Caleb Warnock “must be on food stamps”

After getting many requests from across the nation, in Nov. 2013 I released a video tour of my geothermal greenhouse, which is heated by the earth all winter without artificial heat or electricity.

But when you give something to the world on the internet, the trolls are waiting.

“It is 36 degrees right now and it is snowing and it has been snowing since last night,” I say to the camera as I begin the tour. “And now we are inside the greenhouse, where it is 52 degrees.” And then I show the world my beets, onions, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, peas, and more.

I filmed this tour because the year before, I released of video tour of my backyard winter garden to YouTube, which has now been viewed 8,000 times, and people have been asking me for more videos -- especially for a glimpse of my greenhouse, which I wrote about in my latest book.

My greenhouse is small by careful design -- just 9 feet by 12 feet, for a total of 108 square feet. The design is groundbreaking, meant for 365-day a year growing without what technical people call “inputs.” To my knowledge, it was the first greenhouse in the nation of its kind (it has been copied since my Backyard Winter Gardening book came out).

It must -- and does -- withstand sub-zero freezes in winter and 140 degree heat in summer. To work, it must do just one thing -- remain unfrozen, even on the most bitter night of the year. Because if it freezes, even once, all is lost. On winter nights, every square inch of air space inside the greenhouse has only the geothermal properties of the earth to keep from freezing.

This is why my greenhouse is small -- so that it works.

Imagine my chagrin when some anonymous person on the internet, going by the pseudonym “Gig Bite,” posted this comment on my greenhouse tour video: “Caleb: You must have a small family or be on food stamps due to the size and yield of this crop. I sure hope you get more in harvest than the amount I see.”

Gig got it wrong.

We have a large family. And we are not, have not, and will never be on food stamps. Because we know how to be self-sufficient.

We are probably one of the few families the U.S. who can claim to be nearly self-sufficient. A lot of people talk about it. Not many people practice it.

But Gig’s incredulity is warranted, only because of his or her inexperience. Gig can’t understand what s/he was never taught. As a society, we’ve pretty much abandoned self-sufficiency. We rely on corporations to grow our food, produce our seeds, and make sure the grocery store is stocked. We drink more soda than water, and eat more brand-names than vegetables. We are awash in fake calories.

Our house is different, by choice.

For example, today, I picked beet greens, Swiss chard, Chinese cabbage, and other winter veggies to use for making stir-fry over homemade noodles, a winter favorite. All those vegetables I picked are cut-and-come again. With the right varieties, you can cut them at ground level, and they grow right back, immediately, over and over again -- as long as they don’t freeze. Our greenhouse is planted thickly, harvested sometimes daily, and produces bountifully.

And Gig is right. Alone, it is not enough. The pumpkins, onions, apples, and winter squash are in the garage. There is at least four times as much food in the backyard garden under cold frames and cloches. The eggs are in the coop, the stevia, medicinal herbs, and culinary herbs are in the cupboard. The beef from our pasture (we live on 1.5 acres) is in the freezer with the tomato sauce. There are peaches and grape juice in the cellar. It takes all of this to feed a family through winter. Because I am a “retired” cow-milker, the only thing we buy regularly is dairy -- milk, cheese, kefir, yogurt, cottage cheese.

We are not on food stamps. As I have said in hundreds of speeches, I’ll wager we eat better, spend less on food, and have less debt than anyone else in our state. I hope “Gig” never needs me. But if he or she ever does, our family hopes to make ourselves useful by showing people the way it was always done until we abandoned the methods and knowledge of our forerunners.

Caleb Warnock is the bestselling author of “Backyard Winter Gardening”, “The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast”, “Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers”, “More Forgotten Skills”, and “Trouble’s on the Menu: A Tippy Canoe Romp”. He sells the rarest seeds in the world (never hybrid, never GMO) at SeedRenaissance.com. You can join his email list here. You can see a video tour of his winter garden at tinyurl.com/khfocuu or a tour of his winter greenhouse at tinyurl.com/mzog6eg.

