Homesteading: Why we have chosen to move to a home with land - Part 1

Since moving to a home where we have land, one of my goals has been to provide our family with all of our food right here at home. Why? I think first and foremost, my desire comes from the instinct to take care of my family, especially my children. For the past five years I have been learning about different food ideologies. There are many, including myself, who are very passionate about providing our bodies with the healthiest food we can. No matter where my research has lead me, one thing I could consistently take away is that our food today, whether organic or not, is void of much of its nutrients, caused primarily because of poor farming practices. So, what can I do? I could choose the route of adding supplements to our diet to help fill out was is missing in food. However, for me there is one problem with this approach. I don't believe we truly understand vitamins and minerals yet, especially how they work with one another within our body. It's why there is a steady flow of changing information on what to take for the best overall health. Instead I've decided I'd rather focus on growing the most nutrient rich food I can in a sustainable way and allow it to nourish our bodies.

Beyond the overall nutrition, I realize it's also not just enough to feed my children, I also feel it's important that they understand food; how it's grown, where it comes from and why it's so important for their bodies. I hope as they work in the garden, and this year start a garden of their own, they can begin to learn to appreciate nature and how God called us to be stewards of the land.

Update on my mushroom growing kit.

And we have mushrooms! Actually we had mushrooms, they have all been eaten since I took these photos. :-) I can't seem to get ahead of my "to do" list and I meant to do this post several weeks ago. Oh well, you can fight life or just go with the flow! :-)

It has been pretty cool to watch the mushrooms grow and once they start, they grow very, very fast. The only problem we've had is I think it's too warm in our house, so they aren't doing quite as well as we might hope. We never use air conditioning and it's been averaging around 80 - 85 degrees in the house during the day and mid 70's during the  night. Mushrooms grow best when the high temperature is in the low 70's during the day and the 50's - 60's during the night.

We will definitely do this again, although I might wait until the fall when the weather cools down a bit.
The one down fall to growing mushrooms and something I did not expect was the dust they put out. Wow, it's a lot. I'm assuming it's their spores, but where ever the mushroom growing kit was there was a white dust all over the surrounding surfaces. I wonder if someone with allergies might have issues with that. I'll have to ask the "mushroom man" next time I see him at the farmers market.

Overnight the mushrooms grew from the little buds (in the first picture) to the mini mushrooms in the picture below. 

Harvested and ready to eat!

My First Mushroom Growing Kit

Now this is fun.  A couple of weeks ago I saw that there was a new vendor (at least new to me) at the St. Paul's Farmers Market. It was Birch Creek Forest Products and the very nice gentleman was selling mushroom growing kits that you can do at home. I love mushrooms and I've always wanted to try to grow them at home, but they aren't exactly something you buy seeds for and I've never ventured so far as to buy a kit online.

I couldn't buy the kit a couple of weeks ago, because I knew we were likely going out of town for vacation, so this past Saturday, I went searching for the mushroom man again and was in luck. He was there and armed with more kits. I was able to get one for growing wild Italian mushrooms and in about 3-4 weeks I should be able to start harvesting these beautiful little babies.

The kits were $24 and they included the stand you see in the picture. If you don't need the stand then the mushroom growing bags are $14. Not a bad deal when you consider how expensive mushrooms can be (not your button mushrooms of course, but the specialty ones get very pricey).

Over the next couple of weeks I'll share some pictures and updates of how the kit is doing. Oh and can I just say, I just love the farmers market!