Seven Foods to avoid

There are a lot of these lists floating around, but I learned some new things from this one from Prevention such as why to avoid canned tomatoes and non-organic potatoes. It reminded me again of why I garden.

Foods to avoid

ander217 wrote:There are a lot of these lists floating around, but I learned some new things from this one from Prevention such as why to avoid canned tomatoes and non-organic potatoes. It reminded me again of why I garden.

Foods to avoid

Oh yes Ander!! I truly understand, we buy our lamb and beef from a local grower. They are grass fed no hormones or junk. Lamb variety is awesome to know about, http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/katahdin/ best tasting stuff !!! I am waiting for spring for the next lambs, we just put a dexter calf in the freezer !! Smaller type cow and all grass fed I love it! My hamburger has no fat I have to add water to fry! Now the chickens will be our last thing we butcher ourselves:)
I love the gardening as well to add to all of it!! Of course I love gardening I SFG !!!!

Thank you for the link !! Eye opener!!
Ha-v-v

This is too funny, Ha-v-v. We raise Katahdin sheep! (It's because we're too lazy to do the shearing and there's no market for small amounts of wool, anyway.) They don't grow as large as some breeds, but they are definitely good-eating. We put a lamb in the freezer every year, along with a grass-fed steer and hog. We'd like to get some Dexter calves, but they are SO expensive.

Having said that, I now have to say that with so many good-tasting veggies coming from extended seasons of the garden I'm beginning to lose my taste for meat. It seems that we are eating more and more meatless meals and truly enjoying them. I never thought I'd see that day.

ander....You have the type of home I planned to have years ago.....an organic mini-homestead where I would raise a beef calf and pig each spring and summer and have my own cow milk and goat cheese with rabbits and hens and a large home garden. It never came to pass but I see you are doing it. I applaud you.

I can't have livestock so I buy grass-fed Angus Beef from a local grocer. And yes, it does taste better than the other types of beef. Luckily I'm able now to have a raised bed SFG so I grow my own crops and I've put in 3 dwarf apple and a dwarf cherry along our driveway for our own fruit. The Honey Crisp gave me 3 apples this year at only a 2-yr-old so I'm expecting more great fruit to come.

Here's my corgi beside the Almalden Cherry with a new Fuji dwarf apple in the front. I made use of our long driveway for fruit trees. The fencing around them has antiperspirant soaps hanging from it which effectively kept the deer away once I started this late summer of 2009. Until then they pretty much denuded my new fruit trees.


Here are the 3 Honey Crisp apples with some tomatoes. I'm thinking of adding a peach and pear tree and maybe another apple this spring. I love things organic.

This spring I'm planning an asparagus raised berm patch. I've already got 5 blueberry bushes along one side of my raised bed garden and a raised strawberry berm running along the front of my beds.

The little white fencing surrounds the raised berm strawberry patch.

I think our group is doing well toward giving our family fresh, safe foods for the table. I try to expand a little each year.

ander217 wrote:This is too funny, Ha-v-v. We raise Katahdin sheep! (It's because we're too lazy to do the shearing and there's no market for small amounts of wool, anyway.) They don't grow as large as some breeds, but they are definitely good-eating. We put a lamb in the freezer every year, along with a grass-fed steer and hog. We'd like to get some Dexter calves, but they are SO expensive.

Having said that, I now have to say that with so many good-tasting veggies coming from extended seasons of the garden I'm beginning to lose my taste for meat. It seems that we are eating more and more meatless meals and truly enjoying them. I never thought I'd see that day.

Get out !!! You raise the best sheep in the whole wide world!!! lololol Small world missy!!
Ha-v-v

quiltbea wrote:ander....You have the type of home I planned to have years ago.....an organic mini-homestead where I would raise a beef calf and pig each spring and summer and have my own cow milk and goat cheese with rabbits and hens and a large home garden. It never came to pass but I see you are doing it. I applaud you.

