i was cleaning my studio yesterday and ran across this little pamphlet i forgot i had! published in 1944 by standard gasoline of california, this little gem has lots of informative yet dated information and entertaining illustrations. here’s just a small sampling:

“food fights for freedom” – “you will be proud that you not only “raised ‘em” but you “stored ‘em” yourself as well.”

“storing” – detailed instructions on how to store things in your basement, or, if you don’t have a basement, in outdoor pits, mounds or trenches.

“peas” – there’s a section for each common vegetable grown and how to preserve it using various methods. yes, all the illos depict vegetables doing anthropomorphic things related to the war effort.

“other vegetables” – the most blasphemous illo of all is on the last page – a pumpkin and jars with a pitchfork chasing off hitler and a big-toothed asian. whoa. proof that we’ve come a long way culturally since then.

you know that saying if you want something done, ask a busy person? well, i’ve felt like a very busy person this past week! on top of all the deadlines, i decided to clean the basement wood pile. by making scrap wood planter boxes! the largest one is 3′ x 3′ x 3′. this project cleaned up both my wood pile and one of the substantial dirt piles in the yard for the cost of a box of wood screws.

time to buy more seeds! actually some of my potatoes on the counter have started sprouting, so i’ll plant those in one of these boxes and see how they do. i dimly remember planting potatoes on the farm as a kid: if i remember correctly you cut them in half and place them in the dirt sprouts-side-up.

back to the scrap wood planters: i was inspired by the dutch furniture designer piet hein eek, who’s work i discovered in a dutch magazine about a year ago when my and saelee’s calendar was featured on another page. i totally flipped out over the article about piet and his work and workshop and spend months searching for his book. it’s safe to say this is the most expensive book i’ve ever acquired, but it’s one of my favorites in my library!

the book looks like a slab of wood, and weighs about the same as one too!

some scrap wood furniture!

just look at that storage space… you should see his work space! and the cnc machine they have! drool…

enough. back to work on my deadlines! look for another blog entry when everything’s completed later in the week. i’m excited about these projects!

this past weekend was gorgeous weather here in portland, so one of my roommates and i got a zipcar for an hour and went to portland nursery to get starter plants and seeds for the vegetable garden. last year was my first year with a garden of my own, and we successfully grew 3 types of tomatoes, cucumbers, kale, chard, broccoli, and peas.

i’m looking forward to growing even more things this year and having the time to pay more attention to it. growing vegetables is incredibly easy, all you have to do is add “water/check the garden” to your daily to-do list. well, it’s easy after you’ve built the garden boxes and bought and/or amended the soil. that part requires some initial work.

last year we built two 15′ x 3′ garden boxes, and this year i’m adding more garden boxes and pots as i find them. my one rule for hardscaping in the garden is that everything has to be free or nearly free. either found on craigslist, or on the street during my daily walks with the dog. this past week i scored a big wooden box that was originally used as a packing crate, and a wooden wine bottle box [shown above]. i still have a pile of dirt left over from last year, so that will dictate how many more planter boxes i can add to the yard. we’re starting most things from seeds this year, so right now the yard looks like we’re mostly growing dirt. just wait. the pictures will get better!

i just finished reading “animal, vegetable, miracle” yesterday. it was a sad book to finish because it was so good! the author spent a year with her family growing most of their own food, and buying what they couldn’t grow from local sources. although i’m not about to do that, i *am* inspired to think about canning or preserving what i grow, and seeking out locally-produced foods and preparing dishes using only in-season foods.

i have so many earmarked pages in the book, but here are just a few things to think about: we’ve all lost our intuitive sense of agricultural basics – do you know when fruits and veggies are naturally in-season in your area? bananas aren’t grown here in the pacific northwest – can i live without them? making your own soft cheeses is apparently easy [i'm pretty lactose-intolerant, but intrigued]. that’s just what i earmarked in the first 100 pages…