Grow the Change

The End

2010-02-23T16:32:00.000-05:00

We have decided to let this blog go inactive, but hope that it continues to be a valuable archive of our homesteading experiences. Thank you to all of those who interacted and contributed to this blog.

Cheater's Sourdough Bread

2009-12-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

All of my fermenting vegetables got me thinking...

I love sourdough bread, but I've been hesitant to start up a sourdough starter, without a fridge or freezer to slow the fermenting starter, I'd have to feed it regularly, which would mean either throwing starter out (since we are sans-chickens lately) or baking like a fiend. And knowing myself, I'd probably work myself into a frenzy using up all of that extra starter in various rolls, breads, pancakes, etc, when we really don't eat all that much wheat normally.

Maybe I've just been lazy, who knows.

Anyway, I got to thinking over my maturing sauerkraut, how the lactobacilli in the fermenting vegetables would be the same lactobacilli in the sourdough starter. Then remembering Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions technique of increasing grain's digestibility and nutrition by soaking the flour overnight in water with a few tablespoons of whey (lactobacilli again), I knew I couldn't go too far wrong with this.

So I ground a pound (my normal loaf size) of our homegrown wheat kernels, placed the whole wheat flour in a bowl (about 4 cups) with 1 1/2 to 2 cups tepid water, enough to make a wet, but not soupy, dough, and 4 tablespoons of plain sauerkraut juice. Mixed and covered and left in a warm spot overnight.

Dough after 12 hours, ready to be transferred to bread pan

In the morning the wheat bran and gluten was noticeably broken down, and had both the sticky texture and pleasantly sour aroma of sourdough, along with some bubbles which meant that it had started to ferment. I gave the flour a stir, added a good pinch of salt, and poured it, if that's the correct verb, perhaps transferred it into an oiled bread pan. I let it rise, lightly covered in a warm spot, for another hour or so. When the surface was slightly raised, maybe only an inch, put it straight into a hot oven, 375F. Once in the oven it continued to rise into a nice light loaf. It takes at least an hour to bake, giving it a characteristic thick sourdough crust.

I wish I could share the smell of the loaf coming out of the oven. It was a perfect sourdough loaf, I could have sworn I was back in San Francisco. Crusty exterior; chewy, pleasantly sour interior; moist but not too heavy. And like sourdough bread it keeps longer, neither going stale or moldy as fast as yeasted breads. Better yet, this recipe has been fool-proof, and oft repeated. It's the least fussy dough I've ever worked with, and the easiest by far to prepare.

So if you've got a pot of fermenting vegetables hanging around in the cellar, give those hungry little lactobacilli beasties something else to chew on. To keep my fermenting pot topped up, once the water level drops to an inch above the vegetables, I top up with a brine of 2 Tablespoons sea salt to 1 Quart or Liter of water. Given a few days, the lactobacilli will have repopulated the brine, ready for another batch of sourdough.

What the rest of the world already knows

2009-11-19T15:44:00.000-05:00

Just discovered a new, to me, but 20 years grown, resource for sustainable livestock management, Livestock Research for Rural Development, "The international journal for research into sustainable developing world agriculture."

It is truly an international journal, the latest issue November 2009, includes such varied articles as "Use of redworms (Perionyx excavatus) to manage agricultural wastes and supply valuable feed for poultry" contributed by the Hanoi University of Agriculture, to "Effect of minimal supplemental feeding with lucerne during late gestation on pre-weaning performance of goats" contributed by the Department of Agriculture, South Africa, to "Indigenous knowledge and its relevance for sustainable beekeeping development: a case study in the Highlands of Southeast Ethiopia", contributed by Mada Walabu University, Ethiopia.

Nearly all of the articles and research in this journal originate in the Global South, and Developing Nations, which makes them all the more applicable to our own First World subsistence, urban and smallholder farming initiatives. I have found a rather large gap in relevant research available to subsistence and small farms. The "how to" books and websites for backyard livestock cover basic handling, housing and feeding, but all of the first-rate University research, from Industrial nations, has been directed at large scale commercial livestock operations. Even the Organic livestock research has been biased toward commercial operations, which differ greatly from smallholder and subsistence livestock systems. A subsistence livestock system will include a more varied, seasonal and bio-regional approach to feed, and an integrated approach to waste and nutrient management, for instance.

As local food collectives take hold in North America, this research gap will close, especially with the innovation of the Open Science and Creative Commons platform for equal access and distribution of information. In the meantime, I will glean relevant research from the LRRD journal, and marvel at what the "Developing World" is able to do.

