With the autumn rapidly dwindling into short and cold winter days (sometimes inundated with snow), you may find yourself wondering how you’re going to get your farm-fresh produce. Happily, many areas have winter markets where you can find your favorite veggies and other produce into December and into the new year. As the first installment, here’s a list for New England.

Have you heard of Katie Stagliano? When she was in the third grade, she put some cabbage seeds into the ground, and the cabbage that grew ended up being about forty pounds. Not wanting it to go to waste, she donated it to local soup kitchens, where it fed hundreds of people. Since then, she has been growing fresh vegetables to donate to local food drives, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens. How’s that for locavore activism?

every time I read about the state of the American food system, my heart breaks all over again. Choosing to opt out seems like a constant uphill battle, which is stupid because all I want is to eat vegetables grown in healthy soil and animals that didn’t spend their whole lives suffering. That doesn’t seem like such a crazy wish!

Nobody likes to be bugged, or appreciates a pest. However, when the annoyance is of the insect variety, dislike can quickly progress to hatred. When being plagued by insect guests, any solution, up to and including an all out war on anything with over four legs, seems entirely reasonable. Poisons quickly transform from an extreme measure to a viable solution.

The balance between needing to protect your plants and trying to find an environmentally friendly solution presents a dilemma every gardener must eventually face. What is often forgotten is that the battle between insects and humans has existed as long as we have, and historically the war was fought without the chemical aids we now have at our disposal. In general, most people are also unaware of the ongoing, and long running, battle between the plant kingdom and insects. Viewed over a longer evolutionary timescale, plants have evolved with insects, and have adapted with far more successful natural defenses than humans have been able to come up with.

“What advice do you have for someone who would like to incorporate more local foods into his or her diet but isn’t sure where to begin?”

That’s a question I’ve been asked frequently, and it deserves more attention than I can usually give it in the context of a quick take-away response.

Maybe you found your way to this website because you have the same question. Or maybe you’re already deeply committed to the local/organic/sustainable food movement, and would like to help others just starting out on that path. Let’s take clear look at how to get started.

It’s a reflex by now: I look out the train window and mentally check off the edible and medicinal plants I see. Today there’s burdock, red clover blossoms, dandelions, plantain, wild carrot, nettles. All of those are edible and medicinal as well. Food? Check. Field first aid? Check. There’s a baseline security to being able to identify wild edible and medicinal plants.

I’ve fallen in love with lacto-fermented chutneys, so much so that I’m considering turning all the vinegar-based chutneys I canned into ketchup (ketchup is basically just pureed chutney). The flavor of these fresh chutneys is so good that I could, and do, eat them straight out of the jar. Plus you get all sorts of health benefits that aren’t in the vinegar versions; lacto-fermented foods have good-for-you bacteria in them, like with yogurt.

The recipe below is a Northeastern locavore’s variation on one by Sally Fallon (I swap in just a little vinegar to replace non-local lemon juice, and local honey instead of Rapadura). This chutney is an especially good use up for the storage apples we’re still getting from local farms at this time of year. But it’s also good made with peaches, cherries, and other fruit.

Santa Fe is a soulful place for me. I’ve traveled here often since I was a kid and, upon arriving, my pulse slows down a bit and my breath deepens. It is one of the few places where I don’t feel like I have to have a plan and a busy day usually means I have a spa appointment or dinner reservations.

“What do you eat in winter?” is a question I frequently get asked when people learn that I eat a mostly local foods diet in the Northeastern U.S.

My reply starts with the fact that I eat just as well in winter as I do in summer. That fact really cheers me up right now. We are at the tail end of winter, but it will still be many weeks until the first spring crops are ready. If I only ate the storage and greenhouse crops available year-round here, well, I’d survive but my meals would be really boring.

Here’s how you can make your “off season” meals as interesting and nutritious for you as the ones you eat during the harvest months, all the while keeping a locavore’s lowered carbon footprint:

By this time of year, when the harvest season is coming to an end, my shelves are lined with colorful jars of pickles and preserves, and the freezer is stuffed with fruit from the garden and veggies from my CSA share. I’ve got chutneys, jams, dried mushrooms, sauerkraut, dilly beans, marmalades, corn relish, and much more.