CBC News told us how Canadians consume an average of 26 teaspoons of sugar a day.

The Atlantic magazine published an infographic of what the avergae American consumes each year – which includes 142 lbs of “caloric sweeteners,” 42 lbs of which are corn syrup.

And an American survey showed that parents of fat or obese children don’t want people to call their children fat or obese. (Umm… sorry, then do something about it).

OK, the word “poison” may seem extreme – but read on. All things in moderation. At the high quantities that most North Americans are consuming sugar these days, sugar is a poison.

How shameful it is that our current generation of children is the first that will not live as long as their parents! And that their parents are the ones who are actively doing this to them, by loading them up with sugar.

In Canada, childhood obesity has nearly tripled in the past 30 years. In Japan, childhood obesity has doubled in just a decade – while the incidence of adult obesity has remained steady. This is because, while adults continue to eat their traditional Japanese diet, children in Japan are now being raised on our heavily marketed sugar-heavy “western” diet.

Yes, we can blame the food manufacturers and marketers. But even more, we can blame ourselves. No one is forcing any of us to eat what they are packaging up for us.

Manufacturers are slipping fructose into products that normally did not use to contain added sugars, such as pretzels and hamburger buns. The effect of this is not only to add extra calories to the product; the biochemical effect of too much fructose is far more sinister.

Fructose makes the insulin receptor in your liver stop working, so that insulin levels rise throughout your body. This interferes with brain metabolism of the insulin signal, which then affects the brain’s detection of a hormone called leptin. Leptin is what signals to you that you have eaten enough. Leptin also makes you feel like burning energy. If your brain cannot detect the leptin, not only do you feel like you are starving, and just want to eat – you also don’t feel like exercising.

So the effects of all of this added fructose on our diet are far greater than just the added calories. The whole fructose/leptin/insulin connection is explained in detail in a great ABC Radio interview with Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of Southern California, SF. While the podcast of the program is not available online, the transcript is. I highly recommend that you take an hour of your life to read it – it will more than come back to you!

So what strategies can we take to avoid added sugars, and especially sugars? Well, the time-consuming one is to do a lot of research, learn what you can and cannot eat and what all of the variants of ingredient names are, and meticulously read ingredient lists.

The easier strategy, though, is just eat food. (I go pretty much by Michael Pollan’s definition of “food”: If your great-grandmother would have known what it is – an apple, a potato, a cut of meat – then it is food. If she would not have recognized it – a Twinkie, a McNugget, a Cheeto – then it is out).

I’ll admit it – I was addicted to sugar throughout my childhood, my teens, my twenties. It was used as a reward food in our home. Saturday was known as “candy day.” If we had been good that week, we got a chocolate bar and a can of pop (sadly, that is now daily fare for so many North American kids). Even after I left home, sugar remined a reward food and a comfort food for me – a treat for completing a big university assignment, or to cheer me up if I was feeling down.

Through my thirties, I decided to cut down on the sugar. I honestly cannot say what really motivated me to do that. I guess I started noticing that I would feel lethargic after a big chocolate chip cookie pig-out. And the logical side of my brain started to realize that sugar had not been available in such quantities for the bulk of humankind’s existence – that our bodies were not evolved to eat it – and I wondered what it might be doing to me.

And now, I rarely eat sugar. Yes, it took years of willpower to get to this stage – but I have broken the addiction. It is no longer a matter of willpower. I no longer desire it. Truly!

That whole sugar/insulin/leptin cycle makes complete sense with my personal experience: I crave good healthy foods, I have no desire to overeat, and I have the energy and desire to exercise. I eat a fair amount of fat in my diet (mainly olive oil and other “healthy” oils), and I have been maintaining my weight for a decade now – in fact, just found out this summer that I have even lost weight – without trying! I have more energy I than I have ever had and, at age 47, I am in the best physical shape of my life!

In that radio show, Dr. Lustig calls fructose a hepato-toxin, or liver toxin. “We’re being poisoned to death,” he says. “That’s a very strong statement – but I think we can back it up with very clear scientific evidence.” He goes on to talk about how children are now being diagnosed with Fatty Liver Disease – a disease once only found in alcoholics. To me, this is not only scary, it is inexcusable behaviour on the part of their parents – their supposed care-givers and nurturers.

Read that transcript. Stop poisoning yourself. And, especially, stop poisoning your children.

These scarlet runner beans are not mine. But I took this photo today. It’s a garden that I bike past often on my training rides. Yesterday, I noticed that their plants are loaded with beans, whereas mine are still just flowering. So I came back home to look more closely at mine.

And what I saw was numerous dead-end stems. What should happen is that, as each flower is pollinated, the red petals fall off and a bean pod grows there. But where my beans should be, there is nothing. The stem dead-ends. So my beans are not pollinating.

And that, of course, made me think about the bees. We’ve all heard about the global bee crisis. Populations are dropping worldwide. Although the experts have some ideas on possible causes, no one is exactly sure what is going on.

But one recent study has found that cell phone signals may disorient bees. Bees are sensitive to the electromagnetic fields of cell phones. The cell phone signals can confuse them, causing them to swarm unnecessarily, and all of that extra activity may be fatal to the bees.

[My beans: note the dead-end stems below the flowers, where earlier flowers used to be. This is where the bean pod is supposed to grow - but there is nothing.] –>

There are other likely causes to the bee declines, too, such as air pollution (which also can disorient them) and fungal infections. But in this case, the other garden is only 3 or 4 km from my home in straight-line distance, so something like pollution or infection seems less likely. However, that other garden is located just past the edge of town, in more rural country – so the homes are spaced much farther apart. Which means cell phones also would be farther away from the bees.

I have scarlet runner beans growing on my balcony garden too, and I noticed that, although most of them also have not pollinated, a handful of stalks are producing beans. I also have lots of flowers growing right beside the beans: petunias and nasturtiums. Flowers are great bee attractants – so I wonder if the flowers have pulled in the few bees that are around, and those bees then did the bean flowers while they were up there.

It’s hard to know for sure. But I do remember hearing people talking in Tofino last year, too, about their beans not pollinating, and blaming it on the bees. Well, not on the poor bees themselves – they already have enough to deal with. But on the bee decline – which is almost certainly our fault, even if we don’t know exactly what it is we did this time.

Over 70% of the world’s most important food crops are pollinated by bees. I’ve heard it said that, if bees go extinct, humankind will be starving within three years. I don’t know if that’s strictly true. But it’s true enough that, even if you don’t care about biodiversity and ecosystems, even if you only care about your own personal needs, you should still worry about the bees.

