Category: Local Food (Page 1 of 13)

I truly can’t believe I’ve been sharing garden, homestead, farmer and food stories with you all for eight years now.

Thanks for being part of the movement to heal our earth one garden, homestead and meal at a time.

In those 8 years lots has changed and much has stayed the same. Locavore is a known word. Farmers markets have exploded. We’re inching towards Victory Garden era numbers of people gardening (but not quantity yet). Climate news has gotten scarier, but many people are doing more.

There are so many reasons to love the earth; she is our home, our shared environment and, “when we protect nature, we are nature protecting itself” as Greta Thunberg said a few years ago.

Or, as Alan Watts puts it, “you didn’t come into this world, you came out of it. Like a wave from the ocean.”

Let that truth roll over you.

Yet our existential debates over coming ‘into’ or ‘out of’ can quickly fade when faced with our current environmental crisis. But then we realize that until we get our relationship with nature is at the center of our striving we’ll continue to fight against rather than with nature. There’s power in those prepositions.

There are so many proven ways (thank to the Indigenous peoples of the world) to work with nature to help tend the soil, grow food we need, raise the animals, and nourish ourselves.

Our current food system is broken, and we’ve known it for decades. Agriculture and land use, as well as the larger global food system, are among the biggest contributors to climate chaos (23-30%). And, as a result, changing these systems would be a leap towards climate solutions.

It starts with eating closer to home. If we could shift an additional half of our food purchases to locally or regionally sourced (instead of the average 1,500 miles it takes foods to get to our home pantries) we could turn the tide.

Read more on Eating Local.

When we decentralize crops and livestock we put the power back into the hands of smaller farmers rather than corporations. And small farmers take better care of the land. In the United States there’s about 2% of the population that farms. That means 98% of us don’t.

So, as a small-scale homesteader, I love doing my part, tending to the tiny slice of the planet I can, and I give a huge nod to our local farmers for all they do. I thank a Farmer three times a day.

But Earth day is wonderfully timed to be seated in the time of Spring Hope- and as a gardener, I am full of that rosy-glassed longing for sun warmed tomatoes that burst in your mouth. Just don’t remind me of the mosquitos quite yet 😉

Here are some of my go-to resources for feeling hopeful about the climate.

Daily Climate
Minnesota Farmers Union
Project Drawdown
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Books

What are some places you go to for hope for the future our big blue-green planet?

And thanks for letting me dig into local food with you for 8 years.
Cheers to at least 8 more!

Michelle

With early planting and adding a few varieties, we can get you growing spinach all season long!

A few tweaks and tricks can strengthen our spinach growing skills and save us from buying those—very expensive and oh so wasteful—plastic bags of half-wilted greens shipped across the country.

Not to mention the multiple recalls for listeria and E.coli outbreaks…

And, as we know that produce loses around 30% of its nutritional value within days of harvesting, growing our own makes sense both to our personal health and the health of the planet.

Plus, crunching sweet spinach leaves is one of the joys of an early season garden.

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I started growing leeks about 8 years ago and now can’t imagine the end of a harvest season without them!

Plus—leek powder is a must in my spice rack now (more on that later)!

Leeks are like the cosmopolitan older cousin to onions—graceful lines compared to round and squat stature. They have a more sophisticated flavor; and yet somehow easier to grow for me!

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with Michelle of Forks in the Dirt

This is the spring to dig deeper into your gardening and homesteading skills!

I am so excited to have public, in person classes available and now open for registration!

Feb 12th – 6:30-8pm– Herbal Salve Making
*SOLD OUT* Anchor Coffee House

Feb 27th – 6-8pm Intro to Small-Scale Homesteading
(with Stephanie Thurow + Starter Kits provided)
Richfield Community Center

March 2nd – 9:30am-3pm Practical Permaculture to Get You Started
*SOLD OUT*(with Elaina Moss)
Women’s Environmental Institute

April 14th – 6:30-8pm – Intro to Small-Scale Homesteading
(with Stephanie Thurow)
WBL Public Library – FREE!

April 16th – 6:30-8pm – Seed Starting + ‘Winter’ Sowing
Anchor Coffee House

If you want to make a recipe that will turn ‘kale no’ into ‘KALE YEAH’ – here it is.

This is the perfect balance of healthy kale hiding in creamy cheesy perfection, finished with a crispy topping. This has become a holiday family meal favorite- and that’s saying somethings with all those kale haters out there 😉

Bacon fat is an amazing addition but not necessary for this recipe.  And as with all my recipes there’s room for making them different each time, or just to make them your own. Sometimes I’ll add in the bacon, or if my family ate all the bacon, I’ll just use the bacon fat to sauté the leeks and onions… a bit of pancetta or even smoked ham would be delicious too. If you like it spicy, add in the hot pepper flakes or even some dashes of hot sauce. If you don’t use bacon fat, taste test and add salt as needed.

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Find your new favorite by comparing twelve tomato varieties with me.

Did you know that tomatoes have been bred for different purposes for centuries?

Some are perfect for popping in your mouth, like cherry tomatoes. Some are meant to balance out that bacon on a BLT, like the huge heirloom slicers. And some are best for making sauce, like the thick and meaty paste tomatoes. And then there’s a million variations in between!

With over 10,000 known tomato varieties this is of course a very limited list, but also based on my nearly 20 years of growing tomatoes in the north.

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Nothing says fresh summer flavors more than Green Goddess dressing!

Grabbing handfuls of all the herbs and creating a magically delicious while nutrient dense topping for things from salads, to chips and sweet potato fries couldn’t be easier. It is literally dump, blend, and pour (or dip).

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Let’s make it easy to preserve your harvest! Harvesting and eating from our garden is what we work so hard for. And there’s nothing like those sun warmed tomatoes, or is there? What about homemade tomato soup in February, or strawberry jam in January?

Being able to preserve your harvests to enjoy longer somehow tastes + feels even better. It also feels like the step between being a gardener and a modern day homesteader. Let’s get you capturing those flavors to savor throughout the seasons!

Many of us are getting back into preserving our own food for so many reasons—the better nutrition, reducing food waste and our carbon foot print, more control of ingredients. Not to mention most of these ways are easy and a great way to feel more connected to our food!

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