Are you gearing up for the new garden season and thinking ahead about what to do to make your garden work all year long for you? Concerned about the rising price of food and looking for ways to feed your family through tougher times? Want to get in on the fun and wonderful flavors of home preserved food? Concerned about how to adapt your storage or preserving to special diets? Want to make the most of your farmer’s market? All of the above? I’ll be teaching a six week online, asynchronous (ie, you don’t have to be online at any particular time) class on food storage and preservation starting on Thursday, February 16 and running until the end of March. Cost of the class is $100, and I do have five scholarship spots available to low income participants in need. If you’d like to donate to the scholarship fund, you can also do that – 100% of all donations goes to make more spots available to low income people who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to take the class.
Email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com for details or to enroll.
As I begin the final push on _Making Home_ my book on Adapting in Place (out next spring), Aaron and I will be offering the first ever “Advanced AIP Class” running from Tuesday, September 20 to October 25th. The class will build on the basic Adapting-In-Place skills that we’ve been talking about all these years in my classes, the blogs, etc… – triaging your situation, thinking about scenarios, and building both personal and community resilience, but this class moves beyond the basics into the larger question of how to make a life that both provides you some insulation from tough times, but also works across a range of circumstances and for you right now. The question is how to optimize – to be secure, to be content, to be ready, to be happy.
For those of you who have taken the classes previously, or who want to build on skills you’ve been working on for a while, the class will help everyone do a full evaluation of their resources and skills, and design short and longer term plans for how to move forward in the circumstances we actually have and in the ones we anticipate. We’ll look at the next steps in building stronger communities, optimizing our home resources, and keeping secure in tough economic times. We’ll go over a range of possible scenarios and try and figure out what practices work best – and what practices will make your life better no matter what.
We’re very excited about the class, and welcome both people who have taken our previous Adapting-in-Place classes and those who are coming to this with some experience in personal adaptation and community building.
The class is online and asynchronous – there is no requirement you be online at any particular time. The time commitment is 5-10 hours per week, but the archived material remains available in perpetuity so that if you miss a week, you can go back and reconsider it. The class includes design help and telephone discussion as well as internet materials.
The cost of the class is $180. We do have available five free scholarship spots for low-income participants, on a first-come, first-served basis. We also gladly accept donations to make additional scholarship spots available – 100% of all donations go to additional class spaces.
Please email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com for more information or to register.
Just to let you know, I’m starting another class this week – this one helping people get started with fall gardening and season extension. If you are like most folks, you probably start out enthusiastic about your garden, but around the middle of the summer, you get focused on harvesting, or overwhelmed by the heat and the weeds and let the cool season garden peter out.
That’s a mistake, because with very simple and cheap methods of season extension and a little attention right about now (for those as northerly as me, a bit later for folks south of me in this hemisphere), you can be eating fresh produced well into winter.
Moreover, cool season gardening is satisfying and a lot of fun – fewer bugs, cooler weather, usually more rainfall – the conditions are optimal, the air is crisp and cool and there’s just no reason to watch things peter out when you could be enjoying your garden until snowfly – or longer in many places. While a perfectly ripe tomato is one hallmark of the gardeners art, another is a fresh salad in the dead of winter straight from your garden.
Getting the timing right of fall crops takes practice, and learning what techniques work and don’t to extend your season, or how to deal with hot weather at planting time can be challenging. This class is for people from beginners to advanced gardeners who need a little help (or motivation) to move forward.
Like all my classes, this one is online and asynchronous. It lasts four weeks, from July 21 to August 11. You participate when you have time, and while I put up most of the week’s material on Thursdays, I’m available regularly through the week. The class includes weekly readings, lots of discussion and planning help and guidance, and one 15 minute phone conversation to talk about any questions or problems you are having, or strategize on designing how to get the most out of your garden.
Cost of the class is $100, and I also have two spots still available for low income scholarship students. I ask that if you are applying for scholarship you give me a brief explanation of why you would qualify. Anyone who would like to donate a part or whole of an additional scholarship spot can get in touch with me about that and 100% of the cost of your donation will go to making the class free for another low income participant.
To join the class or get more information, please email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com. Here’s the syllabus:
Week I, July 21 – Introduction to the basics of cool season gardening and fall planting, garden planning, choosing varieties, estimating planting dates, finding space in your garden, designing for a three or four season garden.
