Curbside Veggies. In Arkansas?!

This is not a post about frugal living. Nor is it about Oklahoma, although very close to us. This is about accidentally discovering a place that is a gem of a sustainable restaurant model where veggies are vogue. Last weekend we went to a family wedding in Fayetville, Arkansas. And thanks to Urban Spoon, I stumbled upon a little green restaurant called The Greenhouse Grille. The building was actually green and it was very near to the University on one of the busiest streets in town in one of the most modern and chic shopping centers in town. No wasted space here. Even their green islands in their parking lot were overflowing with edibles. (This is also an important type of space cities need to utilize as bioretention sites to prevent waste water runoff in parking lots)

Their front space was not adorned with purposeless plants like Asian bradford pears or azaleas but with strawberries bounding out to greet me, asparagus crowns towering up, fennel fanning out, parsley making a landing pad for sleepy butterflies, and Swiss chard sporting it's rainbow style. Their side space had more veggies and peas dutifully standing at attention and in the back they had several raised beds about fifteen by four inside of a mini hoop house. Let's go back to these gardens of yore because doing so would be really a victory. Wow! Talk about curb appeal, talk about fresh to my plate. This is the kind of thing I have read about at sites like Alice Waters Chez Panisse world famous restaurant and would encounter snippets of when I lived in Santa Barbara, but to see such a restaurant model in the mid-west in an area dominated by businesses making everything bigger and outsourced from as far as possible- one does clucks and one is the biggest retail world within our world-was refreshing.

Additionally Greenhouse Grille sources their meats, veggies, and grains from other local producers. Including the War Eagle Mill, which is an outstanding historical fieldtrip in itself. They also actively work to support local musicians and to abate local hunger in an area that is cursed with simultaneously being the richest and the poorest region in Arkansas. And what better way to abate hunger than to start from the ground up. And yet, many cities outlaw front yards that could contribute to the hunger solution or provide an ecological stopover for native birds and butterflies. Our cousins outside of Joplin told me that their mowing ordinance is to keep their grass at one inch or less- oy!

Does your city allow veggies to be front and center in urban landscapes, yards, and businesses? Do you and your city use your urban land to it's maximum potential, especially as one acre of viable farmland is lost every minute to urban sprawl in this country? What acts of gardening civil disobedience have you or your neighbors performed secretly or overtly? How do we tell our city commissioners and home owner's associations that we deserve the freshest food for our forks and spaces reclaimed from the tyranny of bermuda grass and japanese honeysuckle?

Tell them we need veggies front and center.

Garden Folk

 

A couple of Saturdays ago I got to be on the other side of the table at a Farmer's market event at the Oklahoma City Oklahoma Food Cooperative store. For the first time I was there as a vendor. Wow! What a beautiful day doing business the way it was done for many years at this location in it's prime. Getting to know these farmers and regular variety garden folk was really touching to me. Plants make people happy, pure and simple. And I got to give part of that happiness. I was there selling cards and garden seeds but I got to sit next to the plant people- those who know hospitality, heirlooms, and handshakes.

 

My newly found friends are amazing. My friend Dev Vallencourt and her husband Kip Francis at High Tides and Green Fields grows 147 different varieties of peppers. Pretty sure you will never see a tenth of that many varieties in any grocery store. She also was teaching me about some innovative (or perhaps wise, antiquated ways) she has begun to grow winter crops in hugelkultur method from Germany that creates so much heat by planting on top of old wood that she was able to grow crops all winter long, uncovered.

I met a young farmer, Samantha Lamb who was managing a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) endeavor on her grandparents homestead in the Medicine Park area. I met Michael Ruzycki who is farming and hosting a store in Choctaw, The Veggie Lounge who said he started because he was always amazed at how much leftovers his grandfather always had from his garden. Two other guys have started an event composting and zero waste company, Fertile Ground in Oklahoma City. Others, like Renrick farms are working diligently to provide more drought tolerant, native, and butterfly loving flowers. Double R farms  was there  selling pastured lamb and eggs and Barb was trying to figure out what growing things looks like in Oklahoma after living for years in Alaska. There was experience and there was youth, but above all there was energy. Urban Agrarian hosts an all local market five days a week and their staff was busily working indoors sorting crates of tomatoes and processing local foods from all over into a wide assortment of baked goods while the old dog swatted flies with his tail on the porch. While we sat in our store outdoors community organizers from a "Better Block" project had gathered and were literally painting the town- covering over years of neglect and breaking ground for new beginnings.  

And then there were the customers. The lady who got a "pet" fern. The radiant Reverand who had been healed from a stroke. Everybody who marveled over how strawberries grow. Those whose garden was an epic fail last year, but they were trying again because they were determined to get their eight year old to like vegetables. And then the lovliest of my day, a young girl who had just come from a workshop where she had made a planter box a few inches wide by about three inches deep. She was absolutely bursting to find a way to plant things. No one had showed her the dirt in her own yard. She was so enthusiastic she could have made seeds sprout just by sheer wish. "I just want to grow something I can eat she told me." So we made a deal and I sold her two packets of lettuce and peas... And, hopefully, a share of the garden.

