Eating Well in the City: West Side Market

One thing is for sure; the city offers some amazing spaces, great architecture and interesting places.  We live only 40 miles away from Cleveland and manage to go downtown every once in a while.  When we do, discovering the food it has to offer has to be top on our list. 

The food doesn't have to just come from a restaurant either.  As a matter of fact, visiting its city market is one of my favorite places to go.  With roots going back to the 1840's - this market boasts of not only great food, but is full of history as well.  I end up feasting with my eyes as well as my appetite.

 

It is home to over a hundred vendors and believe me, they sell everything.  It's an eater's paradise.  The variety is endless and begs of repeat visits to at least get a glimpse of all that is for sell.

This leads me to my next thought...Eating well in the city is actually easier than I would have thought.  Sure, you have to walk past all the racks and displays of cookies, pastries, cakes, and candy (it's really ok to nibble along the way) to find some vendors that offer artisan breads, cheeses, and produce.   

A city market does so much for the local economy.  It provides small businesses great opportunities to thrive and grow.  It provides an outlet for small farmers and gardeners who need to sell produce.  It encourages artisanal foods and recaptures old world methods of growing, baking, cooking and eating. 

 

 It also is a vast artistic display that encourages creativity not only in food but in the way we think about food.  There's no way I'm thinking about french fries and pizza here...too many other great foods to discover and explore.

It really is a center and a gathering place for young and old alike to celebrate ethnic heritages, great food and learn new traditions.

 

With this constant traffic flow of produce and food from the burbs and countryside, it ensures the quality of food for many urban dwellers.  I am almost thinking that it's a bit easier for them to eat well at least when it comes to having more healthful choices.  

 

 

I know we ate really well that day and came home with some prizes too.  With new vendors selling Black Tuscan Kale and other organic produce, I felt as if I was walking through a garden. Looks like city pavement owners have their own bit of livin' in the green as well.

 

What's your favorite town or city market space?  Blessings!



For more info on the West Side Market, click here.

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Community Gardens: A Few Things to Consider

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Apartment dwellers, gardeners with limited space, people who are looking to share their garden experiences and new gardeners can all benefit from a community or a shared garden.  We've been a part of shared gardens for years before we got a plot at a new community garden in our area.

Our first shared garden experience involved driving a good 20-25 minutes to even get there.  A friend of ours shared a few rows of their garden space with us because we wanted to expand our tomato crop.    We learned a few things from sharing the space that helped us as we eventually gardened with another friend some years later even farther away from us!  Our community plot is only about 5 minutes down the road and has obviously worked the best for us.  

So here's a quick look at the upside and downside of sharing a garden space.

Our very small backyard garden

Why even consider community or shared gardens?

Lack of space, space, space!!  That is the reason that prompted us to look outside of our own space at first.  We actually wanted to grow lots of tomatoes to preserve, so we were looking to plant more. Having much more room to plant means opening up your options for more variety of vegetables.

To keep your yard freed up for other uses.  We know one gardening family that have a very large yard, but it bordered on a woods and the deer ravaged it year after year. For them, it was easier to grow it off premises and keep their yard wide open for their two young daughters.  

To learn from other gardeners.   Our second shared gardening experience was with a senior who had been tilling the soil for years.  He not only shared garden space with us, but also introduced us to new varieties and shared his growing wisdom as well.  It's amazing how much we don't know about gardening at times, and being able to talk to others who are planting in the same soil conditions helps a lot.  Seeing other people's plots in a community garden gives you new ideas for setting up your own garden space too.  I always study what others are doing and copy what looks like is working for them. 

 Some advantages of shared or community gardening:

Bonus Plants: No matter where we gardened, we always enjoyed bonuses...plants being one of them.  A community garden is an easy place to share, swap and exchange plants with others growers.  Our community garden has a covered shed where extra plants are available for those in need.  One year we were given a bunch of hot peppers.  We didn't want to grow too many so we gave our extras to some Hispanic gardeners who were happy to take them off of our hands.  We also were able to plant extras or left overs from other people's gardens which gave us some different veggies to try without any money risk of our own.  It's nice to share and trade, it creates a great way to get to know other gardeners.

Bonus Vegetables: Last year, we were able to give away our zucchini extras and allow other gardeners to try an heirloom variety that they found out they loved!  We often would harvest vegetables and either give away or trade for something we weren't growing.  We got a spaghetti squash last year for some winter squash, giving us a break from the overload of produce.  We still had more than plenty for fresh eating and preserving.  We like to grow an abundance so we can give it away as well...

Bonus Friendships: Our community garden is located behind a large local church and we were able to reconnect with friends from there and meet different people around us.  It's always great to cultivate new friendships.

The Disadvantages?

Traveling to your garden.  This means you have to carry your tools with you unless your community or shared garden offers storage or shared tools.  


Having to be more organized about working in the garden.  It's important to work in the garden 2-3 times a week in the beginning of planting, to water and weed.  If not - weeds will quickly wreak havoc in your garden.  Once the garden is established, we usually go once a week to water if needed and to keep up with weeds. We need to go more often once harvest begins. Sometimes it's easy to forget a garden, so planning on what days to go is crucial. 

Following the community garden's rules.  Every  community garden needs rules in order to keep peace and structure.  It's important to be supportive of the rules and guidelines in order to respect and honor the vision of the garden.  You will want to be on friendly terms with other growers and know if its vision will be compatible with your gardening beliefs.  Also, you will want to consider if you're willing to compromise in any area.