On a happier note: When I was in my garden afternoon to take the picture of my dead-end stems for this post, a bee alighted right in my frame. A bit out of focus, but here he is. So at least there is one out there!

It’s absolutely not intentional – but I find that so many of my blog posts have to do with gardening. I think that’s because the way that I think is in terms of connections (as opposed to objects, or things) and that gardening, especially vegetable gardening, represents the ultimate connection between humans and this planet we live on.

Growing my own food is really important to me. It is relaxing and meditative, a definite part of my personal mental-health program. It is also good exercise, it’s good for the environment, and it is definitely good for me: eating fresh, tasty, local, organic food.

A lot of people I know say “Well you’re lucky, Jackie. I don’t have a yard.” Well, I have not had a yard for the last two years (I was living in a townhouse in Tofino). And even now that I do have a yard with a productive little veggie garden in it, I still grow a lot of my food in pots on the balcony.

Here’s a little video of my balcony garden this year, just to give you an idea of what can be done with a very small space.

So I’m going to give a few tips here, for those of you who’d like to try:

First of all, remember that plants are people too. (Well, OK, not people exactly – but they are alive and responsive to the environment). You need to know your own climate and what you can and cannot grown there, and you also need to seed and transplant things at the right time of year. This is different for each plant type you grow. If you have never grown veggies before, there is a bit of a learning curve involved.

Out here on the west coast, West Coast Seeds is an amazing gardening resource. Their planting guide http://www.westcoastseeds.com/admin/files/2011PlantingChart.pdf is my planting bible – it tells when to seed, when to transplant, everything you need to know for each crop. If you live in a different climatic zone, your timing will be slightly different. You can find out what your own climate zone is (for Canada) by checking out these maps. (If you live elsewhere, you will have to Google the maps for your own country).

Each plant has specific needs regarding the soil, nutrients, moisture, and timing. There are many good gardening books out there – but again, West Coast Seeds has the equivalent of a planting textbook on line for free.  These planting instructions, for almost every type of food plant, would apply to most climates.

For setting up a garden on a balcony or a deck, the main things you need to provide your plants with are sun, water and nutrients. A balcony that faces east, south or west will usually get enough sun for most crops. A north-facing balcony can present a bit more of a challenge, but you will still probably be able to grow cool-weather crops. If your balcony is exposed to strong winds, you might need to erect a transparent barrier to protect the plants a bit. As for the water, well… that’s just up to your remembering! Regarding nutrients, plants growing in pots require more fertilizer than those grown in the garden – pretty much any liquid fertilizer will do, used according to the instructions.

Certain plants do very well in pots, while others really need more space for their roots. Things that do not do so well in pots are root crops (such as carrots and beets) and plants that require a lot of space, like zucchinis and other squash.

Cool-weather plants that do great in pots are most leafy crops (especially those with smaller root systems) like lettuce, chard and kale. I like to plant four or five lettuces in a row in those long narrow flower planters. You can harvest the whole head when it is mature (some small new leaves will grow back from the stump) or just harvest leaves as you need them.

Hot-weather plants that do well in pots include tomatoes, eggplants and peppers. There are so many varieties of tomatoes out there; try to get one of the easier-to-grow varieties. Some of the most fail-safe cherries are Tumbler (my all-time container favourite) and Golden Nugget. Of the large cherries, Early Cascade and Early Girl are two of the best. The beefsteak varieties are toughest to grow, so I would avoid them when growing in containers.

Tomatoes need large pots for their root systems, and lots of water while the fruit is swelling. It is also critical that you follow instructions for growing the tomato plants when they are young, or you may not get much fruit. Keep them indoors in the spring when the plants are young and tender, then gradually acclimatize them to the sunshine (they will get sunburnt and lose all of their leaves if you just one day thrust them out into the sunshine, just like us!) You can put them outside permanently in late May or early June.

Scarlet runner beans are extremely productive and grow great from pots. Seed them only when the weather gets warm, in late May or June, directly into the pots that you will grow them in (they don’t like transplanting very much). You need to place a trellis or strings for them to wind around and grow. They like to grow up, but if you pay attention to them you can force them to go sideways along balcony edges. They get beautiful red flowers in early summer, and big tender green beans in late summer.

Herbs and strawberries are other treats that are easy to grow from pots – and they are lovely to have just a few steps away from the kitchen. Rosemary, oregan, marjoram and sage will survive winters if they are not too harsh. You will need to start other crops, such as thyme and cilantro (coriander), fresh each year.

What about you? How does you balcony garden grow? Do you have any advice or questions?

This disconnect, between our knowledge and our actions, is really difficult for me to understand. To my way of thinking, when you see something that can go wrong in the future, you act to prevent it.

I finished my PhD in 1992, nearly 20 years ago. That same year, a group of 1700 of the world’s leading scientists published a letter warning humanity that we must change how we live if we are to avert disaster. That letter began:

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

I don’t think that this week’s Guardian article will be “news” to any earth scientist or climate scientist. We have known all this for 20 years or more. And on some level, everyone – scientist or not – knows it.

So what I don’t get is how people can refuse to act.

I don’t even have children, but I look at the children around me: my little neighbours who knock on my door and ask me to ride my bike with them, my little niece in Ontario, my friends’ children. I want these kids to have happy lives, to grow up into a healthy world. I can only imagine the love that a parent must feel for their child – but in my imagining, that love is so strong that I would do anything, anything, to be able to promise my child a secure and happy future. But people aren’t. (OK, some people take feel-good steps like recycling – but I am talking about the steps that effect real and meaningful change).

There was an insightful article in the Sydney Morning Herald this week, too, by columnist Ross Gittins, who commented:

“It’s a sore test of faith when people put power bills before their children’s future.”

We know all of these things. We know them, but – just like the smoker who means to quit, or the diabetic who keeps nibbling on sweets – that knowledge always comes with a “but.” But I was in a hurry. But I don’t have a choice. But it’s too hard. But I like my [insert noun here]. But everyone else does it.

We have the knowledge. We know that we must drop our consumption of resources and our greenhouse-gas emissions dramatically if we are to survive. We know this, yet we are doing little about it, far too little. What is stopping us?

I keep seeing the same advice: Build your brand. And that is fine if you are only interested in, or only working in, one thing.

But I am interested in everything. To some people, that might look like I am all over the place. (Which, in a way, I am, I admit… )

But the thing is: everything is connected. And that’s what I am most interested in – the connections. So this is what I write about - both in my non-fiction and my fiction – and what I try to show through my sound stories (the radio dox) and my photos as well.

I don’t want to travel to some game farm to get the technically perfect, tight close-up of a captive wolf. I want to show that animal in its natural environment, connected to the habitat that it needs to survive. To me, that’s the story: the connection, the relationship.