The Book of Bob

My friend Bob Waldrop is equal parts John the Baptist and John Muir-he is a voice crying out in the wilderness. A voice for wilderness spaces and a voice against the wilderness of conglomerate agrobuisness. He is a burly guy with a bushy beard that hasn't been trimmed in decades and equally likely to say things like "ya all bon appetite ya hear" or to curse under his breath.

The Bob Waldrop

John Muir. Wilderness Warrior. Photo public domain. (Don't you think they could be related?)

When I first moved back to Oklahoma nearly ten years ago he was probably the first person and the most dedicated that I met towards the goals of living a sustainable lifestyle. If you drive by his house it is probably the first one on his street that has no grass in the front lawn (Hurray for the grassless lawn!) but is filled to the brim with edible plants including native elderberries long before front yard gardening was the in vogue thing to do. And I have been quietly watching and learning from him for quite a long time.

Bob is the one who is continually fighting for anti-mowing laws which unnecessarily prevent habitat from being made, wildflowers from being planted, or more native and drought tolerant grasses from being encouraged. While one might be inclined to write him off as an eccentric hippie, he is tremendously wise.

Founder of the, then very new Oklahoma Food Coop he has been a great voice for local farmers, producers, and artists. He understands community and he understands the need for each of us to reduce our global footprint, and for him it is very greatly relevant to his faith. A question I have been plagued with since college is, Why isn't sustainability at the forefront for ALL faith communities? And to those that have choosen to make this a front page issue in their church community, my hat to you. Bob was the first person to ever introduce me to the concept of permaculture. And it is just the kind of holistic thinking we need. To learn more about Bob's wise insights into our diminishing energy and water resources check out his blog, Bobaganda!

If you have never heard of permaculture (and don't be surprised if you haven't) it is a holistic way of thinking, designing, and integrating your environmental ideals across multiple areas of your life and your communities (physical places and personal connections). It is about gardening, energy use, homesteading, simplicity, and interconnectedness. It is about examining waste in every sense of the word. It is about making our yards and our households useful and achieving maximum potential. It is all about reducing our need for fossil fuels and stepping back a little from such a global economy.  You know the one that imports peanuts from Africa to make peanut butter in Minnesota to put labels on it in Canada before it is shipped to Arkansas to be distributed to my simple sandwich...

So I was happy, delighted, ecstatic to start working my way through Bob's new ebook ipermie. For $1.99 this 399,000 (very bite-size) work of words deal that you can not beat. It is a workbook, a guidebook, a focal point,  a series of reflections about what matters in your life and how you can make your space (no matter how small) livable and productive. But more so than many, this one give tools particularly to those who are nearly space-less, the student, the elderly, the apartment dweller. And it is about developing the infrastructures around us to support sustainable communities. It is about starting to change your life, one page at a time. Begin today.

Thank you Bob for being a mentor to so many and for being a strong voice for what is right, for justice for others and for our fellow creatures. I can not wait to see how my life will change as I continue to delve deeper into the permaculture world.

My $10 White Christmas

Why hello there. It's been awhile.

We are still here, but we've had a very busy month that necessitated a break. Evan was preparing for a orchestra audition and we thought we were moving to France. Well we are not, not this time. Additionally there have been lots of parties and playing and just preparing mentally and physically for Christmas. We've also suffered a broken laptop and have been shuffling computers. And now we have A TODDLER...

BUT Hannah is adding the finishing touches to photos to launch her first sets of photocards for sale on Etsy  and the Oklahoma Food Coop (Yeah!). My first set will be up in just a few days and is a series of reflective photographs on the Connecticut shootings with a portion going to organizations that prevent violence against children and that promote access to mental health.

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We hope that you and yours had a beautiful and blessed Christmas. Ours was! And it was WHITE and, oh yeah, on my part I spent around $10!

Connor, Cali, Cris

Twinkie Apocolypse, and "I have a dream"

In case you missed it, this week a Twinkie apocolypse has been occurring all around us. Hostess Cupcakes has announced that they are shutting their doors and their oh so nutritive snacks like Twinkies, Ding-dongs, and Wonderbread that have been American staples since world war two are going the way of the Dodo. I can't say that I'm actually sad about this development.

Image from the public domain

Just look at the nutrition label and it quickly becomes a poster child for the worst in processed food.

Dairy Dual Part 2: Hormones, Antibiotics, and Raw Milk

PART 2. (For part 1 go here).

...In addition to the facts that small scale dairies are 1) more humane, 2) produce less waste, and 3) can have better economics here are a few more benefits of small scale dairies:

Milk bottles. Public domain.

4) Less use of rGBH, antibiotics, and other hormones

Since 1993 the growth hormone rGBH has been available to increase milk yields  in U.S. dairies (although it has never been approved in Canada or EU countries). This hormone is thought to compromise human health by altering hormone balances and potential causing an array of cancers. In cows it increases mastitis (infections of the milk ducts) and is thought to perpetuate the over-use of feedlot antibiotics and the corresponding antibiotic resistant pathogens. See Food and Water Watch’s How artificial hormones damage the dairy industry and endanger public health. In 2007, 42.7% of large-scale dairies used rGBH compared to only 9% of small scale dairies. 1 (One concern is that despite the public increasingly demanding rGBH-free milk many school districts continue to serve it). 

