100 Mile Diet: Insta-Garden, Insta-Meal
by Siel, Los Angeles on 12. 4.06
[Previous 100-mile adventure post] Do you ever get eco-overwhelmed? Let me explain what I mean. I'll think: I should do the 100-mile diet. Then, I'll think: I should start a porch garden for my 100-mile-diet. Then, I'll think: I should start a compost for the porch garden for my 100-mile diet. Then, I'll think: I should take a composting class so I can start a compost for the porch garden for my 100-mile diet. Ad infinitum.
Luckily, I managed to stop my brain-whirl long enough to actually take some 100-mile-diet action. I set up a recurring alarm on my celly for Wednesday morning, so I'd get to the farmers' market before it closed. This one little step not only got me some yummy, local food, but it also gave me my own little herb garden.
Again, let me explain. One of the first booths I ran into at the Santa Monica farmers' market was run by Cheryl, a woman who sells little herb plants for would-be herb growers. Not only did she sell me 3 herb plants in little pots -- thyme, basil, and parsley -- for just $10, she gave me all sorts of instructions for making an herb garden work in my north-facing balcony.
After purchasing my little insta-garden, I kept poking around Cheryl's booth, and bought some Herbs de Provence Jelly, made by Cheryl herself. This jelly has just 6 ingredients: herbs, sugar, apple pectin, lemon juice, and water. The sugar and wine were the only ingredients that weren't grown by Cheryl herself.
With the jelly, Cheryl gave me a little recipe card: "For a French Appetizer, try our Herbs de Provence Jelly over fresh goat cheese, served with crispy baguette slices. Garnish with our fresh lavendar. Enjoy!"
So I went to a goat cheese booth, where a cute man from Redwood Hill Farm in Sonoma County, Calif., sold me some local camelina cheese. Then I stopped at the Rockenwagner Bakery booth, and got a locally baked baguette (Yes, I know I'm cheating a bit since I don't know if all ingredients in the bread come from within 100 miles, but remember, for right now, I'm focusing on just produce. I'm not on the bakery-goods level yet).
Lunch on Wednesday was a real delight -- fresh, yummy, bursting with flavor, and quite local. I ate my little appetizer meal on my balcony, watching my pretty herbs grow.
For more of Siel's adventures, check out Green LA Girl!
It's classic overthinking to believe you need to take a class to start a compost pile. All you really need is to get in the habit of rerouting kitchen scraps from the trash to a container or pile of some kind. Compost piles don't need to be big or elaborate to work. I've been composting my coffee grounds only for about two years and I use the compost to supplement my potting soil. It's not the most efficient system and I don't compost all of my vegetable waste but it's a start and it fulfills my needs adequately.
Here in Oxford, they have just started a new recycling scheme and as part of it, they are starting to offer a composter for £6. Not too bad!
Hey Jared -- Thanks for the tip :) After doing a lil research mid-panic, I realized a lot of composting info's out there. However, my main composting challenge is that I do not have a garden -- I only have a balcony. It seems that if I just started a pile or put it in a bucket with some drainage at the bottom, I would need to place that pile or bucket directly onto the soily ground, which the compost could drain into. This patch of ground is what I don't have.
Thus, I agree I don't need to take a class, but unless someone can convince me otherwise, it seems I really need a composting thingy that's advanced enough for balcony use, like this one that I have on my holiday gift list :) I actually had this on my bday list a while back too, but friends told me they actively avoided buying it -- No one wants to be the friend who got me a composter for a present...
I do my composting in a giant flower pot that a meighbor put out to the curb. You could also try composting in a large bucket with some drain holes or an old trash can. Drainage, airflow and heat are the keys to good compost but two out of three ain't bad.