Week II, July 28 – Introduction to Season Extension, strategies for extending your season, dealing with heat and cold, water and irrigation, cheap and dirty season extension techniques, timing for preservation.
Week III, August 4- Cover cropping, using containers to extend the season, seed saving, Greenhouses, hoophouses and more advanced season extension, winter harvesting, recipes from a cool season garden, nursery beds, troubleshooting the fall garden.
Week IV, August 11 – Mulching, making the best use of small space, using vertical space in the winter, tropicals and pushing your zone hardiness limits, Choosing perennials to extend the season, Winter seeding and stratification. Menus from the snow.
What, you ask, has Sharon been duing, besides getting mud and manure on her? (I feel like there’s been a theme to some of my recent posts, no?) I’m sure you have nothing but this on your mind – the doins a’transpirin at my house being the focus of whole tens of people (well, maybe one ten on a good day . Still, I’m going to tell you.
Well, what we’ve mostly been doing is getting ready for the fall garden season, and getting ready for the family expansion project. As of this week, our house is open as a foster home, but of course, in our usual “doing at the last minute something we should have done weeks ago” fashion, we’re not quite there yet. Still awaiting the stair gate (I stupidly gave ours away when the kids got big), still awaiting one of the mattresses for the beds, etc… and most of all, we needed a larger vehicle.
For the last few years, our sole family vehicle has been the “farm truck” – which is our joking name for the 1994 Ford Taurus we inherited from Eric’s grandmother. When we got it, it was literally the car that the little old lady only drove to the supermarket on Sundays. Since then, it has carried six passengers regularly, and driven chickens, turkeys, ducks, goats, calves and bees in the back (and occasionally front) seat. It can carry four bales of hay if you really push it, and close to a ton of feed, if absolutely necessary. It has developed a permanent depression on the roof from where the goats have sat on it, and constantly has little baby goat hoofprints on it.
Grandma (whose memory is always a joy and a blessing) was a very tidy sort of person – she once confided gently to me that she could not sleep if she thought there was dust under her bed. I, as those of you who have been to my farm can attest, am not. There are way scarier things than dust under my bed, or would be if I didn’t sleep on a futon on the floor . We sometimes theorize that if there was a way to harness the energy created by Grandma spinning in her grave, we’d be able to run the farm on it, but she was also such a kind, loving and practical person that I know she’d be grateful her car went to good use.
It has been good use – it has been reliable and energy efficient. But we have outgrown it – we need a vehicle for going to market, and since we were certified to take up to four foster children (gack!), that means we need a vehicle that can seat 10 at least some of the time. Since that lets us out of the minivan category and firmly into the “big wonkin’ vans that if you are lucky get 18mpg” it will be interesting to see how we manage to hit our gas use targets (we have pretty consistently hovered at using 85% less gas than the US average, except for Eli, who is bused to a school for autistic children and runs about 75% less). We will still use the “truck” for Eric’s commute (on days he can’t carpool) and for any occasion when a subset of us can travel.
We looked at a selection of large passenger vans, including my favorite, the one that was a state prison transport van (they didn’t leave the logo on, sadly) and ended up with a 14 passenger vehicle – horribly and ironically, I am now the proud owner of something called a “suburban.”
Meanwhile, we’ve been trying to get our lives in order before 2-4 more people join in them and disrupt our managed chaos into less managed chaos. As much as we want to do this, it is a little like being pregnant for the first time, I think – the slow realization that this might be harder than you think kicks in. My husband deals with this by looking on the bright side. Discussing what we would do if we suddenly doubled the number of children in our household, Eric pointed out cheerfully that “hey, I could tune them to a full octave and use them as a muppaphone!”
(Just in case you don’t know what a muppaphone is. Simon has already claimed low C ).
This, of course, is the kind of thing that makes me adore my husband, and is also the kind of thing you probably don’t want to mention to social workers evaluating the merits of your family. Corporal punishment is absolutely forbidded in foster families – I’m pretty sure that includes musical performances as well .
Having the van does make it real. It also will make the Riot for Austerity more challenging – which is good. After all, just cutting your energy usage by 90% over the national norm is totally easy, right? Good – I’m adding a gas-guzzling tank and a few new household members to make it interesting. Remember, the Riot will re-start on August one.
