Mission Endure 55: Insuring Your Food Supply is Secure
Last year we had an awesome garden. Most of our land is on a hill, but there is a flat spot at the bottom of our back yard where we have been building our small garden for the last several years. We have been converting our garden over to Herrick Kimball’s Minibeds on Plastic gardening system and it works well for us to help us create the most productive growing space we can make. During the Covid 19 quarantine we saw the fragility of the supply chain and the issues that affected both home cleaning supplies and food security. So, we used the additional time at home during the quarantine to work on or garden and add more Minibeds and expand the varieties of what we were planting. Everything grew very well and by July we had a garden in full production.
Figure 1 is a photo of what our garden looked like before we migrated to the Minibeds on Plastic system
Figure 1. Our raised bed garden in August 2018. Tomatoes, Jalapenos, and Zucchini
We believed that upgrading our garden would help us to become more self-reliant and provide a secure food source for us during and after the Covid pandemic. The Minibeds on Plastic system provided us with an alternative to a basic row planted garden. We were tired of constant weeding and were looking for a system that would help us enjoy gardening again.
The Minibeds on Plastic system consists of a series of 30” by 30” small raised beds made of wood that are spaced approximately 18” apart and are constructed on top of a plastic mulch barrier. The plastic inside the wood frames is cut out and removed and these areas are used as mini planting beds. The entire garden outside of the 30” by 30” Minibeds is covered with plastic film which holds moisture in the soil and prevents weeds from growing between the Minibeds.
Figure 2 is a photo of our garden’s transition in March 2020. We planted the garden right after this photo was taken.
Figure 2. Our Minibeds on Plastic Garden in March 2020
Our garden had changed quite a bit. The garden began growing very quickly and by June we had a very productive garden. Figure 3 is a photo of what our garden looked like in June 2020, just before our first harvest.
Figure 3. The garden in full production in June 2020
Our first harvest was small but we were excited. Figure 4 is a photo of our first harvest. Not much, but it included Better Boy Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Jalapeno Peppers, Sweet Peppers, Tomatillos, and a Zucchini.
Figure 4. Our first harvest of 2020
We had several weekly harvests throughout the growing season. Figure 5 is an example of our weekly harvest.
Figure 5. Weekly harvest in July 2020
Our garden produced well every week. We ate most of what we grew and gave away what we couldn’t eat to family and friends. Nothing went to waste. We saw the continuing problems the food supply was having during the Covid pandemic and we were worried that there would be severe food shortages in the late fall and throughout the winter. We were getting lots of fruit and vegetables from our garden throughout the summer months, but we needed something more to supplement what we were growing, and we wanted to be able to keep what we couldn’t eat for when we believed times would be tough. So we began canning and dehydrating what we were growing.
Every time we would harvest the garden we would can some of the produce. We were producing a lot of food, by not nearly enough food to provide us with fruits and vegetables over the long Illinois winter. So, we looked for a way to supplement our garden produce supply.
We live in the Illinois suburbs of St Louis, and St Louis has a wonderful Farmer’s Market, the best we have ever found. If you haven’t visited it please do. It is called the Soulard Farmer’s Market. It is located just south of downtown St Louis. I has all the fruit, vegetables, breads, and meat you could ever need. We developed a relationship with one of the local vendors there and would buy large amounts of fruit and vegetables to supplement what we grew in our garden. Our daughter makes organic dog food for her two dogs and goes through an enormous amount of rice, Zucchini, Carrots, and a few other items. So, on one visit to the Soulard Farmer’s Market we purchased 200 pounds of Carrots, 200 pounds of Zucchini, 200 pounds of Jalepenos, and 200 pounds of Tomatillos for canning to supplement what we were already harvesting from our garden. Some of this went to dog food and some went to canning for winter use.
We spend all weekend processing those vegetables. Here are a few photos of what we canned and packaged.
Figure 6. A 50 pound box of Zucchini with several already shredded
We wanted to ensure we had enough to keep the dogs content this winter along with a pantry full of canned vegetables we could use for soups, pizza sauce, salsa, and snacks.
Figure 7. 50 pounds of shredded Zucchini to be frozen for dog food
I can’t stress enough that if you aren’t a farmer and don’t have access to enough land or expertise to grow all the food you need you can supplement your food by purchasing what you need from the Farmer’s Market. I’m sure most cities have their own version of the Soulard Farmer’s Market and the produce vendors will be more than willing to sell you as much as you need. We found lots of resources on YouTube for videos on how to do canning and we had a great time. It was too hot to be outside anyhow. We had 5 people in the kitchen slicing, shredding, peeling, boiling, and laughing while we preparaed the food. We also helped the produce vendors get through a difficult times with the Covid pandemic slowing down food production and limiting the amount of people willing to go to a Farmer’s Market. We made two or three trips to Soulard to stock up and we ended up with a huge pantry that lasted us all winter. We are still making soup out of the Butternut Squash we kept in the basement from last year’s garden harvest.
Figure 8. Several Sliced Jalapenos for canning
In addition to food security issues during the pandemic there was a canning jar shortage. We looked everywhere for canning jars. We would always find them, but sometimes we had to be willing to drive a couple of hours to go pick them up.
Figure 9. The Saturday part of the canning project. Jalapenos, Tomatoes, Carrots, in addition to the bagged Zucchini
In the end last summer was a great learning experience. We harvested a lot of food from our garden and supplemented it with the Soulard Farmer’s Market. We had more than enough to get our family through the winter and we shared our resources. This year we are planning the same thing. We have added a few more Minibeds to the garden and we are going to supplement again with Soulard. In the meantime, we have enough canned food to last us through the fall canning season.
Figure 10. Lots of Jalapenos
Figure 11. Broiled Tomatillos for Salsa Verde
Figure 12. Lots of canned Tomatoes and salsa