Having to adjust to different growing conditions. I thought I knew a lot about gardening until we started gardening in other places.  All of sudden, we had to deal with different soil conditions, sometimes different frost zones, different plant diseases and especially different insect pests.  In our community garden, we planted tomatoes but were flanked by potato growers.  This caused a huge surge in the potato beetle population which in turn worked on devouring our tomatoes and ruining our eggplant.  Also, the soil was so sandy that our first crop of green beans plants were the size of a full grown green bean.  We were ready to give up, but found that other crops that didn't do well at our house were thriving at this garden.  So we gave up on the tomatoes, (grew them successfully again at home) but planted root crops for a few years until we built the soil up.  So this I look at a disadvantage, but also as an advantage.

A few more tips to consider:

Be purposeful about what you plant.  Vegetables such as green beans, and onions can easily get lost in weeds AND it can happen fast.  If you only want to visit your garden once a week, these crops won't do as well.  I'm speaking this from experience! We grow lots of summer and winter squash as they are much easier to keep up with and grow better at the community garden than in our backyard space.

Consider mulching to conserve water and suppress weeds.  We mulch heavily with black and white newspaper topped with straw to keep up with the never ending weeds.  Shredded leaves are another great resource.


Overall, our shared gardening experiences have been well worth the extra work.  We are able to grow abundant vegetables there that the insects will ravage a few miles away and it's been working for us for a number of years now. This is a great bonus when gardening without using pesticides.

Even if you have plenty of space to garden, you may want to consider garden lending to help someone else out.  If you do, it would be important to establish rules and guidelines in order to maintain your relationship with those who are gardening with you.  It's a great way to teach a new gardener too and pass on valuable information to others in your community.

Have you ever gardened with someone else or in a community garden?  What was your favorite experience from it?



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Do These Green Cleaners Really Work?

I have been noticing quite a few postings on Pinterest of recipes to make your own "Green" cleaners.  So, I thought I would share what I have experienced from using them personally.  After all, reviews are an excellent way to make a decision about a purchase or a recipe.  I know I always check out reviews...and to be honest, they are pretty legit.  I have yet to be steered wrong from them.  I make sure I read a lot of reviews.  I read the best and I read the worst and make my decision based on how bad is the worst and why it's so bad.  

So with all that being said, let's return to the cleaners.  I found a Pinterest recipe for a Citrus Vinegar Cleaner.  It's pretty basic and super easy, which automatically is a pro for this cleaner.
   

Get your lemon/orange peels and place them in a jar.  I used quite a few lemons, but oranges are great too.

Grab your vinegar, the white stuff, at pennies an ounce, is perfect for this recipe.

Pour and...

That's it.  Now you just let it steep until the vinegar turns yellow or orange or a mix of the two since I put both lemon and orange peels in together.  It may take a few weeks, but I get one started and keep one going so I don't run out.  Then you strain through a simple strainer and put in a spray bottle to use.  You can dilute this recipe too if you want.  I did on the second batch, and it's up to you how much you dilute it.  I didn't too much as I wanted it to be pretty potent. 

I used this cleaner in the bathroom to disinfect the sink and the toilet area.  It cleaned it as well.  It was hard to tell if it worked as I mainly was using it to kill germs which vinegar does do. Check out some more info here about how vinegar at 5% strength (undiluted) is a great germ killer.  Here's another site that gives you ten ways to use vinegar around your house.

The Results: Vinegar works!  It really does.  I've used it for years as a floor cleaner too.  Be aware that it's acidic and will rust the metal parts in a mop.  But, it works.  It's a great window cleaner and best of all, it has kept the bottom of my toothbrush holder clean from mildew.  That's worth every penny there.  You couldn't use a regular chemical cleaner for that!

The Drawbacks: It has that lovely vinegar aroma, but the smell will go away and at least you know the aroma won't kill you.  It didn't clean the mildew as well as I would have liked in the shower.  You do have to spray it a lot and make sure you start out with a clean surface to begin with.  It's also not as quick to clean as a heavy duty chemical cleaner...but I'm willing to wait.  I also don't know if you really need the citrus.  It may help with degreasing, but for general cleaning, straight vinegar is good enough for me.

Overall, it's worth using for sure and I find I am cleaning more because I don't have issues with the highly toxic odors from the chemical cleaners.  In other words, I'm stocking up on vinegar!  (Oh, and I do use it for laundry too!)  The lemon/orange peels are optional, but their essential oils probably add a little to the cleaner.  I just don't think they are super necessary.

Baking soda is in a class all of it's own and I've only begun to scratch the surface all of its cleaning uses.  Not bad considering you use this vital ingredient in quick breads and cookies.  My one use that I love is simply this...it's great at scouring the tub.  Yep, no more Comet cleaner for me.  It works well and yes, I do have to use some elbow grease but that's the way it goes with certain types of cleaning. 

But this cleanser is a win-win.  You can cook with it, you can clean with it...you've got to love that.  My mother used to use it as an antacid.  Good to know, but I think I would have to be desperate for that one!  She also used it as toothpaste.  I've used it for that too.  It's abrasive but gentle on your teeth.  Here's a great link for 51 uses for baking soda.

So, my final verdict is that these two pantry staples not only stay in my kitchen, but I'm going out to buy more.  Hopefully in the largest sizes I can find!  

So add my review to others you may find.  It's worth a read and maybe will help you decide about using these two wonders as cleaners.  The best thing about vinegar and baking soda is there is NO recipe to try to remember.  Just use them the way they are...perfect.

What are some of your favorite uses for vinegar and/or baking soda?  Blessings!


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