Category Archives: food

My First Permaculture Hügelkultur Garden Bed: What Am I Doing Here?

Listen…… Did you hear that? That was me taking a deep breath. I’m very humbled by this year. Several projects didn’t work out to be all roses for me. I need to slow down, relax and reflect.

My First Permaculture Hügelkultur Garden Bed is one of those things that hasn’t worked out like I thought it would. At first it Continue reading My First Permaculture Hügelkultur Garden Bed: What Am I Doing Here?


Greenstalk Vertical Garden planted with vegetables next to a wooden fence.

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if 
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
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Fed a Pack of Lies

Have you ever had a moment where you stop and realize that our food system is broken? This food system has been presented to you your whole life as “good” and “abundant” and “healthy” and “fun”. Yeah… all lies.

I’m in a moment like that. This moment has been developing for me for a while. There is plenty of information about foods that are healthy, or at least healthier than others. My food lifestyle has been changing and evolving for a long time. It is my desire to live better. Food is fundamental to that quest.

I’m 40. I grew up in the 80’s. Those were good times. GMO foods were not on the market yet, but these more simple times has their own set of lies. I will not blame my parents for this. They did what they could for us. They were fed the lies, too. It’s unfortunate that we (this culture) have not only been fed lies, but mostly accepted these lies without much of a fight. The Industrial Revolution and the American Free Market are good things, but it has also led to lots of pollution. The pollution I’m angry about right now is that in our bodies! We have allowed –directly or indirectly — our fundamental needs to become polluted. For what? So, we can have pretty packages on the store shelves? So some company can make more money? Was it all innocent and now we are just waking up, or did those “in charge” know better in the first place?

Sometime in 1994 the first GMO foods hit the shelves of our grocery stores. This came in the form of the Flavr Savr Tomato. Since then the GMO industry, largely led by the large biotechnology company Monsanto, has polluted our food system in more ways than just the tomato. The list is long and getting longer. Some cheeses, apples, corn, soy, papaya, potato, zuchinni, vegetable oils… are all affected directly by GMO food.

There are many other foods that are affected in a more indirect way. Think about how many products have some form of any of those products in there. Basic ingredients like starches and sugars are in most of our grocery store selections.

Here’s where I’m more and more challenged. Things like GMO foods disturb me. The more I learn, the more I feel like I’m being lied too. When I go to the fresh produce section of my local grocery to buy corn, zucchini or yellow squash… I feel like that should be healthy fresh options for my family. Yet, these products are very common GMO foods. If I’m not buying “Organic” foods then I’m likely buying something that can be destroying our bodies from the inside out. To further complicate the lie is that “Organic” doesn’t really mean that it’s good and free from pollution. If it doesn’t say “100% Organic” then it is up to 30% polluted with GMO or other non-organic goods according to FDA standards.

By the way, I hate the government labels. “Organic” is a sweet marketing word. It sounds so good. But it just becomes another lie. The regulations on the word have made it unachievable for many small scale farmers. It becomes another lie because the word “Organic”, is being used makes buyers believe that anything that isn’t labeled with that word is bad. Remember the small scale farmer that can’t afford to put that word on his products? Yes, his products likely are better for you than those that are labeled.

Our loving government passed the Monsanto Protection Act. This act protects those creating and peddling the GMO products, but damages the pursuit of small scale farmers. Large corporations gain protection and legislation caters to protecting their interests. Small-scale farmers are faced more and more with regulations that they can’t keep up with. Many responsible small-scale farms are pressured to conform (to nearly impossible requirements) or close up shop. Aside from the regulations is just keeping up with price points. Farming isn’t very profitable in the first place. The cost of operating a small scale farm is rising with every new regulation aimed at benefiting these uncaring Goliath farms. It’s the small scale farmer that typically cares to produce foods that are actually healthy for you. Many won’t even use common pesticides and herbicides.

These are the farms that I want growing food for my family!

Those companies that maintain thousands of acres of monocrops (not diverse or healthy) mainly care about profits… and they get it.

Take action…
Sites:

http://www.nongmoproject.org/
http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/
http://www.osgata.org/
http://www.organicconsumers.org/

Buy/Swap Heirloom Seeds…
Here’s a short list to get you started.

http://www.rareseeds.com/
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/
http://www.territorialseed.com/

Support your local growers. Get to know them. Take that extra time and money to their establishments. Show them that you care about how they provide quality healthy REAL foods for your family.

Thank you for supporting me by visiting my blog. I hope to see you around here more often. Please leave comments to continue the conversation. Add to my very short list of action sites or seed companies. Have a great day!

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Greenstalk Vertical Garden planted with vegetables next to a wooden fence.

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if 
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!


How I Made & Canned Sweet Garden Salsa

This post is to document how I made my Salsa on July 29, 2013.