Wool hood and scarf for Winter Biking

2009-11-10T15:41:00.001-05:00

I'm inevitably prone to catching the knitting fever this time of year. It's the crisp temperatures and the adding of layers... what would winter be without wool? We have wool long-johns, wool sweaters, double-layer wool mittens, and the usual plethora of wool socks, hats and scarves.

But never are these wool garments tested more than when winter biking. The wool long-johns have proved their worth in stitches, wool sweaters always form one of the 3-4 layers in our full winter biking garb, and nothing could be more important than a pair of wool socks (or two) for fast-pedaling feet. But there have been gaps in our woolen armor. Even the double-thick wool mittens only make it to about 0-5 C; stationary hands get quite nippy, wind chill is always a factor on a bicycle, and the cold finds it's way through the stitches. Ski gloves work best for winter biking.

The other cold spot is the face and neck area. I have usually tried to cover all the bases with a hat that covers most of the ear, a face scarf that covers ear lobes, face and chin, and a scarf wrapped copiously around the neck. But there's always a little gap that forms between the hat and the face scarf, exposing tender ears. Our goal in winter biking is to comfortably transport ourselves, not lose various extremities to frost bite.

Hence the latest woolen duo: hood and face scarf. The hood fits neatly under a helmet, and generously covers all those little gaps left by too much mis-matched head garb. The face scarf provides a double covering for the ears and neck, with a single breathable layer over the mouth and nose. A heavy scarf can sometimes prevent easy breathing, and once you are moving along on a bike, the face is warmed by a cloud of warm breath. In the event that the face becomes too hot, the face scarf can be slid down to the chin, and easily moved back into place upon cooling off.

We are now looking forward to comfortable journeys on our two wheeled steeds this winter, covered in wool from head to toe.

These two pieces are quite simple to knit. Find a gauge that works with your favorite worsted weight wool yarn, and calculate your stitches for 16 or 17 inches, depending on the size of your head and whether you want a close or a loose fit.

For the hood, work in the round for 4 inches, in 1x1 ribbing. BO one inch at the beginning of the next row, then work back and forth in stockinette (or find a more decorative stitch such as cabling, herringbone, etc) for 11 to 12 inches. Now pick up stitches along the side edge, including half of the bound off stitches in the chin. Work one side, then the other, in 1x1 ribbing for 1 1/2 inches, BO in pattern. Sew the seams, beginning with the top of the hood, then the seams on the edging.

Work the face scarf in the same 1x1 ribbing, but add one more inch of stitches per row than the neck of the hood. Work in the round for 6 or 7 inches.

Organic Seed Alliance

2009-10-29T15:30:00.002-04:00

I'd like to draw attention to an organization, the Organic Seed Alliance, not because it's new, but because they have been doing some amazing work in the last few years. And because they have a model for collaborative seed saving, education and advocacy that could easily be emulated by regions outside of the Northwest.

To give a taste of their ideology, I've copied this from their Vision Statement...

VISION: Seed is both our common cultural heritage and a living natural resource fundamental to the future sustainability of food production. Proper stewardship of our genetic resources necessitates not only its conservation, but careful management in a manner which allows seed to continually evolve with challenges of the environment, cultural practices of sustainable agriculture and the need to feed people. Through advocacy, collaborative education, advisory services, and research we work to restore and develop seed varieties for current needs while safeguarding invaluable genetic resources for future generations.

They have recently won a court challenge against the introduction of Round Up Ready Sugar Beets in the Northwest, which can be read about on their blog, seed broadcast. But most interesting to me are their publications, (which by the way have been licensed under the Creative Commons, allowing the information to be freely distributed and used, as long as no money is made by doing so). Their field guides on seed production are the most detailed, specific seed saving publications I have read, with truly good applied science and organic cropping techniques. Not only that, but they are an alliance, or collective, of organic farmers in a bio-region who organize to pool their resources, land, time and expertise to breed vegetable, herb and grain varieties that meet both the changing climate conditions, as well as the low-input techniques of organic food production.

Their model is participatory, re-engaging farmers in our once openly held seed heritage. To quote them again, on education...

In addition to this loss in genetics there has been a concurrent loss in the base of knowledge and skills necessary to properly steward and improve plant genetics in a ecologically and ethically sound manner. Farmers, once the primary seed stewards around the globe, have rapidly been removed from the seed circle - no longer participating in plant breeding or conservation. Only a few generations ago, the practices of on-farm seed saving and basic crop improvement were not only common, but necessary.

And their ethics incorporate social justice, environmental stewardship and food security through the advocacy of maintaining intellectual property in the Public Domain, and out of the hands of private or corporate ownership.