   

Greenhouse gardening class, January seed special

Hello all,

This is author Caleb Warnock of

SeedRenaissance.com to let you know

about my January Seed Bundle,

and my new Greenhouse Gardening class.

JANUARY SEED BUNDLE:

to order, go to: tinyurl.com/mco6lcj

January is a great time to plant seeds, if you

have the right seeds. This bundle offers

varieties that should be planted now.

This is more than $45 worth of seed for $19,

while it lasts. This includes some seeds

you can only get from me -- Amsterdam

Forcing carrots, which sold out very quickly

last year, as well as North Pole lettuce.

Everything in this bundle should be planted

now in a cloche, cold frame, hot bed,

greenhouse, or in a sunny window

in the *coldest* room in your home. (See

growing instructions at SeedRenaissance.com)

Shipping for this bundle is $7.

Here is the whole list:

Chives (common)

Asparagus “Mary Washington”

Medicinal Hyssop

Vernal Red Orach

Tom Thumb Butterhead lettuce

Broad Windsor Fava beans

Garlic chives

Yarrow (medicinal or display flower)

Anise (herb)

Thyme (herb)

Amsterdam Forcing carrot

North Pole lettuce

Tom Thumb peas

Grand rapids lettuce

To order, go to: tinyurl.com/mco6lcj

Please help me spread the word about this seed special,

or the class below, by sharing this email with anyone

who might be interested. And if you are in or near Utah, join me for:

GREENHOUSE GARDENING CLASS, TOUR, TASTING & SEEDS

9am to 1pm Jan. 25, Highland Community Center,

5378 W. 10400 N. Highland, Utah

$39 through Jan. 21 (click here to register)

$55 after Jan. 21

$29 per person (two people; before Jan. 21) (click here to register)

TO REGISTER: Go to SeedRenaissance.com

and click on “classes”

This class will cover: the “greenhouse ocean” principle,

size, best greenhouse vegetable varieties, design

options, costs, types, maximizing productivity,

venting options, polycarbonate, the candle mistake,

winter tomatoes, nutrient recycling, self-sufficient

watering, seed-starting in January, how to harvest

for best production, variety testing, what is most

useful to grow, maximizing space, and using a

greenhouse for emergency preparedness. At the

end of class, we will drive about 2 miles to tour

Caleb’s January greenhouse and taste his fresh

greenhouse vegetables. As a free bonus, each

class member will take home at least $30-worth

of greenhouse variety seeds from

SeedRenaissance.com, including:

North Pole lettuce

Amsterdam Forcing carrots

Broad Windsor Fava beans

Caleb’s Deep Winter lettuce

Michihili Chinese cabbage

Bright LIghts Swiss chard

Tom Thumb peas

Golden Sweet Snow peas

Snow Fairy tomatoes

Chioggia beets & more.

Caleb Warnock is the nation’s leading expert

in winter gardening, and author of the #1

national bestselling book “Backyard Winter

Gardening.” He is also the author of “Forgotten

Skills of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon

Pioneers”, “The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast”,

and the owner of SeedRenaissance.com. Watch

a video tour of Caleb’s January winter garden

at tinyurl.com/khfocuu or view a tour of Caleb’s

winter greenhouse garden at

tinyurl.com/mzog6eg -- see you in class!

Limited Christmas seed offer, first-come first-serve

Hello all,

As snow flies, we might as well sit in a comfy chair

and start drawing garden plot plans :) As a special

Christmas gift, I’m offering more than $100 worth of

seeds, plus the downloadable class “No Nonsense

Household Tips for Saving Money,” for $39.

First-come, first-serve. Many seeds in this package

have been sold out for more than a year. These are the

normal-sized seed packages, same as I always sell.

This offer also includes something very special --

Perennial Tripled Wheat. Perennial means you plant

it once and it produces a harvest year after year.

