You don’t have to move to the middle of nowhere to become a 'homesteader'. You can start right where you are. Today.
Author: admin
My name is Cindy. I guess you could say my homesteading journey began in our second floor walk up apartment when we were newly married. It was fun to finally be “playing-house” for real, and I suppose I never really grew out of that stage. It just got realer and realer as time went on.
Now I am the mother of five grownup children who all have children of their own. One of my sons called me a “closet hutterite“. Made me laugh. But I couldn’t think of a suitable retort. Still working on that one.
These five great kids have given us nineteen wonderful grandchildren who are the joy of our lives. I am married to my best friend. His name is Dan, and he is not a closet hutterite. But he’s a patient sorta guy who doesn’t mind living with one. Most of the time.
Truth is, in the beginning of our life together we thought (and hoped and prayed) we’d one day live on a small farm. ….. Well, life doesn’t always work out exactly how we picture it in our younger years does it? It didn’t materialize quite the same way we dreamed it might, but that is totally okay. Sometimes Heavenly Father gently nudges us in a different direction, and so here is where we are. In a big Canadian city, surrounded by lots of good neighbours. They’re also patient sorta people. That helps.
Mock Emergency Alert – Day 1: Economic Crisis Scenario: Economic Crisis – Food Shortages and Food Storage
Picture this unsettling situation: Oil prices have skyrocketed, leading to a severe economic crisis. Transportation costs and consequently food costs are through the roof. In many areas, store shelves are bare, and food is becoming increasingly scarce. Today, we face the reality of food shortages and the importance of relying on our food storage. It’s time to put your preparedness plan into action and make real meals with the supplies you’ve diligently stored away. Let’s navigate this scenario together, sharing your food storage meal ideas, tips for stretching resources, and any creative solutions you’ve come up with in the comment section below. That is where we come together to learn, support, and thrive during these challenges. Check out the subsequent blog posts for more scenarios in the days ahead, and let’s find out how ready we can be for whatever the future may hold!
Fortunately, you have been following your gut and the counsel of people you respect, and have accumulated a reasonable amount of food storage. *IMPORTANT: STORE WHAT YOU EAT, AND EAT WHAT YOU STORE Today you get to USE it!
Goal: Have a PLAN for real meals you can make from your food storage
Today’s Tasks:
Prepare ALL your meals and snacks using only pantry (food storage) foods.
Create a complete meal plan for 7 days (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) using ONLY ingredients you already have in your home storage
Take a serious look at what you have on hand: Do an inventory to determine how long your food supply will last you with a reasonable meal plan
SHARING TIME: Take a picture of your meal plan or type it up and share it in the comment section below
Remember that Learning from each other is a huge part of the benefit of challenges like this.
Today’s Limitations:
For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants
You cannot use any fridge or freezer food (assume it has been used up)
You cannot use fresh produce from your garden (pretend it’s winter)
You cannot use fresh eggs even if you have chickens (someone stole them)
Stop whining. Its only ONE DAY you can do this.
Advanced Tasks because you’re a super hero:
Make a meal plan for 30 days instead of just 7
Add a dessert to your menu tonight as well
A huge thunderstorm also struck today and your power is out all day. Cook all meals without power!
REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S CHALLENGE WILL BE DIFFERENT.
Make sure your fill out today’s REPORT CARD to see how well you did, to keep track of areas you can improve, to remember things you need to do, and things you need to buy. Use the data you gathered to make a game plan to take you to the next level of preparedness, whatever that may be.
7 Day Challenge REPORT CARD – Food Storage, EATING WHAT YOU STORE
Today we focused on FOOD and becoming more aware of exactly what we’ve got, how to use it, and what we need to acquire to reach our goals. Goal 1st level: short term food storage – 3 months. Goal 2nd level: long term food storage – one year.
Goal: Have a PLAN for real meals you can make from your food storage
Daily Evaluation Questions to ask Yourself
Were you able to prepare using only pantry or storage foods you had on hand (NOT IN THE FRIDGE, FREEZER OR GARDEN)? What foods did you miss having?
Do you have all the ingredients on hand to create 7 days worth of complete and nourishing meals? What additional items could you get to have more variety?
How many months worth of food storage do you estimate you have on hand?
Do you have seasonings and other essentials you’re used to using?
What are some ways you can supplement your storage with ‘fresh’ items in an emergency? ie: gardening, sprouting, grinding flour, having chickens etc
I got together with a couple of likeminded friends and we decided to challenge ourselves. Then we decided to open it up for other likeminded people to join us.
For 7 days, we are testing our individual Emergency Preparedness and Food Storage Plans. Each day will bring a NEW mock emergency, or situation that will test at least one of the reasons we strive to be prepared! And an opportunity to rate yourself and make a note of changes you need to make.
I hope you’ll join us here and take the challenge to test yourself. During the challenge, don’t take the easy way out and skip over the hard stuff, or cheat. No going to a store, or spending any money for the entire 7 days! And feel free to adapt the scenarios to fit your own family and situation.
Watch for follow up posts marked Day 1, Day 2 … and so forth.
Here are the daily report cards that you can print if you wish, for a self assessment on each day’s challenges.
For years this quote was over my kitchen door leading out to the garden. Sadly I had to take it down a couple of years ago to repaint the wall, but its in the plan to replace it. It is an essential life truth.
Is there a difference between home grown tomatoes and store bought tomatoes? Oh My! YES! The taste of a homegrown tomato is UNlike anything else this world has to offer. And a store bought tomato tastes nothing like it, even when grocer’s says they are “vine ripened” . . . . Let’s talk about “vine ripened” for a minute: what it is and what it is not. Ostensibly, that term should be clear right? It means ripened-on-the-vine. . . . Right? Allowing fruits to ripen on the plant before harvesting ensures the completion of its growing cycle, implying that all of nature’s nutrition is intact. But don’t be fooled; when you see a sign that says “vine ripened” with tomatoes that are together on a small branch. The whole truth is that those tomatoes ripened while still attached to that little branch. No one says that branch was on the plant or that the plant was still in the ground at the time they ripened, so yesssss, okay – by definition I guess we cannot dispute it, but by its truest definition – NO! They are NOT necessarily ripened on the plant. I hate when I see that term, because if we believe everything we read we’ll fall for the implication that THESE tomatoes are somehow better than other tomatoes we see on the shelf without the ‘sign’. I seriously doubt it. In most cases, the only difference is that little branch – those 4 or 5 tomatoes that are clustered together. And No, in most circumstances they were not ripened ON a plant which was still living.
In central Alberta even in our home gardens, it is not possible for all of our tomatoes to ripen on the plant before the season is over, so we pick the last of them green, allowing them to ripen in their own time. It’s the best we can do with approaching winter. Tomatoes naturally produce their own ethylene gas which causes them to slowly redden as they ripen at their own pace – even once they’re picked. This of course takes time. To speed up the process of ripening, many companies lock immature green tomatoes in an ethylene-filled chamber. This seems like a good solution on the surface, but it merely forces them to turn red, not affecting the “ripening” process enough. The result is that yes, they may be red, but they never had the chance to develop flavour – which is usually a natural companion to ripening AND an indicator of nutritional value. If like me, you have to pick some of your tomatoes not quite red or still green, allow them to ripen in their own time, the way nature designed. You will be richly rewarded by the homegrown tomato-taste, and its associated nutritional value.
Okay, thank you for the chance to rant a little – on one of my pet peeves. I’ll set that aside for now.
“A tomato may be a fruit, but it is a singular fruit. A savory fruit. A fruit that has ambitions far beyond the ambitions of other fruits.” – E. Lockhart
Several years ago I decided to put more effort into eating IN THE SEASON. The concept is encouraged by a directive in what I consider ‘scripture’. “All wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature and use of man – Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof . . . .” 1 This is good counsel indeed, especially since we understand now that nutritional value begins to dissipate in the hour after harvest. The fresher the produce, the more nutrition it contains, so eating it in the season we are guaranteed to have the best that nature can offer. Keeping that tomato for months in it’s “fresh” state, gives us the outward impression that it is nutritional, but in actual fact it is impossible. In my opinion, we use the word “fresh” too loosely in this context.
Based on tomato retail sales, the average North American eats almost 30 pounds of tomatoes a year. If you like pizza or spaghetti, you probably eat more. If you like salsa, you probably eat even more. If you don’t like tomatoes, then I’m pretty sure I ate enough to make up for you. But what about those of us who grow and preserve our own? How would stats ever reflect that? I’m pretty sure no statistician keeps track of how many plants I grow (this year, 28 plants), or the fact that we eat FRESH tomatoes every single day from mid July through till the last one gets eaten in late November. I do not ever buy tomatoes from the produce department because they are almost always supremely disappointing. So based on sales of ‘fresh’ tomatoes, I wouldn’t even be counted, but make no mistake – our household consumes a LOT of tomatoes.
Let’s get it over with and off the table. Yes tomatoes are really ‘fruits’, and yes we eat them as vegetables. Why? Simply because their natural ‘sugar’ content is much less than other fruits, making it more suitable to be used in a salad or main dish rather than a dessert. In fact, because the seeds are inside (like a blueberry, gooseberry, currant or grape) the tomato is actually a ‘berry’. It doesn’t make any difference, we’re still gonna eat tomatoes as vegetables – but it is interesting.
where do tomatoes come from?
Tomatoes originated in South America where the indigenous people cultivated them to use in their cooking. Not surprisingly, it was the Spanish who brought them to Europe and ultimately to the rest of the world. Within a short time, they became very popular in Spain, and were distributed throughout the Spanish colonies in the New World, including the Caribbean, and Central America, even as far away as the Philippines. They grow easily in warm climates so it was an easy fruit to adopt, and it literally changed the way the world ate.
In Europe it took a little longer, as they were regarded with suspicion for a number of reasons. They were identified as part of the nightshade family, and though the fruit was edible, it was well understood that the plant itself was dangerous; that was hard for many to get over. As well, wealthy Europeans often ate off pewter plates. Pewter being a metal alloy includes tin, copper, sometimes lead, and sometimes silver. The acid in tomatoes reacts with many metals and lead poisoning could result when lead is present. It’s not the tomato’s fault, but the chemical reaction with tomato acid and the pewter dishware would definitely come to everyone’s attention. Consequently, in England and her colonies tomatoes were considered ‘unfit’ to eat. In fact in most of Europe (even Italy) for almost a century, tomatoes were grown primarily as an exotic ornamental plant in flower gardens. Ironically, the poorer people ate off wooden plates or pottery, so that chemical reaction would never have been an issue for the more common folk. Who could have guessed, that simply using clay dishes would make tomatoes wonderful, while using pewter dishes could make them deadly?
