Why don't "poor people" buy ginger root?



Ginger root

In this economy (at least the one at my house) I visit a pantry once a month.  But due to health issues, I have to buy certain products they can't often provide - almond milk, certain flours, yeast, etc.  And ginger.  But the normal stores for me to shop at - discount box stores mostly - don't carry ginger.  The spice or the root.  Almond milk is making inroads - I can find it most places.  Cornstarch - yes.  Tapioca - no.  Sorghum - not on a bet. 

Masa harina and cornmeal - sure.  But of course at a premium price.  (We can't have those ethanol fueled vehicles sitting idle! And then we have to feed the livestock.  Of course, they'd rather eat grass.)

And in true Aspie fashion - my mind was off. 

I have a cousin who truly believes there is a "they" out there - government, big business, foreign investors - out to destroy the little people.  I'm not sure I go there, but it certainly seems that we are being left to fall by the roadside.  The old saying "only the strong survive" seems to have changed.  If visiting the grocery store is any indication, somehow the definition of "strong" has dollar signs on it these days.

So many of the very diseases we are struggling with are directly related to nutrition.  As magnificent a machine as our bodies are - they have to have basics to function well.  Autism, diabetes, & auto-immune diseases all have scientifically proven direct links to what we eat.  The quality, the quantity, the source, how long its been stored - all nutrition issues.  I know we believe that things need to change, but if we don't have the health - compounded with muddied access to health care - we can't make it.

• So, this morning I'm thinking - want to change the world (I'm aiming just for changing where I live)?  Grow something you eat... 
• Can't grow it yourself?  Form a group and share the work.
• Live in a city? There are incredible models of urban agriculture springing up all over the country. 
• Bad weather - check out Growing Power.  They have gardens in Milwaukee and Madison, WI and Chicago, IL.



Fingerling eggplant.

Start small - but at least start.  You'd me amazed at what can be grown in containers.  I grew cucumbers and eggplant in plastic milk jugs attached to a chain link fence last year.  At least grow a few of your favorite herbs to spice up your cooking.  Taste inspires!  And then expand the variety.  Or try a vertical garden, like this pallet garden - Creating a Pallet Garden.  A word of caution, be sure the pallet hasn't been fumigated.  Here's info on how to check - Is my pallet safe to re-use?




Pickling cucumbers

Cherry or grape tomatoes are essentially a weed.  They can tolerate all kinds of abuse and still produce fruit.  That's all they care about - making fruit.  Their whole existence in focused on those little red (or yellow) seed packets you can pop in your mouth, add to your salad, or spice up you pasta...
Of course they are really good fresh off the vine as a reward :-)

Maybe you don't have any place to grow plants but you window sill.  Or the green thumb you dream of skipped you completely. Try sprouting seeds & legumes.  Check out Nourished Kitchen — Reviving Traditional Foods, they have a great blog on the how to's of sprouting.  I get a lot of lentils - and there are a number of delightful recipes for them.  But they are also delightfully easy to sprout.  I use them in salads, stirred into my scrambled eggs, baked into my bread, and as an occasional treat for my hens!  I've also tried sesame seeds, mung beans, buckwheat, and quinoa (keen-wah).  Didn't have great success with the quinoa, but the others worked great!

Now, I'm going to try growing my own ginger.

Want a revolution! Grow something edible! 
And try honey ginger root tea instead of coffee sometime...

Fun music!! Homesteady | Tin Bird Choir

Hail the mighty Iris!! Long may she grow...

Nature just delivered a huge lesson in humility. 

Sometimes I forget who's actually in charge!  And for today, it clearly is the iris.  How different life would be if I could roll with the seasons so well!

Last year a friend of mine and fellow gardener was forced to move from where he was living, and asked me to foster a number of his plants.  I was (and am) delighted to add them to my yard, and most  went well and are popping up their heads already this spring.   But weather, long untended ground, and my physical limitations made it a challenge to complete the transfer of the bounty of irises.  I watched sadly as they yellowed and withered, or drowned in their little tubs. 

Yesterday I rolled up my sleeves and headed out to start the process of clearing away the remains.  And discovered little shafts of green peaking up from the piles of dead leaves.  I called a friend to ask how best to deal with what had survived - I clearly did not want to tax them any more than I already had.  When she got back to me today, she reminded me that plants actually deal well with adversity, and that I should move what I could of them into the beds I had planned last year. 

I'm still in shock.  Every single one of them survived!  Even the ones I though has drowned in buckets with minimal soil.  My worst efforts and seeming indifference - as well as the self-abuse I leveled at me over the winter months - were simply ignored.  The plants did what they do, and I am deeply humbled.  I'm not creating the garden, the plants simply allow me to admire them while they regenerate themselves. 

It all made me wonder about the war over GMOs, and hybrids, and mono-cropping.  I wonder how long it would be before everything simply reverted?  I love Michael Pollan's assertion that corn has cultivated us to serve it.  It wouldn't survive, at least in its current state, if we didn't constantly cater to its every need. 