Organic Seed Alliance believes that as humans, we hold an important responsibility to steward resources in a manner that is just, equitable and recognizes the needs of current and future generations. We are working with farmers, breeders, lawyers and ethicists to develop a philosophical approach to seed development and stewardship that will include recognition of the valuable contributions of traditional agriculture and indigenous communities, promote farmer's rights to save and improve seeds, and support the long term integrity of the genetic resource of seeds. We believe this can be accomplished while recognizing and compensating for the investment of breeders, research and development.

We believe that the public good can integrate with commerce and that conservation can coexist with innovation. This approach will incorporate elements of the Open Source software movement, applications of the Precautionary Principle, and recognition of the value (social, economic, nutrient sustaining) of natural resources to future generations.

First Snow

2009-10-23T15:04:00.001-04:00

Conversation with a local farmer

2009-10-23T14:46:00.005-04:00

by (the elusive) Beringian Fritillary

This week we helped a local farmer with his carrot harvest. He practices Integrated Pest Management, and I asked a few questions about his transition over the last 10 years, away from the high levels of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides recommended in spray programs. On the carrot crop we were harvesting, he had used a post-emergent herbicide when the carrots were about 2" high to control the grass coming up in the crop, (we had very wet cold spring and mechanical cultivation was not possible, even on his sandy loam soils). The crop had moderate grass and weed pressure, and minimal pest or disease pressure. I asked what kind of crop loss he tolerates in his Integrated Pest Management program before spraying a crop, he answered between 15%-20%, I would have expected between 5-10%. I was surprised at this level of crop loss, on a cost-based analysis. I was curious whether his rational for this kind of practice was ideological, economic or consumer driven demand. His answer was short, it was basically an economically based decision that evolved into his farm management approach over the last 10 years. He started out wholesaling carrots at 3 cents a pound (less cost), and now gets about $1-$1.50 pound at the farmers market by transitioning to a direct-sales model, growing less volume, and keeping his machinery/labor costs down. He has noticed in the last few years, a lot more younger families are demanding better quality produce, in particular local produce.

To add some background, his model of farming is viable because he has inherited land and farming machinery, and has access to low-interest loans and government funding because of his established status in the region. He has seen his share of young start-up farmers collapse under the debt load of building a farm from the ground up. He also has access to hundreds of acres of traditionally farmed land for crop rotation, which contributes to his success with IPM. He also has access to quality seed from the best European plant breeders and seed producers.

To contrast, on the home front we had a 60% crop loss (based on a 25 tonne/acre carrot yield) in our carrot crop, using our saved seed and no sprays, organic or chemical, grown in poor soil improved with composted horse manure. Our ground is very poor and run down, with little hummus or soil depth. We had a infestation of cut worms which contributed the majority of crop loss. We are still going though the science of it all, studying soil sciences and the relationship between pests and soil nutrients, to sort out the probabilities and causes. We have enough crop to get though the year, with adjustments in the pantry, and a late planting of carrots left in the ground to overwinter, and harvest in the spring.

The feeling I have about backyard/small homesteading gardens is that you can look after yourself in good times, and possibly survive the bad, but what about the times when most of these methods of growing food fail? Here's the rub: local organic and conventional farmers will profit greatly from this, in fact they are speculating on this outcome. A classic scenario that Naomi Klein, in her book Disaster Capitalism, outlines. The unofficial farming conversations that I hear going on over the last 15 years, is that they are waiting for the full impacts of climate change, and protective farming practices to bring greater profits to agro-business, survival of the fittest or the chosen. I think its an old struggle between profit, self interest and cultural tradition.

So what started out as a good news story, which it is and no malice on behalf of the farmer, but the forces that are driving his decision are market based. I would go on to say that he provides a large quantity of produce to the local food bank, and has helped us out greatly as many local farmers do. This is the hard part, it's not personal in so far as it is a social/political culture that demands market opportunity and welfare support. What I find interesting is the interplay between doing something good, and yet the temptation to profit from unequal distribution of land and resources.

So if you are a farmer/homesteader/backyard gardener, what is the food growing future you see?

Wintermilk: making soymilk and tofu

2009-10-19T13:33:00.005-04:00

Well, I suppose we're not totally out of things to blog about, on the homefront...

Since we will be leaving the farm in the spring, and winters are a hardship on animals up here, we won't be keeping any livestock this winter. And since dairy and egg production are on hold through the dark and extremely cold months of January - March, we won't be missing much. Last winter we purchased rice and soy milk, in bulk, to carry us through the goat's milk drought, since the only other option within our range is commercial cow's milk. But we got to thinking about making soy milk and tofu this year instead.

