On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Brodie wrote:
>
> This unconventional arrangement (many city folks shop daily) saves me money
> (bulk discounts and less opportunity for impulse buying), huge amounts of
> time, and lots of fossil fuel and electricity. I'm now campaigning for a
> smaller, more efficient refrigerator because much of our food is harvested
> minutes before being prepared for a meal or can be stored without
> refrigeration (winter squash, potatoes, onions, etc.). Actually, I
> wouldn't mind trying no refrigerator at all, but that is still too radical
> for the rest of my family.
We still need to figure out where we are going with food storage in our
new smaller place. I'd like to see a root cellar put in somewhere in the
coop, but that will take some time and convincing. There is a food coop in
the building and there does seem to be some attempt to coordinate bulk
orders. I'm not clear on that yet. We'll still need to do some outside
shopping. I used to go to the grocery store once a month, but we now have
less freezer space so I'm thinking we'll need to make this twice a month.
We've put a fair amount of effort into finding alternatives to freezing
for our summer produce, and we are trying to decide if we can manage with
the freezer space on in the fridge or if we need to sacrifice some
precious floor space to an additional freezer. Storing our summer's
produce in the apartment for winter use is going to be an issue. I'm
hoping over the course of the summer I'll figure out something reasonable
to start with this fall. We can then tweak it from there while I work on
convincing the coop membership that a root cellar is a great idea.
>
> And the garden is such a nice place to be.
Having got a better sense of personalities and policies at the coop, I'm
not sure that gardening on site is going to work out for me here in the
short term. I do now have an allotment a short walk away, and a promise
that I can muck about with compost there to my hearts content, but to get
sufficient space for winter storage vegetables I'll still be needing to
trek out to my old allotment about an hour away again just in a different
direction than I used to go.
sph
Sandra P. Hoffman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.flora.org/sandra/