Now, why did I lead with that boring data log type sentence? Well… because the first time I made salsa
it turned out nice. I liked it. I was proud of it… but I can’t remember how I made it.

This time I took the time to document my steps and methods. Here goes… Continue reading How I Made & Canned Sweet Garden Salsa


Greenstalk Vertical Garden planted with vegetables next to a wooden fence.

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if 
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!


My First Canning Experience

Preserving food has to be on the list of things to learn for people who grow their own. Last year I had moderate success growing food, but nothing in excess that would need special preparations to preserve and keep.  This year I optimistically plan on having “too much”. I need to learn how to CAN!

Our Nectarine trees have given us good reason to start. The trees were full of fantastic fruit. They were small but plentiful. We had to get this produce off the tree and in the house or we would lose it all to the birds and squirrels.
 Enjoy a few photos of the fruit to whet your whistle before talking about the canning experience 🙂
Young Unripe Nectarines
First Sweet Nectarine of Season

Bowl full of Nectarines

Is your mouth watering? Mine is. Man, these little things taste good!

Our first experience canning was good. Stressful, but good. We were a bit stressed because we didn’t really know what we were doing. Yes, we had the internet, which is awesome… but there’s something about having first hand experience with you to make you feel confident as you take on a new task. I was concerned that we would get it wrong and ruin all of our wonderful fruit.
After a lot of deliberation and consideration we decided to purchase an inexpensive pressure canner to start with. We could have saved a few dollars and just went with the water bath canner for now, but we do intend to can some veggies later so the pressure canner won out. I know we didn’t buy the best canner, but it will do until we learn a few things.
I’m not here to give anyone a “How To”… at least not yet. For now I’m just sharing my experience.
We gathered all the fruit and let them sit inside for a day. This allowed them to sweeten up just a bit. After washing them all in the colander the Nectarines were cut off the pits.

I chose to use my Vitamix to chop the fruit into slurry goodness.

I was hoping to make a Sugar-Free jam, but opted for a Low Sugar recipe instead.  I am pushing away artificial sweeteners in my life. There were no recipes that I could find that would allow me to make the jam without sugar and no substitute. This batch was made with a small amount of organic raw sugar.
Jars were in the dishwasher getting sanitized, lids were in a pot on the stove. The fruit jam ingredients were all being cooked according to the recipe. The water was warming in the Pressure Canner… All is good.

Well, after a little stress and frantic commotion in the kitchen we were able to achieve 12 wonderful little jars of jam.  Funny thing is that after they came out of the put I put them on this towel and they started to “Pop Pop Pop”… I freaked out. What had I done wrong?? I ran to the internet to search for “Why are my canning jars popping?”. HaHa, well, that’s what they are supposed to do! That is the sound of the jars sealing up.

In a week or so, I’ll open one of these to see how it went. So far it appears that they set up just fine. I’ll let you know 😉

Update: Testing & Tasting 

Testing the Preserves
Looks Good on the Spoon!

Bad Picture, but the color of the Preserves is amazing!

What a beautiful sight 🙂
I told him to pose with the spoon and
he didn’t even wait for me to get the
camera ready… he just ate the goods!

Breakfast 🙂

The Sugar and Pectin Used in Recipe

The Sugar and Pectin Used in Recipe.
The Recipe is on the back of the Pectin Jar.

Pin this 🙂

Greenstalk Vertical Garden planted with vegetables next to a wooden fence.

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if 
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!


Salsa – Vitamix

With all the good stuff from my garden right now I can’t resist trying to make some salsa. I have made now three batches. The first batch was pretty simple an tasted pretty good. The second batch was a flop. This third batch turned out really good so I wanted to record the recipe here.

The recipe will be made in two parts. I’ll call the first part the “Base” and the second part the “Chunks”.

Base ingredients

1 medium tomato
1/2 medium onion
1 hot wax pepper (2 inches)
1 tsp Chili Pepper Powder
1/2 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Salt

Chunks ingredients

1 medium tomato
1/2 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
1 jalapeño
4 sprigs cilantro
1 leaf basil
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Preparation instructions

Place all Base ingredients in Vitamix. Blend on variable 1, increase to 10 then to high. Mix till completely blended smooth. Pour smooth mix into small sauce pan. Cook over low heat to reduce it a bit.

Place all Chunks ingredients in Vitamix. Blend on variable 3 till chopped up and mixed well. Do not over blend.

Pour the reduced Base and Chunks into a storage container. Stir together. Let sit in fridge overnight to let favors blend. If you make this please post here to share your thoughts!


Greenstalk Vertical Garden planted with vegetables next to a wooden fence.

Buy Greenstalk Vertical Gardens! http://lddy.no/25if 
(affiliate link - Daddykirbs Farm. Thank you.)
Coupon Code DADDYKIRBS to get up to $10 off!