The plant’s ability to adapt and even to mutate, creating new and different varieties contributed to its spread throughout the warmer European countries. Still, it took a very long time for the fruit as a ‘food’, to gain favour among the general European population. Even in areas where the climate was perfect for growing them, the fact that they grew naturally along the ground suggested ‘low status’. Funny how people can be that way. Still it was a beautiful fruit, and for the rich, it became a tabletop decoration – not eaten, just enjoyed esthetically. Although tomatoes were embraced sooner in Spain and Portugal, it took nearly two hundred years before they were incorporated solidly into the bigger Mediterranean cuisine. But it was the invention of pizza in Naples, Italy in the late 19th century, that endeared tomatoes to Italians. By then, fears surrounding them had begun to fade, and tomatoes had grown immensely popular in America.
In the east, it was a very different story. From the Philippines (under Spanish colonialism), tomatoes spread to southeast Asian and then to the entire Asian continent. It was brought to India by Portuguese explorers and exploded in popularity as it was perfectly suited to the climate. Today, China is the highest consumer of tomatoes in the world, and India is second, but the sheer population of those two countries (being the most populace in the world) would account for that. Per capita, one might expect Italy to score the highest for consumption because we all have pizza, spaghetti, lasagna in mind, but in actual fact – Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Uzbekistan are all ahead of Italy. Yes, tomatoes play a big role in Mediterranean cuisine, but evidently they are pretty crucial in the cuisine of the Middle East as well. But the big surprise is the third highest consumer – the United States. 1. China 2. India 3. United States
and Now?
Tomatoes are the king of ‘versatility’, present in almost all cuisines. They can be used in soups and noodle dishes – like in China; curries – like in India; pasta dishes like in Italy; salads, grilled, gazpacho, and various stews in Europe and the Mediterranean; stewed – like in the Middle East; salsas – like in South and Central America; goulash in Eastern Europe – and an amazing cross over of all the above in our global adaptation to different cuisines. EVERYONE eats tomatoes.
Highly cultivated the world over – even in Russia and Scandinavia, tomatoes are one of the most popular backyard garden vegetables in North America. In northern climates like our own, they must be started indoors to extend the season long enough to make them viable, but that is not a problem when every commercial greenhouse grows thousands of them.
The varieties are endless, but there are essentially two distinct types of tomatoes: determinate and indeterminate. It’s easy to remember which is which because a ‘determinate‘ tomato is one that has a finite or ‘determined‘ size, and amount of fruit. It is a smaller plant, ‘determined‘ to grow to a ‘pre-determined’ height, with all its fruit coming on in a short amount of time – perfect for a climate like ours with a short growing season. Because of this, it is considered an annual even in its native land. It grows easily in a pot, or within the confines of a tomato cage, so for those who need something easily contained, it’s your best option.
An INdeterminate tomato on the other hand, will grow and grow and grow, continuing to produce new fruit until the winter kills it. In its native land or in warmer climates, it could grow for years, and left to its own it will be a trailing plant, continuing to grow along the ground. Everywhere the stem touches the ground is a potential spot for the plant to grow new roots, conceivably having innumerable new independent plants all along the trail. I have no idea how long it could grow, or how it would eventually die in its native Central and South America. In a temperate climate (with distinct seasonal changes) like our own, it is the winter that kills it, but during the growing season it never stops reaching to new heights.
are tomatoes good for you?
almost 2 1/2 pounds this tomato will be dinner tomorrow after a made a loaf of sourdough bread for it. It deserves a thick slice of toasted sourdough and some fresh pesto mayo. A September treat. These Romanian Giants are the best tasting tomatoes I’ve every grown.
YES! In a word, they sure are! Tomatoes are nutrient-rich powerhouses, packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Their secret ingredient is the antioxidant LYCOPENE, to which we owe the beautiful strong red colour. They reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, improve eye health, digestive health, and the risk of osteoporosis. In the kitchen in they offer immense versatility and flavour.
* Fresh (as in uncooked) tomatoes are rich in vitamin C – a powerful antioxidant which is important for skin, bones, and connective tissue. It also promotes healing and helps the body absorb iron. * Fresh tomatoes are rich in Potassium – needed to build proteins in the body, including muscle. * Fresh tomatoes are rich in Vitamin K – required for blood to clot.
Like most fruits and vegetables, it is preferable to eat tomatoes FRESH, straight out of the garden to get the best nutrition and benefit. But that doesn’t mean that eating tomatoes grilled, fried, roasted, sauced, dried or juiced aren’t wonderfully good for us too. One of the best things about tomatoes is their versatility in adapting easily to an infinite number of different cooking styles, and using them in their many forms and styles opens up their full range of nutritional benefits.
There’s a very good reason they’re so popular in dishes ranging from Greek Salad to Thai Curry to Italian pasta to Mexican Pico de Gallo to toasted tomato sandwiches. Tomatoes have a unique flavour that isn’t found in any other vegetable. They are acidic, but less sour than other acidic fruits. That acid causes the colour to remain bright, but also contributes to the texture of the dish it is in, including acting as a tenderizer.
That’s at least — in part — why so many cultural cuisines such as Italian, Mexican, Middle Eastern etc rely on tomatoes in such a wide array of dishes. Foods like pasta and pizza sauces, stews, and casseroles rely on tomatoes. Because North American cuisine is made up of dishes and flavours from numerous immigrant cultures, it is no wonder we find ourselves reaching for tomatoes so often in the kitchen.
Growing
In North America, we generally plant tomato plants outside after all danger of frost is over. Starting seedlings indoors months in advance, is a must in Alberta, and if we cannot personally do so, not to worry – every greenhouse has a huge assortment to pick from. In Alberta, plan to plant them indoors by mid to late March at the latest. If you plant in February, they’ll be bigger, but sometimes that gets difficult to handle in the house. Expect to put them outside mid to late May, after all danger of frost has passed. You can grow them well into September in a typical year, but be prepared to cover up on cold nights, or to pick in a hurry if a cold front settles in.
Tomatoes love sun so pick the sunniest spot in your garden for them. Conventional wisdom suggests that crops be rotated every year, and for most vegetables I do that, but my one exception is tomatoes. In small backyard gardens its not always practical to change locations, and in mine, if they’re to have the sunniest spot, I am limited in my options. Growing in the same SPOT is not the same as growing in the same SOIL. My garden is set up for tomatoes to be in one spot, with a semi permanent trellis to tie them to. For this reason, my attention to soil amendment is important. Adding new compost and other organic matter every spring replenishes the soil’s fertility, and is my best line of defense against pests and disease. Rotating faithfully without taking proper care of your soil is only half the job.
When I plant a new tomato plant, I dig a DEEP hole – deep enough to bury all but the top 6 inches of the plant if possible. I put a raw egg in the bottom of the hole, crack it with my trowel and place the plant in the hole, laying it slightly if necessary to get as much of the stem below the surface as I can. This gives the plant a stronger base especially if your stem has gotten a little spindly before transplanting outdoors. If you look closely at the stem of a tomato plant (from the main stem to the little stems at the very end of each branch), you’ll notice thousands of little ‘hairs’ called “trichomes’. These have a distinctive ‘smell’ which is repugnant to pests, and their texture makes it difficult for ants and other insects to climb. You’ll also notice numerous small bumps or nodules along the lower stem – among the trichomes. These are potential root starts which will grow roots if that part of the plant touches soil. Burying the stem will allow all these little nodules to develop into roots, strengthening the base of plant. The broken egg adds protein to nourish the new plant as it grows, and calcium as the shell breaks down – which is an important nutrient for tomatoes.
Throughout the growing season, adding crushed egg shells to the base of your tomatoes adds the “promise of future calcium”. Calcium is important and egg shells take an entire season to break down, so its a long term commitment. Sprinkling egg shells will deter soft bodied pests like slugs and cutworms and will eventually breakdown to add calcium, so plan to add them often and throughout the growing time. Mulching with dry grass or compost around the base of your plants will keep water from evaporating too quickly and will add nutrients as it breaks down.
Tomatoes are a vine, but unlike other vines they don’t naturally climb up. They want to trail. Gardeners want them growing up to keep free air flow and to make best use of ground space. Stake them and tie frequently as they grow, securing them. I trim all lower leaves as the plant grows, at least for the lower 6-8 inches. As the plant grows and I can spare the room, I prune the lower leaves higher – as high as 18 inches. This prevents water from splashing on the leaves (which may cause decay and introduce disease), and allows light penetration and free air flow making for a healthier environment.
The tomato usually has a single main stem, but every branch has the potential of having a new stem grow out of its ‘elbow’, creating many other stems and directions for the plant to take. These additional stems are rarely suitable for staking purposes, so clip them out when you can. If your plant was allowed to grow for years and take over your garden, you might want to leave many of those sub stems on, but because of our shortened season, it is advisable to reduce them – encouraging the plant to put more energy into fruiting rather than building an empire.
Indeterminate tomato plants can easily grow 8-10 feet high, even in an Alberta summer. About the end of July, I begin topping mine off – pruning the growth that comes from the top, encouraging growth on the existing plant. By mid August I begin pruning all branches without fruit and the ends of the branches with fruit – reducing the energy going to green growth and redirecting it to existing fruit.
I plant a few cherry type tomatoes that will start producing early, ripening by mid July for early eating, and then bigger tomatoes for later eating and eventual harvest. That way I stretch the season of eating tomatoes out as long as I can.
Harvesting when they’re ripe
almost, but not quite ready. Give it another few days. These tomatoes are about 2 pounds each. Romanian Giants. As most heritage types, they’re not the prettiest tomatoes on the block, but definitely the most delicious I’ve ever grown. I’m committed to them.
Most of my earlier tomatoes are picked purely for eating out of hand or to add to garden salads. When the bigger ones start ripening and you’re picking to slice for a sandwich, look for firm texture and that beautiful red colour we all love. When the numbers increase and you can harvest more, then roast, grill or fry them to use as building blocks for pasta, soup, pizza, or to use as simple sides next to your favorite entrees. Two of our favourite ways to eat fresh tomatoes are on a toasted sandwich with pesto mayo, and in a fresh tomato bruschetta on focaccia or sour dough bread. Fresh tomato soup is a dish I wait all year for. For months not a single day goes by that tomatoes are not a major part of our meals. We’ve waited all year long for this season and I will not waste it.
When your tomatoes are ripening faster than you can use them – happy day. That’s when you look for ways to preserve the excess: can them in quarts or pints, make salsa to eat fresh or can, make roasted tomato sauce, freeze them whole to buy yourself some time, or freeze your roasted tomatoes, dry roast them in your oven with garlic, oil and a few herbs (my version of ‘sundried tomatoes’), or even dehydrate them in slices to use for tomato powder if you have enough.
Store at room temperature – in the kitchen – where you can see them and constantly pick out the ripe ones to use. They retain they’re distinctive acid-base flavour at room temperature. Never ever, ever store them in the refrigerator unless they’re ripening too fast and you intend to cook them right away anyway. Refrigerating them wrecks the taste of tomatoes and softens the texture. Once they’ve been refrigerated they’re only good for cooking.
On the other hand, a cut tomato must be refrigerated. Some say that storing it cut side down and wrapped in plastic is the best way, but time if of the essence. A day or two at most is all you can expect it to stay good.
