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Gardening, preserving, affording (not)

Posted at 11:13 AM on October 8, 2008 by Cher Stuewe-Portnoff (2 Comments)

First, a succinct and sincere apology for this summer's infrequent posts, especially to the 16th person in the blogger applicant queue last winter - you'd undoubtedly have been a better choice. Not exactly fair to the rest of you, either. Since this blog is about local food, not the rest of Greg's and my life, will simply say that there have been challenges. We'll continue to try to do better.

But more to the point - what have we been eating here in St. Louis? There's a lot to share.

First, we've found a reasonable variety of good quality, local, seasonal table food (as opposed to food for preserving). We've met some great individuals and heard stories that we'll share in future posts. Our initial resource of choice last spring was a combined CSA (several vendors). We were introduced to some of the best locally produced (not always locally grown ingredients) specialty foods St. Louis has to offer. In the end, though, we weren't here often enough on pick-up day and it was too expensive... too much specialty, not enough basic, for our food budget. We easily resold what was left of the membership, and started haunting farmers' markets for produce. Looking back over the summer, and forward to next year, we want to talk about what was - and wasn't - available in more detail in a future post.

Second, our effort to "put food by" has failed miserably. I feel like the new fisherman on the river: The conventionally recommended places yielded so-so produce of questionable freshness (we tried them all). As for the really great spots that only the locals know... well, if they exist, we'll have to wait for our local patina to develop, or find other canners (scarce) in order to get in on those secrets. Disappointing...we tried hard. Here's what we have to show for it: 6 half-pints of watermelon pickles, 8 pints of salsa, 6 half-pints of tomato butter (yum), several quart bags of frozen substandard peach chunks (and a lot of icky peach and tomato pulp and wormy, starchy corn kernels in the composter), PLUS a previously unrecognized allergy to fresh hot peppers. This is a pitiful outcome for a one-time prize winning canner who's fed her family from a large pantry of canned goods (mostly, but not all from our own garden). That would be me. And no, I'm not posting photos of this year's pantry.

Third, we'll share with you right now the sum total of our gardening effort: a piece of good advice. If you find yourself considering buying a house in a 100+-year-old urban neighborhood, and you have hopes of gardening for food, have the soil tested before, not after, you sign the contract. Or at least before you try to put in the garden. Or without fail, before you eat your tomatoes.

Finally, affordability. It'll take some time to sort this out. Our busted food budget was compounded by the time and money spent because of being in a new location (driving around finding new resources - comparing supplies, prices, and quality - and new supplies, e.g., a new freezer, a story in itself); the costs attributable to failed plans (the maybe-toxic tomatoes and the non-garden, the shortage of affordable produce in the quantities and quality needed for preserving); the price of a bad growing season and the rise in all costs of production. I need to sort it out, but I already know it has to get better, or I'll soon be feeding us from canned goods from Aldi's and Cost-Cutters, and be grateful for that.

Then, given all of the above, what do we do this winter to finish out our year as official locavores, and beyond? Blog or no blog, this remains a big part of our values, and that, in the end, is why we have to continue to work at solving these problems, not just walk away from the effort. We've done it all (except the blogging) before, but the challenges then were very different ones. I'll admit it - it's been difficult in all kinds of unexpected ways. But I'll try to do a better job of making time to think and talk about them as we go.

Comments (2)

Cher - wow! You have had enough going on to write an entire book! Look forward to hearing about your maybe-toxic tomatoes, freezer and/or anything else you are ready to blog about. Am intrigued by tomato butter. Never heard of it. Will look it up soon. Glad to see you are back on LN.
Donna

Posted by Donna McClurkan | October 9, 2008 7:36 PM

How did your tomatoes turn out toxic?

Posted by Ashley Kiley | October 10, 2008 7:15 AM