Miranda Edel and I took the title of the Riot from George Monbiot’s book _Heat_ – in it he wrote “nobody ever rioted for austerity.” He argued no one will ever march saying “we want less!” – and that’s true. On the other hand a whole heck of a lot of us might march saying we want more for our kids and grandkids, to leave a better legacy, to honor and value what we have. There were more than a 1000 participating households around the world last time – I’m hoping to make it 5000 this time! Lots more information coming!
Also, if you wondering how to keep the garden produce coming into fall and winter, I’m teaching my Fall Gardening and Season Extension class, starting on Thursday 7/21, and running until mid-August. It will be a four week class focusing on everything from growing in containers to hoop houses, low tunnels, cold frames, timing your plantings, root cellaring, in garden storage and winter harvesting. You can take the class with a greenhouse or if you’ve just started your first garden and aren’t even sure what these words mean . Keeping the garden going – all year long or late in the season – is one of our keys to food security. Email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com. Cost of the class is $100 or equivalent barter. I also have five free spots for low income participants. Email for details.
Finally, on Sunday July 31, from 1-4pm, I’m running a class at my house in Knox, NY (about half an hour west of Albany) on growing, preserving and using herbs – from the culinary to the medicinal to the truly unusual. The class will involve a garden tour, tools for plant identification and both history and present uses, a snack of tasty herb-based treats and a demonstration of preservation techniques. Everyone will get herbs and herb products to take home as well. Cost of the class is $75 and includes all materials. Limited space available, so please register soon. Email for details, directions, etc…
On Sunday August 21, from 1-4, we’ll be having another class at our place – “mini goat camp.” Learn to milk a goat, trim hooves and the basics of goat care and housing including basic home vet work. Find out what it takes to keep dairy goats, including safe milk handling. Learn about feeding and kidding, and then do some basic cheesemaking and dairying. Sadly, in this case, everyone can not take home a goat , but you will get a valuable skill set. If you do want to get into dairy goats, I also have goats for sale -email for details. Cost of the class is $75, space is limited, so please email at jewishfarmer@gmail.com. Older children (10 and up) are welcome in both workshops at a reduced rate ($45).
Ok, hope you are all having adventures too! Please tell me about them if you are so inclined!
On June first, Eric and I and Eli (and Simon who was there in-utero) will celebrate a decade on our farm. That’s a pretty amazing thing to me – a childhood full of moves, a young adulthood in which I changed apartments every school year – ten years is by far the longest I’ve ever been in one place. And while I had made some forays into food preservation before we moved – mostly involving alcoholic beverages (yeah, yeah, grad student stereotype come true) and condiments (homemade mustard, mint oxymel, almond milk for pouring over chocolate ice cream), the idea of seriously preserving what I actually grew hadn’t kicked in yet. The balcony gardens I’d had in Somerville, MA hadn’t led me into serious food preservation. Farmer’s markets just weren’t as prevalent as they are now. Moreover, homemade food itself wasn’t as trendy. Although I had a plan to grow and produce what we ate, I hadn’t fully made the mental leap into recognizing that one of the central steps in that process was going to be learning to put by.
I did learn it, however, the first time the zucchini exploded, the first time we had more peas than we could eat. I learned it when our first year household budget was a grand total of 17K for Eric, Eli, me and new baby Simon. The vast majority of that money was going to be spent on the mortgage. 3K of it was eaten up almost immediately when our well line burst. That first year garden I planted turned out to be a big chunk of the food budget.
I found books at the library and in bookstores about food preservation, but most of them weren’t that concerned about energy usage – I wanted to know what the most efficient way to keep food was. A lot of them didn’t seem that concerned about taste, either – yes, home canned green beans taste better than grocery store ones, but is that really the best we could do? And they left out a lot – I was getting three gallons of milk in barter for our eggs from a dairy farming neighbor. How do you make butter? How long does it keep? Another neighbor shared her garden produce – the USDA said canning pumpkin wasn’t safe anymore. Were they right? What else do you do with it.