Everything is connected. I feel that, in our “modern” and “advanced” society, where most of us live in cities far from the places where the things we consume come from, many have lost that sense of connection – but that doesn’t mean that that connection is not there. We’re just not aware of it. Every plastic-wrapped product you purchase is connected – both to where it came from (likely extracted from an oil well just like the one spewing out in the Gulf right now – so who’s really at fault there?), and to where it’s going (trucked to a landfill? or consuming energy as it gets transported and reformed into another product?)

Even if we are not always aware of the connections, they are still there.

So I think that is what I think about, and now what I blog about. Connections. Relationships – to our planet, to our food supply, to movements of our planet, to each other, to our own bodies.

But if I am supposed to be a brand – well, how do I make “connections” my brand? It’s a pretty big thing, not very definable.

A lot of what I do (i.e. why I left my well-paying job in the mining industry to earn a pittance as a writer) is about helping people to have the knowledge to make good decisions. To have the actual information, as well as to try looking at things differently – at times, even popping out of our ingrained “western” world view and reassessing our values and, therefore, our actions. Both about the big thigns and the little things: be it about personal health, or about treating our planet in a way such that the next generation can also live well here, or about preparing ourselves for the earthquake and tsunami that are coming here to the west coast. Every decision we make affects something: the world around us, the people around us, and the people to come.

So if you look at everything I blog about, the theme is there. Connectedness. But if you look at my list of blog topics – well, it looks like I am all over the place.

You’ve probably noticed that my blog activity has been a bit slow lately. That’s partly because I’ve had a busy spring, and have been focussing on my major projects rather than the blog. But it’s also because I am reassessing this blog, and I need your help! I plan to start posting more regularly, but I am just trying to figure out where I should go with the whole thing.

So, for those of you who have been following my blog this year – as well as for those of you who are new to it – what would you like to see here? What do you think I should do? Are you getting the connections I am trying to make, or do I seem to just be going all over the place?

“But does it really matter, if I recycle?” Sharleen asks.

This is a big question. And my answer is YES it matters!

Our environmental problems are overwhelming. So overwhelming. And, once you start to grasp the overwhelmingness of it all, it’s really depressing. So people tend to focus on the positive – even if that positive is not actually representative of the big picture. It’s something to clutch at. Because the reality of the negatives – the very major changes we need to take make in in our lifestyles order to ensure that our planet is liveable for humans in the future – are mind-boggling.

So, instead, people focus on the positive things that we can do – things that, on the scale of the problem itself, actually have neglible impact – to the point that I think these “false-positive” messages are really damaging. Because now we can justify our consumption by letting ourselves believe that we are doing our part:
- oh, it’s OK if I consume manufactured single-use items that were transported to my home using greenhouse gases because I recycle them (consuming more greenhouse gases)
- and I can fly around the world because I’ll buy carbon credits to offset the fuel burned on my behalf (usually “credits” for projects e.g. tree-planting, that would have gone on anyway)
- and it’s OK for me to keep using energy because we are moving towards alternative sources – technology will save us!

Sorry if I sound cynical. I am. I am starting to feel that this whole feel-good thing about recycling is a huge fraud, perpetrated (by whom? I don’t know) to make people feel OK about consuming single-use items. Recycling used to be only the final last-ditch option of the three R’s:
1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle
Now, recycling seems to be a source of pride. Look at the big pile of single-use items items I have at the bottom of my driveway this week! See what a good environmentalist I am?

Recycling is still throwing something out – and burning more fossil fuels as those items are transported back to the plant and remanufactured into another single-use item.

This is especially poignant right now, as it was just announced that there will be no more recycling of newspapers in BC. Newspaper for recycling will now be shipped to the US or to Asia! How can we feel good about that!

I am not for a moment trying to claim that I lead the perfect model life in any way. The way our society is structured now, it is impossible to – you’d have to truly eject yourself from society (which I am actually considering doing). But there is not enough room in the Canadian wilderness for 34 million homesteading hermits, so even that is not a feasible large-scale solution either (and even less so for most other countries).

What my mission is, at the moment anyway, is to try to encourage others to cut down their consumption. Of what? Of everything. It is very hard to remain in society yet cut your consumption by 100%. But it is quite feasible for most people to cut consumption by 10 or 20%. Rather than me cutting down by 100% just to make the point – if I can convince ten people to cut down their consumption by 10%, the net effect on our planet is the same as me taking the 100% eject-myself-from-society extreme route. So I encourage people to:
- get on their bike, or walk, and use their car 10% less
- eat 10% less meat (our high meat consumption is a huge cost to the planet)
- use 10% less plastic – get in the habit of carrying reusable shopping bags, and reject products that use excessive packaging
- use 10% less paper
- produce 10% of their own food
I think it would barely impact most people’s lives to make these 10% cuts. In fact, I bet that most people could cut all of these things by 25% without any serious suffering.

And what if I can influence 1000 people to make those 25% cuts? That would have the same net result as 250 times the effect of me going extreme and ejecting myself from society! So pass this info around.

We really can each make a difference. As individuals, it sometimes seems that what we each can do is very small – but there is a power in spreading the word, convincing others to do the same. That way we stand together. And, together, we do make a difference.

Sharleen, I do hear what you are saying about supporting the publishing industry. And I do so very fondly remember those weekend mornings, reading a real paper newspaper over a cup of coffee. But, for a long time now, I haven’t felt good about throwing that paper in the bin – even if it is a recycle bin. Every now and then I manage to snag someone’s old paper – sometimes weeks old – to relive that pleasure. (The second R).

But, to me, if I have to choose between supporting an industry (even one I work in!) and supporting the future of our planet, a place for our children, I have to choose our planet and our collective future. And that’s why I think we should – no, we must – get used to alternative financial models for many of our industries. The news(paper) industry is only one of them.

Prepare your feet beforehand: Elite racers may not have to do much – they seem to have bombproof feet, and I don’t know if that is because they are genetically born that way and that’s why they become so good at distance, or because they have put so many miles on that they have toughened up their tootsies. I think it’s probably a combination of both. Well, the rest of us can’t change our genetics – all we can do is put as many miles on our feet as possible, both walking and running, to toughen them up. Some racers advocate other ways of toughening the skin, such as a daily 15 minute foot-soak in lemon juice for 3 weeks before the event. I have not tried this.

Prevent swelling: A lot of blistering happens on a multi-day race because of swelling that starts two or more days in. Your feet become bigger and shaped differently, and suddenly your favourite shoes don’t fit any more. Anything you can do to prevent swelling will help to prevent blisters. Getting your electrolytes out of balance will contribute to swelling, so take proper electrolyte supplements.

