Whew. Big piece of work for the summer out of the way. Looking forward to starting some of this stuff in the basement soon. That is the next step, getting the basement set up for seed growing!
I completely forgot to write about the second garden plot I put in. I planted three kinds of corn with seed from Vermont Bean Seed Company. My daughter and I planted:
We also planted three different kinds of beans from Cooks Garden:
I also planted the Cook’s Custom carrot blend and yellow sweet spanish hybrid onions from Vermont Bean Seed.
Thats it for the garden this year. I’ve had enough planting fun for one year 
We didn’t get Indianapolis-level rains this past weekend but we did end up having about 3 inches fall over the weekend with nary a break for things to dry out a bit. It really had me thinking about how I would cope if I was utterly dependent on those vegetables to make it through the year.
For all the complaining the local foods people (and I consider myself one) do about the industrialized food system and it’s impact on the way people live their lives the rains gave me something to think about. I’ve had great expectations for the garden this year, maybe expectations that are far too large given my greenhorn gardener status. As the water was slowly creeping up on my garden plots I was getting pretty upset and in a proportion far greater than the real importance of that food to my life.
I want to be more responsible for what goes on my table. I want to know the place it comes from. I don’t want it to have lots of mileage on it before it hits my table. I want my kids to know where their food is coming from and have a hand in actually providing it for themselves. The reality though is that these are all the thoughts of someone who can afford to have such ideals because in reality my life, nor the life of my family, is dependent on that food. What if it were though?
If that water would have come up just a bit further the ground where the plants were growing would have been over-saturated. That soil doesn’t drain all that well (one of the things I’m hoping to change over the next several years) and based on my experience with the large amount of rain that fell in the Fall of last year it would have killed the plants. If I were relying on that food to eat soon, as well as to have something to put up for the Winter, I’d be in real trouble. Simply put it would have been devastating.
Maybe I’m not dependent on that food but I do have even more respect now for the people that grow the food that I am dependent on. And I’ve thought a lot the last few days about the people who are dependent on the food they grow and how such times have destroyed people’s live. It was only three inches of rain but it certainly provided a lot of food for thought.
Strawberries, rhubarb in full effect at the market this week and asparagus still around in profusion. Nichol’s Farm had the first sugar snap peas of the season. They also had some salad greens.
Slowly we’re getting there…it’s going to be a great summer.
I replanted the cucumbers and most of the peppers into bigger containers (8-1/2 ounce Styrofoam cups to be exact). They need to get outside but I’m still not happy with the weather we’ve been having. It has been real cool out and since I’m not too happy with the way the lettuce is looking outside at the moment everything else is staying indoors for at least another week.
Well, the onions can probably go out and I’ll probably take care of that this weekend.
Same as Federal Plaza in that there wasn’t much to be had veggie-wise (no surprise). Nichols Farm was there again and my friends at Labriola were there with their fantastic bread. I picked up a loaf of marble rye which smells fantastic. I’ll post some pictures once I get them off of my cell phone.
Well, there wasn’t much to see but damn was it good to see the market back (not to mention it was a perfect day weather-wise). Nichols Farm was back and one of the few with any actual vegetables. They also had out lots of potted herbs, etc. I bought some asparagus and fingerling potatoes from them.
The rest of the market was basically bakeries and things like that.
Not much else to say in the first week I’ll be posting updates throughout the season. Below are some photographs.
They’re back! The city of Chicago downtown farmer’s markets started on Tuesday at Adams and Dearborn. The season is under way!
“I expect greater use of technology to increase crop yields and better use of genetics to create drought-tolerant crops,” he said.
Why do we keep banging our heads on this stuff?
Higher cost of organic products versus mass market alternatives is a primary deterrent to many consumers, especially during a period when families are already struggling to stretch the household budget.
Many families are spending untold dollars on TV, cellular phone service, internet service, etc. which, while nice to have, aren’t as important as quality food.
One interesting connection made is:
To that end, Cummins estimates that 20% of organic shoppers are already switching away from grocery store purchases of organic items to buying locally from farmers markets.“It’s a lot cheaper to buy directly from farmers and I expect that trend to continue,” he said.
“That end” refers to people wanting to cut food costs this year. I’d bet that cost may be one reason why 20% of organic shoppers might be looking local but knowing what I know about that market segment and the reading I’ve done I’d bet a bigger reason for the switch is because of the writing of Michael Pollan, Bill McKibben, etc. I suspect the people shopping at farmers markets are reading those guys and buying in to what they have to say about the environmental impact even organic food has when it is being shipped thousands of miles to get to your table. Is it better to eat organic berries that have been shipped a thousand miles or conventional berries that are from a farm down the street (metaphorically speaking) from you? I’d bet that 20% is voting on the local stuff because of the food miles as well as wanting to support local agriculture. I know where I prefer to spend my money.
I had to take a drive through some of the more “rural” parts of Lake County (Illinois that is) and boy was I shocked at the changes since the last time I had been in those areas.
I use quotes above because Lake County certainly isn’t close to being as rural as it even was when I was growing up back in the early 70’s. There have been massive changes in the county since then and the growth has been unbelieveable.
I’ve lived in Lake County most of my life save for a 12 year stint in Chicago I and I know that we’ve been losing a lot of farm land here but nothing quite brings it home as much as a drive through the area.
Driving along Gilmer Road between Route 120 and Route 176 I almost don’t even recognize the area even from a year ago which is probably the last time I was through that stretch. Houses were up or going up everywhere except for the bits of land that the Forest Preserve District bought up.
It really is depressing to see so much farm land disappearing and being turned in to houses (and houses that aren’t even built well for that matter). I certainly understand why someone would sell their land given the prices probably being fetched right now. I just don’t know what the people “in charge” are thinking when they keep allowing this to happen. I’m glad the forest preserve folks are buying up the land they can but also makes the land essentially useless for farming and it certainly isn’t that interesting to look at from a recreation standpoint.
Every year Lake County still has a fair that is supposedly to celebrate our farming heritage. I just don’t know what farming heritage will be left to celebrate in a couple of years.