Harvesting when they’re green
At the end of the season, covering your tomatoes with a big sheet for the night, is good protection for a short term frost. And its worth it, if there’s promise of another week or two of warm September weather. But if you have to do that every night, its time to give up and concede that summer is over. Get some big boxes out there and pick your tomatoes. Pull the plants out and turn upside down to see all the potential harvestable tomatoes. Twist and pull them off the stem and gently lay in the box. I separate the partially ripe ones so that I can keep a closer eye on them. Store them at room temperature.
Don’t waste anything: I prune the smaller branches off the main woody stalks and mow them up to add to our end-of-season compost. The big stalks I put in the city compost as they’ll take too long to decay in my little garden set up.
Saving seed
When you have a heritage tomato you’re in love with, do yourself a favour and save its seed for planting next late winter or early spring. Easy to do in a fully ripe tomato: simply use a spoon to scoop out some seed. Rinse in a fine sieve to get rid of additional pulp and lay the seed on a piece of paper towel in a single layer. Allow seeds to fully dry out on the paper towel, then roll it up, label the type and year with a black felt pen and store in in plastic or paper bag with your other seeds. That’s it. It really is that simple. When you’re ready to plant, gently remove the seed from the paper towel. If it doesn’t want to come off, no problem – just bury the piece of paper with the seed. It will germinate just fine.
Preserving tomatoes
CANNING: See my post Stocking Up: Food Preserving – Canning 101 for suggestions on canning tomatoes. Specifics: Blanching is important to help you peel them. The time table for canning tomatoes in a hot water bath is 35 minutes for a pint, 45 minutes for a quart. Use 1 teaspoon salt in a quart and 1/2 teaspoon in a pint. I also use 1 tablespoon lemon juice for quarts and 1/2 tablespoon for pints to up the acid level just a little. A friend told me this year that she adds coarsely ground peppercorns to her canned tomatoes which I think is a wonderful idea. I plan to do that. Might be my new thing.
FREEZING: When I freeze tomatoes I’m usually in a hurry – so I don’t prep them at all. I just put them whole in a freezer bag and try to lay them flat in the freezer till they freeze. I label them with a date of course, and I try to use them that first winter to free up freezer space and because freezing has a shorter shelf life than we might imagine.
tomato slices on a dehydrator rack
DEHYDRATING: is not my first choice for preserving tomatoes, and I would only use it as a method if I had lots to spare. Slice fresh ripe tomatoes, remove excess water and seeds, lay slices flat on your dehydrator racks. I try to keep the temperature around 110 degrees. It will take a good 24 hours+ to dry fully. When they’re crisp enough that you can break in half, they’re done. Store in a glass container out of the light. Use in soups or chilies. Or put them into the blender to powder them. Use the powder in place of tomato paste in any recipe.
yes its true I could make my own tomato powder, but its hard to beat the quality of Thrive Life products, so since I rarely have a harvest big enough to justify dehydrating, this is the tomato powder I choose to use. With a 25 year shelf life, its the perfect addition to my long term food storage.
This post is too long to add tomato recipes, so I’ll create another post for my favourite recipes. I’d love to hear some of yours too.
Homegrown tomatoes are my favourite garden crop. I hope you’ll grow them and discover the value of them and how easy it is to add them to your life. I’d love to hear your comments and your experiences with tomatoes.
Over our married life there have been many discussions about Hallowe’en. We haven’t always seen eye to eye on it, but we manage to get through unscathed. We’ve noted that candy hits the grocery store shelves a lot earlier than it used to; in fact some of it never leaves, it just increases in volume for two or three months.
I’ve never been big on having candy in the house on a regular basis. My kids pretty much all agree that that was one of the bigger mistakes I made as a mom, and they went into adulthood with those scars. I conceded (with limitations) at Hallowe’en, Christmas and Easter. Some things haven’t changed very much. I can’t help it. I simply cannot be the one who gives children ‘candy’. One day my 5 year old grandson Braeden said “I have a healthy gramma and a candy gramma.” Oh oh, I knew exactly where this one was gonna go, but I opened the door anyway. “Which one do you like best?” I asked. With absolutely no hesitation – he had already made his decision “The candy Gramma.” LOL
I chuckled when I mentioned it to my daughter-in-law later, and she was mortified assuring me he didn’t mean it. But he did mean it, and that was 100% okay with me; I wasn’t offended then and I’m not offended now. It was funny to me, and it still is. He spoke from the immediate perspective of an innocent – focused on instant gratification, and the facts. The most important fact at the moment was that he.liked.candy. That’s okay. The truth is, I also like candy. If we’re talking only about the ‘taste’ of milk chocolate, I like it as much as anybody else – possibly more than many. And if that was the only consideration, we’d eat it for dinner at my house. But sugar and I have had a tumultuous relationship over the years.
I have a lotta dental work that can attest to how much candy I ate as a child, combined with poor training on personal dental care. And I have struggled my whole life with weight issues. It didn’t make any sense to me to allow candy a place of honour in the home I raised my children in. The jury’s still out on what the best parenting choices regarding sweets might be, but suffice it to say that most parents make the best choice they know how. Certainly I did. But eventually the kids grew up, gained more autonomy over their candy choices, and in their turn made the best parenting choices they could.
In the meantime, I still like chocolate and I still live in a 1st world country which pretty much worships it. I may have a lotta personal strengths, but willpower has never been one of them. Case in point is this dialogue below – which is absolutely true in every word, with varying degrees of repetitiveness over the years.
Sept 1, Dan says: “I saw Halloween candy over at Sobeys. Guess we better get some eh?” me: “Why? We don’t need a bunch of chocolate bars taking up residence in this house – two months before they have to.” he: “Well we don’t want to wait so long that they run out.” me: “Oh come on! The last time a store ran out of Halloween candy was the Halloween day that I was 10 years old. (a childhood memory) he: “I just thought it would be good to get it over with. Then we won’t have to worry about it.” me: “Do you lose sleep worrying about possibly forgetting to pick up Hallowe’en candy? We both know that if that stuff comes into this house we’ll eat it all up, and then have to buy some more. And so do the stores know that. Which is why its on the shelves on Labour Day.” he: “Well we might eat ‘some’ but that’s okay.” me: “No its not Dan. Because unlike you, I don’t eat ‘some’. It will haunt me and I’ll be into it everyday till its gone. I can’t have that kinda temptation around. I’m sorry you married such a weak person.” he: “I’ll hide it. You’ll be fine.” me: “I won’t be fine. I’ll rip the house apart till I find it.” he: “I’ll keep it in the garage.” me: “You don’t think I know how to find your little stashes in the garage?” he: “I’ll put it in the freezer.” me: “I love frozen chocolate.” he: “I’ll keep it over at the store.” Oh that’s a good one. We owned a family bookstore (Generations LDS Bookstore) at the time – where I might add, I spent the biggest part of each day. me: “Oh THAT sounds like a brilliant plan!” he: “I’ll keep it in the trunk of the car I drive. When I’m not home, it won’t be here.”
. . . . . . . let’s face it, to some of life’s issues there are just no perfect solutions, and that’s okay. We’ll get through them and keep things in perspective. Life is full of compromises.
It’s getting close to Raspberry season in my part of the world, and Fresh Raspberries straight from the garden make EVERYTHING life can throw at you worth it!
A favourite raspberry memory of mine involves a family story of my two sisters. It makes me smile every time – so I am sharing it with you. My sister Pearl-Ann used to have a wonderful, big raspberry patch in her back yard in Cold Lake. My sister Wendy didn’t, so she would sometimes come pick in Pearl-Ann’s patch when the season was at its peak. Pearl-Ann also had a VERY BIG spider that lived in a corner of her raspberry patch, a corner the family dubbed “Ted’s Corner”. Yep, they named the spider, it seemed like the right thing to do since he was part of the family so-to-speak. The family pretty much all agreed that Ted was so big and scary looking, he deserved all the raspberries in his corner. Life is after all, full of compromises.
One day when Wendy came to pick, Pearl-Ann – having neglected (we’ll be kind and say she had ‘forgotten’) to tell her about Ted – stood at the kitchen window to watch. Her husband Brett came in and asked “Whad’ya doin?” “Watching Wendy pick raspberries.” “Did you tell her about Ted?” “Nope.” “Can I watch too?” “Sure.” Not surprisingly, the biggest and juiciest unpicked raspberries were in Ted’s Corner. The kids came up and asked “What are you guys doing?” “Watching Aunt Wendy pick raspberries.” “Did you tell her about Ted?” “Nope.” “Can we watch too?” “Sure.”
What happened next has become a thing that family legends are made of, and when it was over, Pearl-Ann was inspired to write poetry: Wendy wailin’ went a pailin’ to make some raspberry jam. Ted came a crawlin’, and Wendy went a’sprawlin’ and screamed “I’ll KILL you Pearl-Ann!
In the end, I’m not sure Wendy got too many raspberries, I think some got lost in the ‘sprawling’ part. But she eventually saw the humour and took one for the team – as sacrifices must be made when creating family folklore.
This gentle captured moment of three year old Danica picking the season’s end of raspberries are part of why they’re part of my DNA. I hope to never be without a raspberry patch.
Originating in Europe and introduced to North America in the late 1700’s, raspberries thrive in the wild and in backyards across Canada – a favourite summer staple. 80% of the cultivated raspberries we buy in grocery stores are grown in the Fraser Valley of southern British Columbia. While FRESH raspberries are the best food in the world, they’re only available for 3 or 4 weeks a year. What to do? Well, its freeze dried raspberries to the rescue of course. Always the next most nutritious choice after hand picked and still warm.
5 reasons eating Raspberries will improve your health
Raspberries are amazing, with many health benefits, packing a lot of nutrients to keep you healthy. They satisfy your sweet teeth without being high in sugar, in fact they are one of the lowest sugar-fruits of all, even less than apples, making them an excellent choice for those of us wanting to reduce our sugar intake.
They are a powerhouse of antioxidants which makes them highly valuable in lowering the risk of heart related diseases, cancer and stress related diseases, as well as reducing inflammation associated with arthritis.
Raspberries are a high whole food source of dietary fiber which supports good digestive health, contributing to a feeling of fullness and reducing overeating. Their fiber helps beneficial gut bacteria flourish – good news for everyone, but especially those with chronic gut diseases.
Research indicates that adding raspberries to a diabetic’s diet reduces the amount of insulin needed to manage blood sugar levels.
Raspberries contain flavonoids which help improve coordination, memory and mood, also helping to eliminate toxic proteins associated with brain dysfunction. They are a top brain-supporting food, highly valuable for those with Alzheimers or Parkinsons because they help counter oxidative stress associated with those diseases.
more ways to eat them
Fresh raspberries are wonderful to eat out of hand, or better yet – straight off the cane, but they have a very short season, and they spoil quickly too, so don’t pick them until you’re ready to eat them. While you can, sprinkle fresh raspberries on your cereal, in your yogurt, over a fresh salad, on the side of your plate and in your morning smoothie. Mash with a fork and sweeten to taste to use as a fresh jam on toast, pancakes, muffins or waffles. Throw them into your muffin batter (folding them in at the last minute to prevent squishing them).