Now, we have each been through the spectrum of diets, from vegan to vegetarian to Weston A. Price traditional-meat-and-dairy based diet. For the most part, veganism and vegetarianism grew naturally out of an urban environment, and we got interested in Weston Price and the well-known cookbook, Nourishing Traditions, as we started raising our own livestock.

We now have a hybridized diet. Since raising meat, eggs and milk is still resource expensive in the North, requiring large amounts of land, and grain/hay supplies to last at least 7 months a year, we do not entirely rely upon meat and dairy to supply our protein. In fact, to raise these products out of season, we need to grow high-protein legume feeds for the animals... legumes we could just as easily grow for ourselves. I enjoy the milk and egg glut that comes with the spring and early summer, but treat these foods as seasonal items. And for meat, we consume 10 lbs a month, for two adults, plus as much gelatin rich broth as I can put away. Legumes make up the rest of our protein requirements.

Along with learning about such nutrient rich foods as a good bone stock, and lacto-fermented vegetables advocated by the Weston Price foundation, we also became weary of soybeans. And in the process, did some in-depth research for myself. From what I have read, on both sides of the issue, and even from the livestock perspective, I understand the dangers of a heavily soy-based diet to be primarily from improper preparation, or from an imbalance of calcium when replacing soy for milk. Soy, along with other legumes and grains, is heavy on the side of phosphorous, and low on the side of calcium, the opposite of milk. So as we phase out dairy products, and begin using more properly prepared soy-based foods, my main concern is fulfilling our calcium requirements. Especially in the winter months when our "green" foods are at the lowest.

So I did a calcium "audit" of our typical winter diet, and found that the base-line is at about half of a recommended daily intake of 1000mg. In further researching calcium rich foods, sesame seeds and poppy seeds pack the highest boost of calcium, way above the alfalfa sprouts I had expected to close the gap. Another great surprise was that many of the spices I use in our winter foods, the kinds of spices often found in curry or gharam masala, are also some of the most calcium rich foods. These spices are mostly of the umbrelifa family: cumin, caraway, anise, fennel and coriander. It seems that calcium comes in small packages.

Well, after a lengthy pre-amble, here's some of the delicious foods we prepared with our bulk sack of soybeans...

First of all, here's a link to some tofu and soymilk recipes, since I won't be giving detailed instructions here. Basically, the beans are soaked and blended with water, then the slurry is boiled for 15 minutes to destroy the enzyme that makes raw soy indigestible. When it is filtered, the liquid is soymilk, and the pulp is called okara.

One pound of raw soybeans, which I bought in bulk for 75 cents a pound, made 3 Quarts of soymilk (in later processing I was more careful not to let the soymilk reduce like it did in my first batch below), along with about 4 cups of okara. I added a touch of sweetener and a pinch of salt to each Quart of soymilk, and I'm really pleased with the result. More about the okara below.

In my next batch, beginning again with one pound of raw soybeans, the filtered soymilk is re-heated and curdled, very similar to cheese-making, to form tofu curds. There are a few curdling agents, including calcium sulfate which would fortify our tofu with calcium, but I couldn't find it locally and used the more commonly found magnesium sulfate, or Epsom salts (be sure to use the salts made for internal purposes... read the label).

The curds are pressed in a cheese-press type of contraption, forming a nice firm tofu. One pound of raw beans produced 1 1/2 pounds of pressed tofu. The whey is mild tasting and makes a nice soup base or bread making liquid.

First tofu fry... tossed with a kale, red pepper and onion stir-fry... yum.

Now back to that okara. It retains most of the fiber and carbohydrates, and about half of the fat and protein from the beans. Here's a link with some really inspired recipes to use and enjoy this unfamiliar by-product of soymilk/tofu making. The patties below are made from the UnChicken Nuggets recipe in the link above.

Since the okara is high in soy-oil, it can be used to replace some of the fat in baked goods. It is also a fluffy type of grain, and can replace eggs for a slightly firmer texture in cakes or muffins. I tried the toasted okara recipe, which has a lightly nutty/coconutty flavor that can be used to replace toasted coconut in recipes, and it smelled so good, I decided to try a granola. I mixed half rolled oats and half cooked okara, omitting oil/fat, sweetened to taste, spiced to taste, added sesame seeds (for calcium!), and toasted in the oven as granola. It's absolutely delicious, better than traditional oat granola. I have no doubt we will find many ways to incorporate this new ingredient in our diet. Okara can even be dehydrated and ground, for easy storage, or to make your own soy protein powder.

