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Healthy Food Choices

Everyone wants to be healthy these days. But with all the hype, it’s hard to know what to do.

The labels abound: Non GMO, Organic, Naturally Grown, Clean Eating. What do these mean? How can you make an informed choice? What are we thinking at Five Feline Farm?

Let’s take the labels one at a time as we see it.

Non GMO (Genetically Modified Organism)

Scientists have genetically modified some of our food crops to enhance production.  Corn and soybeans are primary cash crops in the Midwest. These have been modified to make them “Roundup Ready”.

What does that mean?

It means the plant is modified at the gene level in such a way that it can be sprayed with the herbicide Roundup and not be affected. Otherwise Roundup kills any plant matter it touches.

Brown. Dead.

Not these corn and beans. These can survive being sprayed with this lethal poison.

Of course, Monsanto, the maker of Roundup would have us believe that the modifications and subsequent spraying are safe for human consumption.

It doesn’t stop with corn and soybeans. Many of our food crops also contain GMO’s.

Organic

Organic food has a special designation and oversight. There are strict standards that must be adhered to if one is going to label a food organic. This also comes at a cost. Organic food producers must meet these regulations and pay fees to label their food organic.

Organic simply means nothing artificial has been done to the seed, plant, soil, water, or fertilizer.

Naturally Grown

This is what we do at Five Feline Farm. We use non GMO seed. There are only natural (read compost) amendments to the soil. Any pesticides are house-made from natural ingredients.

We’re ok with misshapen fruits and vegetables.

Although not organic, we think it’s pretty close.

Clean Eating

This seems to be a relatively new term. The most basic definition is to consume only whole foods that would have been recognized by the generation before World War II. Foods that are not processed from an unrelated substance. Ingredients that can be read and pronounced by a middle schooler.

Prior to WW II and the dawn of the information age, life moved at a slower pace. Families took time to come together over a meal and share their day. People in rural areas grew a lot of their own food, “putting it up” or “putting it by” to get through the cold winter months. City folks shopped at local grocers. Large multi-line stores were non-existent.

People ate local food in that era. Perishable foods would not make the long journey across country or continents. Anything that was shipped a distance was cost prohibitive for the average consumer.

Our Plan

We are into modern retro-food.

Yes, it’s a new term we just made up. Taking advantage of new cooking techniques and the occasional long distance food, most of what we eat is local. Whole foods that Grandma would know. Nothing we can’t pronounce.

We grow and preserve as much as possible here on the Farm. What we do buy gets a thorough label examination. Looking for ingredients we can pronounce or resembles a food more than a lab ingredient. The fewer ingredients the better.

We aren’t perfect in this effort. But each meal and each purchase is an opportunity to make a good decision. In the end we feel better, physically and emotionally. 

Your Turn

Join us in this effort to make better food decisions. Take one meal, one food, one day. Whatever works for you.

Eat a whole food. Read labels.

Make one food choice that is closer to the way Grandma used to eat.

Shop local.

Send us a message through email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and let us know what good food decision you made today.

A Look Back at 2016

As the year draws to a close, Five Feline Farm is taking a moment to step aside and recount the changes we experienced.

All of this was made possible because of the support we received through the year from you. Our friends and customers. We made new friends on Saturday mornings at the 18th Street Farmer’s Market, at the fall Honeybee Festival in Paris, IL, on social media, and special group tours of the Farm. Your support, enthusiasm, words of encouragement and product feedback are invaluable as we move forward in this business.

We created new products and enhanced existing ones:

Spearmint and Hint O Mint Beek Balm

Patchouli, Bergamot and Winter Phantom Balm fragrances

Snow Balm-our own version of that smeary stuff in a little blue tub

White Chocolate Macadamia, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and Dark Chocolate Cherry scones

New cat toy shapes

Some things around the Farm were improved or increased:

Market garden beds

More honeybee colonies

Online store expansion

And a few things discontinued:

Olive oil based Phantom balm

Oatmeal Raisin scones

2017 Vision

Our most recent leap of faith was to purchase a building. The back of the building offers equipment storage and the front, with it’s cabin style porch, will house an on-farm store.