I had time (or as much time as a graduate student writing a doctoral dissertation and the mother of a toddler and a newborn 20 months apart ever has) more than I had money, so I could experiment. I did experiment – a lot. We were given a huge bag of figs, and I pickled a bunch of them. I learned not to pickle figs. We went to the pick-your-own to get strawberries and then dried them, because I didn’t have enough canning jars. I learned definitely to dehydrate strawberries. I made butter. Because of my pregnancy, I was throwing up every 45 minutes, and an elderly Russian lady at our synagogue suggested I try fermented foods. Kimchi and pickles became my best friends.
Despite our tiny budget (which did get bigger after that first year), we ate well. Actually, we ate better than we had ever eaten before. We felt good. Even our picky toddler ate the fresh, delicious stuff we had. The second year, the garden got a lot bigger, and again, we learned more tricks of the trade for food preservation. Moreover, I was more and more concerned about resource use – how did we optimize this – how did we balance our energy consumption for preservation to ensure we came out ahead of industrial food. And how did we make it more delicious still?
It felt, in a lot of ways, like we had to reinvent the wheel. Don’t get me wrong – I had a lot of mentors – most of all the late, great Carla Emery, who became a personal friend. I had a long human past to go back to – after all, food preservation is one of the oldest of all human activities, long predating agriculture. And yet, inventing it for here, on a local diet, with a modern food sensibility and concern for health and safety felt new, as much as it was very, very old.
I decided to write _Independence Days_ in large part because of an encounter with a woman at the 2007 Community Solutions conference. She asked me what she should do to eat locally when her 20 week CSA delivery ended. It was a familiar question – my own CSA customers asked me the same thing, or they puzzled – why was I giving them so much cabbage and garlic in the fall, more than they could eat in a week?
It occurred to me at that moment that we’d lost our attachment to the cycle of preserving, the sense that this was natural, that abundance could be met by strategies to extend its life. The Independence Days Challenge and the book of the same name emerged from that encounter – from the recognition that others were asking the same questions I had asked about how to keep eating locally.
I’m still learning. I still consider myself a low-level cheesemaker, with a whole host of new projects I want to try. Since my grad-school days, I’ve done little experimentation with alcohol making – now that Eric keeps bees, I want to make mead. I’ve got plans to try some new lamb sausages and Carol Deppe’s book _The Resilient Gardener_ has challenged me to explore squash drying more thoroughly. Lots of new stuff to get at.
Last year, I had my best preserving summer ever – and my worst preserving autumn in years. We went away for 10 days in early September on trip I wouldn’t trade for the world – my kids got to see the National Zoo and Monticello, we met new friends and took our first ever family vacation that didn’t involve mostly relatives. I got to speak in front of Thomas Jefferson’s vegetable garden. Given that I suspect that kind of travel may close to us over time, I’m grateful we got it. But the one-two punch of ten days gone (and more days in catch-up) and the Jewish high holidays coming in September meant I got almost no preserving done in the early fall – and an early frost meant that I lost my chance for a lot of good things. The fall raspberries were gone before I got more than a dozen jars preserved. I missed some of my favorite apples, I didn’t get enough tomato sauce done to last the winter.
As I said, I’m still learning. I suspect this year, as we add to our family will bring new imperfections and failures. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I may never get it all right. My years of Independence Day Challenges, however, have taught me to appreciate what I have done, what I do try – what has come to be part and parcel of my life, as routine as laundry and dishes. It has taught me to count every jar with pride, and to remember that next year comes again with new possibilities.
My eighth food storage and preservation class starts today – I feel like I know more than I did for my first class, I’m better prepared. I also feel like I’m never prepared enough – on the one hand, this stuff is important, it can be the difference between security and insecurity, sufficiency and insufficiency. Food matters. On the other hand, I feel just as uncertain as I suspect my students do – worried they’ll have questions I can’t answer. But I was a teacher for a long time before I started this subject – I have come to appreciate questions I can’t answer, because they take me places I didn’t know to go.
I have rhubarb to can, rhubarb I planted a few years ago that came back despite the depredations of chickens. I have raspberry leaves to dry for tea, and some to feed to the rabbits – they just appeared under the spruces, and we let them grow. I have bok-choy bolting in the heat that could still make kim chi – or could be tosssed over the fence to the goats if I don’t get to it. My place, this place I know better than any other I have lived in, is filled with abundance, tolerant of my imperfections and ready to go.
Sharon
BTW, I still have two spaces in food storage and preservation. If you’d like one, email me at Jewishfarmer@gmail.com!
. Still, I’m going to tell you.