Chapman Tornado

Although I live very close to this town I was not affected by the tornado. These photos were sent to me.

Local Food at the Downtown Lawrence Farmers' Market

The Lawrence Farmers' Market had a wonderful showcase of local meat available in the Lawrence, Kansas area. This is Kansas oldest established and most likely the best Farmers' Market in the state. Chef Hilary Brown did some demonstration of cooking locally produced lean meat. She has a fast food burger place in Lawrence called the Local Burger.


At the Local Burger you can try some burgers and hot dogs made from Buffalo (bison) to pork. This place is a little more expensive than your local fast food places since a burger will set you back $5.50 but you will know where the meat came from.

Victory garden has a page on food miles. Food miles is the distance food travels from its source to your market. Food miles is another calculation of the amount of energy needed to get the food to the market. Buying local and growing your own produce will reduce food miles. Even growing a potted container of tomatoes will reduce the food miles. I have not tried ContainerSeeds.com but they sell only seeds of plants that grow well in containers.


I just discovered a seed company called Harvest Moon that offers an interesting selection of seeds. I have bookmarked the website and will order some seeds later.

If you are looking for any of the Slow Food movement seed source Seed Savers Exchange has a list they offer. I did not grow the Bull Nose Bell Pepper but plan to next year.

BEAN: Cherokee Trail of Tears, Christmas Lima, Hidatsa Red, Hidatsa Shield Figure, Hutterite Soup, Jacob’s Cattle. Lina Cisco’s Bird Egg, Mayflower and True Red Cranberry GARLIC: Inchelium Red and Lorz Italian GROUND CHERRY: Aunt Molly’s

LETTUCE: Amish Deer Tongue, Grandpa Admire’s, Speckled and Tennis Ball (Black Seeded) MELON: Crane PEPPER: Bull Nose Large Bell, Beaver Dam, Fish, Hinkelhatz, Jimmy Nardello’s, Sheepnose Pimento and Wenk’s Yellow Hot POTATO: Ozette

SQUASH: Amish Pie, Boston Marrow and Sibley TOMATO: Amish Paste, Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Brandywine (Sudduth’s Strain), Cherokee Purple, German Pink, and Red Fig WATERMELON: Moon & Stars (Cherokee Strain), Moon & Stars (Yellow Fleshed), Moon & Stars (Van Doren Strain)