“Food Technology” in America

I recently read an article in O, The Oprah Magazine, titled “Banned in Europe, Okay Here?” written by Sari Harrar. Sari reviews some of the food technology Americans have accepted, while Europeans have said no to it. The article was super informative and laid out the data really well, so I thought I would provide a summary of the article for you.

Starting Vegetable Seeds Indoors

It’s almost December and believe it or not, it’s time to start planning for your spring and summer garden! You can get a head start on your garden by starting your seeds indoors, especially if you have a short growing season. There are also other benefits to getting your plants growing indoors. Starting seeds inside improves the germination rate and a garden established from transplants tend to mature much earlier than direct-seeded ones. Yes, vegetable starts are available at your local nursery, however, you are going to be limited to just a few varieties. When starting from seed, you will have hundreds more choices to choose from. Growing from seed also allows you to have full control over whether a plant was grown in a truly organic manner. For someone that’s never started their garden indoors, here’s a step by step guideline and some common pitfalls to avoid.

Find A Green Restaurant

These days with the economy taking its toll on household budgets, a lot of people are reducing how much they dine out. However, the next time you take the family out to eat, try going to “green restaurant”.

Lowering Grocery Bill and Buying Organic

One of the reasons that I garden is to have the healthiest organic foods available for my children and myself. This is in hopes that I am around longer for them without being a health burden to them when they become adults. However, here in the Northwest as with other northern states, we have a relatively short growing season. Although we preserve the excess summer harvests and grow herbs and vegetables indoors during the winter months, we do need to purchase more groceries throughout the winter. Like most households, we too feel the effects of the recession and higher food costs which leads us to employ strategies that we didn’t use before.

Healthy Eating – Simplified

In a previous post, “Another reminder of why you should grow and eat your own food in the U.S.”, a reader commented that although it’s great to know on a broad level what to avoid eating, it would be great to have a simple guide of specific foods to eat (or not to eat). In response, here’s my attempt to simplify what we should and shouldn’t eat and what foods we can grow for ourselves.

Our Homes’ Garbage Problem

In the context of our garbage problem, what defines “home”? Some would think it’s the structure we live in. Others picture the city or even state they reside. Is it our country? Nope. Think bigger. When we speak of the garbage problem we are facing, our home is defined as Earth.

All over the world, garbage is piling up not just in landfills, but along city streets and in our waterways and oceans. How many of us have actually been to one of these overflowing landfills? What about our children? I have personally experienced a landfill, but my children have not and although we recycle, compost and try to reduce our waste, I’m not sure that they really and truly understand why. Now, I say “experienced a landfill” because when you visit one of these places, you just don’t look at it, you are in awe of it. Most people literally experience some form of emotion when they truly realize the amount of waste being produced in such a small area of our planet and then wonder just how can we continue, as a civilization, to keep living the same way we always have? Where will it all go?

Recession Brings Americans Back To Basics – The Home Vegetable Garden Returns

By now you’ve probably heard of Elkhart, Indiana – the hardest hit city in this deep recession. Apparently, it has only one industry, the RV industry. If you are like me, what you did not know is that 53 percent of Amish men in the area under age 65 worked in these RV factories. When I think of the Amish community, I picture a community that, by choice, farms their land and shuns the modern day work force and its influence. However, this isn’t always the case anymore.

Free Recycling Garbage Cans

I stumbled upon a wonderful service today and just had to share it with everyone. It’s called The Free Green Can. The free green can is new dual purpose recycle/trash bin and is, you guessed it, FREE to anyone who is looking to start or complement a public recycling program.

Another reminder of why you should grow and eat your own food in the U.S.

A new study just released found that Hispanics living in Florida have a 40 percent higher chance of getting cancer than their counterparts that lived in their native countries. The conclusion of this study suggests that the lifestyle and environmental changes (foods they eat being one of them) are probably the culprit. 

Of course the recommendation is to live a healthy lifestyle and avoid smoking, drinking, and bad diets. With the abundant use of processed foods in the U.S. that contain many additives cancer, once rare,  now affects up to a third of the country’s population. 

How to prune tomato plants for bigger, healthier tomatoes

One of my neighbors asked me if she should prune her tomatoes since a gardener friend of hers told her to. If you have indeterminate tomato plants, then the answer is yes. In case you’re not familiar with determinate vs. indeterminate plants, determinate means the plant grows to a predetermined size for that particular plant variety, bears fruit and then grows no more. Whereas indeterminate means the plant will continue to grow and bear fruit until frost.

One main reason your tomato plants should be pruned is to allow adequate air flow around and throughout the plant, which inhibits the development of some common diseases. A second reason you would consider pruning is to minimize the amount of wasted energy the plant spends on non-fruiting branches and maximize the plant’s resources to the branches that are producing fruit. This will result in healthier branches that will produce bigger tomatoes. So now that we’ve answered the question on whether you should, let’s find out when and how?