ecoyear

Recently, two articles, here and here, have appeared on trying to save money while eating locally and sustainably.

You can go ahead and read them and see what you think, but my assessment is that they don't really offer any exciting tips. Instead they offer compromises such as buying organic from Walmart.

Here's what I think works:
- figure out what you hope to see more of - each purchase is a vote (yes, you want more organic at Walmart, but do you want "more Walmart"?)
- grow your own, especially of what is expensive for farmers, but not that much work for you; My strawberries fell into that category - I got about 10 pints, which would have cost me $60 at the market, from plants I paid for 2 years ago, that continue to produce for now, and spread almost uncontrollably to any amount of garden space I am willing to give them. Potatoes is another possibility.
- be creative - I tucked some basil and mint into the HOA flower pots I planted for them this year. I also tucked in tomatoes and peppers, and I'm anxious to see how that will go. I mainly fertilize with organic "fruit and flower" fertilizer and fish emulsion, so I don't have to worry so much about compatibility.

^{Purple basil on the left, Stupice determinate tomato plant on the right, and all the usual suspects - geraniums, million bells, etc...}

- forage and harvest in your neighborhood - sour cherries are available for the picking right now - there is always that elderly neighbor who just wishes someone would volunteer to pick theirs in exchange for a small pie or pint of preserves...
- know what to do with large amounts of produce (freeze, usually, until you can get to them) - you never now when you might come across someone with a need to unload a case or two. The old system of shopping around market closing time looking for deals rarely works right now when demand is so high for fresh local food
- plan your meals so you don't waste food - and donate anything you don't need - what goes around...
- add rhubarb to everything (at $3/lb it can be a bargain compared to fresh fruit)
- eat eggs for protein and staying power instead of cheese or meat/chicken/fish

Send in your tips! Obviously that is an important topic, but "pile it high and sell it cheap" is what got us in this pickle to begin with. We need a creative affordable alternative.

I wanted to take the opportunity to summarize a few facts. With the price of a barrel of oil continuing its frightening rise, and gas at the pump making filling the tank a major budget item for many people (greater than some people's mortgage in some cases), the presidential candidates' views on the future of energy in the U.S. become highly relevant.

Most immediately, how can one oppose drilling in ANWR and offshore?

Well a recent post in The Oil Drum, here, dissects McCain's speech last week, and lays out succinctly why we need to move past oil dependency, foreign or domestic, and the sooner the better.

Basically, the U.S. accounts for 24% of the worldwide demand for oil. Meanwhile, U.S. oil reserves (what is supposedly in the ground, and presumably recoverable (though that's no certainty)) is 3% of world reserves. In other words, there is no way we could be independent of foreign oil, except by essentially eliminating our use of oil. Opening currently closed off areas for oil production would buy us possibly the equivalent amount of oil we normally use up in 3 years. It would not significantly affect the price of oil because (as I understand it) you can't get the oil out of the ground fast enough to make any kind of impression on world production.

In other words, there is no good reason for the present trend in oil prices to reverse itself, or even slow down. So then let's make some major well-thought out changes in a hurry! Oil is used in transportation, in food production, and in heating our homes; in plastics, in clothing manufacturing, in making medications, etc. etc... I think it might be time to think ahead about what it would be like to ration it.

So that's where I stand. I am terribly worried when people try to address a problem by doing more of what got them here in the first place. I would say no additional drilling. Let's put all resources post-haste into addressing our predicament in ways that actually change the variables of the debate. Got leadership?

Sumset view from our deck

Sharon Astyk has been running a weekly series where she keeps track of all the things she does that help make her family independent from the commercial/mainstream food supply. This has inspired Susan Buhr to do the same, and several of Sharon's readers as well. After reading scary The Oil Drum articles last night such as "You.Will.Not.Be.Able.To.Get.Food.", I am inspired to keep a list of what I am doing too, as anything feels inadequate on its own, but when you add it all up, I want to think I am learning a few things about "food independence". Here are Sharon's categories - she hopes to accomplish something in each every week - and my accomplishments in the last month:

Planted: Tomatoes, winter squash, basil, beans, endive, parsley, scented geraniums

Harvested: Strawberries, peas, mint, parsley, sage

Preserved: Froze rhubarb and strawberries

Prepped: Bought a book on making a solar oven and using it (could save me some hours of slaving in a hot non-air conditioned kitchen - but it is another project, sigh...)

Stored/Managed reserves: moved the milk powder into the freezer; I just have been resisting storing food because I dislike preparing dry stored food. I am trying to keep a few jars of peanut butter around, and maybe wheat berries, corn for cornmeal, dried pasta imported from Italy, and extra quinoa. However, a focus on a local diet is difficult to reconcile with buying storable food, because that's just the sort of food that tends to spoil easily. Beans would be good, but we really don't like those much, and you do have to rotate through your stores regularly, or throw them out, which would be a shame. The solar cooker would at least allow me to cook the stored food in the sort of emergency that involves loss of electricity (and/or natural gas).

