It’s easy enough to eat local in spring and summer. Your garden is booming, CSA’s are in full effect, and farmers markets abound! So how can you make that bounty last into the winter, when fresh produce is a little more scarce? Here are some DIY solutions!

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Well, according to AlterNet, it is. In fact, all I have to do now is “Sit Down and Eat.” Well, maybe after I finish planting and pulling weeds, cleaning and prepping the vegetables, cooking, canning, preserving. That’s all. But if it wasn’t a struggle for ALL of us to get local food, to find healthy, sustainable ingredients to feed the world, hey, bring it on, I’d like that as daily life. I could use less time ranting on policy and more time to garden.

Resources and insight after the jump.

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But Orlando’s local program is anything but. The first tip-off? It’s launched in conjunction with the Disney Entrepreneur Center. Not exactly the name that comes to mind when you think of supporting local businesses. But then again, neither is McDonald’s — but according to “Buy Local Orlando” program guidelines, the fast food chain qualifies as a local merchant.

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Have you noticed that you crave different foods in different seasons? Your body knows best what it needs and when it needs it. Foods that are in season provide us the most flavor, freshness and most nutritional value at the most affordable price. Modern food producing and distribution makes food available on your grocery shelves all year long, however, eating seasonally and locally not only benefits our bodies, but benefits the environment as well.  By purchasing local foods that are in season, you eliminate the environmental damage caused by shipping foods thousands of miles and your family will reap the benefits of eating fresh, unprocessed fruits and vegetables.

In different parts of the country, seasonal menus will vary, but here are some general guidelines to help you start shopping seasonally.

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[Creative Commons photo by Carl Tashian]

Spring is getting close! The bulbs from last year are peeking out of the ground, and I’ve even spied a few things starting to bloom out back! This week’s Vegetable Husband newsletter mentioned that farms nearby are starting to plant for Spring, and it reminded me that it’s time to get my own Spring garden going, too! Here are some great resources to get you started.

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Formed as a coalition of schools, Mid-Atlantic-based nonprofit organizations, and the USDA, the Small Farm Success Project is “dedicated to helping small and emerging farmers improve their financial success.” Project researchers keep raising that million-dollar question:  How does a small farmer committed to sustainability find success?

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Eating food that is locally grown can really help you cut down your carbon footprint. Most food travels hundreds or even thousands of miles from farm to table. All of the processing, packaging, and travel accounts for almost 80% of the energy use in the U.S. food system. Eating more local, unprocessed, organic produce is a great (and tasty) way to cut back on those food miles! Services like Atlanta’s Vegetable Husband make eating local that much easier.

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In partnership with fellow non-profit, the Northern Colorado Local Living Economy Project, over forty booths and a dozen interactive workshops dedicated to food will be featured at the Sustainable Living Fair on September 20 and 21, 2008 in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Meet local farmers, beekeepers, cheese artisans, gardening experts and chefs in the Eat Local - Grow Local area. Learn how to preserve and cook seasonal food, make cheese, garden, compost, get involved in farm-to-school projects and local food security issues, raise chickens, make fermented vegetables, and more with hands-on workshops.

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September is Local Food Month, and what better way to celebrate than checking out farmers markets around town? Three Atlanta markets have teamed up to help locals do just that, and to do so using sustainable transportation! On September 27th, this bike rally is gathering in Piedmont Park at the Green Market and touring several markets around town.

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Eating food that is locally grown can put a huge dent in your carbon footprint. Most food travels hundreds or even thousands of miles from farm to table, guzzling tons of fuel. All of that travel doesn’t help the food’s freshness, either!

Yesterday, I wrote about growing your own fall vegetables. For some folks, though, that sort of thing is just not an option. Another great way to eat local is to hit up a farmers market or join a CSA! Local Harvest has a great list of CSAs and farmers markets by region. In the Atlanta area, there are several really great markets around town! Here are just a few.

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Fall is getting close. The official first day is September 22nd, but right now is the perfect time to get your fall food garden going! This is a wonderful time for gardening, with pleasant weather and fewer bugs around than the summertime. There are all sorts of great, hearty veggies that thrive in cooler weather!

Fall Veggies
Good vegetables for a Fall garden are ones that can withstand cooler weather. Cruciferous vegetables do well. So do root veggies and certain greens. There are even edible flowers you can plant this time of year! Here is a quick list of veggies that love the Fall as much as I do.

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But, I Thought You Said “Eat Local?”
While President Bush may have told the nation that eating local was the way to go for the food crisis (despite that whole ethanol, lack of vegetable farm thing), he doesn’t seem to be helping us follow his innovative strategy. According to the American Farmland Trust, Bush is proposing cuts to the 2009 farm bill programs that would have supported local food, conservation and other agriculture programs. These programs were among the few bright spots that kept the new farm bill from being a total loss of reform. Hmm. Kinda hard to eat local if there isn’t any local food. By the way, what happened to that green tie?

Sticker Shock
Rainforest Action Network has organized a protest against products containing palm oil. On August 13, more than 2,000 concerned citizens across the nation will visit local supermarkets. The activists will be seeking out products containing palm oil and applying a sticker, “Warning! Product May Contain Rainforest Destruction,” on these products.

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“I have been thinking a lot this week about growing things and how lucky we are to live in a place where it is possible to see nature in all its forms. As pissed off as I get about the deer eating produce, it still takes my breath away to see a doe and her baby standing by the side of the road. I love to watch the dragon flies dive boming over the plants in the field and just have to search for the nest of a quail who is frantically trying to call me in the opposite direction. It never ceases to amaze me that a seed no bigger than a pinhead can create a plant that is over 12 feet tall and will produce a two-pound tomato. What a wondrous world we live in.

Post for this week follow the jump.

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The two “experiments” in my haul are, of course, kohlrabi and amaranth. I heard more than one remark, “But what do you do with it?” over these items. I am determined to find out. For the kohlrabi, which is a combination word from German and German Swiss for “cabbage” and “turnip,” the mild radish-like flavor and crunch lends itself to a tangy kohlrabi slaw recipe.

For the rest of the carnival, entries from all of you include some great recipes and advice this week. Reader posts after the jump.

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Posts follow the jump.

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Submissions for this week follow the jump.

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In the meantime, we dress warm and console ourselves with purple and green asparagus, arugula, spring onions, herbs, lettuces and spinach.

Around the country, other markets are filled with spring’s freshest. Entries for this week’s Farmers Market Fare after the jump.

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Putting the comment back into context, however, there are a few problems with the logic of this suggestion, and not just that he, Bush, was the creator of the “eat local” concept.

The statement was made in response to a question on the relationship between ethanol and food price increases: (quote from press conference after the jump).

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Given that this coming week is Earth Day, and April is poetry month, here are a few words from Kahlil Gibran’s poem, “Earth:”

“How beautiful you are, Earth, and how sublime!
How perfect is your obedience to the light,  and
how noble is your submission to the sun!

How soothing is the song of your dawn, and how
harsh are the praises of your eventide!
How perfect you are, Earth, and how majestic!”

Here are your blog posts for the week (after the jump).

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