Freeze drying is the #1 best way to preserve natural goodness of all fruits and vegetables, including Raspberries. Thrive Life is my brand of choice – primarily for their NUTRILOCK guarantee which assures me of their nutritional superiority, as well as being completely GMO free, and containing NO artificial colours, flavours or additives of any kind. In addition to that, the shelf life is an impressive 25 years! making it the perfect choice for long term food storage. I highly recommend it! As the perfect example of why I choose Thrive Life over any other form of purchased raspberries, this nutritional comparison to store purchased ‘fresh’ raspberries (below) says it all. Why the difference? Because one of the guarantees Thrive Life stands behind, is that their produce is picked, washed, and flash frozen within 6 hours (usually 2-4) of harvest. In that frozen state they are transported to Thrive Life’s state-of-the-art facility where they go through the second step of the two step process of freeze-drying. They are then sealed in BPA free cans (oxygen free, moisture free). I call that “fresher than fresh”. The only thing better is right out of your backyard garden.
“With THRIVE freeze-dried raspberries you can have deliciously ripe raspberries any time of the year. THRIVE Raspberries, with their rich, red colour and succulent sweetness make the perfect snack, dessert, or topping. You can add THRIVE Raspberries to almost anything! Try them in ice cream or yogurt, use them to top your cereal, make them into sauces and syrup, or you can always just eat them straight from the can. No matter how you eat THRIVE Raspberries, you can be certain that you are strengthening your immune system and improving your cardiovascular health.” – from the website
While you have garden fresh raspberries enjoy them every day of their relatively short season. Freeze your excess to use all winter long, or make raspberry jam, or add them to rhubarb fruit leather. Any way you can incorporate them into your diet you’ll be better for it.
I’d love to hear your about favourite ways to eat raspberries.
First of all, let’s clarify the name – its always sorta bugged me. It implies that this soup is traditionally served at Italian weddings, but its not. It is actually a poor translation of the Italian name – Minestra Maritata, which directly translates: Minestra – Soup, Maritata – Married. While this doesn’t roll off the English tongue as easily – it refers to the ‘marriage’ of the intense flavour combination of seasoned sausage, leafy green garden vegetables and of course garlic and basil. There! Now that we’ve got that cleared up, it makes a lot more sense and we can appreciate what we’re creating.
For my soup, my ingredients of choice generally come from my garden. Fresh garden spinach is ideal, but I generally have that only in the early part of the growing season. I do NOT buy the ‘not-as-fresh-as-you-think-it-is‘ spinach in the produce department. There is ZERO vitamin C left in spinach after the 4th day of harvest. Unless you know for sure that the ‘fresh’ spinach you’re eating has been picked within the last 96 hours, you are not getting what you previously assumed you were. When I am not using my own FRESH spinach, I prefer to use THRIVE LIFE freeze dried spinach. My reason is simple. It is picked at the peak of perfection – when all nutrients are the way nature intends, then it is washed, chopped and flash frozen within 2-4 hours! In that frozen state, it is shipped to one of their facilities where it goes through the second step of the two-step ‘freeze-drying’ process. In actual fact, it retains 95% (+) of its original food value! To me, that is a very big deal. I want the food on my table to be the best, most nourishing food I can possibly put there. Add to that the fact that it has a 25 year shelf life, and it is a total winner for me. Freeze Dried Spinach holds an honourable place in my food storage and in my pantry. It is a vegetable I use several times a week and would never be without.
The key to a beautiful Italian Wedding Soup is the combination of its intense flavours. Keep in mind that this is common food, I expect – kinda like cabbage rolls in a Ukranian household – where every family prefers it the way their gramma made it. So don’t be intimidated, but pay attention to some key ingredients.
pay attention to your ingredients
1. don’t add raw meat (yuck). Make sure the sausage or meatballs are cooked and browned. Otherwise they’ll be a yucky colour and squishy. bleh 2. garlic and Italian cooking are synonymous so be generous with it. 3. parmesan is also synonymous with Italian cooking. Just sayin’ . . . . . . 4. I think its preferable to use tiny pasta, but if you’re needing to go gluten free, or you don’t have any, use rice, and if you only have larger pasta, go for it, but be cautious about not cooking it too long. 5. Pesto. If you don’t have it, you can use lots of basil (you already have the garlic and parm in the soup). But pesto stands alone as a beautiful thing, and in my opinion – is important to the final outcome of your soup. link to my basil pesto recipe
Because I use so many freeze dried vegetables, it takes less than 20 for me to decide what I’m making, and have it on the table. Watch video here.
using the best ingredients gives you the best results
You’ll notice in this video that I added green onions (because I had them), and lemon juice (because I had it), and celery (because I like to). You can also substitute other greens for spinach if that’s what you have. I really prefer spinach, but I’d use kale in a pinch. I generally use freeze dried options from my pantry which simplifies everything, and keeps me up close and personal with the food I choose to include in my food storage.
Recipe: Cindy’s Italian Wedding Soup
6-8 cups chicken broth (add the remaining 2 cups later as needed) 2-3 cloves minced garlic 1 cup orzo (or other type of small pasta) 1/2 cup Thrive FD chopped onions 1 cup Thrive FD sausage crumbles 2 T Thrive dehydrated carrots 2 heaping T Pesto (I mean HEAPING, but if you’re shy, add less) 2 cups Thrive spinach 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
Bring 6 cups of broth to a boil. Add orzo, return to boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Add garlic, onion, sausage crumbles and carrots. Gently simmer till pasta and sausage are tender, stirring frequently (3-5 min). Remove from heat. Add pesto and spinach. Stir to combine. Add additional broth if needed. Add parmesan. Always taste test. Season with salt and pepper IF you feel it needs it, especially if you went light on the pesto.
Let soup sit 5 minutes for everything to get along beautifully together. Serve and ENJOY. +hint: I often serve with a dollop of fresh Tzatziki on top (mmmm)
Do you have any favourite tips you use for Italian Wedding Soup? I’d love to hear them.
I am loving my study of Jesus the Christby James Edward Talmage. I have read it before but its been a long time, and it is an excellent companion to my current study of the New Testament. In 1905, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, requested Talmage to write the book that would later come to be known as Jesus the Christ. They requested he compile his lectures (as a professor of religion), into a book that could be widely available to church members and other readers. At the time, Talmage had many responsibilities with his church callings, his family, and his profession that kept him from starting the book but nearly ten years later, following another request from the First Presidency, he began in earnest writing Jesus the Christ. Such was the importance the First Presidency placed on the writing of this book, that they set aside space in the Salt Lake Temple for him to work uninterrupted and without the usual distractions of everyday life. Just under one year from starting it, Jesus the Christ was published in September 1915.
I am utterly amazed with every page that I read. Especially when I consider the conditions and time that Brother Talmage wrote. Writing in the world in which I live, I have at my fingertips, this computer – that I not only type on, but edit my own thoughts, and through which I can research almost any subject or printed work I desire. Most works on the life and ministry of the Saviour were written after Talmage’s time, though I am certain he had a few respected works that he read from. The most important sources of information however, were the scriptures themselves. and of course continual communion with the spirit of the Lord throughout the project. Clearly the fruits of his work were meant to be shared. It is my highest recommendation that everyone read it – at least once, hopefully several times. I promise that you will feel the spirit as you do, and that your testimony of Jesus the Christ will expand. You will refer back to the things you learn for many years to come.
What a joy it is for me to read it again with a few other women friends who are also reading in conjunction with their current study of the New Testament. We are taking turns reviewing chapters, and this chapter fell to me to share. In the interest of time (as I tend to be too wordy anyway) I chose to focus on Zacharias, as his story spoke to me.
My thoughts on chapter 7, the Annunciation of John and Jesus.
The story of the annunciation of the most important birth in the history of the world, and the annunciation of the forerunner that accompanies it, are in my opinion commonly skipped over, as to be almost a postscript of the Christmas story. We are all familiar with the stories. We could relate them briefly from memory: Gabriel visited the elderly priest Zacharias in the temple, and told him his prayers had been heard and that he and his wife Elisabeth would soon have a son. The angel told Zacharias that this boy would be great in the sight of the Lord, and that his name was to be John. We know that the priest was amazed to the point of doubting that such a thing was even possible, due to the age of he and his wife. He asked for a sign and was given one – that he would be dumb until the foretold events unfolded. And so it was.
We know that the same angel visited the young Mary a few months later, and gave her similar news. That she would conceive and bear a son whom she should name Jesus. We know that Mary was a virgin – which was integral to the story because no mortal man would be the father of this child. He would be the Son of God. Nothing doubting she willingly submitted herself completely, to her role in this wondrous plan. We know that the angel told her about her older cousin Elisabeth’s condition and that Mary went to visit her. We know that the two women, old and young – found solace in each other as they sorted out their respective roles. And then we get to the real event: Christmas story about the birth and the shepherds and the heavenly choir and the wisemen who came from the east. And we leave the annunciations to the side for another year, and another brief recounting.
I love that an entire chapter in JESUS THE CHRIST is devoted to fleshing out these two stories because in them lie truths and context that will aid us greatly in our understanding. Beginning with the story of Zacharias and Elisabeth, Elder Talmage explains that many generations had passed in Israel since any heavenly contact had been noted, even in the temple. In fact, the people had come almost to believe that those were things of the past and that there were no longer prophets in Israel. So it is not difficult to imagine the surprise, and even a healthy trepidation when Zacharias found himself no longer alone as he fulfilled his singular responsibilities in a part of the temple that was forbidden to everyone except for a chosen priest when called upon to be there. And even that priest would likely only be there once in his lifetime.
It may seem unnecessary but I believe it is important to Re-emphasize that Zacharias was a ‘good’ man. Such a good man that Luke described both he and his wife as “righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless“. I’d love to be described that way. Truly they “walked the covenant path” as we would say today. They had lived their lives out, never having been blessed with children – which no doubt was a great sorrow for them (for a number of reasons). The angel implied that that sorrow had been the subject of many a prayer on the part of Zacharias when he said “Fear not Zacharias; for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.” He further said that the couple would have joy and gladness and that many others as well “would rejoice at his birth, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.” The angel said that John will go before the Lord teaching, and making ready the people for the Lord.
This ‘forerunner’ had been prophesied by Old Testament prophets, just as the coming Messiah had been prophesied, and there is little doubt that Zacharias recognized the prediction of what the angel now referred to. And THIS is where we should remind ourselves how good a man Zacharias was, because he had a ‘weak moment’, and for that weak moment – that temporary lack of faith, he was severely chastised. Gabriel stood tall and let Zacharias know just who exactly he was speaking to. “I am GABRIEL, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. And behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words[!]” Take that Zack! That good and faithful man’s worst day was recorded for the rest of Christendom to reflect on for two thousand years. And sadly, it is the thing he became best known for. How would you like your worst moment – the one you regretted from the get-go, to be what you are immortalized for?