Making tofu and soymilk at home requires about the same amount of time as dairy milk and simple cheeses. But the cost-return is higher than dairy products. 75 cents worth of soybeans yielded $6 of soymilk or $8 of tofu, not counting the okara and whey by-products. Soy milk can also be made into soy-yogurt, using the same dairy yogurt starter. Growing our own soybeans would no doubt, require less time and land than maintaining a single dairy goat, year-round, in our bio-region and climate. So for now we have soymilk next to the goat's milk; tofu 2-3 times a week and goat's meat 3-4 times a week. A happy hybrid.

The wrap up

2009-10-13T15:33:00.003-04:00

The garden is all but finished for the year, just a lonely row of cabbages, kales and Brussels sprouts, along with a patch of frost hardy parsley, and a few late onions in the ground. Everything else has found a place in the pantry, the spice rack, or the cool room. Tomatoes of all stages from green to yellow to pink are ripening, an abundance of green, yellow and red peppers will keep for a few weeks at least. The potatoes are in their bins, carrots and parsnips in their sacks, pumpkins and squash on their shelves. Even the rooster and the bucks have found their way to the pantry this weekend, as canned meat and rich broth. Well, the rooster only got as far as the table really, one of the many harvest feasts we enjoy this time of year. So it's quite a bit quieter around here.

It is interesting, wrapping up the season, but this time, not making those thousand preparations in anticipation of next year's garden. No seed saving since we want to start again with bio-regional varieties, although I am a thousand times tempted to stash away a few packets, out of a reflexive sense of preservation. But we have no rare varieties in need of salvation. And the practical consideration of moving cross-continent by bicycle keeps our load light. (Of course there are some things we will be shipping across like my trusty pressure canner, my treasured spinning wheel, our solar panel, etc.) But there is no safe passage for seed, so I let them scatter, and smile at the thought of all of these volunteer vegetable seeds, springing up in the re-planted pastures after we are gone.

When we go, no one will take over our garden, it will go back to pasture, cut for hay once a year. But I take heart in knowing we have made some small improvements to the soil, we leave our treasures for the worms, the insects, the invisible biota living out their secret lives, and for the birds that have become our constant companions in the garden.

The kitchen this time of year has the feel of industry: the pressure canner sputtering, wood stove chugging along, and food, always food, in every stage of preparation and storage. There's always a job to do, but not in a bad way, each job has it's pleasure and satisfaction. I sometimes feel as though I have a thousand clocks in my head, or rather kitchen-timers, each one set sometime in the spring, when seeds were planted, kids born, each one with it's own duration. This is the time of year when everything ticks down, I'm constantly scanning the timers, and tending the tasks that are nearest to completion. I just have to scan my overflowing kitchen (spilling out into the living quarters this time of year), to see herbs in various stages of drying, baking beans to shell, curing pumpkins behind the wood stove, shrivelled ground cherries in the warming oven nearly dry, ripening fruit to sort and process.

It used to be quite overwhelming, in my first few fledgling years as a, well, a housewife. I no longer object to this word because I understand the skill, competence and dedication it demands. Well, truthfully, I'm only a part-time housewife, and only when it's too cold to pleasurably work outside! Now, I don't mind the small circuit of my daily routines, always in proximity to the warm stove, the heart of the household. But as soon as spring breaks, I'm a caged bird, set loose, I'm a gardener, a homesteader, and grudgingly maintain the house, emptied of it's stores of food, hollowed out, dormant.

But this winter feels different, we are spinning a cocoon this winter, weaving new dreams, with new adventures. And making room for a new beginning. Instead of the thousand preparations for next year's garden, we have the thousand preparations for a move. And mostly what consumes our immediate interest is our cycling adventure. We are bike obsessed. Researching tandems, anything we can find about them, and touring gear and routes and tips.

A tandem bicycle is perfect for us, I love the idea of the cooperation and coordination required. On a tandem we will be so much more in tune with one another, and working together on tough climbs, the same way we work together in the garden and household, coordinating our efforts, working with efficiency, and enjoying the companionship. Besides, tandems are fast!

I've also realized that I've come full circle with this blog, I've written about a 12 month cycle of growing and preserving our food. It has been good, it is a good record of what we have achieved, on a bare piece of land, on an empty road. And I hope it has been informative, after all, I know how much I have learned in the process. But we have come to a natural end, realizing there is only so far the two of us can go on this road to self-sufficiency, without turning to capitalism's infrastructure to support us: the ironic hypocritical conclusion to the independent quest of self-reliance. From where we are, we can see that communalism, collectivism, eco-socialism, whatever tag you want to put on it, is the least destructive way forward, perhaps the only way.

So this blog may find it's natural conclusion, or it may evolve, or we may move on to a new blog, leaving this one to archive the food-skills we acquired, perhaps returning to it when we plant our next seeds. Either way, we'll let you know.