Dairy Dual (Part 1 of 2): Small Scale Dairies Verses Industrial CAFOs.

To say it is a tough time to be a small scale dairy farmer is an extreme understatement. For starters, there is this pernicious drought that is ravishing and altering the American landscape. As the government drops gargantuan agriculture subsidies on big businesses and a few select crops, primarily (GMO) corn and soybeans as well as allowing the centralization of slaughterhouses and meat and milk processing facilities, small farmers are having a hefty price tag to bear.

Factory farms now dominate the milk industry. The average factory farm dairy in Oklahoma has 2,400 cows. The remaining small dairy farmers are having to pay more to ship their milk much farther and finding any corn feed for finishing or to supplement if their pasture has dried up can be an expensive nearly full time job on it's own. This article does a great job of summing up the costs of being a small scale farmer while reminding us of the true costs of large scale industrial farming. If you have already eaten lunch, you may wish you hadn't after checking out the new website and book CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) The Tragedy of Industrial Farm Factories and their image of how udderly painful being a commercial dairy cow is.

In contrast, here are some benefits of small scale dairies:

Image used with permission from The Crunchy Mamacita

Prayers fluttering, sputtering, by

Did you see it? Right under your window this week little orange and black prayer flags are fluttering by. These beings, seemingly more fragile than a piece of paper are flapping over and over again, unbelievably, one beat at a time, till they reach their pilgrimage up to 3,000 miles away- that birthplace where their great great grandparents started out last spring.

Untitled. From http://designyoutrust.com/2012/01/this-weeks-animal-photos/ In pubic domain.

Scrumptious strawberry spread and participating in the 2012 Urban Farmbook Challenge

Ok, so you are perhaps a little interested in also creating a Farm City, or you wouldn't be here. A few weeks ago I stumbled across this really rockin' blog called Sustainable Eats and the Dancing Goat Garden communal project that outlines some brilliant baby steps towards sustainability. Currently as part of their endorsement of the Urban Farm Handbook, they are having a 2012 challenge of little tasks you can do each month to feel like you are saving the world. I signed up, intending to just carry over through 2013. The August tasks, that are being expanded into September are all themed around putting up food. It is something I may be becoming infatuated with. So here is one recipe I made that I wanted to share with you.

Creating a "Farm City": A responsive book review

Recently, kind of by accident, I had the pleasure of discovering and meeting Novella Carpenter.  I was so impressed with her book Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

and can't wait to visit and revisit her new book The Essential Urban Farmer. I was impressed at her poetry and honesty about the realities of raising and butchering animals. And the whole thing combined with my reading of Green Metropolis had me wishing for a Utopia in which city dwellers can only have yards if they will relegate and utilize them for something with ecological usefulness: habitat, water purification, food sources for local organisms, or food production by themselves or their green thumb neighbors. [Update: For a good laugh, go here to see what God might think of your yard] Everyone else must live in hip urban apartments...One can wish.

Meat shortages: The year of the rabbit, or go fish?

On the other side of adorable baby farm animals is usually someone's dinner.

Several places are discussing this week some grim prospects for farmers, animals, and food prices for next year. This year is considered to be the worst drought since the 1930s in much of the mid-west. The grain that was intended to be primarily livestock feed lies stunted, barren, and crisped. Extreme losses for farmers and the inability to get grain is leading to the beginning of a mass and premature slaughtering of animals to peak in early 2013. Prices are expected to soar 14% and there will undoubtedly be increases in global food insecurity.( See the articles in The Guardian and Grist). So, how to respond to such news?

The "Rules"

David de Rothschild sailed the world in a boat made entirely out of plastic. Julie Powell blogged and cooked through all Julia Child's recipes.  Morgan Spurlock super-sized everything. Ed Begley Jr. is off-griding, Michael Pollan skirts supermarkets in squares. 

The Rothschilds aren’t funding my site (Darn!) and boats make me claustrophobic. Julia has already been idolized. I am trying hard not to be super-sized and my husband has threatened to leave me, or at least get a separate residence (no, really), if I ever install a composting toilet inside our house. And I do not think sustainable food is only accessible to the elite…So, what are my rules?

Image from Liberationwellnessblog.com. In the public domain.

Cheaper Nuggets: A series about fun and frugal farm food

By Hannah Harder

This begins the swashbuckling tales about one eco-mom's shortcomings and successes in getting her family to eat and learn about sustainable local sourced food. 

Cheaper nuggets!

The plethora of sustainable food choices that has grown in Oklahoma in just a few short years is increasingly delicious. Admittedly, in my attempts to eat well and in line with my convictions I have been known to way overspend on groceries, particularly because I am much more prone to drooling over recipes rather than dabbling with receipt books. I have also too frequently bought into the lies that sustainable food is usually extra expensive and inconvenient.

However, quite by accident, when adding up the ingredients I used for my first post, I was astonished when it came out to be cheaper than a fast food restaurant!