I can't have livestock so I buy grass-fed Angus Beef from a local grocer. And yes, it does taste better than the other types of beef. Luckily I'm able now to have a raised bed SFG so I grow my own crops and I've put in 3 dwarf apple and a dwarf cherry along our driveway for our own fruit. The Honey Crisp gave me 3 apples this year at only a 2-yr-old so I'm expecting more great fruit to come.

Here's my corgi beside the Almalden Cherry with a new Fuji dwarf apple in the front. I made use of our long driveway for fruit trees. The fencing around them has antiperspirant soaps hanging from it which effectively kept the deer away once I started this late summer of 2009. Until then they pretty much denuded my new fruit trees.


Here are the 3 Honey Crisp apples with some tomatoes. I'm thinking of adding a peach and pear tree and maybe another apple this spring. I love things organic.

This spring I'm planning an asparagus raised berm patch. I've already got 5 blueberry bushes along one side of my raised bed garden and a raised strawberry berm running along the front of my beds.

The little white fencing surrounds the raised berm strawberry patch.

I think our group is doing well toward giving our family fresh, safe foods for the table. I try to expand a little each year.

I love your pics! You have done well and made your space functional!!
I like that!
Ha-v-v

Very inspiring quiltbea. I have had the hardest time with fruit! I have a lime and lemon (or orange - bought a lime, lemon and orange and one died but I am not sure which one!) and have yet to see fruit. Want an apple too but not sure if I have room for two trees or the need for that much. And my blueberry was murdered and my blackberries have yet to fruit and after all of that I might have to move! LOL. Better luck next stop. Hopefully I have learned SOMETHING and will get a better fruit crop on the next go round.

Thanks for posting about the food to avoid! the whole reason I started my SFG was to get away from canned tomatoes. I can't wait till this summer when we have enough to can our own toms and sauces!

Chopper wrote:Very inspiring quiltbea. I have had the hardest time with fruit! I have a lime and lemon (or orange - bought a lime, lemon and orange and one died but I am not sure which one!) and have yet to see fruit. Want an apple too but not sure if I have room for two trees or the need for that much. And my blueberry was murdered and my blackberries have yet to fruit and after all of that I might have to move! LOL. Better luck next stop. Hopefully I have learned SOMETHING and will get a better fruit crop on the next go round.

Chopper. check out dave wilsons nursery there in ca. I just ordered 6 fruit trees from them. They are promoting backyard orchards/urban orchards. Main concept: plant more trees, in a smaller space, keep them smaller, and you can handle the smaller harvest. Also have more of a variety. We are striving for a year round fruit harvest. Still having a bit of trouble with August though....

We will soon have: 2 peach, 2 apple, 1 fig, 1 blood orange to go with our.1 lemon, 1 lime, 1 ruby red grapefruit, 1cara cara orange, 1 navel orange, and 1 guava tree.

articles such as the one in the top post are what encouraged me to start saving my own produce. i don't have the time/energy to do proper canning, but i freeze store quite a few of my produce items - i learned about the freezing of tomatoes here on this forum, actually!

i plan on doing bwb and pressure canning in the future, but right now, freezing works. because of the way i have our household set up budget wise, i know how many cans of tomatoes i buy annually and just froze that amount over teh summer so i'll have it until the next harvest in july. i have also frozen green peppers, onions, and garlic similarly and have enough until next harvest so i won't need to purchase any in the store.

same goes for green beans. i didn't have a good broccoli harvest this year, so i am having to buy that. my corn was low on production and i have only one bag remaining in the freezer from that. (i'm hoping there's a couple more than that when i defrost and clean out that freezer in the near future - just waiting for a good time when i have time to do so and the weather is favorable for me to leave these items outdoors in my car for a couple of days.

the older i get the more i embrace 'old fashioned' traditions. i also read every book i could get my hands on related to amish living, frontier life, etc - it was very interesting to learn all about different techniques for home preservation and storage.

thanks for sharing this link.

i also enjoyed seeing all the garden pics.

I don't eat much of anything on that list LOL...but I eat AT LEAST 1 bag of micro popcorn a day...lol...and more often than not I eat 2.

