Posts Tagged ‘organic’

Readers, Readers, Quite Contrary, How Do Your Gardens Grow??

4 Comments
Posted 10 Jun 2010 — by FV
Category As I see it., garden

I have been asking my readers to send some pictures of their gardens. Getting a response has been like pulling weeds! I have had a few people jump on board and I would like to tell you about them.

First we have my good friend SF. Some time ago she sent me some pictures of her garden at the beginning of the season. I’m sure by now that her family’s garden is in full swing. I have held on to these pictures a bit too long, but in fairness here are the pictures she sent. Hopefully soon we will see some newer pics of her progress…

A plot for herbs, snow peas, beans and onions.

Carrots, radishes, tomatoes, spniach, lettuce. "SPIN" or Small Plot Intensive Gardening.

COMPOST!

Overhead shot of last years chives, already flourishing

Last year's thyme and oregano are already popping up to say hello!

Thanks so much SF for the great pics of the garden, can’t wait for more! Here’s what SF had to say about her garden…

“We are SO EXCITED about this year’s garden. Not only is backyard gardening convenient, cost effective, and a great way to reconnect with where food really comes from, but we’ll be free from worries about pesticides, hormones, and other stupid additives that grocery stores like to slap on for cosmetic purposes. Keep your damn wax off of my veggies!”  ~SF

Next up is a serious gardener we’ll call RT. RT has a very well planned out garden using a technique often employed by large farms to cut down on the need to weed. Here’s some pics…

 

RT is not only an accomplished gardener, but also a great photographer, look her up for weddings, seasonal pictures or any special event where you need a great professional photographer! Here’s her link… RT Photography.

Last, but not least is my friend MS. MS has no real garden, well, at least not one we can mention here on the world wide web, but he did send a picture of a specimen from his yard…

MS says "This is my backyard garden. The biggest, ugliest mushroom I've ever seen. An escaped elephant must have fertilized this Little Shop of Horror creature."

I can’t thank SF, RT and MS enough for letting us see a glimpse of their gardening progress. Please keep us posted!

The Duchess and I have had great success so far with our garden. We did have a minor setback when almost all of our tomato plants that we started from seed died just about as soon as we planted them outside. This was our first attempt at starting tomatoes from seed. We have since learned some techniques to grow from seed more successfully, but it was too late. We had to succumb and borrow some already developed plants from ZP and UB, thanks again guys!

I implore all of you to send me some pics of your gardening progress. You too may see your garden up in lights here at foodvigilante.com. Email your pictures to foodvigilante@gmail.com .

Ready, set, GROW!

FV

Tags: , , ,

A garden, a grill and a guy.

5 Comments
Posted 05 May 2010 — by FV
Category As I see it., Evolution Of FV, garden, Really??

Tuesday, May 4th. Gardening day. I would like to share with you some more progress on the garden that the Duchess and I are working on so diligently. I also have a dilemma with which I hope you can help (scroll to the bottom of post if you can’t wait). First, let’s get to the garden.

The progress in the yard has been amazing. The old pool is torn down completely now, (a project started a year ago) the garden in all sprouted and growing and ready for the next wave of crops to be planted and there are tree removal and patio laying plans on the horizon. Today the Duchess and I weeded and then she secured the garden fence and tied lead strings to the fence for the pea plants to climb.

Go Peas Go!!

The garden is slowly, but surely, turning green.

You’ll notice a square in the upper left hand corner that will be the home to more veggies soon like cukes, zukes and peppers. Our indoor seedlings of tomatoes and peppers are itching to get into some outdoor dirt. The space where the pool was is currently a huge sandbox and the old deck has served as a makeshift shed. There’s Choc exploring!

The old pool is missed, but better things are to come.

We decided to cook over an open wood grill. In the ongoing effort to avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup, a homemade BBQ sauce was to be made. I started with onions and garlic.

These were lightly sauteed and then I added one of the few safe non-fresh goods.

Nothing added, just tomatoes.

The recipe called for brown sugar. I am currently against the use of processed sugars, but still have some wool pulled over my eyes and haven’t gotten away from it completely.I compromised with a tablespoon of brown sugar and substituted honey for the rest of the sweetness. I didn’t have Worcestershire sauce so I added a dash of soy sauce. I also had to tinker with the vinegar to honey ratio to get just the right taste. The sauce turned out great and made the chicken just perfect on the open flame wood grill!

I baked some potatoes indoor and seasoned them for a quick stay on the grill with the chicken almost done.

For a vegetable we had roasted cabbage. Just cut into sections drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and bake for about 30-45 minutes at 350 degrees or until the edges start to brown.

Yum!!

Everything about the day was rolling along very nicely until dinner time.