How to get those tomatoes naked

2009-09-30T16:00:00.004-04:00

I rarely enjoy the task of removing tomato skins, and sometimes prefer to leave them, for certain things, such as last week's chutney, where the combination of textures (apples with their skins on, peppers, etc) conceal the tomato skins. But for a good tomato sauce, skins off is undeniably better. I've tried a few methods, dropping the tomatoes in boiling water to remove the skins, and pressing the raw tomatoes through a food mill, which separates both skins as well as seeds. The boiling water method works just fine, but it is a rather hot process working on a wood stove, and the heat tends to wear me out faster than the task. And the food mill is a slow process, but only leaves me with a puree, when sometimes I would rather have some of the texture of the tomato meats and seeds in the finished product. So it was with excitement that I read about a trick to remove tomato skins raw, in a 1980 Organic Gardening publication.

I've been wanting to try it out and see if it is a viable method for removing the skins from large batches of tomatoes. So I set out with a 20lb pail of ripe Roma tomatoes. I have a pleasant work counter and stool, so that I can sit at a comfortable height to do large food processing tasks. Here's the technique: use only ripe tomatoes, paste types work best, but it works for all varieties.

Scrape the tomato skin with the back of your pairing, or small kitchen knife. Scrape back and forth a few times, applying slight pressure, like you are shaving the skin, rotating the tomato to work around the whole fruit. You will start to see the skin wrinkle under the right pressure, and the texture of the tomato changes to that of a water balloon, as if there's a layer of water just under the skin. This method separates the skin from the flesh underneath. Then slice off the stem end and peel down from the top. The skin should come off easily.

I found this to be a method comparable to the boiling process, perhaps a bit slower, but no standing at a hot stove, waiting over a steaming pot for the water to re-boil. I certainly enjoyed the task more, and felt less worn out afterward. And sometimes that's more important than the length of time a task takes.

Naked tomatoes, ready for processing.

Add a few diced peppers, and garden herbs, and we've got a taste of summer to grace humble winter meals. What a delight when the harvest basket is full of such vibrant color, and flavor!

Fruits: a celebration

2009-09-21T15:57:00.005-04:00

The peak harvests from our tomato crop are inevitably post-frost, but the tomatoes do ripen in a hurry after the plants begin to die back this time of year. So with my first 20lb pail of ripe tomatoes, I've finally got enough to start canning! After working with a pressure canner to put up the winter's green beans and peas, the gentle and quick boiling water bath, used to safely can acid foods, feels like a snap. A good supply of tomatoes really does perk up the winter root cellar diet.

This first harvest of tomatoes went into a chutney, with some of the small tart apples, gleaned in an abandoned homestead apple orchard, abundant this year but not yet sweetened with enough frosts. The tart apples married well with the sweet ripe tomatoes, spiced with red, green and yellow peppers, curry, dates and a touch of raw sugar and homemade apple cider vinegar. Three dozen pints should keep us happy.

I enjoy looking ahead this time of year, and providing us with small gifts and celebrations of summer, for the slow cold days of winter. Perhaps this act is the more genuine origin of the holiday tradition of buying up summer's sale items, storing them in closets and other dark places to bring them out adorned with festive wrapping to generate a feeling of celebration and giving. Although I have long abandoned the malls and consumate culture of consumer-mania, I still feel drawn to practice this art of adorning our harvests into creative and stimulating combinations, package them up and put them in a dark cupboard, until they are called upon, one by one, to generate that true feeling of celebration and camaraderie.

Another crop just coming into it's peak are the Ground Cherries. These are indeed a strange fruit, quaint in their paper wrapping, and odd flavor combination of tomato and pineapple. But they are a prolific annual fruit that can be grown by gypsies and renters alike. Harvesting them is a unique process as well because as the name implies, the fruit falls to the ground when it is nearly ripe, and finishes ripening in the dappled shade of the bushes. Their paper husks make them resistant to rot, with a good mulch underneath, and dry weather, the fruits will ripen conveniently on the ground, and can be gathered once a week. Which is a relief because lifting and weaving through the tangled, ground-hugging branches to gather the fruits is a bit of a chore, not at all like harvesting other fruits that ripen at more convenient heights.

But they have a few winning qualities... They are not a watery fruit, making them easy to dry, they make perfect little raisins, with a pineapple twist. And they will continue ripening indoors, much like tomatoes, lengthening the season for fresh fruit, and making for convenient sized harvests for ease of preserving, instead of the all-at-once nature of more delicate berries. Also, I have never once seen a bird or other animal or insect (besides the occasional slug) attracted by the fruit, so I have no competition for the harvest, unlike true cherries and tree fruits.

