I have defined my sense of home through homemade living.
Growing,
harvesting,
foraging,
preserving, and
cooking our own food gives me a true sense of home. This is where I want to spend my free time, I enjoy
gardening and
putting food by, and I enjoy preparing meals from the foods we have grown. The
enjoyment of homegrown and preserved is just one of the benefits.
Last night on the news they were talking about how the cold weather has hurt several crops in the south, doubling the price of some of the fresh produce in our stores and they said they don't know how high the prices will get. I hadn't noticed the spike in produce at the store, we are still eating the produce we preserved last summer/fall. We buy some fresh produce, oranges, grapefruit and lemons have been very good lately and we cannot grow those locally. So far the price I paid has been good, according to the news, that will soon change. For the most part though we have been eating the vegetables and fruit we preserved. We have plenty of potatoes and squash in cold storage, several jars of canned fruit, tomato sauce, and apple sauce, a bag of homegrown carrots in the refrigerator and several containers of vegetables and fruit in the freezer, there is no need to purchase these items. Putting up all this produce is a lot of work, but the
money saved is another benefit of homegrown and home-preserved foods.
Another benefit to homegrown and home-preserved foods is the
nutritional value. I don't have all the nutritional information on the foods I have grown, gathered, or foraged and preserved, but I do know that the foods I grow have never been sprayed with chemicals. I have harvested when they are ripe and preserved the food at their peak. I do not add preservatives or artificial flavoring (or the so-called "natural" flavoring) to my food before it is canned. The
flavor is also a huge benefit, you just can't beat homegrown, home preserved and homemade food.
Sense of Home / Homemade Living
This post is listed with
Real Food Deals and
Simple Lives Thursday.
Oh, you're so lucky to be able to grow this! Happy new year!
ReplyDeleteI love to garden as well. My idea of the perfect life is gardening, freezing/canning for the winter, and cooking. We are even thinking about getting chickens someday so we have fresh eggs. My garden is organic every year as well. The only problem I have is with eggplant. It will not grow in my garden, so I plan them in potting soil. Bugs eat the leaves, which doesn't seem to bother the plant too much, but THEN bugs eat holes in the eggplant.
ReplyDeleteHow did you learn how to preserve/can/freeze? Do you have a book or website you refer to, or is this just gathered knowledge over time?
Elsa,
ReplyDeleteI learned to water bath can from my mother and pressure can from knowledge gathered over time and the instruction booklet that came with the canner.
Like you I have always had an interest in gardening, preserving and cooking so I have gathered information on these subjects from people, books, websites, and trial and error. After a while you don't where you learned it, you just know it. What is great though is that there is always something else to learn or a new way to do something.
I have the book "Putting Food By" (the old edition) which I have use quite a bit.
-Brenda
Great post! Gardening is my favorite source of real food! We still have potatoes, carrots, turnips, and beets in cold storage. I flash freeze a lot of my veggies and my berries. I can the apples, pears, pumpkins, and tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteHere is a post I wrote that includes directions for organic insecticidal soap: http://www.onedeterminedgardener.com/2010/08/how-to-squash-bug-tutorial-for.html
But I too would love to love to learn about any organic tips Brenda employs
Alea,
ReplyDeleteNot sure I have many tips on organic gardening. I buy organic seeds and plants whenever available, use organic fertilizer, http://senseofhome.blogspot.com/2010/10/benefits-of-manure.html
which is really just manure from a local farm that raises their cattle naturally. I have had few bug issues, mainly slugs, I do not have a pest spray. Healthy plants can resist most diseases and pests still producing fruit, though perhaps fewer.
I sure look forward to starting my garden next spring and will write more about it then.
-Brenda
I don't know how much money I save by growing some of our food, but I believe that eating healthy food that hasn't been sprayed with chemicals is an investment in our health.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year, Brenda!
You are so right about the nutritional differences in food. I read somewhere the other day that there is a huge difference between produce grown in ones own garden and that which can be bought at the store and that the gap between the two continues to widen andt an alarming pace.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you canned your cherries and hope that we have the opportunity to do up some in a similar manner next year.
Belinda and Francesca,
ReplyDeletethank you.
Mr. H.,
That is interesting what you read about the widening gap between homegrown and commercially grown produce.
Those cherries taste so good this winter, I have been eating them right out of the jar.
-Brenda
Brenda- this is a great post. I am starting my very first garden this spring and am so excited to learn to can and preserve. It must be so gratifying to be able to have all of this for your family!
ReplyDelete