"We Inspire People To Plant, Nurture, & Celebrate Trees."

Arbor day is the last Friday in April and "We inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees." says the Arbor Day Foundation. $10 gets a six month membership and 10 trees of your choice. I'd been planning on buying some additional trees for the back yard and the price certainly seemed right. The trees won't actually ship until later in the spring when the time is right for planting so it will be a little while before I see what I get.

They also have a hazel nut project which for $20 you get a number of hazelnut trees as part of a study.

They also offer a variety of other trees at what seem to be reasonable prices. I'll wait for the initial offer before getting more though.

The Perfect Fruit

The Perfect Fruit: Good Breeding, Bad Seeds, and the Hunt for the Elusive Pluot is an interesting book about growing plums and apricots and the industry that produces them.

When I was a kid, I remember eating apricots and plums as fast as I could get them.

When I got older as an adult, I did not like them as much and stopped eating them. At the time I assumed it was simply my changing tastes (I used to like liver as a child too. Go figure).

One of the most interesting things I got from the book was that it wasn't me, but the industry. During the 1980's, they started growing fruit that could ship well, but tasted poor. Now there is a resurgence in trying to breed plants that produce tasty fruit and ship well. I'm looking forward to the summer months now so I can check out some of these. Look for pluots (plum / apricot hybrid) for something at the higher end of the taste range.

A Trip To The Pork Store

When I was a child, we used to go to a butcher shop near my grandparents house. Kids always got a slice of bologna from the person behind the counter to snack on and I remember it being so rich and full of flavor.

While this is not about gardening, it does fit in with the general idea of the farmers market and eating food from close to home and is also along the lines of how we forget how things should be when they change slowly over time.

I came across an ad for http://www.schwindsporkstore.com/ in the local town paper, decided to check it out and was well rewarded for it. The bologna was exactly like the kind I remember from being a child. It was so rich and full of flavor and with an aroma that filled the car. We made sandwiches on rolls that we got from the Italian bakery and could not believe the amazing sandwiches we were eating. They also had some really great landjager; another treat I remember from that same childhood butcher shop. We'll be back again soon to check out some of their other items.

No more tasteless pink plastic from the supermarket for me anymore!

Everyone probably has a place like this near their home and all it takes to find it is to remember that everything didn't always come in a vacuum sealed pack.

Victory Garden

Victory gardens were vegetable gardens planted at private residences and public parks during World War I and World War II to make up for gaps in the public food supply brought on by the war effort. A combination of sending food to the troops and a lack of people to work the farms brought on food rationing in many countries and a victory garden was a good way to make up the shortfall at the family dinner table.

I wrote about victory gardens last spring when I first learned out town had them and posted a few other posts as we worked it over the summer.

The renewal form just came and I am going to sign up again. The two primary lessons learned were to bury the fence deep to keep out the rodents and to visit the site often to make sure the plants are getting enough water.

Although the current war hasn't caused food shortages like those in the past, having a home garden still helps the war effort. By reducing the amount of food trucked from far away, we reduce the amount of oil needed to maintain the food supply which in turn reduces our dependencies on many of the unstable countries of the world.

Call your local parks department or town hall to find out what is offered near you.

Eggville

I've mentioned localharvest.org several times now and it has always served me well. It allows the user to enter their zip code and search for farms and fresh vegetables near their home. I like to check back from time to time to see if anything new is in the area and was rewarded with Eggville.

In the spirit of growing my own vegetables, Eggville is a nice, local source of fresh eggs. The cost was about the same as eggs from the supermarket. The hens are kept in a nice, big run with plenty of room to run around. When we approached the coop, the hens excitedly came to the fence I suspect in the hope that someone was coming to feed them. The stared and us and made a quiet "bawk bawk bawk" noise. It's nice to know these sort of things are around if you look for them a little bit and everyone should try to find their own, nearby Eggville.

Saving Heirloom Animal Breeds

I've posted a number of times about how over time different types of food disappear. Older, maybe tastier, varieties fall out of favor with producers to be replaced by fruits and vegetables that ship and store better.

Places like The Seed Savers Exchange deal mostly in hard to find and heirloom vegetables in an effort to preserve some of these varieties. There are also a number of seed banks which save seeds to prevent against a disaster or disease which might wipe out an important food type.

The New York Times had an article today about a group that is saving farm animal embryos with cryogenics of breeds that have since fallen out of favor and are no longer being heavily raised any more. These animals, like the previously mentioned vegetables, may actually be tastier or better for the environment, but have some element to them which does not make them consistently homogeneous to raise and market.

Getting Rid Of The Christmas Tree

With the start of the new year, it is time to get rid of the Christmas tree.

Many towns, mine included, have curb side pick up and then chop the trees into mulch which is then given out to local residents for free.

Some wildlife management departments will collect trees and sink them in local lakes to make habitats for fresh water fish.

This year I am going to chop up all the small branches and throw them in the compost pile. They'll break down a little bit slower than the rest of the pile and be slightly acidic, but both of these things can be easily corrected with some garden lime.

Last spring, I started a stick pile by the back fence. It used to be that when branches fell off trees, I would bag them for the yard waste pick up. Now I cut everything into 2 foot sections and stack it in a pile. At the moment, it is serving no purpose other than a hiding place for chipmunks (better there than in the house foundation), but it is better than the landfill. I'll cut the trunk into similar size pieces and add that to the pile as well.

Disappearing Orange Stands

Back in the 1970's, both my maternal and paternal grandparents used to drive from New Jersey to Florida on an almost annual basis and there were a number of souvenirs which always accompanied each trip. The red mesh bags of of oranges and grapefruits was one, a jar of local honey with honey comb in the jar was another and a jar of marmalade was a third.

An article and slide show in today's New York Times comments on how the number of stands which sold these types of products have been dwindling over the years and the irony in this given the locavore movement which is helping the farm stand to make a comeback in other areas.