<p>We have an advantage. Wife and I are agi’s with wife having work experience in major bakery and I in processing. We also had a commercial orchard. </p>
<p>We never had good luck in peaches at home, and I use the same fungicides and timing as our commerical peach orchard. I think it has something to do with an airblast sprayer.</p>
<p>WOW, we went from healthy meals to producing your own …everything…</p>
<p>I do not have a real garden, just oak trees around the house :)</p>
<p>Any "town " folks around :)</p>
<p>“if only I could do something about the recent infestation of cottontails!”</p>
<p>Was I the only one who thought: “another cheap meal!”?</p>
<p>(J/K, I have a pet bunny…)</p>
<p>Kelowna, have you tried kefir (sp)? I think it tastes better than buttermilk, and it comes in many flavors (peach, berry, vanilla, etc.). H likes the sweet kinds, I like the plain, unsweetened one. Unfortunately, it costs more than buttermilk. It can be found in the organic/health food section of grocery stores. TJ’s prices are usually the best.</p>
<p>Can’t live up to LongPrime, but here’s what we’ve produced from gardens:</p>
<p>-Eaten, given away, or frozen probably 75ish lbs tomatoes.
-Eaten about 20 peppers, a few eggplants, maybe 10 meals worth of green beans
-had pesto probably 20 times this summer, and have frozen bags of pesto-ready chopped up basil in oil enough for 20 more meals (BIG basil crop this year)
-two small butternut squash ready for soup
-a bunch of decorative pumpkins
-lots of other herbs
-lots of strawberries</p>
<p>From other people:
-Apple-farming friend is sending us a big crate of apples as we speak, will become cider and pies.
-bushel of blueberries given to us is now five gallons of mead ready to be bottled
-am aiming to hit farmers markets for cheap tomatoes to freeze</p>
<p>For protein–H has finally justified his clamming/oystering license by finding a mother lode clam bed which we plan to kayak out to this weekend and bring home a huge clam dinner (first of many, we hope).</p>
<p>Would like to learn to can, but haven’t gotten to it yet.</p>
<p>Oh, and H has about 100# of wheatberries sitting in dining room corner which he grinds and makes bread from.</p>
<p>Garland, incredible. I want to visit you for those tomatoes and wheatberries. Where on earth are you getting wheatberries?</p>
<p>H sends away from them from somewhere, actually don’t know–that’s his area of expertise (actually, most of the above is his, too. He does the growing; I do the picking and most of the cooking except for the yeast-related stuff–alcohol and bread! :))</p>
<p>Oh, and the honey for the mead is sent to us by the apple-farmer. He supplements his farming by working in a honey warehouse–has some hives on the farm, too.</p>
<p>Garland</p>
<p>We had a lot of basil this year too. Are you saying that you make the pesto (minus the pinenuts) and freeze?</p>
<p>What wheat grinder do you have?</p>
<p>Us…
~eaten, given away or frozen in incredible amount of tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, zucchini
~really enjoy making baba goulash w/ the eggplant and then freezing
~H just netted a pond and 8 catfish got caught in the net so we had some for dinner and froze the rest
~someone gave us 30 gallons of wheat…just figured out yesterday that I can crack it and either make pilaf or process it to make bulgur
~trying to plan a winter garden w/ mesclun salad greens, broccoli and Chinese greens</p>
<p>kelowna
we live in the city- we have a small lot- but you can grow a lot in pots as well.
Many cities ( ok at least Portland and Seattle as far as I know- also have shared public garden space)
[Raintree</a> Nursery, fruit, nut and berry plants for the American fruit grower](<a href=“http://www.raintreenursery.com/]Raintree”>http://www.raintreenursery.com/)
[Gardening</a> in Portland Oregon | Growing Gardens Digs at the Root of Hunger - Home Gardens](<a href=“http://www.growing-gardens.org/our-programs/home-gardens.php]Gardening”>http://www.growing-gardens.org/our-programs/home-gardens.php)</p>
<p>Fresno mom–I just chop/blend the basil and oil, freeze that in bags, then defrost and add the cheese, garlic, and pine nuts and blend again.</p>
<p>As far as the grinder, I don’t know. It’s a hand grinder (good exercise.) I’ll have to ask him what make it is.</p>
<p>We have a small kitchen garden, so we only buy bread, milk, meat every week. Even with a small garden, ie it’s not a farm, it has given us plenty of food. I make sure my family has at least 5 servings of veg everyday. Check out this website, a small farm near a city.</p>
<p>[Path</a> to Freedom](<a href=“http://www.pathtofreedom.com%5DPath”>http://www.pathtofreedom.com)</p>
<p>Columbia_STudent: fascinating site. I will have to show this to my husband; this is his dream.</p>
<p>Garland,
Mine too. I’ve been following this family since 2001 when their yard was nothing but cement so it’s doable.</p>
<p>Wow, they are raising chickens, too !</p>
<p>I like nutrition bars. You can order them in bulk and use them for meal replacement. Some of them are only 1 - 2 dollars each and have 20 g of protein.</p>
<p>Just want to add that my H guessed, when i asked him, that it’s more like 100-120 lbs tomatoes. ANd that was last night. This morning I just brought in about 9 lbs more (decided to start weighing:)). And it looks like maybe another batch of green beans; thought they’d have stopped by now (we only have two vines; they grow up the poles of the clothesline.)</p>
<p>^You are lucky that you still have tomatoes and green beans. I’m starting to eat winter vegetables now. I have lots of lettuces. I gave up weighing and canning. Too much work, I want to simplify my life or want a simple life.</p>
<p>Reminded of this expression my mom passed down to us:
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”</p>
<p>Wish I could use more pasta with my family, but my husband is permanently turned off from it (was poor as a child, and his single mom served it A LOT), and DD2 has celiacs, and the other kids don’t like the rice or quinoa pasta.</p>
<p>Thank you for letting me share my pity party!</p>
<p>I bribed my family with yummy desserts if they eat my home grown vegetables. I had literally tons of okras and I’ve heard okra is good vegetable for you, but they were turned off by it after eating so much, so they get rum cake if they finish them. I also had tons of yard long beans that I just loved to grow them but my family was tired of eating. Same with ridged lufta. What do you do with these Asian vegetables?</p>