East Close to Home

By Crysta Coburn

Since 1999, during the month of November, people across the globe have participated in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), attempting to write a 50,000-word novel in just 30 days. Many popular authors have gotten their start with NaNoWriMo. In 2008, some of Emily Springfield’s friends were among those who had taken up this, and other, month-long challenges. But, Springfield didn’t want to write a novel. As she told me, “I decided that since food and gardening were my passion, I would institute ‘NaLoFooMo’—National Local Food Month—and write about local food each day of November.”

That blog is called Eat Close to Home, and it has grown to encompass gardening, preserving, and cooking, all centered around food produced locally in the Great Lakes region. Specifically, its focus is on “foods grown and produced within 100 miles or so of Ann Arbor, Michigan.” A locavore (someone who eats foods grown locally whenever possible) could get lost in its virtual pages for hours.

Springfield’s interest in local food dates all the way back to childhood. “I grew up in rural southern Michigan,” she said, “and my kindergarten teacher’s family owned a huge apple orchard and cider mill. We took a tour when I was six, and it was just the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Then we went back to school and were served Washington apples. Even then, that seemed odd to me. Michigan has an incredibly diverse agriculture base, and we’re in a unique position to really provide most of what we eat.”

2008 was famously (during the financial crisis) “the first time we, as a country, experienced first-hand how fragile our ‘just in time’ economy is, and it suddenly changed from a ‘nice idea’ to ‘we really need more local resiliency for our food system.’ We, as a society, are facing a new crisis with the pandemic, when showing one’s support for our local economy has become vital to its survival.”

Springfield wants “everyone to have access to good food.” She went on to say, “That includes making sure options are affordable for folks with a wide range of budgets and physical abilities. I may not have a lot of cash, but I can grow my own [food]. Or, I may have cash but no time, which makes me a great candidate to support local small farmers. There’s also a lot of local food grown conventionally and at a scale that’s very affordable!”

Read related article: A Practice of Mindfulness from Seed to Plate

Offering examples, she said, a “plain old gallon-jug of milk is almost always a local product. Michigan produces a huge percentage of the dry beans found in U.S. grocery stores. Jiffy mixes are made in Chelsea from Michigan-grown wheat and sugar. Ruhlig’s Market in Dexter sells bushels (50lb box) of locally grown cabbage for about $10 and tomatoes for $20. That’s a lot of good food, cheap.”

What does one do with all that food? This is where canning and preserving come in. Springfield learned how to can tomatoes and peaches from her mother when she was a kid. “When I was in my 30s,” she added, “I ‘topped up’ that knowledge by reading books and blogs.” In her blog, she helps readers to feel less afraid of having “too much” food by showing how it can be preserved for later. There are several posts walking readers through how to create and can salsa, make jam, properly freeze green beans, and so much more. There is even a blog post entitled Three-week quarantine shopping list that details what and how much to buy per adult and/or teenager in the household, then what can be done to make that food last for at least three weeks. This is a practical and useful tool for anyone who is limiting their trips to the grocery store. 

Springfield is also an avid gardener, as were her grandfathers. “My paternal grandfather grew a classic Victory Garden; he and Grandma grew a huge amount of food in their tiny East Detroit suburban lot. They let me pick the first carrot out of the garden every year,” she said. “My maternal grandfather loved growing unusual foods and flowers, and my step-grandfather was passionate about flowers and landscaping. So, I’ve long seen gardening as a means to satisfy many human desires: food, curiosity, and beauty.”

In the blog, you will find posts detailing how to start a garden here in lower Michigan, which is USDA Hardiness Zone 5 (meaning our lowest average temperature is between -20°F and -10°F), how to build a raised garden bed, as well as tips for gardening with kids. 

Where did Springfield learn her best gardening tips and tricks? “I loved watching The Victory Garden and Square Foot Gardening on PBS with my parents in the ‘80s,” she said, “and since then have learned more from sustainability-minded garden researchers like John Jeavons, Eliot Coleman, and Carole Deppe via their books. The best teacher, though, is the garden itself. Watching, listening, touching, tasting—keeping notes on what works and what doesn’t work for you—this is really the best way to refine your own gardening.”

A couple of essential garden tricks Springfield has learned are the importance of “covering brassicas (like kale) with a screen to keep out the cabbage moths (and) primarily growing butternut squash, which can be eaten like zucchini when small, and when fully ripe, cured, and stored properly, will keep until the next summer.”

Her favorite garden treats are snap peas, and she shared an amusing story about her own patch. “One morning, I looked out in the garden and saw the 6’ tall peas shaking on their trellis. I grabbed a broom to go chase away whatever critter was marauding my pea patch...only to find it was my husband, foraging a couple handfuls to pack in his lunch.”

It might sound impossible, but we can eat local year-round. It just requires some adjustment. There is an entire section on the blog called “changing habits” that can help readers make these kinds of accommodations. Springfield cautioned, “Before you build the root cellar, be sure you like to eat roots. Before you can 100 quarts of tomatoes, be sure you will use them within a year or two.”

The first step that Springfield recommends is to “eat as if your food were local. Find a dozen ways to love squash—even if it was shipped from California. Learn how to sneak cabbage into every meal—because that’s a vegetable you can buy cheaply, in bulk, and it’ll keep all winter. Figure out how to fill the gap if you take bananas out of your diet.”

But, she adds, “while it’s fantastic to eat locally for a whole lot of reasons, it’s not the be-all, end-all of ‘ethical eating.’ I buy local food when it’s available, and I can afford it. I’m not giving up avocados, and I’m not going to try to grow them here.” Many nonnative plants are difficult to grow in Michigan, and our weather can be volatile.

Said Springfield, “I’d actually rather see lots of people choosing some local foods on a regular basis than to see a few people commit to eating 100% locally. Because what we really need is a more robust food system…. And hopefully, as more of us start making sustainable markets for local products, we will start doing all this at a scale that keeps prices low enough to afford, but high enough to keep farmers paid.” 

Emily Springfield lives near Chelsea, Michigan. When she’s not designing online courses or seeing reflexology clients (thanks to Covid), you’ll probably find her in the garden. You can get in touch with her at emilyspringfield.com. The Eat Close to Home blog is located at eatclosetohome.wordpress.com.

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