Pickling, fermenting, root cellaring, and so on.

There are many ways to preserve food; the ones we use most are root cellar, freezing, canning and fermenting. Freezing is my least favorite, because it uses lots of energy and is vulnerable to power outages, which we now get on a yearly basis. I was a little nervous when we lost power with the storm a few weeks ago, since my freezer is full of food that we worked hard for, and I did not want to lose it. In future years I’d like to cut way back on freezing, and use other methods of preserving instead. Canning uses a lot of energy too, so I’m not crazy about it from that standpoint, but at least once canned, the food can safely be put on a shelf in the kitchen to last through the winter and more. Fermenting I love, and so far it’s my favorite way of preserving food. All you need is salt and water and good veges. It’s low impact as far as energy consumption, and as far as I know you can preserve many kinds of veges by fermenting them. I love the taste of fermented foods, and the health benefits (very good for our intestinal flora); unfortunately, Ed does not like fermented foods, and the kids like some but not others, so that’s a limitation. But I am planning to learn more about different ways of fermentation, and ways of incorporating fermented foods into cooked dishes, and maybe they’ll like it more.

So far this season, I’ve made sauerkraut (fermented green and red cabbage), fermented cauliflower and carrot pickles (Romanian style), pickled Lebanese turnip and pickled beets. These last two were not fermented, just refrigerated in vinegar brine.  Aiyana wants me to make kimchee, which she liked last year, and I want to try German fermented turnips, which I heard good things about. The Lebanese pickled turnips were my first this year, and they came out really good. I love eating them with venison steak, and they’re great with falafael (which is how I learned about them in the first place. You know those pink pickles you get when you go our for falafael? I always thought they were beets, but they’re mostly turnip with a little beet added for color).

It’s really nice to have had a change of pace with the end of the CSA. We’ve spent more time focused on the kids, especially homeschooling. Ed’s working with them every morning, and they have a schedule for each day. It’s all very organized, Ed style. I homeschool once in a while, when Ed’s busy doing something outside. Yesterday for example, he was working on moving the shed near our house, so I took over with the kids. He’s relocating the shed a short distance away. It will give us a nicer view of the fields from the house, but more importantly it will allow us to build a new root cellar where we hope to be able to store more veges. Root cellars are great for storage, as long as you can maintain the right temperature. This one will have 3 walls and the ceiling covered in earth, so hopefully it will naturally maintain a temp in the 40’s in there throughout the winter. That would work for storing root veges, such as carrots, beets, turnips, and other veges like cabbages and brussel sprouts.

As of right now, we still have a few veges in the field, such as lettuces, spinach and other greens, carrots, beets, turnips, brussel sprouts, etc. We plan to sell them through weekly farm sales over the next few weeks. Once they’re out of the ground, we plan to let the ground freeze everywhere, which means no winter production at all, at least for a couple of months. We think that this will be good for the soil, as well as for reducing disease and insect populations that may overwinter when the soil is not completely frozen (like when you have a hoop tunnel). We’ll see how this pans out over the next few years, but it feels good to be able to give the fields and ourselves a break from production.

I recently read a quote from an old-time farmer in The American Farm, by Maisie and Richard Courat. It reflects how I feel, and goes like this:

“The real products of any year’s work are the farmer’s mind and the cropland itself…The finest growth that farmland can produce is a careful farmer.”

Yes, the land teaches the farmer a lot if one is open, sensitive and willing to learn. One of the many beautiful things it teaches us is how to nurture and work in harmony for long-term wellbeing. As we learn these things, the health of the land and the crops it produces becomes a visible mark of our efforts. The health of the land has to come first if we are thinking long-term; focusing on crops alone can lead to misuse and abuse of the land, which will soon enough, and fairly enough, stop producing.