The Chatelaine's Keys

Sharon November 14th, 2011

As those of you who have been reading for a while know, I don’t actually have a true root cellar.  Instead, what I have is a south-facing sunporch that doesn’t freeze until we get to about -20 (which happens about 1-2x per winter here).  So for 99% of the time between November and March, I have a highly functional, if imperfect cold space for storing produce.  I hang blankets over the windows to prevent excess light from sprouting tomatoes and keep spare blankets for tucking over the produce if things get crazy-cold.

We put up, for a family of 7, about 250lbs of potatoes, 2oo lbs of onions, around 50-60 good sized squash of various types, 100lbs each of carrots and parsnips (we would eat more carrots than this, but they don’t store as well as some others), 12 bushels of apples (lots of apple fiends in my house, including our new little guy, M.), 200 lbs of sweet potatoes, 60+ heads of cabbage, 100+ heads of garlic (we really like garlic ) and lesser quantities of beets, turnips, celery root, pears, quinces and other vegetables.  While some things will run out over the course of the winter, we will still be eating onions, potatoes, squash and apples into May most years.  Add to this our in-garden crops (usually more than this year, since we lost the garden to Hurricanes Irene and Lee), which usually include spinach, scallions, kale and winter lettuces, and our preserved and stored food – bulk grains and legumes, condiments and home-preserved items and this forms the bulk of our diet for a good portion of the year.

Normally we fill the cellar gradually, over the course of a sustained harvest season.  With the destruction of our fall garden and many of our summer crops, this year is a little different – our root cellar produce is coming from further away, from farms up in the hills and downstate that weren’t hit as hard as the surrounding ones.  We’ve always relied at least a little on other farms to supplement a bad crop in a difficult year or to expand on what we grow (for example, we grow sweet potatoes here, but it is just too cool and wet for them to be totally happy – mine run small, whereas the sandy-soiled farms in the valley produce real lunkers great for roasting, so we always buy some), but this year we’re doubly grateful for the interconnections that bring food from further away (still not terribly far) to us.

There’s an art to timing root cellaring – for those with true underground storage with fairly consistent temps, this isn’t such a big deal, but for us, we have to wait until things are fairly consistently cold.  An occasional January thaw or November or March day in the 60s is no big deal if the nights are cool – the blankets and insulation help keep things stable, but an extended warm stretch can cause problems.  Still, in general some temperature fluctuations are mostly handled pretty well – at least by everything but the carrots.

We are unable to keep perfect humidity or apples entirely away from potatoes, and find that this just doesn’t matter that much.  Most of the foods in our cellar last fairly well – we could optimize, of course, but that would require more energy and resources than we want to put into it, and we find it more useful to put our energy into say, making kimchi out of the carrots and cabbage nearing their end, or making applesauce out of the apples that shrivel.

This sort of lazy-woman’s root cellaring is the kind of thing that probably many families can do – finding an underused closet and cutting some ventilation, or walling off a corner of a basement, porch or mudroom with insulation enough to keep things from freezing.  The money and time it saves is enormous, and the quality of food we get is also wonderful – things taste fresh, sweet and delicious for months, and it allows us to put our food dollars where we most want them – back in our pockets in years when we grow our own, in the pockets of nearby farmers the rest of the time.

The meals that come out of our cellar are wonderful too – we always have the ingredients of delicious, flavorful meals – a little broth and we’ve got vegetable soup with rich, complex flavors.  A little meat and we have stew.  Some curry paste and we’ve got curried vegetables.  Some tofu and we’ve got a stir-fry.  Add chicken and we’ve got a classic sabbath dinner of roasted chicken, roasted vegetables and greens.  Shepherd’s pie, lentil soup, massaman curry, bubble and squeak, kimchi-vegetable soup, sweet potato pie… it all comes almost effortlessly from our vegetable cold storage.

Sharon

• Food Storage
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Sharon October 5th, 2011

Several readers wanted to know what my family will be eating, given the destruction of our garden and of local crops in the valleys.  I’ve delayed answering this question because I’ve been waiting to see some of what emerges in the month after Irene and Lee.  As you know, the Schoharie Valley, historically our primary produce source, was horribly flooded during the hurricanes, wiping out the crops of most of the farms I’ve relied on.  Other farmers had lesser damage, but it has been a tough year.

In some ways, the last month has been further disappointing – nearly non-stop rain has meant that even farms that didn’t lose crops to the tropical storms have lost some of their usual produce – for example, my usual source for fall raspberries in quantity lost everything.  Another source has had so much mold and mildew due to the rain that they aren’t picking either, so it looks like no raspberry jam this year.  Fortunately, we had a great year for blackberries and peaches, but raspberry was everyone’s favorite.