If John was foretold, and set apart before the world began for his great calling – as we believe those “noble and great ones” that Abraham spoke of were, then it was also known who his parents would be. Brigham Young said of Joseph Smith’s heritage “The Lord had his eyes upon him, and upon his father, and upon his father’s father, and upon their progenitors clear back to … Adam. He has watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its fountain to the birth of that man.” John too, would have had chosen parentage, chosen and set apart for their respective roles and responsibilities. Zacharias was special and so was Elisabeth. Long before they knew they’d be the parents of the one who would introduce the Saviour of the world to humanity, it was known who they would be. Zacharias was no ordinary-joe; he was a noble servant of God, who ultimately gave his life protecting his son when Herod slew the innocents in and around the hills of Bethlehem. And yet, in a critical moment he hesitated / he doubted. No heavenly visitations recorded in Israel, no prophets speaking to Israel in over 500 years! That the first one in half a millennia would tell you something as unexpected as what Gabriel told that aged priest – who could blame him for doubting? Would we do any better?
Zacharias lived with that sad sign for nearly a year – unable to verbally communicate with anyone, including Elisabeth – about the wondrous-ness of what they were experiencing. Talmage refers to him as “highly blessed though sorely smitten”, the penalty for his doubt already operative before he left the temple, and in place till his tongue was loosened on the day of John’s circumcision when he burst forth in prophecy saying among other things “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people, by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God ….” Talmage said “The last words Zacharias had uttered prior to the infliction of dumbness, were words of doubt and unbelief, words in which he had called for a sign as proof of authority of one who came from the presence of the Almighty; the words with which he broke his long silence were words of praise unto God in whom he had ALL assurance …”
Yes, I think there may have been a little ‘shame’ in Zacharias having to live with the consequence of his doubt and challenge to the angel – so unbecoming of someone like himself. And yes, I think there might have been some tears as he confessed to Elisabeth why he had lost his power to speak. How could he not have felt it? But he was a better man than to wallow in it. He had learned a good lesson that I doubt he’d ever forget. He and Elisabeth had nine silent months to draw closer to God and to feel of His great love for them, and to marvel at the fact that they were about to have a son, and not just any son! It’s insightful to consider the humility that would naturally accompany the assignment to parent such a child! Such a privilege. Oh, I am SURE they knew they were loved and trusted – notwithstanding past mistakes.
There may be times in our lives when we’re not our best selves. Times when our faith wavers, when we doubt and question things we never thought we’d doubt or question. Or perhaps someone we love lets us down in the moment they should have done better. I believe Zacharias would have some counsel for us. I believe he would own his ‘moment’ and refer to it as the great lesson it was for him. I’d love to hear his counsel. I believe he would ask us to allow ourselves a little grace, and that he’d reassure us God never stops loving us – even when we have to live out some natural consequences of our actions. “Let God prevail” I think he would say. And surely God WILL prevail.
Thank you Zacharias for moving forward in faith. And for never wavering again. Thank you for telling your story so that Luke could write it down many years later. Thank you for being brave enough to let your weak moment be known, so that we could learn from it, and more understand the nature of God. Thank you for the important role you played in events that you never lived to see transpire. Thank you for living your life in such a way that God chose you to play that role.
Thank you Elisabeth for loving the man that he was, and for being patient in living with the consequence of his mistake, not your own. Thank you for being a true mother in Zion even when you despaired of ever having your own children, and for devoting the rest of your life to raising this one very special son.
Thank you Luke for being kind to Zacharias as you shared his story, and for emphasizing that notwithstanding what we were about to learn about him, he was an exceptionally good and obedient man, walking blameless before the Lord.
Thank you Brother Talmage for feeling a love for Zacharias, and for helping me to see him through a different lens.
I’d love to hear your thoughts Reader, on this great and humble figure in the New Testament – who would have lived his life out in obscurity except for the son he would sire. And of course his one weak moment.
Warmly,
Cindy Suelzle
*quote about Joseph Smith’s heritage found in Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young (1997), pg 96. *other quotes found in the chapter reviewed here
At first glance you might think that a simple garden can do little to improve a community, but you’d be wrong. Sometimes, “By small and simple things great things are brought to pass“(1) Through community gardens, neighbourhoods come together, friendships are established, individuals become part of a thing bigger than themselves, and local governments forge new partnerships and connect with their residents. While it isn’t everyone’s cuppa tea, you don’t have to actually ‘garden’ to see the value in it, or to support one. Community gardens are a low cost way to repurpose wasted, unsightly space. What town or city in their right mind would turn down a well thought out plan to create one?
Take Sakaw Gardens for instance, in the heart of Mill Woods. At summer’s end of 2020, community member Myrna Peters pitched her idea of a community garden to those attending an Annual General meeting. Her idea was to use the space of a former ice rink in the nearby school field. It was enthusiastically embraced by the Millhurst Community League. In fact, a garden had been on their radar since a Needs Assessment Survey in 2015 determined that it was the number one choice for using that space. A volunteer willing to head up the project just hadn’t been found.
I was in that meeting – with other masked strangers sitting six feet apart. It was my first AGM for the community league. My interest was piqued – I was intrigued – I was allured – and I was excited about the possibilities – all at the same time. Like others in 2020, I had been feeling some compulsion toward community service, and had reached out – which is why I was in that meeting. But gardening! Gardening was a personal passion.
The stars aligned that day for a lot of people. For Myrna – her idea landed in fertile ground. For the community executive – they finally found a willing volunteer to head up a project they already supported. For me – this was something I already loved. I followed Myrna out to the parking lot, introduced myself, and gave her my phone number. I promised to do what I could to help her.
To say it all fell together would undermine the hundreds of hours of preparatory work that went into getting it off the ground. But there were a lot of things that did come together. First of all, we didn’t have to invent the wheel, we reached out to other community gardens and asked for help. Nearby Ridgewood Gardens freely shared their experience in getting their community garden up and functional. Coordinator Danna Schumann gave us a tour, highlighting their strengths and pitfalls and shared information that assisted us with our application to the city. They were two years ahead of us, so their experience was fresh and helpful. A handful of community members responded to the call, coming forward with skills necessary to get a project like this put together. We established a team, met regularly, applied for grants, coordinated volunteer efforts, jumped through hoops to comply with city requirements, and established friendships.
Two and a half years into our project, we have not only completed our Phase 1 and Phase 2, but are on track to complete Phase 3 by this spring. What are the different Phases? Well, funny you should ask, as I was just about to tell you.
Phase 1 was the garden itself: complete with 35 plots, some inground, some raised beds. Included were two public gardens, a school plot and a Food Bank plot.
Phase 2 began with an orchard including all things “Fruit”. Trees: apple, plum and cherry Bushes: saskatoon, raspberry, currant and gooseberry Plants: rhubarb and strawberry It also included a rabbit fence, a rain roof, a dry creek for runoff, picnic tables and benches, as well as a hardpack crushed limestone path connecting 11a avenue to the garden. We call this PAT’S PATH. And the jewel on Phase 2: six wheelchair garden boxes. We call these PAT’S PLANTERS.
Pat Whaley
Pat Whaley was a long time community volunteer who was a double amputee confined to a wheelchair. She wouldn’t want to defined this way, but it was a fact of her life and it affected every part of it. Pat was present in those early weeks while Myrna’s vision was unveiled, but she stopped Myrna in her tracks when she said “This is so awesome, but I’ll never be able to see it because I’ll never be able to get there.” Funny how one simple statement can stand out and haunt you. It changed everything for Myrna. It changed ‘the vision’. Before that year was over, Pat Whaley left this world for a better one. She left her wheelchair behind, but she’d made her point. It was agreed that a community garden should be INCLUSIVE, and that meant those in wheelchairs or walkers or with other mobility issues should be able to not only “get there“, but should be able to garden. Such is the legacy Pat Whaley left behind.
No doubt Pat looks on from her vantage point and is happy with what she sees. Her wistful comment back in the fall of 2020 inspired changes to the original plan that included six wheelchair accessible garden beds, a hard pack, crushed limestone path connecting the main sidewalk to the garden and winding through the orchard area, wheelchair accessible picnic tables, and swinging gates on our fence. Pat would also be happy to know that our Gazebo (Phase 3 and on schedule to be completed this spring) is at ground level, making it fully accessible by wheelchair.
In honour of Pat Whaley, at of the end of our 2022 season, six wheelchair beds were built, installed and filled.
They are reserved for wheelchair gardeners, and able bodied gardening volunteers stand ready to assist as needed, to make gardening at Sakaw accessible to all – even those in wheelchairs. Thank you Pat. You are remembered. And in response to your desire to partake, we hope to be accessible to others like you.
If you, or someone you know in a wheelchair, thought that eating vegetables you grew yourself was not possible, you were wrong. If you’re in the area, Sakaw Gardens welcomes you. Plots are available now to reserve on a first come basis.
warmly,
Cindy Suelzle
footnotes: 1. Alma 37:6
“a garden can be the salve that heals our hurting communities”
I know some people don’t ‘do’ Santa. I know some who don’t think we should ‘lie’ to our kids (as if Santa was a lie). And I know some who worry that he detracts from the true meaning of Christmas (hey I used to be one of those). And I even know some who think we should get back to the way Christmas was before Santa became ‘the thing‘. But before anyone jumps all over Santa Claus for being the antichrist of Christmas, we should take a little history lesson. Before Clement C. Moore brought St. Nick and children together in 1822, Christmas was hardly even recognized in North America, let alone celebrated.
Here are 10 facts that provide clarity into Santa’s real role in the way western society celebrates Christmas, and why that is a GOOD thing. A surprisingly good thing.
fact 1: December 25 is not the date of Christ’s birth and never pretended to be. It is the date set aside to celebrate His birth – not the same thing. Probably the biggest misunderstood fact of Christmas. It’s alright. Nothing wrong with it not being the actual date, lets just accept it and get on with our celebrations anyway.
fact 2: For centuries pagan religions all over the northern hemisphere celebrated the last half of December because …… , well, …. after the winter equinox, sunlight hours begin to increase. As agricultural cultures, the ‘return of the sun’ was full of hope and promise, effectively putting the dark days of winter behind them. I’m all for that too.
fact 3: In early days of the Christian Church, Rome was already entrenched in the week long celebration of an annual festival dedicated to Saturnaelia (December 17-24). Public places were decorated, gifts were exchanged and the revelry was . . . . W.I.L.D. New Roman Christian converts easily fell back into old pagan habits and customs – when they were as all encompassing as this one. The church didn’t approve of course, but it was a hard tradition to break.
fact 4: In or around the year 125, in an effort to replace the wild celebrations associated with Saturnaelia the second Bishop of Rome declared that the church should set aside a time to recognize the “nativity of our Lord and Saviour”, but as no one knew the actual date, acknowledgement of His birth began on arbitrary ‘guess-dates’, and even then, only half heartedly. It was intended to be a day for quiet reflection. Quiet reflection is a little boring when compared to the celebrations of Saturnalia, so it wasn’t a successful substitution.
fact 5: Approximately two centuries later, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, (recently converted himself, and no doubt under pressure from early church leaders to cancel-out the pagan midwinter celebrations), introduced December 25 as an immovable celebration of the “nativity of our Lord”. The timing was deliberate – another attempt to redirect the festivities, and although it might have been a step in the right direction, the nature of the celebration was pretty much the same merrymaking already associated with the winter equinox for so long. No quiet reflection – back to wild abandon. You cannot rule out centuries of established tradition so easily.
fact 6: Midwinter celebrations of one sort or another were everywhere in Europe. Apparently we all like the idea of the days getting longer. In the 1500 and 1600’s of Great Britain for instance, while the name had evolved into a “Christmas” celebration, the pattern was the same drunken week of partying it had been in pre-Christian times. Serious attempts were made to ban – even outlaw the festivities, but in the long run – the tradition was ‘of the people’ and though they had little say in any other affairs of their lives, this particular tradition prevailed – against the best attempts of the church and state to end it.
fact 7: Caroling in the streets was common, but not the way that we practice it today. Old English folk tunes like “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” celebrated the revelry with veiled threats. Large groups of drunken men would go to homes of the wealthy demanding hospitality in the form of food, drink and even money. If homeowners did not comply their residences were looted.