I remember sitting in on a lecture about strawberries and fungicides a few years back.  The issue was that strawberries as we know them can't survive unprotected, and there wasn't a viable commercial strawberry variety to replace the dependent ones currently used.  Yet every year, wild strawberries and onions grow everywhere I don't fight them.  Since I don't use pesticides, they usually win.  Their persistence is nothing short of amazing. 

When it comes down to it - a weed is something growing where I (the great and powerful I) don't want it.  To a farmer - the mighty oak - is a weed when it tries to grow in his cornfield.   Are we the Earth's weeds, needing to be removed?  Or maybe, just maybe, plants are smarter than we are.  And much more patient...

What was I thinking?

It's been busy around here of late!  While at Orschelns for welded wire I found myself drawn by the sound of new chicks - and they had Ameraucanas!  So my little flock of two has grown.  So glad I bought extra chicken nipples Poultry Nipple Waterers- I have several more to make up.  And the plans for the coop will have had to be expanded!  But not yet!  The windows are currently doing duty in the yard as a cold frame.  And then there's the rabbit cages.

There are projects in every room, some for spring - some left over from winter.  I have a new desk courtesy of E.M. and just finished assembling it in time to get a call that the rabbits are ready to be picked up.  The dining room table is covered with seed pots - just saw my first tomato plant peek up out of the soil.  The outdoor plants that have been overwintering in the windows are all spruced up and ready to start hardening off.  Once everything is out I can get to the mending I've acquired - the sewing machine has been hidden under plants.  The chicks are still in the bathroom - it's the only room I can keep warm enough for them - with the added benefit of linoleum flooring.  I've been trying my hand at sprouting and fermenting.  The lentils were a great success, and yesterday I started fenugreek seeds and mung beans.  I finished one jar of sauerkraut - just cabbage.  I went so well I've going to try beets, red cabbage, and caraway seeds added to the green cabbage next.

Potatoes are in, the bed for the peas is almost ready, the roses are pruned, and all the peonies made it through their travels last year and the shoots are already an inch tall.  Another week and I'll need to do the first mowing.   Most of the milk carton hanging pots I made up last year have survived the winter - so I'm ready for when it's time to plant cucumbers.  I'm only going to put one plant in each this year though.  Now that the "expired" tree is gone, the raised beds have been moved to run along the fence - I thought I grew enough tomatoes last year - but I need to expand that area.   I find I just won't "thin" a growing plant, and three plants per gallon is too much.  By mid-summer there will be a wall of tomato plants between myself and the neighbors!  There's the left over wood from all the wild honeysuckle and volunteer trees we cut down last fall.  The small branches went with the fall cleanup - but the trunk pieces are still here.  Then there's the sill plate in the window we found damaged from termites when we pulled out the a/c unit this winter.  I need to fix it so the a/c can go back in - it's taking up too much space in the garage!  Then there are those two bucket seats from the van in there that need a new home...

Funny, I told everybody I wasn't going to garden this year.  Oh well!  Another cup of tea and back to work :-)

After yet another cold snap last week - polar vortex is the term they're throwing around this time - the hens were inside again.  This time it was the bathtub for a couple of nights, don't have a laundry room now.  It was a much quieter event this time, no eggs to chase, but it reminded me how long it's been since I shared anything on this blog.  Or cleaned up after chickens in the house...

My life changed quite a bit over the last few years, faster than I could keep up at times. Spring is on the way in many respects, and I thought I'd share some of the exciting things coming up.  When I was younger, much, I stumbled on a magazine that I grew to love. It was Organic Gardening from Rodale Press, and I faithfully subscribed to it for over 15 years.  I saved every copy, and moved the collection along from Los Angeles to Winnipeg to Missouri.  I bequeathed that collection finally to a fellow devotee in Kansas just before I headed off to college for my adventures in graduate studies at Iowa State.

Over the years those pages inspired us to raise chickens, start a small meat rabbit business, create countless gardens, test composting designs, and even a brief and lively round with goats. However, the most lasting impression comes from a book they offered when I signed up - Five Acres and Independence: The Practical Guide to Selecting and Managing a Small Farm by Maurice Grenville Kains.  (It's available thru Amazon for $12.29, still around after all these years!)

Then life got busy, as life should, and the book sat on the shelf.  As life and its demands have changed, the book is calling again. I can't actually run out and buy five acres right away, but the ideas of building in self- sufficiency and living closer to what I eat still charm me.  Because I live in town and rent, the things I do must be pleasant to look at (and smell) as well as mobile.  Compost lives in aerated garbage pails. The bulk of my plants are in containers, interspersed with flowers (edible of course).  And the "ladies" coop must of course be a tractor style - for numerous reasons.  I only have a front yard - the house I rent has been split into two apartments - downstairs and upstairs.  The yard gets FULL sun most of the day, so I need to be able to move them to shadier spots.

Oh. Note to self: if you install a rain barrel, make sure it is already plumbed before you set it right side up.  They are really heavy once they are full.

Next month, the rabbits are back.  (Well, yes, the ones outside were here all along.  Chasing them out of the yard is Keifer's favorite sport.)  I mean, the rabbit farm is back...   More soon on the intricacies of homes for rabbits.

Wascally wabbits....  http://youtu.be/60kC9WUne08

Who is Keifer?  My service dog.  I did say there have been a LOT of changes...