Try something new!

There are a bunch of new seed varieties for vegetables so if you are looking to start your own vegetable garden why not try some of these...


1-Pepper Orange Blaze This variety proved itself a winner in AAS Trialing Grounds across North America due to early maturity, sweet flavor and disease resistance. Orange Blaze produces 3 to 4-inch long fruits about 1.5 inches wide with 2-3 lobes.


2- Melon Atlantis: Atlantis is an impressive Eastern shipper melon with its strong vines, excellent interior quality, consistent high sugars and a firm rind. The 6-8 lb. fruit have medium netting, slight sutures, and a deep orange flesh color


3- Lettuce Multiblond: This unique lettuce variety offers you the opportunity to harvest heads of leaf lettuce, with all the same leaf size, and when the leaf size reaches the desired size for your needs. This Multileaf lettuce variety can be grown from spring through fall and their compact plants will handle higher density plantings. Light green leaf color with heavily serrated leaf edges

Learn Sustainable Home Cooking!

Reasons Why You Should Learn Sustainable Home Cooking!

There are many reasons why you should start cooking with sustainable, local foods- here are just a few…

1-      It’s healthier & safer- When you cook yourself you know what is going into your meal and body. You do not have to worry about what a restaurant or mass producer put into your meat or meal. Locally grown food is fresher which means it is more nutritious. Once you get the product in your kitchen you are in complete control in what goes into the rest of your meal and how you prepare it. You can roast vegetables to preserve vitamins and keep the peel on fruits to add even more vitamin. You can avoid adding preservations, artificial flavoring, and texturizers.  Also you’re able to regulate how much salt, pepper, and sugar go into you cooking. YOU ARE IN CONTROL!

2-      Tastes the way you want- Doing your own cooking allows you to customize the flavor to suit your family, friends and own taste preference. You can add more spice to your cookies, add less butter to your potatoes etc. It is a nice perk to make your food taste the way you want rather than going to a restaurant and having it the way the cook prepares it.  You are able to experiment as much or as little as you would like. Once you start cooking with fresh local food you will realize that your meals taste better and satisfy your taste buds more than processed foods.

3-      Gets your children & friend involved- Start by bringing your son/daughter, grandkid, nephew/niece to the local farmers market to help pick out some products they want to eat and cook with. Children love to help cook in the kitchen so get them in there with you…start off with a new recipe, clean the produce and mix the ingredients.  Having them take part in the choosing, cooking and eating of local food will teach them that this is a practice they should take part in on a daily basis. This is also a great way to get friends involved- have a local food cooking party. All choose a local product and find a recipe to use the product in. The all get together and share your products and new recipes with! It’s a great way to learn new recipes and local products.

MUSHROOMS! MUSHROOMS!

Nothing is more "local" than growing your own products...if you are a fan of mushrooms you should check this out. For a class project Morrisville State College students started growing their own mushroom in logs...its easy & a great way to get involved in your own way. You just need fresh wood logs, mushroom spawn, hot candle wax and a place to store the logs. 

 This is the mushroom spawn--you put this into the holes you drill into th log

 Drill holes into each log

use the hot wax to cover the wholes that have spawn inside of them

 This is your finished project-- now stack them up outside!

The Wheel Hoe!

1-Some May Ask--What exactly is a Wheel Hoe??
     A wheel hoe is a garden tool that is used for weeding in your vegetable garden rows. The wheel hoe is much easier to push the wheel hoe rather than having a normal hoe and having to get down and rip out the weeds. In order to operate the wheel hoe ( I promise its very simple!) you push it ahead of you as you walk...the hoe digs into the ground dirt pulling up the weeds.  You aren't able to just push it right along BUT you have to walk while having a back & fourth motion while still walking...this allows for the hoe to catch the weeds. 


2- How does a wheel hoe relate to local foods?
   Having your very own vegetable garden is a great way idea. Not only do you know where you products are coming from, what is used on them-- it also allows you to not have to travel by car to get your products. In an all around way it is a great help to the environment. If you start your very own veggie garden you are going to have to maintain it and that is where the wheel hoe comes in to play-- this will allow you to weed out your garden without the use of gas powered tools! This is a completely green way to weed out your veggie garden!

This wheel hoe was made by Morrisville State College & can be found on Ebay!

MSC Grows for Local Resturants

Morrisville State College Horticulture department grows greens such as lettuce and spinach for local restaurants. The class is averaging a harvest once or twice a week...after being harvested the products are brought in and cleaned throughly and then delivered to local restaurants such as the Copper Turret, Mustang Ally etc..This is the second year that the Hort Department has been involved in this process. Each year they seem to learn more and more about the products, how to keep them clean and how the restaurants like the products. The restaurants are enjoying having the fresh products through the cold months and from an extremely local source, plus it is a great learning experience for the students!

MSC Grows for Local Food Cupboard

A Morrisville State College Horticulture Business Management student is growing fresh products for the Local Food Cupboard. Emily Stone has a bench dedicated to growing Basil, Cabbage, Tomatoes, Peppers and more for the cause. The bench is mostly empty now but as the spring semester continues the bench will quickly fill up... 

Local Produce

Cantaloupe seedling started locally in Morrisville State College Green Houses

Watermelon seedling started locally in Morrisville State College Green Houses

Cooking with Local Products

Obviously there is more to do than just eat your local products raw- there are many recipes to use your local products in! Here is a website that I found that has local recipes in pretty much any area of cooking-- Appetizers, desserts, breakfast etc..


Happy Local Food Cooking! 
http://localfoods.about.com/od/allrecipes/u/allrecipes.htm

Health Benefits

Everyone needs vegetables and produce in their daily diet and during the months when farmers markets are in full swing- you have the chance to add LOCAL vegetables and produce into you diet. When you buy your produce local you are getting it at its best time...when you buy it from a super market chain you don't know when it was harvested, how long it traveled and how long its been sitting on the super market shelf. Fresh Local products are ready to be brought home and eaten right then and there. Along with the health benefits of buying the local products- you will also have the life of your products be longer. The price may be a little more money than if you bought the produce from a super market but you will have it be able to last longer due to the freshness when you buy it...

How to start buying local?

Advice on your local buying:


1- Educate yourself--look into what products are grown in your area and when they are available...


2-Don't overwhelm yourself-- start with one product to focus on. Start with vegetables or produce-- these are both seasonal products for the most part so they are a good way to learn about what is grown near you. If you want to expand out more than just local vegetables/produce farmers start looking into local meat and dairy at local stores.

3- Visit local farmers markets as often as possible--each week something new may come out so go frequently to keep you up to date with the products.


4- Join a CSA- A Community Supported Agriculture farm is a way for customers to work with the local farmers. You become a share holder which allows you to work with the farm. You make a payment at the beginning of the season and then get a weekly stipend of produce and products. 

What exactly is Local Food?

Local food is an idea that doesn't have a set definition...it is more of thought. You can think of a bullseye when you think of local food- it is many different parts. It can be growing food at home, or food that is directly grown in the community or then grown in the state/region/county... so as you go out in the "bullseye" it gets broader and broader. It all depends on the time of year and products needed. The term "locavore" describes the practice of eating a diet of food thats been harvested from within an area most commonly not more than 100 miles. This is now a term that you can find in the Marriam-Webster dictionary!