This important grain was given to me by a grower

who kept it from extinction for years. Perennial wheat

occurs rarely in nature, and this is one of those rarities,

improved and grown by farmers decades ago.

It is guaranteed non-GMO, non-hybrid, pure seed.

I have grown this to test it, and I can now guarantee

it is absolutely perennial. You will find this wheat for

sell nowhere else. Everyone interested in preparedness

should have these seeds in storage, if not in the garden.

Because I have very little of this seed, this wheat will

only be available as part of this Christmas offer.

Also:

- I have filmed a new tour of my winter geothermal

greenhouse, now available at Youtube here.

- For the first time ever, I now have stevia seeds

available at SeedRenaissance.com. You can find it here.

- Some of you have suggested I need to better explain,

especially to new readers, why you should consider

buying seed from me. Three reasons. First,

I literally search the globe for the last seeds of important

historic varieties, like the perennial wheat. I am

single-handedly keeping alive many important

heirloom seeds varieties. You can read more about this

work in my Forgotten Skills book.

Second, for every common heirloom variety I offer, I’ve

grown and rejected 30-40 other varieties. I spend huge

amounts of time and money on these tests, because no

one else is doing this work. I evaluate how these varieties

perform in an organic garden, without petro-chemical

fertilizer, pesticides or herbicides. I evaluate earliness,

flavor, production, storage, cold-soil tolerance, winter

harvest ability, self-seeding capacity, and more. If I

don’t love a variety, I don’t sell it.

Finally, every seed I sell is guaranteed pure, never

hybrid, never GMO, never patented, never corporate

owned. Our food supply MUST remain in the public

domain, at least what is left of our heirlooms.

Here is the full Special Christmas Seed Offer. You can

see details of each variety, and order for

$39 at SeedRenaissance.com. I expect this will sell

out quickly. Please note that shipping and handling for

this package is $7.

1 Mormon Winter pumpkin

2 Dwarf Blue Siberian kale

3 Caleb’s Deep Winter lettuce

4 Brown Goldring lettuce

5 Vernal Red orach

6 Pioneer Pink Eye beans

7 Albino beet

8 Snow Fairy tomato

9 Golden Sweet peas

10 Noir des Carmes cantaloupe

11 Amarillo carrots

12 Potimarron Winter squash

13 Perennial Tripled wheat

14 Chioggia beet

15 Scarlet Nantes carrot

16 Lemon Balm

17 Collard Vates

18 Waltham Butternut squash

19 Sweet basil

20 Tom Thumb peas

21 Roma tomato

22 German Queen tomato

23 Tom Thumb lettuce

24 Non-GMO Turkey Red Winter wheat

25 Non-GMO Red Fife summer wheat

26 Lemon Grass culinary herb

27-30 Marvel of Four Seasons lettuce 4 PACKS

(so you can give some as stocking stuffers!)

Merry Christmas! -Caleb

Two Thanksgiving Gifts from Caleb

Hello all. Thanksgiving quickly approaches, and I am grateful to everyone who attended classes, bought seeds and books from SeedRenaissance.com, and read this blog in 2013. To show my gratitude, I want to give you two Thanksgiving gifts.

First, I have released a brand-new downloadable class called “Raw Honey, Honeycomb & Propolis for Health.” I feel so strongly about this information that I am offering this class for $1 between now and Thanksgiving. (On Thanksgiving Day, the price will go up, so get yours now). I was going to give this class away for free until Thanksgiving, but I have been told that in order to make my copyright legally binding, I have to charge something. If you find this new class useful, please spread the word so as many people as possible can get this class while the price is practically free :) You can get it by clicking here:

Second, below is my recipe for Fresh Persimmon Curry, which is super-healthy :)

I like to make curries in the fall not only because they are so easy to make and taste so good, but because I can put in lots of the spice turmeric, which is anti-inflammatory and helps the body stave off colds and flu. If you are not familiar with this spice, here is some information on turmeric from the U.S. National Library of Medicine:

"Turmeric is a plant. You probably know turmeric as the main spice in curry. It has a warm, bitter taste and is frequently used to flavor or color curry powders, mustards, butters, and cheeses. But the root of turmeric is also used widely to make medicine. Turmeric is used for arthritis, heartburn (dyspepsia), stomach pain, diarrhea, intestinal gas, stomach bloating, loss of appetite, jaundice, liver problems and gallbladder disorders. It is also used for headaches, bronchitis, colds, lung infections, fibromyalgia, leprosy, fever, menstrual problems, and cancer. Other uses include depression, Alzheimer’s disease, water retention, worms, and kidney problems. Some people apply turmeric to the skin for pain, ringworm, bruising, leech bites, eye infections, inflammatory skin conditions, soreness inside of the mouth, and infected wounds."

The onions in this curry recipe are also anti-inflammatory and great for people with sinus issues.

Persimmons are one of my favorite fruits of all time. When I lived in Japan, I would walk down the streets and there would be trees loaded with persimmons, just like apple trees in America. I had never seen nor eaten a persimmon before I lived in Japan, but I immediately loved them and was known to eat a half-dozen in one sitting :) Persimmons sort of look like flat tomatoes, but they taste like a cross between an apricot, a pear, and an apple. They are WONDERFUL. Persimmon curry is a very Japanese recipe -- the Japanese love to eat curry and rice. Right now, persimmons have just come into season in the U.S. and have begun appearing in grocery stores, so if you've never had one before, now is your time! They are great when eaten raw like an apple (the persimmon skin is tough so you'll want to peel it), and they are great in curry. So without further ado, here is my recipe:

Fresh Persimmon Curry

(serves 4-6)

1.5 cups of rice, to be cooked

3 medium onions, diced

3 carrots, sliced

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon flour

1 tablespoon olive oil (again)

1 cup milk (or coconut milk)

1/2 teaspoon curry powder (for mild curry. Double if you like spicy curry)

1 tablespoon turmeric

2 fresh persimmons, diced

1 breaded chicken breast filet per person (I just buy this at my local supermarket deli to make life easier. Breaded pork chops are also excellent.)

Step 1. Put the rice on to cook. I use a $10 rice cooker from Walmart that we've had for many years. In Japan, a rice cooker is a household necessity!

Step 2. In a heavy-bottomed skillet or enameled cast iron pan, on medium heat, begin to saute the onions in the first tablespoon of oil. Add the carrots, cover the pan, and lower the heat to low. Cook for 8-10 minutes, until carrots are soft.

Step 3. In your pan, push the onions and carrots to the edges of the pan to clear a space in the center.  In this center hole, add the second tablespoon of oil and the flour. Stir the oil and flour together and cook on medium heat for one minute, and then stir in the vegetables. Add the milk, curry, and turmeric and bring to a simmer for 3-4 minutes.

Step 4. Turn off the heat. Add the diced fresh persimmon. Serve over rice. Slice the breaded chicken breasts and serve on top of the curry. Enjoy!

Books about the Health and Medicinal Value of Propolis

If you don't know what propolis is, or how to use it to get healthy, you can get my online class called "Honey, Honeycomb & Propolis for Health" by clicking here:

Geothermal Greenhouse Tour Nov. 2013

Since my book Backyard Winter Garden became a #1 bestseller in the gardening category on Amazon, I have had many requests via email for a video tour of my geothermal greenhouse, so here it is :)

A New Lie About GMO Food (Being Told For Money)

Slate.com has just published a new interview with Ingo Potrykus, who is a co-inventor of golden rice, which is genetically engineered to combat blindness and death in children in poor countries by supplying 60 percent of the daily requirement of Vitamin A in a single serving (basically splicing a beta carotene-producing gene into rice). The interviewer is very kind to Potrykus, as demonstrated by not asking Potrykus any hard questions. The article is an editorial, not a report, based in the online title -- “It’s Wicked to Oppose Genetically Modified Golden Rice” (When you click through to the actual story, the title disingenuously changes to rephrase the online title in the form of a question).

