“Our Town”

We live in a Village in a county of only about 15000 folks, but are closer to a town in the next county than to our county seat where Walmart has run most of the local business out of business. The town is a University town and other than a couple grocers, fast food, and CVS, it is locally owned businesses.

Several years ago, Main Street and College Avenue were renovated, with brick sidewalks, old style lamp posts that each have two hanging basket hooks and a flag pole holder. In the spring, every post is adorned with baskets overflowing with flowers, the medians are planted with flowers and a crew maintains them with weeding, pruning, and watering regularly. The flag holders hold flags for various events. For the local high school football games and graduation, each has a flag that has BHS for Blacksburg High School. On national holidays, American flags are displayed. Virginia Tech flags for their home football games. International flags when the University is celebrating international events.

This is the town I moved into while our house was being build and while hubby was still across the state until he retired. We consider it our town. It is where the Farmer’s Market is, where the restaurants we frequent are located, and a small single screen movie theater that has been there since my father was a student here in the 1940’s.

This afternoon, we spent a few hours staining the ceiling and posts of our front porch and after all was done and cleaned up, including us, we went to town for dinner. About once a week since the weather warmed and we can dine outdoors, we have reinstated that into our lives. On Friday nights there is live music on the hill in the first photo.

We love the local feel of this town and the opportunities for plays, concerts, and sporting events if we feel the urge through the University. The adjacent town to this one has all of the big box stores and chain movie theaters, so if we can’t find what we need in town, it is a short drive over.

As we sat with our drinks, awaiting the service of our dinner, I pulled out a spindle and did a bit of spin in public time. My spindles are often pulled out around town for a spin time. Sometimes it draws a question or comment, sometimes I just see someone watching from a distance, tonight, one of the ladies from my spinning group and her hubby arrived to dine on the same patio. Small towns, the best.

Putting by

An archaic term that means to set aside; to save. The term was used in many old households to mean storing and preserving of provisions for the cold non productive months. Before the introduction of home freezers, much of this putting by was drying, salting, smoking, fermenting, and canning with procedures that give the USDA shuddering nightmares.

And now we have the huge grocery stores that ship in “fresh” produce out of season from thousands of miles away. Produce that has been genetically altered to make it shelf stable for far longer than it takes to move it across the country or from other countries to your table. And commercial canning allows aisles of produce of every description packed in metal cans lined with suspect plastics for your ease in food preparation. So many people, don’t even know how food is grown or where.

I have always in my adult life had a garden of some sort, if only a few feet of tomatoes and peppers off the patio of a townhouse, and I made Pomegrante jelly once a year with my Dad, an afternoon that I looked forward to every year as we improved on the technique each year. But when we bought our farm property and I moved across the state to work for the last few years before retirement and to help with babysitting so Son 1 and DIL could work on our house, or spending an evening or weekend day helping put up interior siding, making floor wax, or other assistance I could provide, my outlook on food changed. During this time, I discovered a program that Virginia Tech was doing where the entire Freshman class was assigned a book to read for discussion. The year I moved, the book was the recently published, Animal Vegetable Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver about her family’s attempt to eat only local, seasonally available food that they grew or could purchase at their local Farmer’s Market. I purchased the book, devoured it and it changed my whole outlook on the food system. Son 1 and DIL had put in a huge garden on the farm, and once living here, I have added fruit trees, vines, and canes as well as chickens for eggs. I made a point to get to know the vendors at our Farmer’s Market, what they provide, how they manage their farms, and what will be available when. I maintain a much smaller garden than the kids put in, located many wild berry patches, learned to make soap and healing salves, and set a goal to “put by” as much as I can to reduce our footprint and reduce the amount of food and other goods that come into our home from thousands of miles away, packaged in containers that may or may not be recyclable.

Not everything that goes on our shelves or in our freezer is grown here, but it is grown locally if possible. Meats, cheeses, vegetables I don’t grow, fruits when mine fail. Beans and peas are frozen in the spring and summer. Berries and fruit are turned into jams and sauces. Tomatoes are canned as pasta sauce, pizza sauce, or tomatoes to be used in chili or other recipes. Hot peppers are canned, pickled or dried to be used throughout the year until the next crop. Sweet peppers are diced or sliced and frozen. Butter and cheese are stockpiled during the productive season for the winter, most of the meats are available year round. We tend to eat more seasonally now, not to the extent that was accomplished in the book, but certainly more so than before I read it.

