and allow the sun <strong>to</strong> warm them<br />
through Plexiglas. You can also interact with others and ask questions about four-season harvesting online,<br />
where support communities are thriving.<br />
Keep in mind that we will be learning about fermented vegetables in Chapter 8 (page 223). We will “put up”<br />
cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, and beets while preserving and enhancing all the raw-food nutrition!<br />
Money-Saving Tips<br />
Using the Produce of Your Garden Long after the Growing Season<br />
Make sure <strong>to</strong> grow as much as possible of cabbage, carrots, beets, and pickling cucumbers. In August, when<br />
fermented foods become your focus, you will have plenty of “free” nutritious food for the winter, without<br />
having <strong>to</strong> invest in new canning lids and without having <strong>to</strong> pressure cook, steam, or boil the food.<br />
The following is adapted from a blog on my Web site, www.greensmoothiegirl.com, that I wrote one Saturday<br />
in Oc<strong>to</strong>ber 2007 on extending the life of the garden <strong>to</strong> have raw foods past the first frost.<br />
Since I quit putting up sugar-added, processed food in jars years ago, I’ve learned new ideas <strong>to</strong> preserve<br />
nutritional value in my garden’s yield. Here’s how the garden will “keep on giving” its raw food in the winter<br />
months—this is what I did <strong>to</strong>day with the help of my family:<br />
• We made sauerkraut. It’s both raw and preserved for the winter, and it provides good lactic acid and<br />
healthy cultures your body needs <strong>to</strong> aid digestion, when used as a condiment or side dish at dinner. You<br />
will read more about the importance of fermented foods and how <strong>to</strong> make sauerkraut in Chapter 8<br />
(page 223).<br />
• Emma and Kincade cut down all the chard, washed and dried it, cut it in thirds, bagged it in gallon<br />
freezer bags, and put it in the freezer. It’s months’ worth of green smoothie ingredients. [Note: I used<br />
the last of it on Apr. 24, the next spring!] You can’t preserve greens for other uses, but who cares if<br />
wilted, formerly frozen greens go in<strong>to</strong> your green smoothie where it gets all blended up anyway.<br />
• I made 3 quarts of pes<strong>to</strong> sauce in our high-powered blender with spinach and basil from the garden. I<br />
put enough for individual family dinners in containers and stuck them in the freezer.<br />
• The kids brought in all the bell peppers—red, yellow, and green—as well as jalapeños and Anaheim<br />
peppers, and I chopped and bagged them in sandwich bags <strong>to</strong> add <strong>to</strong> big pots of vegetarian chili this<br />
winter.<br />
• Kincade pulled most of the beets—some as big as softballs!—and washed, bagged, and froze the beet<br />
greens for use in green smoothies. I peeled the beets and froze chunks for my Hot-Pink Breakfast<br />
Smoothie (page 285) and Chocolate Beet Cake (page 305). [Don’t use frozen/thawed beets for steamed<br />
beet recipes in this chapter, though—they just aren’t the same.] I think I have enough <strong>to</strong> last the year in<br />
my freezer.<br />
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw <strong>12</strong> <strong>Steps</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Whole</strong> <strong>Foods</strong> 133