Urban Farm Handbook: City Slicker Resources for Growing, Raising, Sourcing, Trading, and Preparing What You Eat

558 Pages·2011·18.86 MB·English

by  Annette Cottrell

City-Slicker Resources for Growing, Raising, Sourcing, Trading, and Preparing
What You Eat
ANNETTE COTTRELL AND JOSHUA MCNICHOLS I PHOTOGRAPHY BY
HARLEY SOLTES

How It All Began 7
Deciding Not to Leave the City 11
WINTER 17
chapter 1 It All Begins with Grain 23
chapter 2 The Chicken and the Egg 53
chapter 3 Dairy Dilemma vv 73
SPRING 95
chapter 4 Growing Your Own 103
chapter 5 It's All in the Dirt 119
chapter 6 Going to the Source 137
chapter 7 Seeding Your Garden 151
chapter 8 Growing Strategies to Maximize Space 161
chapter 9 Garden Pests and Beneficial Insects 177
SUMMER 189
chapter 10 Eating Seasonally 197
chapter 11 Winter Gardening: It Starts in Summer! 205
chapter 12 Preserving the Harvest 211
chapter 13 Building Food Community 247
FALL 261
chapter 14 Going Whole Hog 269
chapter 15 Raising Small Animals for Meat 295
chapter 16 Beverages and Syrups 323
chapter 17 Soaps and Other Sundries 333
Annette's Original Grocery List 344
Annette's Revised Grocery List 345
Annette's Calendar 346
One Front Yard and One Pantry at a Time 351
A Question Answered 353
Plant Lists for the Pacific Northwest 356
Resources 370
Index 378
Thanks to Marc Ramirez for discovering me, and Kate Rogers for her
persistence and faith in this project. Thanks to Will Allen, Alleycat Acres, Sue
McGann, Eddie Hill, and Stephanie Snyder Seliga for making food sovereignty
something that is not reserved for the upper classes. Thanks to Charmaine
Slaven, Lacia Bailey, and the other Seattle Farm Co-op mentors for giving so
much of their time and knowledge to build Seattle's urban farming community.
Thanks to Skeeter for a lifetime of teaching others to grow food, feed friends,
and make this world a more loving place. Thanks to Joshua for helping to make
this dream a reality. And thanks especially to Jared, Max, and Lander for putting
up with my crazy bus. (AC)
A book about a food community wouldn't succeed without the generosity of so
many farmers, producers, friends, and neighbors. Without their stories, this
would be just another how-to book. Special thanks to Rene Featherstone and
Michael "Skeeter" Pilarski, the "monks" of our personal food community.
Thanks to our editors at Skipstone: Kate Rogers for finding us, Joan Gregory
for hammering our work into shape, Barry Foy for his ironclad recipe standards,
Heidi Smets for her excellent eye, Margaret Sullivan for her expert facilitation,
and Anne Moreau for her last-minute cleanup. Thanks to Harley Soltes, who
turned out to be a mentor as well as an outstanding photographer.
Annette's entry table.
Thanks to the family members who helped proof various bits and pieces of
text, to the editors at KUOW who taught me how to locate a person's quest, and
to Philip Lee for his occasional guidance. Thanks to P-Patch and Seattle Tilth for
teaching me how to steward the soil. And finally, thanks to Annette, without
whose engine this train would never have left the station. (JM)
Annette
For four years, beginning in 2006, I spent every spare minute working in my
yard. I eradicated dandelions, ivy, blackberries, and plantain, and did all I could
to nurture the dead lawn back to life. I had a landscaper create plans for a formal
ornamental garden. I spent hours, my baby in my arms, gazing out the window
and dreaming of fountains and boxwoods and flowers.
But midway through this all-consuming project, I suddenly had a change of
heart. Soon I was ripping it all out like a woman possessed. What in the world
happened?
My first son, Max, had terrible acid reflux as an infant, and my concern for him
led me to spend hours researching the connection between diet and health. As he
grew into a highly intense toddler, my focus expanded to include the effects of
diet on behavior.
When Max's weight plummeted from the ninety-fifth percentile of average
body weight for his age group to the fifth (he had a habit of boycotting food), I
reached a turning point.
Our pediatrician sent us to Children's Hospital for help from a nutritionist. Her
advice was to feed Max special canned drinkable meals made entirely of
synthetic ingredients. I listened politely, but when I got home I was irate. How
could isolated synthetic nutrients compare to the natural nutrients humans had
evolved with? I knew that what Max needed didn't come in a can. I crumpled up
the nutritionist's recommendation slip and threw it away.
Instead, I set out to create my own special diet for Max. Rather than synthetics,
this one was loaded with rich organics: butter, heavy cream, pastured bacon, egg
yolks. I served them in forms that no toddler could refuse, such as eggnog,
pudding, and smoothies.
In no time at all, Max's weight was back up. At the same time, he started trying