We wish you a merry Christmas, We wish you a merry Christmas We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year Good tidings we bring to you and your kin We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year
Oh, bring us some figgy pudding. Oh, bring us some figgy pudding Oh, bring us some figgy pudding And bring it right here! . . . . . We won’t go until we get some. We won’t go until we get some We won’t go until we get some So bring it right here! Good tidings we bring to you and your kin We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year . . . (wink wink)
Notwithstanding the apparent cheer of “good tidings we bring to you and your kin“, homeowners fully understood the threat of “we won’t go until we get some“.
fact 8: When the Puritans left England and established themselves in the new world, it is no wonder that outlawing Christmas celebrations was one of the first things they did. Who could blame them? Controlling it had proved impossible. Forbidding it from being established in their “New England” society was the only way to stay on top of it. Or so they thought . . . . but with boatloads of immigrants pouring in from Europe over the next century, the laws were eventually ignored and the drunken riots of Christmas Day became an American thing – as well as a British thing.
fact 9: In Germany, acknowledging Christmas Day had evolved very differently than it had in England. It had become a time for gathering family and friends in celebrating the birth of our Saviour. Why did it work there and not in England? Well its anyone’s guess I suppose, but my guess is that since Germany had already separated itself from the Catholic Church, they weren’t involved in the Church’s attempts to make it a sober day of reflection. Instead, it evolved naturally under the influence of Martin Luther’s theological teachings. The facts that Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1517, and that the New Testament was published in the German language in 1522 meant that the German people could access the scriptures in their own language earlier than English speaking people could. In any case, they eventually came to mark Christmas Day as a time to acknowledge the nativity of Jesus Christ by sharing food and fellowship with those they loved. It became the second most important religious holy day – following Easter.
fact 10: When Queen Victoria married her German cousin Albert in 1840, he brought with him a German way of celebrating Christmas with family oriented traditions including the Christmas tree and a creche. After centuries of change being forced upon them, the British people began to willingly adopt it through the peaceful, patient and reverent example of the royal family.
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Backing up to sometime in the 10th century, the Byzantine author “Simon of Metaphrastes”, collected and compiled scores of stories about various Catholic saints – including one named Nicholas of Myra, an Archbishop who had lived in the southern part of present day Turkey, sometime during the 4th century. It was Saint Nicholas’ kindness, generosity and love of children that endeared him to the people. The day of his death – December 6, became known as St Nicholas Day, a time when children were often visited and given gifts. As time went on, the reputation of St Nicholas’ Christlike qualities inspired many – one such, being a young man living in what is now the present day Czech Republic. The Bohemian Duke of Borivoy was a devout Christian who put into practice the spirit of Christian charity. Though he lived at a time we now call the dark ages, he wished to reflect God in all that he did. He was murdered at a young age but the legend of his goodness and generosity lived on. 800 years later, an Anglican Priest (and linguist) – John Mason Neale, wrote (or may have translated from Czech) a beautiful Christmas Carol – “Good King Wenceslas” which extends the legend of the Bohemian Duke into our time. It was a song well known when I was a child, and it was a personal favourite of mine. I always hoped there really was such a person as the good king.
an interesting explanation of the origins of the beloved carol Good King Wenceslas
Almost every European country eventually came up with their own version of St Nicholas, visiting children and leaving gifts, including the English Father Christmas.
Where actual truth and legend intersect in each account of a benevolent Christmas ‘man’, is impossible to know. Such is the nature of time and legends. But collectively they help us understand the extraordinary character of the being who eventually morphed into our present day Santa Claus. In 1808 American author Washington Irving, wrote about the Dutch Sinterklaas, who dressed in typical Dutch clothes with knee britches and a broad brimmed hat. He travelled in a flying horse drawn wagon, dropping gifts down chimneys.
No doubt knowing the legend of Sinterklass, another American author from New York wrote a fanciful poem for his children about what happened one Christmas Eve while they were sleeping (dreaming about sugar plums). He wrote it in 1822, calling it “A Visit from St Nicholas“. One year later a friend released it to a newspaper for others to enjoy, but Clement C. Moore declined to have his name published with it, worried how it would be received with his academic and religious credentials. He didn’t publicly ‘own’ authorship till 1844, but in those twenty plus years, his description of what happened during the night before Christmas had affected the way Americans celebrated the holiday. With hardly even mentioning ‘children’, he made Christmas all about them, and from him, we learned what St Nicholas looked like and dressed like. We learned that he smoked a pipe. We learned that he gained entry into the house through the chimney (clever). We learned that he arrived in a flying sleigh, powered by eight magical reindeer. We even learned all of their names. Suddenly, Moore created a physical persona based on a little known old-world saint who, folklore taught, was kind and charitable, and gave gifts to children. And, he brought him to New York! The rest – as they say, became the stuff of legends. The time was right. Over the following decades, Christmas evolved from a holiday characterized by drinking and riots into a day of family and giving.
And while all this revelatory information was taking root in America, Victoria’s England was finally ready for a Christmas revelation of their own, through another beloved author – Charles Dickens. In December of 1843, A Christmas Carol was published. Though it wasn’t a financial success, it literally changed the way Great Britain celebrated Christmas. Between Queen Victoria’s example of reverence for the season, and the transformatory story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, the ground was ripe and ready to harvest. Almost two centuries later, neither story has ever left publication, and during that time – the spirit of love, kindness and charity has ruled over the previous drunken parties of yesteryear.
Of the Christmas pudding, “Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage.”
Though Mrs. Cratchit’s Christmas goose and pudding suggest those dishes were the typical Christmas menu for Londoners, it only became so because Dickens implied it already was.
Through Fred’s veneration of Christmas we might believe he spoke for all Londoners when he testified “I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time when it has come round, …. as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” This is the perfect example of how ‘art’ made the world a better place. After 1843, Londoners began celebrating Christmas the way Dickens said they already did.
It was upon this fertile ground that Scrooge and Santa literally changed the way we celebrate Christmas. They may have stood on the shoulders of German Lutherans and St Nicholas to do so, but it is to them that we owe the charitable, increased Christlike love we feel this time of year. Rather than wanting to go back to a ‘simpler time’ before Santa squeezed in, I hope we give him the credit he’s due. He in fact, is the emissary of the REAL meaning of Christmas in North America. Throughout all those dark centuries of apostasy, the light of Christ lived on – a spark here and a spark there, that made the world they lived in a better place, not only while they lived, but through the stories that were told about them long after they died. It was a slow revelation to me as a young mother. I was suspicious of Santa’s motives at first, and I worried he’d harm my children’s outlook, but I’ve since learned to appreciate his unique role, and be grateful for him. I see him now as an instrument, used to flame the light of Christ that had never disappeared, but had previously grown dim from time to time. The pairing of the nativity of Jesus Christ with the ungodly midwinter festivities of days gone by, may have been a mean joke of the adversary in the beginning, but as always – God is in the details, and He prevails.
With the commercialization of Christmas those living in North America and England got a chance to experience the real meaning of Christmas. Santa put an end to the drunken Christmas riots of pre-Victorian England and America. He started appearing everywhere: stores, street corners, displays, etc. Presents and decorating trees became important traditions, and Christmas slowly became an official holiday in many American states. Churches began to open their doors for believers to worship, sing about Christ’s birth, and to celebrate. Ironically, with the introduction of Santa and Scrooge, Christ was finally welcomed to Christmas. So lets give Santa a break. We owe him a LOT. He did more to bring the Savior BACK into Christmas than he ever did to discourage our remembrance of Him. Santa Claus rocks!
Coming from “a long line of believers” I hope I imparted some of that to my kids growing up. He is real. Yes, there comes a time when Santa changes. Just a little. Not in the way he looks, or in those things that people most commonly say about him. But in the twinkling of an eye, he literally transforms from the Santa you thought he was, to the Santa he’s been all along – which much to your surprise, may be better than you even dreamed. And then you can spend the rest of your life believing in him – as I have. And wanting those you love to believe in him too.
Merry Christmas Friends!
Cindy Suelzle
ps – it warms my heart to know that a few of our best loved European Christmas hymns were written in the 1700’s, evidence that though the masses had not embraced a more Christ-centered Christmas, there were some who did – according to the dictates of their own conscience. Further evidence that though dim, the light of Christ shone through it all.
Food does not last forever. It must be properly cared for and rotated or you will lose it. And what a waste of money and resources that is! The idea of permanent food storage – or food that lasts indefinitely needs to be discarded. It’s ridiculous. Food will deteriorate even under the best conditions. The secret to success is to work within the facts, to take advantage of the best storage-ability of nutritious (excellent quality) foods, and to make a habit out of USING it, and continually replenishing – “Rotating” – to keep it at its best. That’s the secret in a nutshell; if you live by it the rest is a breeze.
Our early years of storing food
Shortly after Dan and I were married, we began to give serious attention to establishing our own food storage (such as it was possible in a small 2nd floor apartment). And we took more than our fair share of ribbing about it (especially me), from friends and family. Some family members were like minded, some were not – but respectful, and some outwardly ridiculed. And you know what? That’s just the way some people are – no use losing sleep over, adjusting your priorities for, or being offended because some people see life differently (no matter how rude they are).
“Food Storage was never meant to be an inheritance for your grandchildren.”
What is food storage?
I think a good way to explain what food storage is, is to understand what it is NOT. Food storage does not involve ‘panic buying’, and does not involve ‘shelf clearing’, buying on credit or hoarding. It does involve INTENT, coming up with a plan, working on that plan, priorities, budgeting, strategies, vision, some sacrifice , short term inconvenience in the beginning which transitions into long term convenience, satisfaction, comfort and peace of mind. It also requires some dedicated space. It does not have to be accomplished quickly, in fact it shouldn’t be – for a number of good reasons. It doesn’t have to be a whole lotta money upfront – quite the opposite, it can save you a lotta money. It can be accomplished one day at a time. Starting Right Now.
