Gotta whole lotta onions

Unlike last year's March temperatures in the 80's, spring 2013 has arrived a little later. March temperatures were mostly below average, and this year continued the seemingly new northern Illinois tradition of winter snows falling in March after an uneventful December, January and February. Not cool. Punxsatawney Phil is on "My List."

We finally found a bit of time, good weather and ambition to start the 2013 Lonesome Road garden last weekend though! After a quick rototilling we were able to plant approximately 120 onion plants, four heads of garlic, and toss around a scattering of various lettuce, kale and spinach seeds in a corner.

Half of the onions are my personal favorite, Walla Walla onions from Washington state. And the others are Red Zeppelin red onions. So, we've gotta whole lotta onions. Gotta whole lotta onions.

Also for spring, we're going to attempt to grow russet potatoes again. In the past this has never worked out particularly well, but in loosely following ideas from the Replacing The Grocery Store challenge on the Our Simple Farm blog, we're at least going to give it another try. We do eat lots of potatoes, especially in the summer when they can just be grilled along with the rest of dinner! And I usually try to prepare a few extras on the weekends so we can let them cool, refrigerate them, and slice or chop and make our own home fries for breakfast the next morning.

So, cross your fingers for our potatoes and be on the lookout for potentially lots of posts with red onion recipes. Because we've gotta a whole lotta onions.

Great Expectations - The 2013 Garden

Or, trying my best to (somewhat)

replace the grocery store.

During the last few weeks I've become interested in an idea that I discovered on the Our Simple Farm blog. The concept is simple enough - replacing the grocery store with your own home-grown, homemade items.

As prices continue to go up on food, fuel, nearly everything, the idea of saving money on groceries has become extremely appealing. And, living on a gravel road outside of a prison town certainly has its good points, but the evil necessity of driving at least 20 minutes to do even the simplest things can become such a frustrating timewaster, not to mention gas.

 

So, I've been noting some of the ideas and plans posted on Our Simple Farm - up until The Math Part (cue scary music). For a couple of reasons, I can't really compute how much of each vegetable/fruit we would need to subsist without too many trips to the supermarket. First, much of our garden contains perishable produce like lettuce - not much I can do about preserving lettuce except for eating it in abundance in fresh salads, or sharing with others (if there's a way to use dehydrated lettuce in something, please post your ideas!). Plus, I have only really had experience with freezing and my only foray into canning has been making pickled things. Also, there is a bit of a time constraint as I own my own business, Lonesome Road Studio (and Lonesome Road West), and summers can be a little hectic with shows, markets, etc. Oh, and I decided that I was going to be making our own soap in my spare time. *wink* Did I mention the guitar that I'm going to learn how to play, too?

 

So, I will work on what I think is relatively feasible for us and our garden, which is usually freezing some vegetables to use throughout the winter when a taste of the summer garden is so nice. I also put up lots of my amazing homemade pizza sauce made with fresh tomatoes, peppers and herbs from our garden, and I plan to plant some new varieties of herbs this year to dehydrate to replace expensive store-bought jars of herbs with questionable shelf life, and for use in some of those soaps I've been dreaming of creating.

 

Stay tuned as I periodically update everyone on the garden's progress, and I promise to share more recipes and ideas with everyone, as I hope you will too!

 

 

"Buried Treasure" heirloom carrots reproduction, Lonesome Road Gallery.