In other ways, there have been some heartening developments.  Several local farms have done the work of sourcing fairly local produce from farms in the region.  While the prices are up (they have to buy it), I can get bulk peppers, sweet potatoes and onions.  Some of the farms did have some crops in for the year before Irene and Lee, so while they lost all their field crops, they do have carrots, potatoes and garlic in some quantity – so one answer is more of what they do have.  Another is that in a minor crisis (and this is not minor here, but it isn’t a region-wide food failure without the capacity to transport food around either), I can rely on my local farms to source food for the customers from other farms in the larger region.  So I can add to my pantry most fall staples.

There will be some major gaps in my pantry this year – very few tomato products, and no salsa at all (Next year I’ll remember to mix it up more – I had decided I’d do all the whole tomatoes and sauce first and then the salsa when the hot peppers were riper, but that wasn’t such a terrific plan,  Definitely one of those live and learn things.

Despite being under 3 feet of water, the one really flood proof warm weather crop I did have were the tomatillos – astonishingly (given that they are more adapted to heat and drought), they’ve continued to grow unabated, where pretty much everything else but the greens drowned, rotted, succumbed to fungal disease, burned down or fell into the swamp (there is something Monty Pythonish about the ways that plants succumbed).  So along with some greens, we’ll have a lot of salsa verde and carmelized tomatillo jam.  This will definitely take up a larger role in our diets this year.

Turnips mostly survived, so we’ll eat more of those as well.  We had a good quince year, our best ever, and many local farms do have apples, so apple-quince sauce and quince jam and paste will also take center stage instead of standing towards the back.

We’ve fortunately got hay put aside, but no corn for our livestock or for us. I have some pop and grinding corn left over, and the corn stalks have fed goats and rabbits so it isn’t a total loss, but still, we’ll be buying more feed this winter than I like.

There are two implicit questions here – what will I eat this winter, and what would I eat in a disaster that meant we couldn’t bring in what we had.  The answer to both is “more of what there is” – but it would be vastly harder to adapt to in the case of an inability to bring in crops from further away.  We keep enough stored food to be able to eat all winter, but we’d grieve the lack of many of our usual root cellared staples that make that diet more appealing, and to the preserved foods that give brightness, spice and pleasure.  Still, we would eat.

To me, this emphasizes the central importance of both food production and food storage – any of us may see crop or even whole garden/farm failures in any given year, and none of us can be 100% sure that we will be able to replace what we have lost.  Food storage gives us leeway, and the option of keeping everyone fed.  Food preservation allows us to take what is abundant (and something is always abundant in even the worst years) and use it to supplement and rebuild food stores, in case not everything is abundant.\

The other thing I have learned to this is to assume less – I did not rush when the cucumber became available because ordinarily, I have another month of pickling.  I could have canned more tomatoes, put up more of the rhubarb, harvested some of the corn before the storm and dried it indoors.  Hindsight, of course, is always clear – but it will remind me next year, and as I fill my root cellar not to take for granted the idea that next month’s gleanings will be there.

I think my family has never had such an acute lesson on the importance of food storage, of keeping up with the preservation and making good use of all we have, and of appreciation of what is ordinarily available.  We are lucky – we can replace some of what is lost.  People in my region benefit both from the networks of farms that allow us to reach out a bit further from our local circle and also from the fact that we don’t, as yet, HAVE to rely on local food.  It gives us time to strengthen and build for a day when we may.

Sharon

• Food Storage , food
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Sharon September 19th, 2011

I’m finding myself not quite sure what to do with my free time.  Ok, there isn’t *that* much of it, of course – after all there’s the farm, the homeschooling, the four kids, the house, the book, the work on the ASPO-USA conference and my role as a board member, a couple of miscellaneous articles to write, and some other odds and ends.  Still, it does seem strange.

As you may remember, we lost pretty much all of our annual garden a few weeks ago when first Irene and then Lee hit the area.  The squash rotted, the beans drowned, most of the apples blew down, the sunflowers blew over, the corn failed to mature, the potatoes succumbed momentarily to hideous fungal diseases.  I’m not complaining – really, I’m not – so many people in my area suffered so much that there’s nothing to complain about.  But it did leave me with a problem – just as peak preserving season hit, I had nothing to preserve.  I still have some surviving tomatillos, but they aren’t mature yet, and the peaches made a crop, but those are put away.  There are a few herbs left to dry, and some roots to dig from perennial herb crops like marshmallow and elecampane, but that’s about it – nothing compared to the usual burst of time and attention.  Since most of the neighboring farms had the same problem, finding sources of produce to put up is also problematic – I should be able to fill the root cellar and get some fall raspberries for jam, but that may be about it.

