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New Gardening Class at Cloud Mountain Farm

Category : About Food Sources, Grow Your Own

Vegetable Garden

By Southern Foodways Alliance

Are you interested in trying your hand at raising some food in a home garden? Cloud Mountain Farm has created a workshop just for you called “Grow Your Own – the Locavore’s Garden.” Here’s the class description from their website: “Vegetable gardening is more than planting seeds. Learn how to successfully grow a wide variety of produce throughout the year, including how to get started, planning your plantings, managing your soil and fertility inputs, and timing for succession harvests.” Continue Reading

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Book Review: “The Resilient Gardener”

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Category : About Food Sources, Book and Movie Reviews, Grow Your Own

Resilient Gardener by Carol DeppeGardening books interest me, but don’t usually excite me, though I’ve probably enjoyed nearly as many hours reading about gardening as doing it. Recently, though, I came across a book which casts gardening in a whole new perspective. The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times by Carol Deppe (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010) is nothing short of paradigm changing. Continue Reading

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Ground Cherry Bread

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Category : Breads, Breakfast, Grow Your Own, Recipes, Snacks

Ground Cherry BreadRecently Lynn and Marvin Fast of Red Barn Lavender gave me some ground cherries from their garden to try cooking. MarvinĀ  explained that ground cherries will never be a commercial money-maker because harvesting them is very labor intensive, but they are delicious to eat nevertheless. Why not grow some yourself? As you do more locavore eating (eating only locally grown food), sooner or later you’ll be motivated to do a little home gardening. I’d like to encourage you to give it a try. Fall is a good time to start planning for next year. Continue Reading
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Food Puzzle–Ground Cherries

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Category : Grow Your Own, Menu Ideas, October

Ground CherriesUsually I only write about ingredients which are readily available from The Community Food Co-op, Terra Organica, or the Farmers Market. This week is an exception. It all started with a food puzzle. Continue Reading

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Finding Local Food

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Category : About Food Sources, August, CSAs, Farm Stands, Farmers' Markets, Grow Your Own, Menu Ideas, On the Farm, Retail Stores, U-Pick Farms, Whatcom Locavore Basics, Where to Buy Local Food

Finding Local Foods, and Red Cabbage MenuFinding locally grown organic food can be a fascinating treasure hunt, but it also can be time consuming, especially at first. Here are some food finding tips to help jumpstart your locavore lifestyle:

1. Start close to home.
You may have noticed that I mention some farms more frequently than others. That’s because they are the best sources I’ve found close enough to my normal errand routes to be convenient. My goal is to find the quality I want as close to home as possible. I go to Half Acre Farm for u-picking vegetables, but you may be able to locate a u-pick you like closer to where you live. Continue Reading

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You’re Invited to Lummi Island!

Category : Events, Grow Your Own

Habanero Chili Pepper - Photo by Ryan Bushby

You are warmly invited to come to the Chili Cook-off next Saturday, July 17, starting at noon at the Otto Preserve on Lummi Island. It’s a fund-raising benefit for the Heritage Trust, an organization that works to preserve the natural beauty of the Island. I’ll be there offering Locavore Chili, which will be made with (almost) all Lummi Island ingredients: grass-fed beef, home-canned tomatoes from last year’s harvest, garden grown habanero chilis, onions and beans, and more! Only a couple of spices will be non-local. It’s going to be awesome! Please stop by, taste, and vote for your favorite chili! (Full recipe will be posted here after the event.) Continue Reading

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