- Ms. Shopping Golightly

Image: EraPhernalia Vintage

I now know that while that was a good rule to make sure tomatoes and peppers did okay, there are many vegetables that can be planted much earlier.  I’m not talking about starting seeds indoors (but I will talk about that in a few days). I’m talking about actually planting out in the garden. I’ve read that vegetables like cabbage, spinach, lettuce , onion, rhubarb and peas can be planted up to six weeks before the last frost date so I’m going to give it early planting a shot this year. The last frost date for my region falls somewhere between April 5-10 so I figure it’s time to get planting.

I think I’m going to plant onion, rhubarb, and a couple of lettuces this upcoming weekend.

Do you do any early vegetable gardening. What do you plant? Any advice for me since I’m trying it for the first time?

Image: thebittenword.com

The Sixth Annual Brewers Plate to benefit Fair Food is March 14th at Penn Museum. The event will feature food and beer from local, independent restaurants and breweries.

This Friday night’s “What’s for Dinner” at the Auburn Road Vineyard and Winery is sold out, but the menus for the rest of the month look delicious. This is one place that I’ve been wanting to check out for a while now, and I’m making a commitment right now to get there before the first day of summer this year. Dinner is provided by a local chef or caterer, there’s live music, and it’s only $17.50. Beverages are additional. My favorites are their White Bottle and their Classico.

That’s it for this week. It’s going to be sunny and 50 degrees this weekend. Get outside and start planning your garden!

La Vida Locavore – La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!

The site’s tagline is “Come for the food. Stay for the politics.” You’ll get a lot of good information about what’s going on in D.C. that could affect our local food systems on this blog.

Farm to Philly – Support a local farmer, crave the freshest produce, worry about what’s in or on your food – whatever your reason for eating locally grown and produced food in the Philadelphia area, Farm to Philly is probably writing about it. Farm to Philly is the site that sponsors the One Local Summer challenge that gets people cooking a totally local meal once  a week.

Cook Local - A Seattle blog by a husband and wife team. Always great recipes.

Sustainable Food – The food blog from Change.org is a daily read for me. Not strictly locavore, but every couple of days there is a good locavore piece.

The Green Fork Blog – Another blog not strictly about local foods, but all about sustainable foods. Another one I read daily.

• It has a lid so it can be covered over on cold nights or other inclement weather.
• It’s on wheels, so during the warm spring days it can be wheeled from sunny spot to sunny spot in the yard to get the most spring sun.
• On super hot days, it can be wheeled to a shadier spot.
• Rabbits can’t get to it.
• The holes to dispose of ash in the bottom make good drainage holes.

Since I heard this idea, I’ve kept my eye out at the curb for anyone throwing away an old charcoal grill, but I’ve had no luck yet. Still, I wanted to share this idea with you. As people start spring cleaning out their sheds and garages, one of us might find one waiting to be trash picked and repurposed into a an edible salad garden.

- George Taber

The Act is an amendment the the National School Lunch Act, and it calls for $50 million in competitive matching grants and technical assistance, to eligible entities for farm to school programs that

“(1) improve access to local foods in schools and institutions participating in programs under this Act and section 4 of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1773) through farm to school activities, including the purchase of local food, establishment of effective relationships between school and institutional food service providers, distributors, and producers or groups of producers, school gardens, appropriate equipment, and the provision of training and education; and

“(2) are designed to—

“(A) improve the nutritional health and well being of children;

“(B) procure healthy local foods from small and medium-sized farms for meals at eligible schools and institutions;

“(C) support experiential nutrition education activities and curriculum planning that incorporates the participation of school children in farm and garden-based agricultural education activities;

“(D) develop a sustained commitment to farm to school programs in the community by linking schools and institutions, State and local agencies including Indian Tribal Organizations, institutions of higher education, agricultural producers, parents, community garden groups and other community stakeholders; and

“(E) increase farm income by facilitating farmers’ access to institutional markets including schools.

According to Urban Farm Hub, the bill needs additional co-sponsors. This is where you and I can help. Call, fax, write, or e-mail your representatives and let them know you support this bill and you would like them to co-sponsor it. You can go to Congress.org for easy access to your representatives’ contact information.

Image: Brennan

I’ve got quite a few odds and ends for you today because I’ve been saving them up for a couple weeks.

• 

  My beef bourguignon served on top of mashed potatoes. So good on a snowed in night.

  It’s snowing as I write this. I know we’re all ready for spring, but one thing all this snow has given many of us is time to cook and bake a little bit more. A couple of weeks ago, I took on the challenge of making beef bourguignon during one of the snow storms. That led me to do a piece on MNN called the Top 10 Snowmageddon foods about what people were cooking while snowed in. The ever fabulous Dori and Val from More Hip Than Hippie, living in sunny Chico, CA, were curious about all this cooking while snowed in and interviewed me for their podcast about surviving Snowmageddon.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer has a piece called Local does it that talks about sources for local foods during this season.
• There’s an Iron Cupcake Challenge happening this Sunday from 1-4 at The Tortilla Press Cantina in Collingswood. Proceeds will go to help the victims of Haiti. You get to eat cupcakes. People in need get help. Win/win.
• Speaking of The Tortilla Press Cantina, there will be another #SJTweetup there on March 9th. This will be the first Tweetup I will be missing.
• The Rutgers NJAgricultural Experiment Station will hold a Make your own rain barrel workshop on March 6. Cost is $35 and includes the materials to build a rain barrel.
• Alba Vineyard will be holding a Wine 101 class each Saturday during the month of March. Cost is $20 for a 90 minute class – a bargain. Classes like this in the city would cost a lot more.
• On March 4, The Hazon CSA of Southern NJ invites you to meet  farmers Jim Kinsel and Sherry Dudas of Honey Brook Organic Farm to learn about the farm’s fresh organic produce as well as how Hazon CSA operates. Registration for the 2010 season is now open and closes March 15th, or when fully subscribed. RSVP: HazonCSAsnj@gmail.com. Temple Beth Sholom, 1901 Kresson Road, Cherry Hill.
• John and Lisa reported this first, but I had to link to it to because it’s something for us all to look forward to. Johnson’s Corner Farm Market reopens on March 19th. That’s only 3 weeks away. Spring. It really is close. Hard to believe right now, isn’t it.
• Finally, it’s Open That Bottle Night this Saturday night. In it’s 11th year, it’s the night when you’re supposed to open that bottle of wine you’ve been saving for a special occasion but that special occasion never seems to come up. I’ll be opening a bottle of Unionville Vineyard’s The Big ‘O’ that I bought at last year’s East Coast Food & Wine Festival.