Being RAW in UTAH

Friday, January 9, 2009

Growing greens year round!

We've been applying some information we read in a book called, "Four Season Harvest" by Elliot Coleman. It's full of interesting tips on how to successfully grow in any climate, in any season. He lives in Maine on the 44th parallel he explains that his recent work is based on year round agricultural practices of French farmers, also living on the 44th parallel. He has studied their practices and mixed it with his own work and insights to create an amazing book on growing food in cold, cold climates! He says that if he can eat great salad on the 44th parallel, in Maine year round, then anywhere to the south of Maine can also!

He shares tips like what crops naturally grow in cold temperatures, such as: mache, arugula, claytonia, and minutina. All which grow very well and naturally in winter. He explains that even with greenhouse or tunnel covered crops, it's more natural to work with nature and plant cold hardy crops that enjoy the cold and even increase in flavor as the temperature drops!

Looking down at the tunnel

Venting the tunnel

We're re-creating what happens natually when we put a cover, like plastic, glass or polycarbonate over our garden.

For example: French peasants, at one time, foraged for greens all though the winter, by going out into the forest and looking under brush and logs, because they realized cold hardy greens, weeds and plants, would often be growing under fresh fallen snow, the greens continued to photosynthesize underneath the snow! This is now re-created through cold frames and low, covered plastic tunnels called - "chenilles."

Another great insight from this book: In a greenhouse, he explains that, instead of heating it, just cover your veggie beds with a plastic sheet - supported by arched wire frames, which provides a tunnel - like, secondary temperature barrier against the cold. This "twice tempered climate" creates what he calls a "protected microclimate." It makes year round growing affordable in greenhouses, especially if you're not trying to grow tropicals, just stick to the leafy greens that love cold! These indoor-greenhouse tunnels are very similar to the outdoor tunnels.

The picture above is, Collard, Kale and Chard. All grown under a plastic tunnel, in highly mineralized soil, supplemented with local rock dusts, and ocean water - from growgreens.com !!

The condensation created inside the tunnel evaporates up hits the plastic, dripping back down as moisture for the plants, the additional mulch around the plants retains most of this moisture! I haven't needed to water all winter!

You can also add plant cover cloth, like Agribon, as an additional layer of protection. The plants can breathe through it, keep warm, keep protected from insects and wind, and the plants actually push the Agribon up as they grow!

Pansy (edible) - for the salad....and to attract beneficial insects...pretty too!

If you don't have a greenhouse, or a plastic tunnel, he shares that one method the French have used historically have been, cold frames. Which can be manually vented by the grower everyday or you can install a automatic window vent, which is vented as the bees wax filled cylinder heats up, which through pressure, forces the tube open. Brilliant! The history of these vents is cool too! This is also how the dome greenhouse vents itself. So is the history of cold frames, which is a whole chapter in the book!

Since the advent of plastic, French farmers have been using a method which creates "low tunnels" of plastic, supported by PVC pipe or wire, under which plants thrive! "Four Season Harvest" by Elliot Coleman, has definitely helped us extend our grow operation, by helping us with alternative methods of growing greens!

Here's to the GREEN SMOOTHIES!

We hope to have 4 tunnels by next winter! Supplying our GREEN SMOOTHIE habit!! The dome is only so big inside, and we want to stop buying greens from the grocery store! This book was amazing! We fully recommend it to anyone wanting to grow through the winter and just grow period! It's full of techniques for composting, root cellars, regular-season growing and on and on!!! Check it out!

lady bugs in winter?

Happy little plants in here....and lady bugs!

Eat home - grown leafy greens year round!!!!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Raw Utah Adventures

Here' to adventures in raw eating and how it makes us feel so good we can ford any mountain and cross any stream......starting in Utah.

Jake

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

GETTING BETTER!

GROW YOUR OWN FOOD!!!

FOOD CRISIS! SICKNESS! DEPRESSION! SOLUTION............? One solution may be OHANA! Meaning family in the Hawaiian language. This blog is about family...in all it's forms and the nutritional and spiritual holocaust we're seemingly just emerging from. Well, after years and years of illness and just feeling sick........and being sick and tired of being sick and tired......we're ready for something different! It's time for CHANGE! Can we be painless and free of ill health as an individual and a family.......even a planetary family??? It just may be possible.......in fact.......it's feeling more like it everyday.......this is our experience so far. I've personally been sick for well over a decade.....no more!!!! This is an attempt to take personal power back and reclaim the synergy of family and community near and far!! Our intention is to share the excitement and exploration of all these things, RAW LIVING FOOD, Bio-dynamic GARDENING, GREENHOUSES, green foods, SPRING WATER, super-outdoor ADVENTURES, .......and.......having no way as way and no limitation as limitation!!!!

Jake