When not actually running – whether stopping on the trail, or in camp after each day’s stage, elevate your feet as much and as often as possible. For this to truly be effective, your feet must be higher than most of your body, so just stretching your legs out on an adjacent chair has only limited effect. Find the time to lie down on your back with your legs resting on a chair, or even straight up against a wall – especially for the first hour after you get in.

I’ve found compression socks to be incredibly useful. You can buy compression socks for runners – in fact, Injinji has a new toe sock out that is also a compression sock that I am dying to try. I have not yet raced in compression socks, but I think they are a good idea and would try them if I had them. I just use those granny socks, the ones for old ladies with varicose veins, that you buy at the drug store – and I put them on as soon as I get in (yes, before showering – because the swelling starts as soon as you stop running, and it is much easier to prevent it in the first place than to try to bring it back down later). I often sleep in my compression socks too.

I’ve enjoyed the nights on a race that I sleep in my Hennessy Hammock – the slightly curved nature of the hammock naturally elevates your feet above most of your body.

Deal with swelling: OK, after a few days you are probably swelling anyway. Keep up the elevating and compression socks. But you’ll probably need to do something about your shoes. Most of you will know to bring a pair of shoes that is one size larger for later in the race. What I have found that works really well, too, is changing my insoles. At last year’s 6-day 232 km Coastal Challenge, I raced in my size 9 Mizuna trail runners (which I love) with insoles.

I started with Sole Footbeds – the thick and cushy “Softec Ultra” model. After a few days, I moved to the thinner “Softec Regular”. On Day 6, I got rid of the Sole footbeds and put the regular Mizuna ones back in. Perfect fit, keeping my favourite shoes on for the whole race. (My shoes are a pretty loose fit anyway, partly because of my Injinji toe socks – you might want to bring a pair of larger shoes with you as well, just in case).

Prevent blisters: There are two schools of thought on how to prepare your feet for race day. Some people say keep them dry and tough, even calloused, to be resistent to blisters. Others say keep them soft and malleable, that it is the callouses themselves that cause the deep blisters, and they massage vaseline or baby’s diaper rash cream into their feet – both to keep the skin soft and to keep the moisture out.

So far, I am of the “keep them dry” school. I may try the “soft” approach at some point, but I fear that softening my skin will, on me, promote blisters. (The idea of dealing with socks lined with vaseline also grosses me out). Each person just needs to figure out for himself which approach will work best for him.

Don’t race in new shoes; make sure you break them in. (I know you know that – I just have to say it for completeness)

Each runner has parts of their feet that are more prone to blister: the little toe, the heel, the outside of the big toe. You know your feet. Tape up those spots before you even start – that prevention will save you so much time and hassle and pain down the road! Put the tape on the night before the race – that makes the tape stick better; it may even stay on the whole race (and since there is no wound or blister under that tape, you don’t need to worry about infection or changing “dressings”). Leukotape (or here for Canadians) is preferred by many racers I know. Applying that Tincture of Benzoine first ensures that your tape will stay on for days, and perhaps even for a week.

OK, here is what I love: my Injinji “Performance” toe socks. For people who are prone to getting blisters between their toes, these will change your life! They do spread your toes just the tiniest bit – I like that feeling, but some people don’t. Like anything, test them out before you head to the race. You may have to change your shoe size or even brand to use them, because they do take up a bit of extra room. But I love them – I was one of a handful of racers who never had to visit the foot doctor at The Coastal Challenge (either year!) and if I have to credit only one thing for that it would have to be my Injinji socks.

The other thing I do on the trail is put a lot of effort into keeping my feet dry. Anyone racing for a good finishing time won’t bother to do this, but if you are like me, just trying to finish the whole thing, this is something to consider. First, I carried one, and some times two, pairs of spare dry socks in a ziplock bag with me. If you are racing in a hot climate like Costa Rica, you can dry everything in minutes. (This is only worth the effort if you know the trail is going to be dry for the next while, e.g. after a river crossing). Just find a rock in the full sun, and remove your socks, shoes, and insoles, lay them and your feet out in the sun, and within five minutes everything would be bone dry, except perhaps the socks. Even if you don’t take the time to dry everything, just letting the shoes drain for a moment while you squeeze the water out of the insoles, and then putting the dry socks on, gets your feet mostly dry for the next section of trail. I figure if it prevents you from gettting slowed down by blisters later in the race, it is time well spent.

Deal with blisters on the trail: OK, you still might feel a blister coming on – no system is perfect. Again, this is when I think 5 minutes spent on the trail, now, can save you more time than that down the road. If you feel a “hot spot”, pay attention to it. Remove your sock; perhaps you can adjust something, or just need to remove a stick or a pebble before it causes damage. If there is a blister coming, pop it right away.

Get your alcohol wipe, wipe the needle as well as the skin where you are going to pop it. Press the side of the blister, to raise it, and go in sideways at the very edge, on the opposite side. You want the needle to go in parallel to your skin, so there is no possibility of pricking in too deep. Then squeeze the blister from the side to get all the fluid out. Sometimes the fluid is in between several different skin layers, and you may have to go in with the needle again; go in through the same hole, angling the needle differently to get the different layers. (I know some people say “never pop blisters” – that is fine advice for people who recover on the couch, but not for people wearing shoes and continuing on. You just have to keep it clean and dry afterwards). Cover it with a bandaid – if you have punctured it with only one needle hole and covered it well, it is unlikely to rip open.

Deal with blisters in camp: Back in camp, clean up your feet well and get all of your supplies ready alongside you before you start. Some races have medics there who will treat your feet if you wish. Even though they may provide some medical supplies there, they often ask that you bring your own. The better supplies you have, the better treatment you will get. So look carefully at your race info pack to work out how much you should bring.

Pop any blisters that are causing you pain. If you need to re-pop any that have been popped before, do your very best to go in through the old hole. Once you have multiple holes going, it is more likely that the whole blister will rip open when you are running. Open blisters are to be avoided at all cost – they are very painful, get infected easily, and can devastate your race.

Now tape up the blisters. Make sure you do this at night, because the tape will adhere much better if it stays on all night before you put your shoes back on. Remember that the skin on the blister is no longer attached to the skin below it. If you are going to have to remove the tape again, you will probably peel the whole blister off. So sometimes a band-aid works better than tape, because the middle of the band-aid is not sticky. Or you can put a band-aid on first and then cover it with tape – or find other creative solutions to keeping your blisters’ lids on. While you are at it, tape up any hot spots that threaten to become blisters tomorrow. Remember to use Tincture of Benzoine on any dressings or tape that you plan to leave on for mutiple days.