Food storage is all about preparing for adversity by having a basic supply of food, water and necessities on hand. There are two types: short term food storage – 3 months (which is usually just the first stage of a bigger plan) long term food storage – 1 year+ A critical component of any good food storage plan is WATER – for drinking and also household use. I am not including ‘water’ in this post, but only for the sake of room. It will be its own discussion.
Panic buying is based on FEAR, and it causes us to do things that we later might regret with regards to what we purchased or how we purchased it. When we haven’t planned ahead, and are suddenly faced with an emergency, we can find ourselves being very self centered. In that scarcity mentality, we may buy too much, and we may put our perceived needs ahead of every one else’s. We clear shelves. We think we deserve something more than somebody else might, simply because we got there quicker. When Covid first became a thing, we saw items flying off the shelves, people taking much more than they needed with no regard for others. The behaviour was a symptom of fear, but was completely avoidable with a little forethought and planning.
First of all, we are not the most important person in the world – even though we may think we are. And we are not more deserving than any one else. When we remove FEAR from the equation, it changes everything. That scarcity mentality becomes an abundance mentality. Go ahead and shop the sales as you can afford them – in times of plenty. There really is enough for everyone.
8 Hints for Success
Don’t buy more than you can afford
Start small
Picking up an extra can or two when you’re able (and they’re on sale) adds up soon and is Visibly satisfying
Re-allocate a few dollars where you can. In many cases, saving $ from one impulse fast food stop on the way home could be enough to add a case of some food-storage essential.
Be open to try new things. Open your eyes and you mind.
Rotate items to prevent them from expiring.
The freezer is NOT food storage. It is convenient and important, but not dependable in an emergency. It depends on a resource you cannot control: electricity.
Remember, for the most part, electricity is your best friend, and it will not let you down. But there are times it will.
So WHY food storage? That’s the big question . . . .
It seemed that in 2022 more people have opened their eyes to the idea of food storage. Some who may previously have only given it a cursory thought, and others who have never felt the urge or even saw the wisdom of food storage before now – were suddenly getting on board.
For years, governments on all levels, communities, social agencies and even religious organizations have urged people to prepare themselves by storing extra food, water and other necessities at home. With the recent changes we’ve all seen in these unsettling times, the wisdom of doing so is becoming more and more apparent to many of us. There is no replacing the peace of mind that you have when you know you’re prepared. And that doesn’t have to mean the radical preparations of a doomsday prepper. It can mean something as simple as not having to go out for groceries for a week when you’re sick, or for a month when you’ve been laid off. It can mean something as simple as being prepared to live with less income than you currently are.
The sad reality is that when we receive a few days warning of an impending hurricane or blizzard or other disruption in services, stores are crammed with people trying to get the last loaf of bread, the last bag of apples, the last jug of milk, or that last package of toilet paper because they’re not prepared. Or as we’ve all seen, hoarding those commodities preventing others from buying them – out of some sense that “WE” need it more than “they”. But truthfully, without warning, each one of us may face a personal emergency in our own lives. A job loss. A health crises. A death in the family. A pandemic. Let’s face it, life’s emergencies can be sporadic and unpredictable. Being prepared to weather these storms is not as difficult as you might think. What if you could relax, take that veritable load of worry off your shoulders? You can of course. It simply requires a plan, some focus, and some intentional action working toward the goal.
Food Insurance
Food is usually the second largest expense in any family budget, coming in a close second to the cost of shelter. And I’m sure you figured out that food prices only go up, increasing at a shocking rate these last few years. I can’t see that changing any time soon. Can you?
You’d be hard pressed to find someone without household insurance. Most of us agree that life insurance is important, and it’s mandatory to have car insurance. We buy travel insurance when we travel, and medical insurance. So why not for something as important as food? Food insurance! That’s pretty much what food storage is. But its surprising how many of us fail to protect our family with the most basic insurance of all – protection against an interruption in our ability to buy groceries. And with the recent Covid pandemic fresh in our minds, and subsequent shortages in nearly everything, we’ve all seen first hand, things we didn’t ever think we would.
The big difference of course, is that Food Insurance doesn’t disappear at the end of the month like fire insurance. We eat it. For the cost of “insuring” our family against the unthinkable, or simply against an interruption in our income, we can literally BUY peace of mind in the area of food. “Full Coverage Food Insurance“, ready when we need it. And no insurance broker to deal with LOL.
Building your food storage may seem daunting at first, both in effort required and the financial investment. Here are some steps to get you started.
1. Where to start?
When I was a little girl, fruits and vegetables in food storage were in cans or bottles. They were stored in our cold room and brought up daily for meals. Meat was stored in the freezer. Flour and sugar were stored in pails. And pasta was stored in cardboard boxes. (we always had lots of macaroni). When my kids were little, it was more of the same with the addition of more dehydrated foods (more than just raisins), a lot more home bottled fruits, vegetables and even meats, and a bigger variety of grains and beans. These days, I keep some of those same foods, with a few adjustments, improvements, additions and editions I’ve learned over the years.
When you’re just starting out with Food Storage, there is always the question of *Where on earth do I begin(?). And then the follow up questions of *What to get? *How much to get? *Where to get it from? *How to afford it? *How to store it? *Where to store it? *How long will it last? *How to prepare it? *Where to find the time to prepare it? *How to rotate it to keep it ‘fresh’? *How not to waste it? *And will my family eat it?
Nowadays, we have a new player in the food storage game. Ironically, it is not so new, its more a matter of more people becoming increasingly aware of it. And its the answer to all the above questions. FREEZE DRIED FOOD. Nutritious. Convenient: easy to use. Tasty. And get this – shelf life of 25 years. It adds “SMART” to traditional food storage of cans and bottles.
STORE WHAT YOU EAT.
Having a Food Storage may be one of the smartest things you do for your family. But there is one very important rule that everyone must follow. Your Food Storage may not look like mine or anyone else’s, and it shouldn’t. You need to Store what your family eats! Foods you like, that are easy to prepare but more importantly, that your family is used to, and will enjoy. In our younger years, there were often times that we relied on our food storage. Groceries were the only flexible thing in our tight budget, but I never wanted my children to feel that life was harder this month than last month. I wanted every day to be comfortable and normal. So we ate the same way, in good months and difficult months. If I could not buy groceries in any given month, or my budget was reduced for some reason, I didn’t want my kids to notice. I cannot emphasize the rule of “storing what you eat and eating what you store” – enough. When life is hard on so many levels, it is soothing to know that your family has good food that they’re accustomed to, on the table. Store what you eat, but then EAT what you store.
MAKE room.
That’s different that having room. Most houses these days offer no accommodation for food storage, but they’re also bigger than houses of yester-year. Ironic isn’t it? If you can’t find room, then MAKE it. Be creative. You’re the boss. Ideally it should be in the basement where it is cooler, but if you don’t have a basement, convert a bedroom, or a storage room or a portion of your garage if you must, or even a closet. Think outside the box. If possible, keep everything together. When we moved into the house we currently live in, it took us a few years of experimenting with where to put our food storage before we finally ‘found’ the room. We had to put up a wall and create a small room where there wasn’t one.
AFFORD. Never, ever ever EVER invest in something as important as food storage with money you don’t have. It doesn’t matter how good that bargain was, if you’re paying 25% interest on it, its a bad deal. Shift your budget if you need to, do without something else if needed to add $100 a month to your food storage, but do NOT buy it on credit. Debt is contrary to the principle of being prepared. Debt is the quickest way to either lose everything you’ve got, or to be held hostage by it. Preparation can be accomplished on a budget.
ROTATE. Everything has a shelf life, even you! Trying to stretch food too far past it’s recommended shelf life will result in an inferior product – especially in its nutritional value. An important part of using the food in your storage is ‘rotating’ it. First in, first out. Replacing it as you use it keeps it current and puts your ‘food storage’ into the same category as ‘groceries’, which normalizes it. Rotating also gives you experience using the food you’re storing, and lets face it, sometimes we can use the practice right? The shelf life of food varies widely, but here are some basics that might help you estimate.
CANNED FOOD (home canned or commercially canned) has a shelf life of up to 2 years. If your canned food gets too old, you’ll end of discarding it, and that is a sad waste of money.
FROZEN FOOD has a shelf life of 3 months to one year – depending on what it is. So yes, its convenient, but don’t count on it for the long term. And of course we all know that frozen food is 100% dependent on our access to electricity – which may be disrupted without notice. DEHYDRATED FOOD has a shelf life of up to one or two years. If you’ve ever kept raisins longer than two years, you know they’re not very good. Too dry and crystalized.
FREEZE DRIED FOOD has a shelf life of 25 years (sometimes more). Not sure how anyone can beat that, but even 25 years doesn’t mean forever. You’ll be surprised one day to find out how quickly that time has slipped by. But when you’re using the food, and constantly replenishing – it is completely without the stress of worrying about its shelf life. Once you open it, most freeze dried foods will last a year if properly sealed and protected from the moisture in the air.
TODAY. It’s true that those who began investing in Food Storage many years ago, are advantaged. They simply maintain what they’ve been doing all along. But as Maya Angelou once counselled “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, DO BETTER.” I love this simple piece of advice. It is wisdom to me, and I have adopted it as my personal motto. It reminds me not to beat myself up for mistakes I made in the past, and opportunities I’ve neglected. I did the best I knew how with the resources I had at the time. But now, I know better. And my obligation is to act on my new knowledge and awareness. I am accountable for my actions based on what I understand. Truly the best time to get my food storage together was a long time ago. But if I didn’t, I didn’t. It can’t be changed. The point is, that I can start NOW. The next Best time to do better is always right now. TODAY.
2. What to get?
When I was a young girl, my mother answered that questions with the same answer my grandmother gave – “whatever fills the hollow spot“. She gleaned that philosophy from being a child of the depression and war years. While I respect the practical experience, I’d like to think that we have a more enlightened perspective of nutrition nowadays that would influence the question of what to invest in.
When you’re in a situation where you’re living on your food storage, you want the best nutrition for your family. In fact, if letting “food be thy medicine” was ever important, it will be critically important in times of need. Nutrition is key. Make sure the food you buy has something more to offer than calories. Having said that however, calories will be very important too. Calories are where energy comes from, just make sure they’re super nutritious calories.
All produce (fruits and vegetables) begins to deteriorate in the hour it is harvested, so eating fresh from the garden is of course optimal. But as lovely as that is, most of us cannot do it consistently, at least not all year round. And food storage generally consists of preserved food, so lets look at options. Rule of thumb to remember when choosing the type of food for your food storage: * Canned food (whether home canned or commercially canned) retains about 40% of it nutritional value. This is not the original food value of what it was in the hour it was picked. It represents 40% of the nutritional value of the food when it was put into the can or bottle. When I first learned this, I was very disappointed because I canned fruit all my parenting years, and we relied on canned fruit all winter long. But I was not surprised.