To dry the ground cherries, I simply string the ripe fruits into long chains and hang them behind the wood stove. Depending on the weather, and how often I am using the wood stove for canning, they will take a week or so to dry into raisins. I store the dried fruit in glass jars, opening the lids often in the first month to check for moisture on the lid, or a moldy fruit. If they are still moist they can be spread out on a cookie sheet and placed in a warm (100F) oven for an hour or so, cooled and returned to an airtight container in a dark, cool place.

The big and the little

2009-09-16T16:22:00.005-04:00

It's the big one...

We've got whopping big potatoes this year, must be all the rain. And even this pound-and-a-halfer had barely a spot of hollow heart in the middle, solid potato all the way through, and enough to fill the dinner plate!

And all the little ones...

We're expecting a real Zero degree frost tonight, so the squash and pumpkins have been brought in to cure. We had a late crop, and there were a dozen or so of these little promising would-be squash. Not sure how much flavor they have, or how green they are, at best I'm hoping for something like zucchini. I figure I'll try them breaded and fried, after all, everything tastes good breaded and fried! If not, I'm sure the goats and chickens will make quick work of them.

All tucked in for the night...

We put our peppers, tomatoes and ground cherries in one long bed so that we can cover them easily. We procured some heavy plastic house-wrap from a mini-house mover. He usually has to pay to take it to the dump, so he's always keen to pass it along. It is very heavy duty plastic, we have also used it as the weather-proof layer to our board and baton barn roofs, and it has out-performed anything we have purchased. At least it's diverted from the waste-stream, it's hard to believe that plastic this heavy, with so much potential for re-use, is trashed after a single use.

The flavor of frost

2009-09-14T14:36:00.007-04:00

This is a gorgeous time of year, the temperatures have cooled off, and the mosquitoes, blackflies, biting midges, deerflies, and horseflies have disappeared with the heat, which makes a huge difference in our ability to enjoy the garden, and outdoor activities. We even had our first stargaze in quite a few months, dreaming up at the night sky without being eaten alive!

We did have our first major frost on September 9th, dawn broke to a dusting of fine white frost over the garden and fields. But we were prepared, and had covered the tender crops: peppers, tomatoes, ground cherries, a late basil crop, and even a pair of flowering fennel plants, hoping for some fennel seed. The frost spelled the end for the winter squash, pumpkin and cucumber vines, but the zucchini bushes showed real vigor, only burning the tallest leaves and not damaging the crown or small fruits. The last bean crop was also frosted, so we harvested the last of the green beans, and have been feasting on them, getting our fill of the fresh crop knowing it will be canned or fermented from now on.

The frost also marked the end of our market garden crops, which is more of a relief than a disappointment, we did as well as we could this year, and it is good to be able to focus all of our energies on our own harvest and winter preparation.

The bulk of our tomatoes, tomatillos and ground cherries are just ripening now, so we will keep them protected from frost for another 3-4 weeks before bringing in the remaining green fruits to ripen indoors. So my tomato sauce, salsa and chutney canning fest has begun. I'm also drying some ground cherries, they make nice little "raisins" for baked goods, with that unique pineapple flavor.
The sunflowers have indeed bloomed in time to make seeds, I always forget how frost hardy they are. We are going to experiment with de-hulling the seeds this fall/winter.

My own accidental hybrid "Sweet Curry" kabocha type winter squash, ripening in the dappled shade of the frosted vines. These will have to be brought in before the next frost, without the sheltering umbrella of leaves, the squash fruits would be damaged by a frost.

The popcorn is ready to harvest, the kernels mostly dried on the cob. I husk them right away, then store them in a large onion bag and let them continue drying for a few weeks before shelling the cobs.

A late summer fruit, Wild Raisins are ripening. They have a date-like flavor, but also like dates, have an unfortunate pit. My favorite way of making use of these delicious and abundant fruits is to put them through a food mill raw, and dry them as a fruit leather, they need no sugar this way. The pulp is also good added to applesauce, making an interesting applesauce variation.

Of course, the local songbird population is also fond of these sweet fruits. This female Common Yellowthroat, of the wood warbler family, foraged in the same bush.

I got this lucky shot some time later.

I try to keep a profusion of late summer and fall flowers available for the insects. These flowering lettuce bushes would normally be a part of my seed saving regime, but we are going to start over with regionally appropriate seed varieties in our next garden, somewhere on the West coast, so these flowers are just for the bees. The last pollen producing flowers in the garden are the hardy broccoli flowers, I always leave the small side shoots to go to flower, they continue to bloom and attract bumble bees even after the ground starts to freeze, well into November, even early December.