Keep your toenails on: Toenails that touch the front of your running shoes is one of the most common causes of losing toenails. So first of all, arrive at the race start with your toenails neatly trimmed. Swelling of your feet may also make your toes touch, so follow the advice above about preventing and dealing with swelling. Another cause, I recently found out first-hand, of toenails falling off is from your foot sliding forward in the shoe – even if your shoe if big enough that the toes don’t touch the front. That rolling-forward motion of the foot, with the bottom of the foot sweatily stuck to the insole but the top of the foot pushing forward, starts to unstick the toe from the underside of the toenail. Ewww, you say? Yup, it hurts. So make sure you learn to lace your shoes for the downhills (see photo), using that extra little loop there. When starting a big downhill, it’s a good idea to just completely redo your lacing before you start the descent. (The good news, I found out last year, is that losing a toenail is not as painful as it sounds).

Beware chafing and abrasion: You may find problems aside from your feet. On multi-day races, or in a new climate, you may suddenly start chafing in places you have never chafed before: from your backpack straps or waistbelt, under your arms, in your unmentionables and, for women, from your running bra or between your thighs (that’s why I recommend tights rather than shorts). Use lubricants – especially around your unmentionables.

When you feel a spot starting to heat up, deal with the chafing right away. Tape works if you catch it early (not on your unmentionables!). The absolutely best thing is Opsite wound dressing (Americans purchase here, Canadians here). This stuff looks like clear sticky plastic; it is waterproof and completely breathable; you put it on and it just feels like putting your skin back on. (A few years ago I scraped a wide swath of skin off the inside of my wrist the night before heading out to Peru; I plunked a piece of Opsite on and it stayed on for two entire weeks. I literally watched my skin heal under it). This stuff is expensive, so I wouldn’t waste it out on the race course, where you are sweaty and dirty and it probably won’t stick properly. But when you are back in camp, get yourself clean and dry and put a bit piece of Opsite over the areas that are chafing (or on any shallow scrapes or burns – as long as they are very clean). I suggest trimming any sharp corners of the Opsite patch so they are rounded, so they don’t catch on anything and start to peel off.

First Aid kit to carry: OK, take a look at how complete this kit is:

Let’s look at each item, going clockwise from top left:
Sterile wound dressings: A couple of sterile gauze dressings – good for covering a wound as well as for cleaning up blood around a would, as well as a non-adherent dressing won’t stick to oozing scrapes (this matters a lot when it is time to remove the dressing).
Steri-strips: For wounds that would require stitches (I use them at home rather than going to the hospital – in spite of our free health care! It’s faster, and you don’t scar as much). Far more reliable than butterfly closures. Carry two sizes.
Needle in a tube: For popping blisters.
Tweezers: For removing splinters, thorns, stingers. Any good tweezers will do, but I sure like my Uncle Bill’s Sliver Gripper, for its light weight and fine precise point. My old one came in a little bottle – I think now they come with a little guard for the tips.
Crepe bandage: This is not really essential. What a crepe bandage is good for is fixing a wound dressing to an arm or a leg quickly. But the athletic tape you are carrying does double-duty here – you are carrying it mainly to help get you home in the case of an ankle sprain but, if need be, you can use it to tape dressings on. (Note: this is not the same as a tensor bandage; see section on ankle sprains, below).
Friar’s Balsam or Tincture of Benzoine: You apply this anywhere you have to tape, and it makes that tape stick like anything. The main times where it is important that the tape does not slip or come off are: (1) closing a wound with Steri-strips, and (2) taping sprains. Considering you are probably sweaty and damp out there, you may find that you are not able to tape anything without this stuff.
Alcohol wipes: To clean up and disinfect a wound.
Selection of band-aids: Pick a variety of shapes and sizes, and a brand that stays on when wet.
Ibuprofen: Ideally in a sealed unit, as shown; otherwise scrunch two or three tablets up in foil, but inspect them from time to time in damp climates. You may have to replace them.
Athletic tape wrapped on lip balm: This is the most space and weight efficient way I have found to carry the athletic tape.I am 5’6.5”, and I need 26.5” of tape to tape an ankle sprain (see video, below). So adjust up and down according to your height (and perhaps add another 6” in case you need tape for anything else).
Antibiotic cream or ointment: I don’t actually carry antibiotic ointment with me. I figure that an alcohol wipe or two are good enough until I get back to camp – but some people might prefer to have it with them. If possible, save a mostly-used tube to carry with you in the field, so it is as light-weight as possible.

Sound like a lot? Now look how compact it is to carry. That is a lot of contingency for not much weight. Everything except the (optional) crepe bandage packs up into a very slim ziplock bag. (I keep the lip balm out because I use it frequently during the day).

Ankle sprains: First, some myth debunking: forget about the tensor bandage. A tensor bandage is stretchy, and stretchy things cannot support anything… because they stretch. (The purpose of the tensor is basically the same as a Superman bandaid for a kid with an owwie… purely psychological). Doctors will tape your ankle in a way that stabilizes it nearly completely, but that means that you pretty much cannot move it. They don’t realize that we’re a bit crazy – we want to keep going. So here is a way that you can tape your ankle, with a minimum of tape, keeping the mobility in the directions that you need to be able to walk, climb, and even leap. I have used it on myself, and was able to walk myself out from a remote backpacking trip, and I have also used it on a fellow racer in The Coastal Challenge who was most grateful.

So, the idea is that you use the length of tape on your lip balm to get you through the day. Once back at camp, remove the tape and clean up, do what you can at that point to bring the swelling down, and then before bed tape it up the same way, using Tincture of Benzoine and two layers of tape, so that the new tape wil be sturdy and remain on for the remainder of your race.

Snakebite/insect sting kit: If your route passes through remote areas where there are venomous snakes, I really recommend taking along a Sawyer Extractor (available at REI). Yes, chances are slim that you will get bitten – but the consequences are very grave. The extractor will not remove all the venom by any means; the idea is you get it on as quickly as possible, to remove some of the venom, thereby buying yourself just a little bit of time while help is on its way to you. The extractor comes with several sizes of suckers on it, so can even be used for insect bites – although it is probably not worth your while to stop while racing for an insect bite unless you are allergic. I do want to emphasize: this will not remove all of the venom. The idea is it just removes a portion, with the aim of reducing the severity of the reaction and buying you some time. If you are bitten by a snake, you still must seek urgent emergency first aid.