Cooked something new: garlic scapes, strawberry-rhubarb jam, nettle soup, carrot soup with carrot top broth (a little thin), ice cream, cream biscuits (far better than buttermilk, I am afraid...), turkey burgers... most of what I cook these days is a new experiment - yeah for cookbooks!

Worked on local food systems: I am planning in cooperation with Boulder Going Local some activites supporting Boulderites who would like to focus on a 100-mile or otherwise local diet in August. This includes daydreaming about a "local food" co-op, because one of the barriers is the shopping and driving around to farms to get food - also not very fossil fuel conscious. Talking about local food, I am still looking for a source of chicken meat more convenient than Eastern Plains Natural Food Co-op. There may not be one. Wisdom's Poultry are located 160 miles away. I wonder what it is about chickens that makes folks not want to raise them ("they are too much work, pretty dumb" is how one person I discussed this with put it...)

Reduced Waste: Finally have an outdoor composter; it rotates to make compost faster, it is cute (and small) enough not to become an issue for the HOA, I love it!

Learned a new skill: I made mozzarella cheese using citric acid and rennet from the New England Cheesemaking Company; outrageously easy and since a gallon of milk yields about 3/4 lb mozzarella you get a sense why cheese costs so much; I discovered it was not a good way to use "almost" spoiled milk, as the mozzarella then gets an "almost spoiled" aftertaste, but you could save money making your own bocconcini; Also, you can use the copious whey as you use buttermilk in baking recipes.

When my strawberry harvest proves inadequate, I'll have to learn to make rose jelly.

Many times when you read lists of the reasons why one would prefer to eat local, one of the reasons is price. Produce in season grown closer to home is supposed to be more affordable.

So here I go for the first year intending to can my own strawberry jam. Not rocket science, except that local strawberries cost $6/pint, which once hulled and cored and cut up, amount to about $6/cup, and if you add the sugar, the canning supplies and the energy used in canning, will doubtless cost more than strawberry jam bought from the farmer's market (most jams were about $7-7.50 per 16 oz jar).

Several factors converge to cause this, including the fact that local farmers pick by hand, that many lost the June harvest to a late frost, and other details of strawberry farming I am blissfully unaware of.

Strawberries at $3/pint appeared briefly at the Cure farm stand, but I don't know whether they will be back. At the farmer's market, a woman at the Monroe Farms booth told me she did not expect berry prices to drop this year. Other sources of local berries includes Jay Hill Farm, where they also cost $6/pint, and the farmers quote the work involved as being a major part of that cost. Note that Jay Hill Farm does conveniently offer email ordering.

What of the work involved? Well I have a little berry patch - it has just started producing, yielding about 4 pints of berries in the last two days. It took me 20 minutes today to pick 2 pints. Hmmm... I need to put my kids to work, under the threat of no jam this winter!!

"Pick your own" farms are another idea. There is actually a pick your own website that lists Colorado farms. For strawberries specifically, Berry Patch Farms in Brighton regrets to announce that they indeed lost their June harvest to that late frost, although they do expect a late summer (late July, early August) harvest.

Lovers of apples may be interested in the following website: this concerns September and October.

Another intriguing and not entirely close to home place is Coastalfields farm, which won't have strawberries but will have peas available soon, and offers pick-your-own, as well as horseback rides and gardening lessons.

And by the way, Farmer John promises to bring the first 2008 cherries to the Wednesday Farmer's Market next week. Just don't beat me to them!

I've been stepping it up now for about a month. In one sense it feels like I am far from perfect. I still eat out; friends brought CAFO steaks last weekend to grill; I was exhausted Monday and we ordered out pizza. But I must be doing something different because I lost 2 lbs. Mind you I had lost nothing in the last year (more like I had gained a few...).

I've tried a number of new foods (pea shoots, borage, lovage, nettles) and a bunch of things I almost never eat (rhubarb, beet greens, turnips and greens). I feel positively virtuous piling on the dark leafy green vegies every day.

I don't know how I ever survived without a pot of fresh herbs on the deck a few feet from my butcher block. My mother insisted I plant some thyme a few feet away where the front lawn used to be (now all perennial flowering plants), and I think of her every couple of days as I snip a few sprigs.

I have cut down on desserts, as I made my own all month. OK, I admit I have a major sweet tooth (or twenty), so unfortunately I am sure I get all my unnecessary calories from sweets.

I have become a regular Farmer's Market shopper. In fact, faced with the prospect of missing the last of the year's fresh asparagus, I actually mobilized my three boys by 8:30am last weekend, when my husband's golf game got unexpectedly delayed.

I'm still tallying expenditures. More on this another post.

For this month, the challenge will be keeping up with the CSA box, the first of which arrives today!