There’s no fall garden – the storms hit in those critical few weeks after almost all the fall crops were in, and when it was too late to mature much of anything but spinach and arugula before winter.  I’ve a small bed of each, but that’s pretty much it.  The structure of the storms was to put a rapid end to the late summer workload.

Meanwhile, we had anticipated we’d probably have a foster placement by now (and it isn’t like the social workers can conjure one or like we really can wish some poor group of kids would lose their home) and all of a sudden, I’m at loose ends.  Ok, they aren’t very loose – in fact, I should be working every second on my book.  But, well, I’m not – and I can’t.  During times when Eric is working, I could be preserving, but I couldn’t be off on the computer while the kids make mayhem.

Perhaps conveniently, I’ve been sick for a couple of weeks – nothing exciting, just a progression of minor viral things that lay me low.  My theory is that they are trying to get me comfortable with sitting on my butt drinking tea and reading an novel – and I did some of that.  It wasn’t as much fun as I remembered, though.

The problem, I’m finding, is that I’ve lost my taste for sitting around.  Oh, in the evenings, after chores, sure.  But after so many years of being so busy and working so hard, I find myself at loose ends.  Sometimes it is nice – time for walks and snuggles with the boys and odd jobs I’ve been putting off.  Some things get done better than before – my house is somewhat tidier, I cook more innovatively, my mending pile has shrunk, but let’s be honest – most of the time I’m just not desperate enough to clean or hem pants .

Instead, I find myself missing the structure of the dehydrator, wanting an herb drying room filled with boneset and peppermint.  I long for curing squash and sweet potatoes and the work of digging turnips.  I’m not sure why I miss these things – more leisure is a good thing, right?  Some parts are nice, but what I’ve learned is that both body and mind long for the discipline and joy of farmwork – if I needed confirmation I love my life, when a portion of it was removed, it called out to me.  Strange, but wonderful – to know that the dirt and I miss each other.

Sharon

• Food Storage , fall gardening
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admin July 15th, 2011

Kathy Harrison has a great post that includes the data on canning-caused illness. Obviously, you really don’t want to mess with safety when pressure canning or canning any marginally acidic food, but it is also the case that we should have a balanced understanding of real risks and benefits:

I posted the statistics for food born illness from home canned food in the comments section but I will just add (for those that don’t read the comments) most botulism is infant botulism coming from feeding babies foods that adults can tolerate but are not good for babies (honey is one example). The second cause if wound infection as botulism occurs naturally. Take good care of even small injuries. The incidence of food born botulism is very small with only 21 cases being reported last year. You are far more likely to get ill from eating commercial spinach than from my home canned tomatoes. Here are the take home points. Use up-to-date recipes from approved sources, proper equipment and excellent hygiene and you will be fine.

I  couldn’t say it better.  Be *respectful* of the rules of canning, but don’t be fearful – you take your lives much more in your hands when you get in a car.

Sharon

• Food Storage
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Sharon June 21st, 2011

Note: Rerun time – I’m spending this week getting ready for the final home visit.  After a disastrous visit by a social worker (not ours, thankfully) who was appalled by our farm and way of life, I’m not taking any chances.  So you get re-runs – but this is at least 3 years old and bears repeating, IMHO.  I’ve met so many people over the years who never expected to be pregnant (or pregnant again), caring for a grandchild or sibling’s child, etc…  Crises breed (so to speak) these sorts of situations – so please, even if you think you are past babies, or not going to conceive yourself, do think about it.)

This week I’m going to spend a lot of time on specific needs, and how to adapt your food storage to meet those needs.  Among the most common special circumstances is a childbearing woman, infant or young children.  Even if you personally are male or past childbearing, you may end up being the place of respite for family who have these issues in a crisis, and it is, IMHO, important to think about them.  I have encountered many people over the years who never expected to see their children suddenly arrive back home, to end up raising their nephews or grandchildren, or never expected to get pregnant (or pregnant again) and did.  Do not think that this information could never be relevant to most of us.  Remember, plans are good – but plans go awry regularly.

The first, and probably most essential component here is water.  I know a lot of people respond to my discussions of storing water as “ok, we’ve moved into total whack-job territory.”  And yet, I’m going to say that this is particularly important if your household includes or might include pregnant women, infants or very young children who are especially vulnerable to disease, parasites and chemical contaminations.  They also all have very little toleration for dehydration or water stress.

So if you have or might have young children, pregnant women or infants, store water, and have a way of filtering water in the long term.  If you have a limited supply of filtered or known safe water, and are worried about contamination, the last people to touch potentially contaminated water should be children or pregnant women – lifelong consequences are possible.