Take a look at these photos (see what I go through for you!). I pricked a tiny little hole in the top of my hand before applying the extractor, so small that it didn’t even bleed when I squeezed it (I wanted to go for blood, but I chickened out). I applied the Extractor for one minute (you are supposed to leave it on longer but I didn’t want to get too much of a hickey). Even so, you can see that it got a little drop of blood out. The Extractor comes with different sized heads – I used a larger one for the photo, but a smaller one would have applied even more suction. Like I said, it probably will not save you on its own, but it buys you time. The key is to get it on immediately, before the venom starts to spread away from the wound.

This is an item that you will probably never need… you just need to assess the risk vs. weight thing for yourself and decide whether or not you are going to carry it anyway. I do.

First Aid kit for camp: I have mentioned most of the things that you want in this kit above. Here is a brief summary:
- Rubbing alcohol (disinfects while drying), antibiotic ointment e.g. neosporin, antibiotic powder, Leukotape, athletic tape, scissors, Opsite dressings, variety of bandaids, sun block, antifungal cream e.g. Canesten
- Medications etc: Ibuprofen, Rolaids, alka-seltzer, anti-diarrhea meds (my favourite is carbon pills – I don’t know if you can buy them in North America, but they are easy to get in Central and South America, and they work quickly without getting into heavier antibiotics), water treatment tablets
- Also spare supplies to replenish your portable First Aid kit in case of use or water damage

Other useful things to have with you: Most multi-day races require racers to have plastic racing boxes that the organizers load and truck around for you. Some things that I have found useful to have with me, aside from a good range of clothing and shoes and camping gear, are:
- plastic boxes, to keep things in your racing box organized
- lots of spare ziplock bags, useful for carrying small quantities of food like pretzels or candies, race maps, cameras, and spare dry socks
- an inflatable pillow, even a small one, for your head or, more likely, to elevate your feet or knees at night
- constipation aids… sorry for bringing it up, but lots of gels and blue sports drink coupled with very early mornings is not a good recipe for lightening the load. You don’t want to run with all that on board. Bring prunes and things to much on, as well as some pills like Metamucil.
- a peg-free travel clothesline such as the Flexoline – get lightweight hooks or carabiners to put on the ends so you can hook it on whatever is available.
- spare items that are essential, but that could get lost or damaged: sunglasses, sunhat, lip balm, water bottle.

OK, there you go. I hope that helps. Please feel free to add anything in the comments, below. Happy racing!

And for more detailed info on foot care, check out John Vonhof’s excellent site Fixing Your Feet.

I am going to assume that you’ve already found a training program that is appropriate to your experience and your goals.  With these articles, I am going to help you out with some of the other things you need to think of when heading off to a multi-day running event – information that I have gleaned from my years following the world’s top multisport/endurance racers as a reporter for www.sleepmonsters.com, as well as by twice racing in The Coastal Challenge, Costa Rica’s 6-day, 200+ km staged expedition run.

And, I have to tell you, this kind of information pays off.  I am not a fast runner by any means – and I know that I never will be.  Yet, with proper preparation, I managed to finish 2009’s Coastal Challenge ahead of runners whose marathon time is a full hour faster than mine – and with my feet in better shape than theirs, too.

Foot care is so important – even on short races like marathons – but it is crucial in ultras and multi-day races.  So I am dividing this article into two parts: Part 1 will be general preparation, and Part 2 will be specifically about foot care, as well as some info about first aid kits and other things to take with you.  This article is geared towards prepping for multi-day, off-road, staged races like The Coastal Challenge, but much of the advice will be of use for other types of endurance races too.

Training: OK, I said that I wasn’t going to talk about training.  Well, I’m not going to talk about the actual running training – but I do want to say that it is important to prepare your whole body for the long days, and especially for back-to-back days.  If you always train with rest days (as is recommended by many running programs, which consider a marathon to be “the” great long distance), it will be a real shock to your body to suddenly deprive it of its rest days.  So try to incorporate long days and back-to-back-days into your training program as much as possible – and these don’t need to be running (train too hard with the running and you’ll get injured – you know that!).  Time on your feet: walking and hiking is great cross-training as well as foot-conditioning – but any kind of hard and sustained activity like gardening, landscaping, home renos, helping your friend move, is really good body prep for a multi-day race.  And so is deliberate cross-training like biking and swimming – get some long, back-to-back physical days in. Make sure you prepare your knees and so avoid injury by training for the downhills as well as the uphills (see my article in the June issue of Canadian Running Magazine). Also – make sure that you know what you are getting into as far as the terrain goes.  Some races might require bouldering, coasteering, even some swimming – if yours does, get as much training on rough terrain as you can.

Acclimatize: Get to the race location as early as you can.  It really pays to get over the jet-lag, and get your body acclimatized to local conditions (heat? cold? altitude?) as early as possible.  I arrived in Costa Rica a week before the race last year, and I had absolutely no issues with the heat (when acclimatizing to the heat, make sure you sleep at night in the heat, air conditioners off, so that your body fully acclimatizes).  I plan to get to Bolivia at least 2 weeks before the Inca Run this September, in order to acclimatize to the altitude.  I know that not everyone can afford the time to do this – but I have noticed that racers who do plan to take some extra vacation time around their race tend to do it afterward, as a “reward”.  I would really recommend taking that time beforehand.

Be prepared for things to be different: Especially when you are running in a different climate than what you are used to – suddenly your pack that has never ever chafed you starts chafing, or your shoes that used to fit feel too tight.  Or your heartrate going up hills goes crazy.  This is another argument for getting there early if possible – to acclimatize, as well as test gear and clothing in the race environment. If you can’t get there early, just be mentally prepared for things to be different, and bring gear with you (first aid supplies, spare clothing) to give you as many options as possible when things start getting strange.

Specific to the tropics: You are hot and sweaty down here and, as I said, things are suddenly different.  Be prepared to chafe in places you have never chafed before – from your pack, under your arms, and in other delicate places that I won’t mention here.  (Check out Part 2 for info on First Aid supplies that can help). Bring lubricants – and use them each morning! Women, especially, often chafe terribly on the inside of their thighs in this environment – so I strongly recommend wearing tights (long or short) rather than regular running shorts.  You might want to trim hair in some of those delicate places too (but not so short that it’s stubbly – you’re not trying to make sandpaper here!).
Being hot and sweaty, even at night, you are also more susceptible to fungal infections, so I’d recommend having an antifungal cream such as Canesten on hand.
Also, make sure you read the info on electrolytes, below.