We will continue to preach our anthem of whole and natural living wherever possible. From food to skin care products, to repurposed materials in catnip toys, every step is about whole, natural and sustainable.

This past year, Five Feline Farm grew beyond our expectations. Our dreams are bigger for the coming year. Maybe even outlandish. Stick with us, you never know what might happen.

Thank you for your encouragement and support. Here’s to a wonderful 2017 for all of us.

Check out our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages. And don’t forget the online store!

Planting Garlic

Did that last post make your mouth water? Are you craving some creamy roasted garlic spread on tender slices of Italian style bread? Perhaps a side of simple pasta with a browned butter sauce topped with grated Mizithra cheese?

I can tell you from experience that roasting garlic grown a few yards from your kitchen adds an additional layer of satisfaction.

Garlic is planted in the fall and overwinters in the ground. Since the time to plant in Central Illinois is late September/early October, get your order for seed garlic in now. We order from Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, IA. This company is a non-profit charged with preserving seed that otherwise may be lost over time.

Bed Preparation

Prepare your garlic bed now. Choose a different location each year for garlic, using good crop rotation principles to reduce disease and improve soil health. Here at Five Feline Farm, garlic will be planted where spring lettuce was grown. The excess lettuce has been allowed to sit on the soil. About a week or so before planting, the bed will be turned with a broadfork. (More to come on this technique in a future post.)  Garlic is a heavy feeder so adding in compost and Epsom salt will increase your harvest.

When it is time to plant, carefully remove the outer papery layers until the individual cloves can be separated. Don’t remove the papery layer from the individual cloves. Plant each clove about 3 inches deep and 6-8 inches apart with the pointed end upright. 

When the weather turns cold, mulch heavily with clean straw. In the spring when the days have warmed to 60 degrees and the night temperatures stay above 40 degrees, you can pull back the straw and keep the bed evenly watered until ready to harvest. You may leave the straw to help keep down weeds but there is a risk that it will stay wet and develop mold. Like most things in gardening, there is a trade off: do more weeding or accept the risks of mold. Decide for yourself how you want to manage your garlic bed.

Our next post will contain ideas about how to use this delicious fruit of your labor. While you are waiting on that post to arrive, check out our Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter feed. Plus, if you haven’t already signed up for our email list, please do. Each post will automatically show up in your email plus an occasional bonus for subscribers only.

Planning To Plant Garlic

Walk into any decent Italian restaurant and take a deep breath. That warm spicy aroma tingling your nose is quite likely garlic. That incomparable deep flavor that makes Italian dishes sing.

You can bring this into your own kitchen through bulbs of garlic purchased at a box store, but why do that when garlic is so easy to grow?

Garlic braid

Now is the time to start planning for your fall planting of garlic. Yes, it is somewhat counter-intuitive, but some plants are designed to spend their winter nestled in the cold earth. Garlic is just such a plant.

There are two basic types of garlic and numbers of varieties within those types. Like any other plant, the specific varieties have different advantages of flavor, storage, etc.

Hard Neck Garlic

These bulbs of garlic are different from the kind you normally find available in the store. The bulb forms a hard center stem that grows up through the bulb to support the leaves. As the bulb is opened, there are typically 6 or 8 cloves of garlic around this center stem. The cloves are full and large. Varieties we grow are: Music, Bogatyr, and German Red.

Soft Neck

This garlic does not form that hard center stem. Softer leaves shoot out of the middle and many cloves form around this center. The outer cloves are reasonably sized with size decreasing as you near the center. Even the outer cloves do not attain the size of the hard neck ones. We grow Inchelium Red

After you receive your garlic bulbs, either through a mail order supplier or somewhere local, don’t peel off the outer papery cover until you are ready to plant. Store the bulbs in a cool, dry place until ready to plant.

At this point you should also plan where you will plant your garlic. Choose a sunny location that is well drained with rich soil.  You will need 6-8 inches of space per plant.

This post is the first in a series about home grown garlic. Our next post will cover the characteristics of the garlic varieties we grow. In the meantime, check out this post about how to use garlic bulbils.

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