The writer asked Potrykus why Greenpeace and other groups have been so opposed to his project to create a GMO rice. Potrykus replies: “They've realized that it's politically more effective to be radical and not judge things on a case-by-case basis. I've had high-level discussions with Greenpeace over the years, and it becomes clear they cannot tolerate any genetically modified organisms, even those that can be used for the public good. If you encourage them to change their position on golden rice, their response is the same: They're against GMOs. That's the position, and it's very successful.”

Then the interviewer says: “These groups tap into public opposition to GMOs. Why do you think there is such vehement opposition?”

And Potrykus says, “Since the early 1990s, the majority of the media has repeated the mantra that GMOs are highly dangerous for the environment and the consumer. This mantra is fuelled continuously by a well-financed and -organized anti-GMO lobby. One of the cleverest tricks of the anti-GMO movement is to link GMOs so closely to Monsanto and other multinational corporations, because Monsanto has no friends. That strategy guarantees millions of supporters because people are emotionally against multinationals and in favor of organic farming because of the perception that it's run by idealists who protect nature and don't make money from it.”

This is a lie being told for money.

What Potrykus chooses not to say is much more important that what he says. Earlier in the article, the writer points out that there is a project in Uganda and Mozambique that has successfully bred heirloom sweet potatoes to do exactly what this GMO rice does. What no one in the article points out is that heirloom (open-pollinated) food has no owner. Every GMO food does. So the people who developed the improved sweet potato strain have created a food that no one owns -- if you can get some, and you know how to save and grow sweet potatoes (by using slips) then you can have these sweet potatoes, and anyone who wants to can grow them forever -- just like all the heirloom vegetables we have today.

But the GMO rice is owned and patented, and Patrykus will get rich off it, if it is approved in the Philippines (that country is considering it now). And anyone who ever wants to grow the golden rice will have to pay Potrykus’ company, forever. And that is truly wicked.

Not to mention real concerns about the fact that once modified genes are released into nature, humankind cannot ever control them again.

GMO food has one single goal -- to make its owners rich. I know first-hand about the allure. I create vegetable varieties. It has taken years of work to stabilize my two winter lettuces. And I sell the seeds. But once someone has bought the seed from me, they can save it and grow it and have it for the rest of their lives, without ever paying me another dime. They can sell it themselves. They can give it away. (Hopefully they will know what they are doing and know how to keep it pure, which isn’t rocket science but is important.) All of this is as it should be -- because I didn’t invent lettuce. I just created two new and much needed strains for winter growing. I did this hoping to help replace some of the winter varieties that have become extinct because they were carefully and quietly replaced by corporate-owned lettuces.

Owning the food supply is wicked. Improving the food supply is wonderful, but doing it with hybrids or GMOs which are patented and owned will do more to cause starvation and hardship than any other single factor. We give away our ability to feed ourselves for free by forcing farmers and gardeners to pay for seed each year instead of growing their own. This is what Potrykus is not saying in his interview -- sure, he’s created a food that will improve nutrition. But if his rice is approved, he will also force starving nations to pay for his seed forever, just like Monsanto.

There is only one way to support heirloom food, and that is by eating it, whether you grow it yourself and pay for the seed, or you buy it from people who are working hard to keep it from extinction, which has already happened to the majority of heirloom seed. Vote with your mouth, and your money. -Caleb

You can read the whole lie here: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2013/10/golden_rice_inventor_ingo_potrykus_greenpeace_and_others_wicked_for_opposition.html

How to Preserve Onions for Winter

My friend Anji Sandage has some great suggestions for taking advantage of the flood of onions each autumn, like we are experiencing now. I asked her to write a guest blog for me, and she obliged :) I've added a few notes too. Here is Anji:

 If you have an abundance of onions -- and with it being fall you just might if you grew onions in your garden, or bought a bunch from a farmer -- you may have more than you can use right away. Onions can be stored fresh, but will start going moldy after about 2 or 3 months if they are not handled properly, and the sweet varieties do not last as long in storage as other varieties do.