Nutrition while racing: Most races will provide electrolyte drinks and some basic sweet or carb-based foods during the race. I strongly recommend bringing your own carefully chosen foods that work for you. I know that a lot of people depend mainly on sugars – gels, shots, sweet drinks.  I find that they can work in the final 1-3 hours of a long day, but the problems for me with sugar is (1) it burns more quickly, so you get mich more defined highs and then crashes, and (2) after a few hours of it, it upsets my stomach and just plain grosses me out.
Each person is different, and you have to do what works for you.  I really suggest going for the complex carbs rather than the refined sugars for a more sustained energy supply, other than the final hour or two of each day.  It is hard to eat much at a time – I’d normally grab a handful of whatever is on offer at the aid stations and eat it as I continue on.  Then I have a little bag on my wastebelt with ziplocks of carb-rich salty food, like crackers or pretzels or potato chips (food is a really good way to get your salts).  I don’t stop to eat – I just try to nearly constantly take tiny little bites as I move.
There are also some complex-carb drinks out there – they tend to be a bit thick and might gum up CamelBak systems.  At the Coastal Challenge this year, I tried out Genr8’s complex carb drink.  It was a real pain in the butt to mix up, tending to get very lumpy – I finally found the best way to use it was to have it mixed very thick and concentrated in the bottom of an empty Gatorade bottle (i.e. something very light to carry).  I used it on the longest (10 and 12 hour) days.  I ate solid food as much as I could, and about 2/3 of the way into the route I added water to my Genr8 mix, gave it a really good shake, and drank it over the next 2 or so hours.  Wow, what a great sustained energy source it turned out to be, and it is quite a bland and non-offensive flavour!  But it really is a pain to mix up (and I wouldn’t try using it in a CamelBak), so I strongly suggest you give it a few test runs before you use it in a race situation: http://genr8speed.com/
Another one that I have not tried, but I have heard good results for, is Carbo Pro.  This is a colourless and tasteless complex carb blend that you can mix into water or any of your favourite sports drinks to up the complex carb calorie count.  Apparently it can gum up your CamelBak, so use it with caution (clean the bag well right after use).  Look for http://sportquestdirect.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=6&zenid=f0cd5b00d88785ee1fa8ed1e22740b5a or, in Canada, http://www.carbopro.ca/.

Hydration and electrolytes: Everyone knows how important it is to drink.  Not everyone fully understands how critical the need for electrolytes is – especially in tropical settings.  At last year’s Coastal Challenge, Project Athena Captain Robyn Benincasa saved dozens of people who did not bring electrolytes with them, just by handing them a little salt pill.  On Day One of the race, we came across a pair of girls staggering around on the trail, and then a guy flat on his back with leg cramps, due to electrolyte deficiencies – so preventable! But, even if you don’t get that critical, it is amazing how much keeping your electrolytes in balance improves your energy levels.
Races provide electrolyte drinks, but you never really know how they are mixed, what concentration they will be at.  What worked for me was having two camel bags, one with just water, and one mixed with full-strength Gatorade.  It is amazing how, on long racing days, suddenly one or the other of those options just grosses you out and you don’t want to drink it.  Having both options there ensures that you keep drinking.
But even electrolyte drinks don’t provide enough salt when drinking lots in a tropical environment – through sweating, your body still gradually depletes without extra added salt. You can still get into trouble even drinking sports drinks. Taking an electrolyte pill every hour (e.g. Sustain or Endurolyte), occasionally even more than that, will keep your electrolytes balanced and your energy high.  It’s also a really good idea to pack salty food with you – getting your electrolytes in food rather than supplements reduces your chance of feeling nauseous from them.

Nutrition in camp: This is one of the most important things to know for multi-day racing.  This is not a piddly little one-day marathon – it’s getting up again and doing another marathon with only 12-18 hours of rest, then getting up the next day and doing it again!  To maximize muscle recovery, it is crucial that you get a big whack of protein into your body within 45 minutes of ceasing activity.  That means that, as soon as you finish for the day, you go straight to your racing box and pull out a tin of sardines or bag of beef jerky and eat it. Do not take off your shoes, do not wash up, do not chat with your fellow racers. Go straight to your box and eat your protein. Then you can deal with the other stuff. (I learned this from Ligia Madrigal – she finished 1st female and 5th overall at the 2009 Coastal Challenge).

Clothing: Find out as much as you can about the climate you are travelling to, and think about all the things you may have to deal with: heat, cold, dampness, sun, insects, sand.  Bring lots of options with you.  While it is tempting to dress minimally in hot climates, long sleeves and long tights offer sun protection as well as protection from scratches and insect bites.  The Coastal Challenge’s route designer, Rodrigo Carazo, is also an adventure racer – he tells me that he would always wear long tights when racing in Costa Rica. (I actually find that tights are cooling – your sweat gets more spread out in them, rather than just trickling down your legs, so the cooling be evaporation works better, and the sun is so vertical that they don’t really get hot from the sunshine).  Tights – whether long or short – also help prevent chafing between your thighs (as I said, very important for women!).  Consider a brimmed hat rather than just one with a visor, to provide sun protection to your neck and ears.

Sunshine: Speaking of the sun – remember to apply sunblock when you get up in the morning, before your skin is wet and slippery.  Remember the backs of your legs and the tops of your ears (oh, look at those poor girls’ ears!), and take care not to miss any spots around your shoulders and neck.  Get a strong SPF lip balm, and reapply it frequently.  Try to source little pouches of sunblock to carry with you so you can reapply during the day.

What to carry with you: Well, this of course depends upon the nature of the race you are in, and what to expect in terms of terrain and climate.  You want to travel as light as possible – but, if your route passes through remote areas away from easy access to assistance, you want to make sure you are prepared to take care of yourself.  Some elites may not carry a pack at all, travelling just with hand-bottles and relying on food at aid stations – but you need to be pretty confident about your speed to do that. Things I carried in Costa Rica were:
- food (discussed above), including some salty snacks in a pouch on my waist-belt to ensure that I nibbled constantly
- two CamelBaks (one with water, one with Gatorade) as well as one lightweight rigid plastic water bottle (the three containers were not always full, necessarily, but they gave me options of how to carry my fluids – the rigid bottle is handy because it is faster to refill at aid stations than the Camel bags).
- mini-first aid kit and snakebite kit (to be discussed in Part 2)
- spare dry socks in a ziplock bag
- lightweight rain jacket (I only carried this sometimes – many sporting goods lines have these ultra-light water-resistant jackets that fold up into a tiny pocket, a good insurance if there is a chance of wind and rain together)
- space blanket (also only sometimes – a good insurance if the weather might turn on you or if there is any possibility of getting stuck out overnight)
- camera in ziplock (in spite of the ziplock, my camera packed it in in the rain). Be cautious about taking any electronic gear with you, and find out from your race directors if there is the possibility of any “water challenges” along the route. Ziplocks provide poor protection for hard pieces of gear because they abrade quickly – if you are serious about carrying phone or camera or iPod, I suggest a proper drybag, and wrapping the item in a piece of cotton cloth (piece of an old T-shirt) inside the bag, so you can dry your hand on the cloth before handling the item.
I know I carried more than most people I did.  My background is much more as a wilderness guide than as an athlete or racer, so I am used to carrying contingency supplies for various situations.  You just need to figure out what is right for yourself, taking into account your own comfort level as well as also how remote each day’s route is, and how quickly race support crews could get to you if something happens.