I would like to share with you and hopefully get some feedback on a problem I am having. My middle child, Choc, is a very finicky eater. I am scrambling for solutions to this situation. Yes, I, FV, am experiencing a food problem that I am having a very difficult time solving. Choc is an amazing kid, as I expect you would think I’d say. He is also a child who is stuck in the rut that I rant and rave about all of the time. He is, for lack of a better term, addicted to bad food. If it’s breaded, fried, smothered in ketchup or sugar, he’ll eat it. If not, well, the fight begins. As you may have gathered Choc’s Mom and I are divorced. I have the boys exactly 1/2 of the time. It is my opinion that the boys eat better with me than anywhere else.  Choc is a very intelligent and emotional young boy. He is very artistic and creative. You would think this would translate into food, but it hasn’t. The secret I have is that most dinner times are tainted by his obstinance to eating and my anger rears as a result. This kid can go without eating a single bite rather than eat the food I put before him. I have contemplated every angle of what shrinks might say. Here’s the facts…

1)Choc will eat every bite of a food he likes, i.e. pizza, spaghetti, breaded fried chicken or pork, ground meat from any animal and mostly all vegetables. He will NEVER turn down a sweet snack like cookies, cake or candy, NEVER!  (I don’t want to sound like a bitter ex, but these are the staples at his Mom’s house)

2)Choc will not eat any whole meats like chicken, steak or pork. He will eat fish, usually, and some fruits.

3)Eating seems to be an inconvenience at times for Choc.

4)It seems that, besides sugar, texture has a lot to do with Choc’s resistance to certain foods.

5)I feel like I am going to lose my mind over this issue. My oldest, Bird, is a year away from being a teenager and his appetite is growing everyday, but he really had no eating issues before. My youngest is still very impressionable and seems to follow suit if tensions rise over eating. Choc, sometimes, just refuses to eat.

Look, these things I know. Kids won’t starve themselves. I know my divorce has put some stress on the kid’s lives. I am not some crazy foodie parent putting vegan-friendly-organic-burger-shaped patties in front of my boys. We’re talking about meat and potatoes. I’m not looking for a litany of reasons this is happening, I’m looking for ways to break this trend of irrational food resistance. My dear Mom, TooRedLyn, would have just strong-armed the point (and the chicken) into my head. I am trying to avoid that method.

So, for the sake of my dear Choc, does anyone have any ideas I could try? I am humbly awaiting your advice.

“How does this make you feel?” -Siggy Freud

FV

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mmmm, Plastic!

3 Comments
Posted 11 Apr 2010 — by FV
Category As I see it.

Have I mentioned my least favorite restaurant?

Yep, McCrap, and all the other fast food eateries wrapped in different packages.

The Duchess and I are coming up on our third week of gardening and I must say that I am so impatient waiting fot the first shoot yo break through the Earth’s surface. With the anticipation of an edible yard I am reminded of a eating rule which I love.

If it doesn’t rot, don’t eat it.

This is a very simple eating rule to live by and just this idea alone can help you avoid so many of the additives and preservatives so prevalent in our foods these days. If your cupboards are full of stuff that can stand up to unusually long periods of time without changing or going bad, than it is likely you shouldn’t be eating it. There are, of course, some exceptions like spices, vinegars, and some canned goods.

So many people complain about the space they have available in their freezer, refrigerator and cupboards. We have become obsessed with storing up and buying in bulk. Also, as food storage space becomes bigger, counters become smaller. No need for a lot of counter space if everything goes directly from storage to the oven. Our diets have become full of foods that just don’t go bad. This is good for the grocery stores, they can stock more and more products for longer periods of time and use less manpower to keep the shelves stocked. Look how insanley big grocery stores have gotten!

We are not a business, we are living, breathing animals. Profitability, convenience and stability are great ideas to make money, but lousy ideas to put in our mouths. I came across some interesting ariticles about McCrap’s food that they are shoving down the world’s throats.

Here is the first article, this is too funny (and scary). It is a true indication that we should never eat fast food.

Here is the second article.

The “food” that the fast-eddies provide are ruining a good portion of our population. The fats and sugars in the over preserved, plastic food make the meal less nutrition than the paper in which it’s wrapped.

We spend a good portion of early parenting chasing our young children all around and saving the day time and time again as we thwart little Todd and Sally from stuffing everything under the son in their mouth’s. Then we load them in the car and WILLINGLY and knowingly let them chew on this un-nutritional, highly fattening, plastic food. Yet we stop them from putting the plastic toy from the meal in their mouths. How can you tell the difference between the plastic toy and a plastic burger anyway?

Maybe if hands of bananas or fresh greenbeans came with a toy, we would not be a nation overweight.

Slow down,

FV

Tags: , , , , , , ,
← Previous Entries