You could probably save a chunk of change by purchasing a hot air popper. There's some beautiful colored popcorn available at Whole Foods

If you prefer your popcorn popped in oil but don't like shaking the pan while it cooks, you can also buy a saucepan which has a special top with a handle and paddle that you can turn while the corn pops. You can sometimes find them at garage sales or thrift stores, too.

We used to grow popcorn in our garden when I was a kid - that may be another project to try in next year's SFG.

miinva wrote:You could probably save a chunk of change by purchasing a hot air popper. There's some beautiful colored popcorn available at Whole Foods

my kids LOVE the hot air popper! it's so fun for them to watch the kernals pop and slide over the edge. i keep them a safe distance but it's a sure entertainment for well over 10 minutes.

funny you all are talking about poppers now. i'm considering buying

http://www.aldifoods.com/us/html/offers/58_13187_ENU_HTML.htm

for a family christmas gift that will also be used every other month for the Deaf socials we host as well as the 'green group' parties that happen every few months.

i just need to do some research to find out what kinds of oil can be used. (severe allergies in our household).

What a great link! And great input from everyone!

And for MM- I'd have to agree with the air popper! We use ours several times a week and will never go back to the bagged popcorn. I'm really hoping to grow some popcorn in my garden this year...though not sure it will be enough. We have a large, rubbermaid bowl with a tight lid and just spritz with butter and add parmesan or whatever else sounds good and shake it up. Carmel corn is a favorite in our home as well!

For those of you that grow trees....I'm VERY interested in doing this! I'm having a hard time finding info on what trees I can grow in our area. Any ideas? I'd love to do some citrus, apple, pear and even grow coffee! Not sure if we'll be in this house 5-10yrs, so I'd like to do potted trees so I can take them with if we move.

I have an air popper....

Its a weight watchers thing...its a free snack on WW...so I'm always eating it. LOL Guess I should just not be lazy and get the stupid thing down. My favorite kind of popcorn is the kind I pop myself in corn oil....but THAT kind isn't a FREE snack. LOL

We're lucky to have a business called Edible Landscaping that's run by a man who is passionate about not growing things that need to be sprayed with pesticides. Maybe you could find something similar near you so you can find out what fruits and varieties will grow without much intervention in your area?

Lemonie, no problem with apple or pear - but if you don't want to put them in the ground, I'd look for a type specifically bred to grow as a dwarf or patio specimen.

You could have coffee and citrus -- but only if you keep them in the house pretty much year-round (July and August would be okay outdoors, but even a light frost will do them in), and even then I'm not sure they'd thrive -- they're both tropical plants, and would need a lot of heat and a lot of humidity.

Lemonie.....Get a catalog from

www.raintreenursery.com

for lots of trees and info and where they can grow.
I'm sure I saw several that were potted so you could take them with you.

Lemonie, I purchased a meyer1 lemon from Stark Bros. They also sell potted key lime, orange, olive, and banana trees. Our DIL has been growing one of their orange trees for three years and they harvest a few oranges from it yearly.

I thought I was doing well with my lemon tree until I brought it inside for the winter. It was loaded with blooms, but as soon as I brought it inside before the first frost all the leaves and blossoms fell off. At this point I don't know if it is going to survive or not. It has one leaf left.

Online research told me they are fairly persnickety in their growing needs. Perhaps I should give this one to my DIL who seems to have a better touch with them.

Howdy Folks:

How about a square foot apple? Yep, there is such a thing. As I recall Stark Bro's had/has them. The apple trees are small and spread only to about one foot in dia. I considered them when we were in the market for a new home until we found our current home with a full size orchard allready planted. Check it out and see if the square foot apples can be planted in a large pot.

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

I want to have more fruit trees, vines and plants. I have one mature fig tree and checked it every day for fruit. The most I got was 5 one day. They were eaten before I reached the house. I bought another baby one this summer. I need at least 8-10 more trees to keep me 'fig happy'.

The deer killed the one apple tree I had bought last year when they were rubbing the velvet off of their rack and broke it off.

QuiltBea,
Did you buy your fruit trees from Raintree? I love the way you have protected your trees. Where did you find your fencing to go around them? Do the birds leave you enough blueberries or do you use netting?