Well, that’s lots for now.  Next week I will post some info specifically about foot care, as well as more specific info about things to pack, with a focus on first aid and medical supplies.

(All photos taken by me at The Coastal Challenge, 2008 and 2009, text and photos ©Jacqueline Windh)

It is a soft grey evening (yes, this time of year, 4pm is evening…).  Tonquin is a small beach, but the tide is low, so the beach is nearly as long as it gets, maybe 400 or 500 m?  I touch the rock at the south end with my rubber boot, as is the custom.  The winter surf curls beside me and I turn and now follow the tideline towards the north end.  The sky is grey. The sun setting over the open ocean touches the cloud-bottoms with hints of peach and rose.

I take a deep breath of cool salt air.  I exhale slowly, then focus on breathing steadily, deliberately: in with the good, out with the bad, letting go of thoughts of deadlines, overdue obligations, mortgage payments, year-end tasks, as I gaze out to sea.

A flash of black on the water catches my eye.  I watch the spot as I walk the waveline, stomping through the salt water in my gumboots.  A moment later, it reappears: two large dark faces, the silhouetted, crumpled brows of a pair of male steller sea lions, swimming side-by-side into Tofino Harbour against the swift ebb current.  I stop to watch them, letting the salt waves swirl around my boots.

I breathe out. Forcefully. Out with the bad, in with the good. And while I watch the sea lions, another black shape appears – even closer, at the edge of the break.  The rounded face of a harbour seal hangs by the peaking wave-crests, turning his head left then right, as he watches me.

Here I live, a stone’s throw from Nature (yes, Nature with a capital N). That’s what I came to Tofino for, some 15 or so years ago, to live on the edge (or, hopefully, beyond it).  Yet I realize that I have barely spent any time out in Nature for several years now!

I have been messing up on my life plan… (and, by the way, didn’t I go through this exact same thought process a year ago, when I promised byself that this summer I would get back in my kayak, back into the wilderness, But what’s happened?)

It’s a tough time to be a writer, with magazines folding left and right (National Geographic Adventure mag folded earlier this month!) and with web media not having any model by which they can charge users… and therefore pay their writers. I’ve been stressing so much about planning my career, plotting out how I can survive (financially) in this world… that I am forgetting to simply live in this world, to appreciate the parts of it that I value, that feed me.

I don’t have an answer.  It is a tough period for me.  If I am to partake in society, I have to earn a living in it (where “living” equates to $$). In that case, my Nature time comes down to being “vacation”.  And taking vacation is pretty hard to justify, when you are self-employed in a seemingly dying industry.  Or, the alternative: I return to Nature… and leave the conventions of our Society behind?

I’m not sure what I’ll do in the long run. But I know that on the shorter term, I have to make time to get “out there” more. To feed my soul. Because, right now, I am living the worst of both worlds.

As far as towns go, Tofino is lacking in many things – it is expensive to live here; our schools and hospitals are underfunded and the services are under threat; we don’t have facilities like sports centres or movie theatres or shopping malls.  The trade-off is that we have the grandeur of Nature, the rainforests and oceans that make Clayoquot Sound one of the world’s cradles of biodiversity, at our doorstep.  But if I am not going to take advantage of what this place has to offer, what am I doing living here?

So I sit here, tapping away in front of the computer screen, warm in this room with my electric heat and electric lights and the radio chattering away, thinking of those sea lions and that curious seal, and of the whales and the bears and the sandpipers and the eagles, and of the barnacles and mussels that right now are being washed by cold sea-surf on the new moon’s rising tide, all of them living their lives right here, all around me, and reminding me that there is so much more, so much more, out there.

I’m pretty pleased – that’s a November vegetable harvest from my garden in Port Alberni!

In this photo you’ll see freshly picked celery, brussels sprouts and swiss chard.  I picked the peppers and tomatoes (green) about a month ago, and have been letting them ripen slowly inside.

OK, I know that you can’t be doing this right across Canada – our Vancouver Island climate is a bit milder.  But still, there is a lot that you can harvest even into the first frosts – most of the cabbage family (especially kale, usually one of my standards, but I did not have access to the garden in Port Alberni until July, which is too late to seed it) as well as cabbages and brussels sprouts.  Many of these can take quite a hard frost – in fact, they get even more tender and flavourful after a good frost -  so you can be harvesting them until late autumn or early winter, even in the snow.

I also just picked my last lettuces a week ago, too.  So really, there is a lot we can do up here.

A hint with the tomatoes: if you live in places that get hot summers, you can probably ripen them up just fine on the vines.  But, if you live in a place where it doesn’t get that hot (like here in Tofino) or if you start the plants too late (like I did in Port Alberni this year), if you pick the fruits green, you can ripen them indoors over a period of months – I mean it, I’ll still be eating fresh home-grown tomatoes until the end of November!

The tricks for ripening them inside are:

1.  Pick them before the weather gets too cold and wet, and definitely before your first frost – otherwise they may get blight or other fungus.  Indoors, that fungus will grow and spread faster than the tomatoes can ripen (so if any of your fruit are showing signs of it, get rid of them right away – they have no hope).

2.  But leave them on the vine as long as you safely can before picking.  The bright green ones that have not reached full size yet have more trouble ripening – they met rot or just wither up before ripening.  But if they have reached fullsize (you can kind of tell both by size and by colour, they become more of a yellowish green) they will likely ripen up if you follow steps 3 and 4.

3.  Make sure they get good air circulation, so they don’t rot or mould.  I find they work better spread out or stacked very slightly on a tray, than in a bowl.  They may ripen slightly faster in a bowl, but you really have to keep an eye on the ones further down.  Remove any that show signs of rot or mould immediately.

4.  Do not put them in the sun!  Sure, you can put nearly-ripe red ones there – but if you put green ones there they will probably dehydrate before they ripen.  Don’t let them get too cold or too warm – just room temperature works fine.

So there you go – still eating mostly local here in Canada in the last weeks before winter.  Here’s my lunch today:  my home-grown celery stir-fried up with the local sockeye salmon I canned up in the fall and brown rice (OK, not local, I am still working on that), with those tender little sprouts steamed on top.