Wine barrel potatoes fertilized with Dusty's litter box contents
Back during last week of December 2009 I planted my first batch of potatoes. Although they have been quite low maintenance, I have wondered whether it was cost effective to grow a vegetable that is so cheap to buy. After I started harvesting the potatoes, I have replanted some tiny potatoes to regenerate them. Now the second generation is growing in one of my wine barrel planters.
Tiny potatoes on the left were planted in the wine barrel
I very much enjoy digging for new potatoes. Apparently, I really enjoy digging into dirt for "treasures" (see Wild Mushrooms Photo Album). Additionally, I recently found out that commercially grown non-organic potatoes consistently contain pesticide residues. It is one of the top 12 worst offenders. The full list is on Environmental Working Group (EWG) website. Now I am quite happy with the constant supply of new potatoes right on the farm.
More second generation potatoes are sprouting in the raised bed
I don't watch TV. It didn't start out as a conscious decision. I grew up watching TV, and my family embraced commercial free cable TV back in the early 80's. Over the years, the price of watching cable TV increased insanely so I just decided not to pay for TV anymore. I have been using that time doing many other activities including this blog and the farm.
Tonight I decided to take a break from reading. I thought I would watch something on Hulu.com. I browsed through pages and pages of TV shows and nothing really piqued my interest. Somehow I stopped at The Future of Food, a full length documentary. I had no idea what the movie was about other than it's about food, and you know I love food.
I had people questioning me why I grow my own food when the supermarkets have everything, and it's so convenient to just buy whatever I need. Some people even ask me why I make everything from scratch. There are many reasons, and I normally give one or two short and more obvious reasons since it would take a while for me to talk about all the reasons I am doing this. The Future of Food shows you why people like me are involved in and promoting urban farming. When you start growing your own food, you become much less wasteful. If more Americans are willing to spend a couple hours every other day growing a few vegetables either in their yards or patios, they will not need to go to the gym. People will be healthier in general, and it's better for the environment. The benefits are countless.
Do you know that most of American farmers can't even save their own seeds? They are losing their family farms to big corporations. It's heart breaking to hear how they are being screwed over and lose all their savings and respect. You can watch The Future of Food without commercial on its website. Here's a 2-minute trailer:
Early Girls, Husky Cherry (the tiniest tomato), Yellow Grapes, and Green Beans
I planted 5 varieties of tomatoes on March 29, 2010. They were Early Girl, Roma, Yellow Grape, Yellow Cherry, and Red Husky Cherry. It's now August, and the Early Girls are just started to turn red. They are quite sweet, but did they take forever to grow! Last year at this time, I had a huge yellow cherry tomato bush covered with orange little tomatoes. They were so ripe that they turned orange! I had so many little orange tomatoes, I was giving them away.
Early Girl
This year, I am just now started picking Early Girl tomatoes on a daily basis, but the plants are already drying up. I have picked 2-4 Yellow Grape, Yellow Cherry, and Red Husky. I have yet to pick any Roma tomatoes. Last year I was able to make some tomato sauce with home grown tomatoes. I hope that I'll have enough tomatoes to make it again.
Similar to a parent who loves talking about his/her child, I love talking about cute things Dusty does. Unless you own an indoor bunny, you are probably not familiar with their behaviors. And even if you have owned a bunny, one bunny can be very different from another. Dusty certainly behaves differently from the other bunnies I had.
I noticed that one of the things he likes to do in the early morning is to sit on top of his box. So far I have only spotted him on the box in the morning but not in the afternoon or evening. He usually hops off when he hears me. He also likes to chew, push, and dig his rugs. I keep 2 pieces of rugs in his room so he can have his ways with them. Of course, he likes to scratch behind his ears and chew on his feet just like a cat or dog would.
Dusty is so fuzzy that most photos of him seem to be out of focus! He might not show much expression on that hairy face, but something is going on in his little fuzzy head. He certainly knows to run up to me when I extend my arm out with a treat between my fingers. He even takes treats from my fingers without ever biting my hand by accident. Similar to a dog, he normally tries to pull the treat off my hand and hops over to a different location to enjoy his treat in private.
I have baked a lot of blueberry muffins ever since I became interested in baking back in 2000. I always liked them best when they just came out from the oven. They seemed to harden once they got cold. I didn't know how to bake muffins that would stay soft and moist until I came upon a recipe called "To Die For Blueberry Muffins" very recently.
"To Die For" is a bit drastic, but the muffins I made with this recipe are the best blueberry muffins I have ever baked. Not only they smell awesome, they look equally impressive. The texture is somewhere between muffin and cupcake, and they stay soft and moist. I have baked them in both jumbo and mini sizes. The minis are perfect for potluck and parties. The jumbo ones are good for breakfast.
This particular recipe involves making a crumb topping for the muffins. It's a little more work, but the topping makes a huge difference. I followed the recipe pretty closely. I used evaporated milk and margarine (for the topping) only because I don't usually buy milk and happened to be almost out of butter. I bet they would be even better with butter! Also if you follow the recipe, you'll end up with a lot more crumb topping then needed. I made the crumb topping according to the recipe for 18 big muffins and ended up with enough crumb topping for 18 jumbo plus 24 mini muffins and more! I would cut the recipe in half for the crumb topping. Some fat conscience people will scrap off the topping, but don't worry, others will happily eat the topping that's been scrapped off.