Once of the produce vendors at the Farmer’s Market has a CSA program with different tiers. The one I chose, I get to select what I want in the quantity I want as long as I spend a certain amount. Right now eggplant is in season. I can’t grow eggplant to save me. Everytime I plant it, the flea beetles feast, so I buy mine from them. I’m not a fan of frozen eggplant, but making a casserole and freezing it, or fermenting a few jars of it when it is available is an option. The same for asparagus, I don’t like them frozen or canned, so they are enjoyed in season and a couple jars pickled for later.

Last week’s CSA had two eggplants in my selection. One was made into Eggplant Parmesan made with locally made parmesan and mozarella. Half was eaten and enjoyed, the second half frozen for some other meal in the future. The second eggplant is being fermented to enjoy on a pickle plate or on a salad.

The eggplant ferment needs a smaller jar. Off to the basement to see what is available. Not everyone can grow their own, but we can all make an effort to support what is local, to support the farmer’s you can get to know.

Slower start

My Facebook memory posts for the past week have shown baskets of goodies from the garden, canning of berry jams, pickles, and other staples. We got peas from the early garden, but not nearly as many as last year for the freezer. I pick beans every couple of days, but only a couple hands full at a time so not as many of them going in the freezer. Some of my peppers aren’t any larger than the day they were planted and two died. There are two in pots in the herb garden that are doing great though. One bell pepper in the garden has a green pepper on it, it is a red variety, so I hope it will continue to mature and ripen. A couple of the hot peppers have started to get some size and I see flowers and the beginnings of tiny peppers. They will thrive when the weather cools some.

This was a gardener’s mistake. Using the Square Foot technique and Florida trellis system, I thought I could put 3 ground cherries, 3 bush cucumbers, 3 tomatillos, and 3 Cilantro plants in a 4 by 6 foot bed. I’ve only harvested two cucumbers.

The ground cherries don’t like to be trellised and have sprawled everywhere, the cucumbers are vining outward into the comfrey and the bed where I pulled the onions, and I can’t stay on top of trellising the tomatillos which are full of fruit and blooms. The cilantro was forgotten in the jungle and is about to set seed, so I guess I should pull it as I use very little coriander and I don’t want it to self seed there.

The popcorn and bush Hubbard squash are thriving while the cabbage worms are doing in the kale and cabbage at the end of that bed.

More of the pullets are laying each day and a few of them are getting some decent size on them. The two hens in with them layed 14 eggs in 9 days, today a total of 7 pullet eggs and 1 hen egg in the coop. The six mature hens in the Palace have produced only 11 eggs in the same 9 days total. It is frustrating to feed them pounds of feed each day and get nothing in return.

The bean beetles are devouring the bean leaves, the second planting has all germinated and not quite as densely planted. Maybe a third planting will go in where the onions were, if I can get the cucumbers to redirect up the path.

Though my beds that I made are nice and sturdy, there aren’t enough wood chips in the paths to keep the grass and weeds out. The new asparagus bed did not produce a single sprout, I think the crowns from Home Depot may have been old and dried out. The old bed is still thick with the ferns. I will make another attempt in late fall or early spring to move some of them to the new bed and try to finish digging the old bed out. It will likely mean no or few asparagus next year.

I need to seek out a load or two of wood chips and hire a teenage grandson to help me spread them several inches thick on the paths.

The walled garden is filling in nicely with the perennials that I planted there, but I am going to have to remove or at least thin the comfrey or it is going to take over and choke out some of the other plants. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to remove once planted.

The cultivated berries are drying on the canes as fast as they develop. Though we are getting pop up showers frequently, it isn’t putting enough water in the ground. I will go to a local pick your own berries farm to put some in the freezer, probably not making much jam as I eat very little of it. The tomatoes and tomatillos as they begin to ripen will be put in bags in the freezer until there are enough to make a batch of sauce or salsa. There are many green tomatoes and the plum tomatoes are beginning to ripen. Since I planted determinate varieties this year, they will all ripen about the same time and when they do, the kitchen will become a sauce factory. With Son 1 and DIL having their own nice gardens now and a freezer for storage, I won’t need to can quite as much for the two of us.

I think I am going to be overwhelmed with apples, pears, and the first peaches and as we don’t eat cobblers or fruit pies and there is only so much applesauce and pear sauce we can consume, there may be lots of fruit fall for the deer.