I agree with many of the statements made here. We also eat from the garden and when in season. Lucky for us, the seasons here are long! We simply plan our meals around what the garden produces! I think this really simplifies life. Lettuces grace our table from December to June, tomatoes from July to December, cole crops are good from November until June. In the winter we eat peas and favas, in the spring runner beans, in the summer common beans, in the fall sometimes cow peas, sometimes limas. Carrots produce every month (but they are less tasty in the summer), beets most of the year, chard all the time. We grow all the herbs we use, but only have basil in the summer and cilantro in the winter. Fruit is great, and even better now that we started growing strawberries. Our fruit production goes like this: December to May too much citrus! strawberries are producing most of the time, peaches in mid summer if the squirrels let us have some, figs in August and September, then some of the neighbor's grapes. We do buy some tropical fruit from time to time, bananas, mangos, papaya, we can't grow those too well. I also eat a lot of my preserved (dried) figs troughout the year. So I think we produce 90% of the fruit and veggies we eat. We produce some potatoes, but need to buy some for part of the year. Same with onions. Garlic was a bust, must do something about it. We grew corn a couple of years, no more. We are using the space to grow artichokes, better return on the investment! So we buy corn a couple of times a year. As far as other grains, I have tried growing amaranth for grain. No fun to harvest, but I like it as greens in the summer!

I am a new member to gw and hope I am not intruding here but Wow! We are attempting this exact same thing right now. We moved to 82 acres of sand and sage brush just over a year ago and are starting with absolutly nothing but what we brought with us and can provide or build on our own. We are 38 miles from the edge of town and we are 100 percent off grid. We have no address, so no fire , police, or medical services of any kind out here. When we moved here our plans were to gradually build up to a self sustaining life style over a period of a few years. We had a savings and job options all lined up. Instaed, the economy tanked and I lost any hope of working due to my health. We were kind of forced to decide on the spot if we realy wanted to do this or if we were going to go back to the city. We decide this realy is what we want to do and have been sticking to it. We haul water, we are building solar panels, have a very small geni for night time power and heat with scavaenged wood and use straw for insulation for both us and the animals. It took a full year for my partner to find any kind of work at all we lived off of saving and my tiny disability income until then and now most of his pay goes for fuel to get to work(79 miles round trip every day) . I was not able to get a pair of goats until Aug 25th of last year. We still need two more does so that we can keep a clean heard of 3-5 goats going at all times for both meat and milk. We have chickens ( the first thing we put out here, Reds, Amercanas,Siklies, and Bantoms) as well as Ducks and Pheasant. We plan on Turkeys and Geese this year. We also plan on rabbits in the future ( the new zelands )but have a large wild population to hunt for now. We will be saving for American Guinea Hogs and Irish Dexter Cattle. If we must, we will do a Dexter / Jersy cross for the cattle. We only want the smaller heiratige breads of the larger livestock since they are much nicer to the land ( I can comfortably range 3-5 dexters on the same amount of land as 1 of the standard breads of cattle and that 3-5 animals is all we will need ) and they can comfortably handle our major temp swings with out health issues. I only managed a small experimental bed last year. It was to see if I could grow all of the things that the folks here has major dificulty with since they are some of the mainstays in most home gardens (tomatoes , peppers, beans, greens, and mushrooms ). With a lot of creative gardening , it worked. So this year will be my first real garden attempt. A large percentage of what others have posted is on our list of things to plant or grow. This is not an all inclusive list but we have also added things Quinoa , flax , sorgums, sunchokes, sunflowwers, barley, oats, rye, buck wheat, soybeans, alfalfa, millet, wheat and clover ( because all of these they are good for both human and animal consumption). Most of these things can be grow together because they devolpe and mature at different times, many are symbiotic relationship plants ( think 3 sisters planting,like corn, beans and squash in the same bed), and they also build and maintaining the soil. We have not yet aquired most of these but hope to soon. They provide food crops and fodder crops at different stages so the production is double duty. With carefull and selective harvesting and seed saving we can set aside next years crop of some of the anuals like the buck wheat. We have plans on a small orchard and I received a gift of a few nut trees for birthday ( 2 hazel nuts a pecan and an almond) and they should arive in june. We will also try to take advantage of the native plants to incourage the continued diversity of wild life we have out here. If the Fox, Cyotes ,hawks,eagles, mountain lions , badgers and other bigger preditor types have an ample food sources, our animals are less attractive to them. We also get better polination , and bug controls. I am an experianced gardener but not in this zone 5 and with these kind of temp swings ( We are alpine high desert with -5 to -15 in the winter , 100 plus regularly in the summer and a last frost date of june 10 ). I can tell you it will be a challenge to everything you think you know. So, Thank you, Your efforts do not just benefit those you seek to help but also some of us at home. I wish you the best of luck with your experiment and will follow your post for any lessons you may be able pass on.

There is some great info in this thread! Copying and pasting. My cholesterol has been stellar, but DH has a familial issue. He's been on Lipitor for years, now just switched to Vytorin. We'll see with the next blood test if it had any results. I'm another one who cooks only with EVOO or a bit of canola or grapeseed when absolutely necessary. You know that I don't add butter to any recipe that I'll be eating, nor do we use much butter or margarine here. DH give up eating cheese, but he prefers the harder types such as swiss or manchego as opposed to Brie. He likes it as a lo-carb/hi protein snack. He drinks his coffee black and uses 1% milk with his oatmeal. He primarily eats skinless white meat chicken, lean cuts of beef or salmon most of the time. Apples, he could do w/o but maybe spread with almond butter. One thing that we don't do w/o transfats is peanut butter. We buy the lower fat variety, but it has to be Skippy! What I haven't seen mentioned here, and Linda, this would be beneficial for you, is that the statin drugs--Lipitor in particular--may have some effect in reducing tumors of the colon. If that's the case, it may not be such a bad drug to take. Sometimes, I think we fight taking a pill, just because we want to do it "naturally" with niacin etc. but it's not the best choice. I definitely believe in diet and exercise, but in many cases like Annie's or DH's or Sharon's, it's genetics, plain and simple. So fight it with the entire arsenal!

I have seen the Kona beach in person, I think it’s beautiful but my husband is unsure of it- he thinks it doesn’t have enough texture. It’s microbevel so you can barely see the lines in between each plank, I like that but he thinks it makes it look “cheap” and less wood like. I just love the colors though and how soft it is. I’ve narrowed it down to either Audra Kona beach or Karndean Texas White Ash. I’m leaning toward Karndean but I haven’t seen a full size sample yet.