Pregnant women need more water and more of some nutrients.  Storing a pregnancy multivitamin if you could potentially become pregnant is not a bad idea.  Regular multivitamins will mostly suffice, though, if a varied diet is possible.  Folate (found in eggs and greens) and protein are particularly important - make sure pregnant women get more of these foods.

One issue for pregnant women may be nausea – on a food storage diet it is particularly difficult to deal with food issues.  To the extent you can, women in early pregnancy suffering from nausea should be accomodated in any way possible - the reality is that hunger makes the nausea worse and can result in a “death spiral” of being unable to eat or keep anything down long enough to deal with hunger induced increases in nausea.  This can cause dehydration, occasionally even death.  So if you are relying on food storage and have a sick pregnant woman, do the best you can to find something she can eat, if you know you plan to be pregnant and have specific triggers you might consider storing them, also if you plan to be pregnant, sea bands or ginger might work (nothing worked for me ;-) but I mention it).

Otherwise, pregnancy doesn’t require special foods.  But infants do.  Infants under 4 months (6 months is considered ideal) should be exclusively breast-fed whenever possible.  Breastfeeding is essential – and in a crisis, it can actually save lives.  Formula often becomes unavailable in a crisis, and a nursing mother can not only keep her own infant hydrated (even if she is suffering from dehydration she will continue to make some milk) but potentially other infants as well who can drink expressed milk in a bottle or cup or be taught to nurse (sometimes).  While not every woman can nurse, far more can than do, and for longer than most American women do. There’s more on the value of this here:

http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/2007/12/52-weeks-down-week-30-nurse-and.html

But what about women who can’t nurse, or those who adopt? And, for that matter, I’m going to say something that most mothers don’t like to hear.  We aren’t immortal or invulnerable – trust me, I know how it feels to believe that you have to be ok, because your children depend so much on you.  But things happen sometimes to mothers.  And the survival of our babies and children shouldn’t depend on the ability of any one adult to be present and to feed them.  So having some kind of backup situation makes sense.

That backup situation could be another lactating woman in close proximity, it could be a goat (not a cow), or it could be a store of infant formula.  I know that we should whenever possible, store what we use and vote with our dollars.  But every time I had a baby, before I gave birth, my husband and I bought a six month supply of generic, cheap infant formula.  It lasts about 2 years in storage (and unopened can be safely used for another year or two, but will lose nutritional value and may not adequate, so do this only in a dire emergency to keep a baby alive – a wet nurse or goat would be better) and before it expired, we would give it to our local food pantry that always desperately needed formula.

I am a passionate advocate of breastfeeding – but I care much more that babies live even if their Moms aren’t around, or can’t nurse them, and someone be able to take care of the babies around them. Only you know if your circumstance merits doing this, but it is something to think seriously about – I think of it as a charitable donation, one I hope never to need myself.

Once an infant is 4 months old (again, six is considered optimal, but by 5 months my kids were always grabbing food out of my mouth at the table, so thought they were ready), you can gradually begin transitioning them to mashed up solids.  (Actually, when I was an infant, solids were begun as early as 6 weeks – this is not recommended now, but if formula or breastmilk were in short supply, it could be considered – again, do it only if you have to.)  Waiting longer is considered better, particularly if you have a family history of food allergies.

Babies don’t need “baby food” per se, although it is good to start them on mashed up very simple, low allergen foods like white rice, greens, potatoes or orange vegetables.   But again, they should be primarily getting their food from mother’s milk, goat’s milk or formula until nearly a year – babies need a high fat, high protein, high quality diet.  If you think they may come into your orbit, store for them.

Young children, under 2, need more fat than most people, so storing some extra high fat food is a good idea.  Fish oil is a particularly useful thing if you can keep it cool, because it enhances brain development. Otherwise, they simply need a balanced, healthy diet.  But this can be tough with young children, since toddlers often are extremely picky eaters.  This means that storing familiar foods and getting kids familiar with whole foods used in storage is especially important.

Toddler pickiness has some evolutionary advantages – as they get more mobile, they get more choosy about what they eat, which is protective.  It is helpful to recognize that this is a passing stage, and just concentrate on finding foods they like.  Remember also that toddlers often have to encounter an unfamiliar food over and over again before they will try it – keep trying.   Generally speaking, if they aren’t making a radical dietary transition – that is a complete break from familiar foods – which they shouldn’t be, since we’re all trying to eat what we store – kids won’t generally do themselves any harm.

For healthy older children, I think a low-tolerance policy towards picky eating is important – I’ve written more about getting over picky eating here.  And again, kids make it extra-urgent that you begin eating out of your food storage regularly.

Sharon

• Food Storage
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