To store onions fresh for up to 3 months without them getting moldy or sprouting , here are a few tips:

-Never store onions and potatoes together
-Do not store onions in plastic bags
-Keep onions in a dark, cool, dry storage area, such as a kitchen drawer or a basement storage room.

Onions just left together in a bin will start to go bad after a month or so, even when stored in a dry, cool, dark place, and storing onions in the refrigerator poses other problems, including the transfer of the onion smell to other produce for one, and a loss of flavor and texture after a while is another.

If you keep your onions in a brown paper bag with holes punched in it, they will last up to 3 months. There is a blog post on the Yummy Life blog that has some great tips for storing onions for up to 3 months here:

But, what if you have, say, three or four 30-lb. bags of onions that you just got for really cheap through a farm co-op or a group buy? [note from Caleb: Where I live, 25-lb. bags of onions are on sale right now for $4 and change!] In this case, 3 months may not be long enough. You may want to freeze them. Onions when frozen will last much longer than 3 months, especially if they are vacuum sealed.

To freeze your onions, the first thing you want to do is peel and chop them. Nothing like chopping a 30-lb bag of onions to make you cry – but there are a few things that you can do to minimize the tears

-Don't touch your face after chopping onions until you have washed your hands.
-Don’t breathe the onion fumes though your mouth – as much as you are tempted, it’s better not to hold conversations while chopping onions. I’m not sure why this is, but the waterworks start as soon as I start talking to someone while chopping onions.
-Keep some cold water running close by – If my eyes are stinging, bending close to the faucet with cold water running really seems to help.
-Keep your onion pieces together while chopping to prevent as much of the oils from escaping into the air. The tighter I keep the pieces together, the less tears I seem to have. It works best if I peel the onion, then slice it in half, and then lay each half on its side and cut it in thin slices, hold the slices together, and then cut in thin slices again in the opposite direction. This allows the rings to work for you in that the structure of the onion has done most of the work for you and there is a lot less chopping to do.

[note from Caleb -- you'll have fewer tears from onions if you use a very sharp knife, which keeps the onion juices from splattering.]

Of course, if you have a food processor, that saves you a lot of work, and all you have to do is peel and quarter your onions, fill your food processor with the quartered onions, and then pulse until they are finely chopped. After the onions are chopped, there are a couple of different ways to do this – one involves small vacuum seal bags and a foodsaver. The other involves a greased muffin tin and gallon-sized Ziploc bags. Of course the vacuum sealed onions are going to last the longest, but not everyone has access to a vacuum sealer, and the bags can get expensive.

[note from Caleb - if you don't have a vacuum sealer, there is a self-sufficient answer: the Archimedes Principle. Put your chopped onions in a freezer bag, and lower the bag into water until only the top is not submerged, and seal the bag. This removes all the air.]

I have also found that the juice from the onions tends to get everywhere and even with the vacuum sealer on the moist setting, the bags sometimes will not seal because the onions get too juicy. Freezing the onions in muffin tins allows you to have a bag of ready to use ½ cup measures of onions that are easily accessible, and they still stay good for several months. I used lard from pasture raised pork to grease the muffin tin to make the onions come out easier after they have frozen. I also added a small amount of water into each measure of chopped onions so that the bits would stick together better in a cube (or my kids called them hockey pucks) after freezing.

Once the onions are frozen, just store the frozen onions together in a gallon sized Ziploc bag in your freezer, and when you need an onion, simply toss in one of your frozen ½ cup servings (or more if you like) into your cooking ground beef or into the slow cooker with your roast, or thaw it out beforehand and drain any excess liquid to use the onions in salads or other recipes.

Anji is the mother of 4 children, and a blogger at meanroostersoup.com. She is the chapter leader for the Salt Lake County chapter of The Weston traditional foods and herbal remedies, and works as a certified foot zone therapist.