Happyfrog,
Would you share the titles of the Amish ways and living off of the land books? I am so interested in learning more about this.

Miniva,
Have you been to Edible Landscaping? I bought a small fig tree from him at the Harvest Festival at Monticello this summer, but I really want to go to his place and buy some trees, vines and plants.

So much to learn! So much to do!

Betty

Betty, I am SO jealous. I adore fresh figs and rarely get them. The ironic part is that we've actually got fig trees on the property but they have never bore any fruit (or bloomed), and to add insult to injury, the ones in the front yard are too close to the foundation (figs must die!) and the ones in the back yard are too close to the fence. Sigh.

I haven't been to Edible Landscaping but LOTS of people have recommended them, and we were at the Harvest Festival too! I didn't see his whole presentation because my 9-year-old was restless so I took him for food while my husband (the fruit lover) stayed at the presentation. I know that they have events a couple of times a year and I hope to make it out there next year. My husband adores figs! We're probably going to start out with figs and muscadines.

bettyd....I got my dwarf Granny Smith and Honey Crisp apples from Wayside Gardens 2 yrs ago and my Fuji apple and Cherry from Raintree. I hope to get a dwarf peach and plum from Raintree this spring that are self-fertile.

I found those fencings at Walmart about 5 years ago when I needed to fence in my flower garden and hosta garden to keep the dogs out. When I got the dwarf fruit trees, the plastic tree fencing I got didn't work out for me so I moved these fences around my trees and hung anitperspirant soaps from them to deter deer, which they did.

Here's my row of dwarf fruit trees. I still have room for 3 more beyond these 4.

Megan,
I feel for you, Girl. I just discovered fresh figs about 5 years ago. I didn't like Fig Newtons, so I figured I wouldn't like figs. BIG DIFFERENCE! I LOVE fresh figs. Since I can't buy them out here in the sticks, I have to grow them.

I tried to get DH to taste a fresh fig and he wouldn't. I asked him why because he loves Fig Newtons. And he said, "And If you wrap these in sugar and pastry, I'll eat them, too. Otherwise, I'm not tasting them!" I laughed so hard! He was serious!

My tree is about 7' tall and not in a very good place. (Right out in the open and gets hit by the north wind-baaaad wind!) It was loaded with figs, but....alas.....the frost got them before they had a chance to ripen. I wanted to cry.

I was told by a guy in my area that fig is really easy to propagate from cuttings. I saw flats of cuttings that he was rooting. He watered them with water that he had soaked willow branches in. The willow water is to enhance root growth. If I were you, I would try to root some cuttings from your trees next spring. The one I have is a Brown Turkey. I can't remember the name of the one I bought this summer. They say Celeste is hardy here. I want to try a couple and see how well they do. I am going to plant the new ones in a more protected southern-exposure spot.

There is a fig forum on the garden web that you might want to check out. LOTS of good info there.

QuiltBea,
Thanks for the pic and info. I will start checking the catalogs and web sites for my trees and watching Walmart like a hawk for the fencing. I was soooo angry when I saw my pitiful apple tree. The sneaky deer do their damage at night. Otherwise, I would have a crockpot of deer roast with SFG veggies simmering right now! We didn't have any tomatoes because they ate them all!

Miinva,
Wish we had "met" here before the Harvest Festival and could have met in person there! I loved the Festival, but I had planned to be in a presentation every minute. There was never a minute to just relax. Poor DH got a migraine from not eating (tagging along behind me the whole day). I forget that he HAS TO eat. When I'm doing something I love, I don't think about eating. Next time I will pack a picnic lunch and eat during the presentations as we saw many do.

Maybe we can plan to go to Edible Landscapes together. That would be so fun! I just got my catalog from them a week or so ago.

I missed Barbara Pleasants' presentation because I wanted to see someone else more, but she has a blog with a link to a nursery that has lots of fruit trees, vines and plants for sale as well as lots of good information on raising them properly (and organically). They are a bit pricey. I want to go to EL before I order from them. I don't believe in using chemicals either, and would love to support our local people whenever possible.

Hugs,
Betty