If you’ve ever canned peaches, you know that those peaches are in a hot water bath of 212 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Of course nutrition is going to be affected. And of course, when we buy those peaches (that were picked green before all the nutrients were fully developed), we usually have to wait a few days till they’re fully ripened and perfect for canning. This time means further nutritional loss. Still 40% is better than no peaches in February right? And home canning is still the easiest and most reliable way to preserve food long term at home. So let’s just be mindful of its pros and cons. * Frozen food retains about 60% of its nutritional value and is generally flash frozen very quickly after harvesting. It’s biggest draw back is the limited shelf life. * Dehydrated food is difficult to pin down for nutritional retention, as there are so many factors involved in dehydration. Was it commercially dehydrated? Or dehydrated at home? Sulfur dioxide is a preservative often used in commercial dehydrating. Most raisins, prunes and apricots contain it, and while this sulfite extends the shelf life of dehydrated food, but it is very bad for us. Generally you can count on dehydrated foods having close to 80% original food value, but for how long? And dependent on so many factors, it is difficult to have confidence in it. * Freeze dried foodretains up to 95% of the original food value. This is astounding, especially when considering its exceptionally long shelf life. Look for brands that guarantee their produce was picked RIPE and flash frozen within hours of harvest. This ensures the best possible nutrition right from the beginning. How is this possible? Here’s a good explanation in a nutshell . . . .
3. How much to get?
Following the SMART rules above will help you with most questions you might have, but . . . how much? How much is enough? And how much should you start with? My strong suggestion is to not bite off so much that you are overwhelmed and give up. There are two ways to start slowly:
Add extra Simple adjustments like – if you would normally buy two cans of tomato sauce, buy four. If you would normally buy three cans of tuna, buy six. If you would normally buy a box of cereal, buy two. And so on. Focus on non perishable items. Put them away, in your pantry or in your new ‘food storage’ area. Next time you go shopping do the same thing. Gradually these extras add up and you will be amazed to see the results after only a few months. *hint: always write the date you buy it in permanent marker on the package. This is a loud reminder of keeping it properly rotated.
Two weeks Think of seven meals your family enjoys – one week’s worth. Easy ones, with non-perishable food in them. Perhaps your list is something like this: spaghetti, chili with cornbread, potato chowder, chicken parmesan, lasagna, cheesy chicken and rice, sloppy joes, Italiantuna salad with orzo, refried bean burritos, Indian dahl . . . . whatever your family enjoys. SEVEN meals. Multiply by two – to make fourteen meals. Break each meal into a recipe shopping list like for instance, your recipe for spaghetti might call for one package of spaghetti, two cans of tomato sauce, a pound of ground beef, an onion and some herbs – write it down. Multiply that by two. Add double of each of those ingredients to your shopping list. Go to your next meal. Perhaps your recipe for lasagna calls for one package lasagna noodles, one large can of tomato sauce, one pound of ground beef, one onion, garlic, one pound of mozzarella cheese, one container of cottage cheese and some spinach. Multiply that list by two. Two meals down.
What other meals does your family enjoy? Write up your shopping list, and as you can afford those ‘extra’ items necessary to make the meals, purchase them. Easy peasy. You’ve got two weeks worth of dinners stored. Add breakfast items like porridge, pancake ingredients, juice, etc.
Either of those methods are a great place to start small. But don’t stop there. Once you’ve got two weeks packed away, reset your goal to one month, Then three months. Then six months. Then one year. It’s a process. Celebrate each milestone, and then push toward the next goal. I promise, you’ll feel great about your progress and success. This is easier than you thought.
4. Where to get it from?
For the most part, you’ll want to buy the majority of your food storage items wherever you normally buy your groceries. That is where you’re comfortable. You know what they have, and what you like. Bulk stores or wholesale outlets are good resources for those items you want to buy in larger amounts.
Ask around. There might be places around that you don’t necessarily frequent. Open your eyes and your mind to try new things and new sources. You might find some great resources on line, to have delivered right to your door. While I am all about shopping locally, there are some food items I cannot buy locally. Those, I am happy to be able to order them in.
The industry leaders in the freeze dried world is undoubtedly THRIVE LIFE. They are the largest company in North America, with the biggest variety. Available in United States and Canada at this time.
5. How to afford it?
You afford it by starting small. You buy when you’re shopping already, a little here and a little there, just add a few more cans. Make whatever sacrifices you need to in order to ‘afford’ it. If you’re eating out once in a while, consider how much you could have added to your food storage with what that meal cost you. If you’re in the habit of buying junk food, consider how much real food that bag of chips or candy could have been converted into. Affording important things sometimes requires adjustments. Do what you need to do to accomplish your goal.
Investing large chunks of money will bulk up your food storage of course, but you don’t have to spend a lot to build it up. Just spend with a purpose, and spend differently. Using the illustration above, let’s assume my food budget was $600 a month. By re-allocating 1/3 of that budget into freeze dried foods (beginning with those I often waste), and continuing to spend the remaining 2/3 in my usual way, I slowly begin to introduce food that has zero waste, and long shelf life. As I began substituting the food I used to waste for freeze dried food that I will never waste, my grocery dollar started going a lot further. Within only a couple of months I noticed that by no longer wasting food, I actually saved money. No trim, no spoilage, no waste = saved money. More to invest into more food storage.
Having said that, for most of our parenting years we received tax refunds in the spring. We most often used those lump sums to bulk up on food storage – always watching the sales of course.
6. How to store it? and Where to store it?
Ideally, most foods should be stored in relative cool, with little temperature fluctuation. A shed outside? Absolutely NOT! Unheated garage? Depends where you live. If you can find a place where you can SEE what you’ve got, it will be a lot easier to use it, keeping it properly rotated. Underneath your stairs? Convert a closet?
Frozen food is not food storage. Yes, it is convenient and I wouldn’t want to do without my freezer, but anything that is as dependent on something completely beyond your control – like a freeze is dependent on power, is not something you can count on. Resist the temptation to invest a lot of money in frozen food.
*for more information on storage ideas, click here
7. How long will it last?
Go with accepted shelf life recommendations, and yes, I know you can push them a bit when they’re “best before” dates. But use those dates as a good guideline for trying to consume the food within. Frozen food – 3 months – 6 months – up to a year at most for some items. Canned food – 2 years. Dehydrated food – 1 to 2 years. Freeze dried food – 25 years.
8. How to prepare it? and Where to find the time to prepare it?
If you’re using food you generally use every day, you’ll have that pretty well sorted out. If you’re trying to incorporate some more shelf stable foods, then I highly recommend you start using them today to have all that figured out before a time of need. Remember – Store what you eat, and EAT what you store.
If time is an issue for meal prep now, welcome to the club. Preparing a meal with traditional food storage items like wheat and dried beans can be difficult when utilities may not be available. Using canned and dehydrated foods may be easier and less time consuming. Freeze dried foods are very quick to refresh and to prepare. Freeze dried meals that require only water to prepare, can be ready in about 10 minutes. That’s NO cooking. Very convenient in emergencies.
* a little about Freeze Dried Food It wasn’t that long ago that it was so new most people had never heard of it. Today it is readily available, being a fast growing industry in the food world. It IS the future. I firmly believe it is the answer to the problem of food waste in North America, and it is the vehicle people can use to secure a high quality, nutritious, long term food storage.
9. How to rotate it to keep it ‘fresh’? and how not to waste it?
Proper rotation is critical to a good quality food storage. So many buy food storage specifically for “food storage”, never intending to eat it. They say “Food storage is food storage and groceries are groceries.” The problem with that philosophy is, that your food storage gets dated while you’re not paying attention. And pretty soon, its nutritional value is questionable. You must pay attention. And using the food regularly ensures you stay on top of it. Storing it in the boxes, under beds and tucked away in closets makes rotation difficult. Remember the rule – Store what you eat, and EAT what you store. Abiding by that rule will keep your food fresh, and reduce any potential for waste.
Buying emergency food with the intention of sticking it in a hole in the ground in case of some zombie apocalypse is a good way to waste a lot of food, and a lot of money. No food will last forever. And there are a lot of real life emergencies that happen in the process of living, that can be relieved by a simple, well managed food storage. Imagine not having to worry about buying groceries for a week, or a month! Wouldn’t that take a lotta stress out of an already difficult situation?
10. Will my family / children eat it?
Some believe that when our kids are hungry they’ll eat anything. I suppose if they really are THAT hungry. But let’s hope we never get there. What about when you’re just trying to navigate a temporary interruption in income? Trying to make the best of a less than ideal situation? Familiarity is precisely why we should incorporate food storage items into our daily meals.
I discovered freeze dried foods when most of my children were already grown and gone, so most of them learned about it from an arm’s length distance. Some of my grandchildren however, have learned more up close and personally. My favourite example of this is my grandson Charlie.
When Charlie was a year old, he began spending a few days a week at our house while his mom worked. As he began eating finger foods, freeze dried blueberries were a healthy and delicious food to start out with. He loved them, and ate a lot! At one point, his parents wanted to increase the amount of calcium in his diet so they asked me to give him a glass of milk with lunch. One day while I was feeding him – with a glass of milk nearby, I thought about other excellent sources of calcium. Foods like fish, nuts, kale, eggs, broccoli . . . BROCCOLI. I had some freeze dried broccoli in my pantry. Whether he would like it or not remained to be seen – its a far cry from tasting like blueberries.
I retrieved the broccoli and showed it to him. I opened it up and took a piece out, ate it while he watched, then showed him the contents of the can and offered it to him. He took one and put it in his mouth. As he chewed, I half expected him to spit it out – I wasn’t even sure how many teeth he had. But he did not. When he finished it he asked for more. I gave him more, and he asked for more. And then more. And more. It was the beginning of a good thing. I encouraged his appetite for freeze dried broccoli, including it with every meal. I began calling him “Broccoli Boy”, and I even gave him small cans of it to eat in the car and at home. Those early exposures helped him develop a taste for freeze dried food, which is perfect, because its here to stay.
The point is, that Broccoli Boy wasn’t born on a different planet, transported here to become Broccoli Boy. He was molded and formed to become one, right here on earth. I created that alter ego, by introducing him to that wonderful, crunchy source of calcium early on. It made the perfect companion to his enjoyment of other ‘crunchy’ freeze dried fruits and vegetables.
Will your kids like the food? I think you can take it from Broccoli Boy. They will.
Learning to use foods that are less familiar to you – like freeze dried food, will make all the difference. Your family will be surprised to find out how delicious and satisfying it is. Exposing your kids to it early is very helpful. They get used to it. Again, its that ol’ familiarity thing right? Freeze dried food is easy to use, but it does require you to flip a switch in your brain. So flip the switch! Get used to it. It is the perfect food to insert into your Food Storage.
I’d love to hear ideas that worked for you when you first started out with your Food Storage. Or some of your favourite food storage items and or recipes. Or if you haven’t started yet, I’d love to hear about your journey. You can comment below.
Mock Emergency Alert – Day 1: Economic Crisis 
Let’s navigate this scenario together, sharing your food storage meal ideas, tips for stretching resources, and any creative solutions you’ve come up with in the comment section below. That is where we come together to learn, support, and thrive during these challenges. Check out the subsequent blog posts for more scenarios in the days ahead, and let’s find out how ready we can be for whatever the future may hold! 
