EcoNewMexico.com

It's hard to tell now with a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, but this is garden planning season. Days are getting longer and the Spring Solstice is less than a month away. Farmers and gardeners, even rank amateurs like myself, are excitedly thumbing through seed catalogs and websites, anticipating that day when seedlings can brave the elements.

I have two pounds of sunchokes in my refrigerator and I'm scared of them.

Oh, I'm sure they will be delicious but the cleaning of them puts fear in my heart. Perhaps, like many things in life, if I just had a stiff drink before facing them with vegetable scrub brush in hand, it would go a lot easier.

Put on your party clothes and grab some beads folks, it's carnival time! Specifically, Carnival of the Green. This is a traveling blog show filled with links about green living, sustainability and whatever else is floating about the 'green blogosphere'. Scroll down, you may find some tips you like, environmental issues, or a discussion you want to join in. Oh, thanks for visiting EcoNewMexico.com where we blather on about practical ideas for sustainable living in the American Southwest!

Thursday, December 10, 2009
Pickup bag of produce. It is naturally chilled and I look over the bounty. My mind starts churning with ideas. Everything gets looked over and put away once I get home. The persimmons get a special nest since they are quite soft. I’ll have to think of a good use for them quite soon.

This past weekend, we found out how the neighborhood tastes...to a bee. I finished my fine beekeeping class series at EcoVersity and started thinking about how to wrap up the beekeeping season on my hives. That meant it was time to deal with honey.

It's Labor Day weekend and summer has begun winding down. I can only hope that it won't be winding down too quickly because it was just in the past few days that I noticed little proto-green beans on the vine. However, people are back in school, it is cool in the morning, and the scent of roasting green chile has permeated the northern New Mexico air. As the days get shorter, I feel this mad desperation coming over me to preserve what I can of summer.

What: 1st International IFOAM Conference on Organic Animal and Plant Breeding
Where: Santa Fe Convention Center, Sante Fe, NM, USA
When: August 25-28, 2009

Fairtrade, 100% Organic, All Natural, Salmon Safe, CSA Sustainable Forest Management. All of those sound great and are the sort of labels that many of us look for on the food and other products we buy. But, what do all of those labels REALLY mean? Food labeled USDA Organic is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. On the other hand, a, 'All Natural' label doesn't mean much at all.

Can you believe summer is half over? I know this not only from the calendar but the contents of our Beneficial Farms CSA box. Apparently, the recent heat spell signalled the end of the flood of greens (kale, collards, chard, etc.) or at least a pause until cooler weather this fall. I can't tell you how happy the sight of summer squash made me when it showed up this past week.

Oh I felt so clever last night. I had radishes and pearly barley to use and, strangely enough, I found a recipe that used both. Thumbs up! But it involved turning on the oven to roasted some very pretty cubes and slices of vegetables. Thumbs down! It was hot yesterday evening and the house had not cooled off yet. But when I get an idea in my head...