A fennel flower, on it's way to seed, I hope. I started these fennel plants in March this year, determined to get some fennel seed from these slow-pokes, we'll see.

The last of the Coriander flowers, my absolute favorite flower in the garden, they make a delicate bouquet all of their own.

It's amazing that they become such homely clusters, which is likewise, one of my favorite spices. We're curry-aholics, and if you've never tried coriander in baked goods, replace it with cinnamon in a spiced cookie recipe for a nice delight.

Harvesting grains

2009-09-08T17:23:00.006-04:00

September heralds a harvest of a different nature, with a quickened pace to match the flurry of spring planting. These two peaks of activity bookend summer's intermittent dance of advancing green, and dashing retreats from humid heat and biting insects. Summer's vegetable harvest are gathered gradually, in a steady sequence of ripeness, and the pantry fills in dribs and drabs. September wakes us from summer's never-ending dream, and reminds us that time is again short. The garden seems to remember snow and frozen ground, rushing for the finish line of ripened seed, and we scurry like squirrels to gather it all in, and store it safely away.

Nothing connects me more to my human inheritance than the grain harvest. The hard red spring wheat, our staple grain crop providing a year's worth of breads, pastas, crackers, cakes and cookies, was ready to harvest this last weekend. The tasseled heads rustle dryly in the wind, no green remains in the crop, the kernels thresh out easily between the palms of our hands, and the plump golden kernels are firm, not crunchy, but hard with a starchy gum-like center. We harvest our grains by hand, in the manner of peasants over 5 Milena. It is the very meaning of simplicity, and it connects us, in solidarity, to the millions of subsistence farmers around the world who are, I pray, likewise in their fields, gathering, threshing and winnowing their staple grain crops.

We experimented with a few hand harvesting techniques last year, and have come to settle on crude but effective, inexpensive kitchen knives as tools. Gathering a handful of stems, we cut the stalks near the heads, therefore bringing very little stalk into the storage bin. This reduces the amount of space needed to store the heads until we can thresh it all, and it also makes the threshing process easier, with less stalk to clog the equipment.

On a larger, community grain scale, we have more appropriately scaled ideas for harvesting tools, including solar/electric small or two-wheeled tractors (re: link), pedal or treadle powered threshers and harvesters, or biofueled walking tractor sickle-bar mower/binder (re: Ferrari scroll down to picture #3 for a close up of the harvester) and are quite keen to bring these ideas to a receptive community in our journey West.

But for now, we find this simple and steady pace is not too arduous or time-consuming to make hand harvesting our wheat possible. Side by side, we can cover 2000 sq ft an hour, so we can bring in our 1/6th acre in six hours of work, spread out over 3-4 days. We fill large feed bags lashed to our sides, large enough so that the bottom of the bag rests on the ground, and no weight is placed on our backs. And we empty these bags into a prepared grain bin, 8' x 4' x 4'. This way, we can thresh the grains in November and December when the rest of the harvest and winter preparation has slowed down.

And the quiet, meditative pace of the work allows us to share conversation and song, and the bond of working side by side. The greatest pleasure of harvesting by hand, rather than machine, is being able to witness the buzzing, hopping life in the midst of a sea of grain. These fire-engine dragonflies were mating on the bobbing heads, sparrows and wood warblers glean insects and seeds on the ground, grasshoppers catapult away from our sweeping hands, and the sky is abuzz with late summer song.

Our cultivated grains are not the only ones ripening. While thinking about the process our ancestors went through to begin sowing and selecting wild grains for their potential food value, my eyes began to scan for the ancient wild strains of our cultivated grains. In our garden we have these foxtail grasses, ancestor to a still cultivated foxtail millet from Asia.

As well as barnyard grass, ancestor to the proso millet we are growing. Both of these millet ancestors had been attracting small sparrows to the feast.

This flowering seedhead of bindweed is ancestor to buckwheat, domesticated in southeast Asia 8000 years ago.

And this lamb's quarters seed head is close cousins with, and ancestor to quinoa, a valuable and important high-protein staple of the Inca who called it "mother of all the grains". Because of it's ceremonial use, Chrisianizing colonists forced the South American Indians to abandon this quality food for the less nutritious and water hungry corn.

Our own proso millet was ready for harvest as well. The fan-like seed heads ripen gradually, from the top down. It is ready to harvest when the tops are ripe and the bottom grains have lost most of their green. Commercially, the crop is swathed and left to ripen in the field like hay. But it is often plagued by birds and rodents while ripening, and there was some competition for my crop as well. So I cut the heads and let them cure in the house, in a dry warm spot for a week or so.

The hulless oats, originally domesticated relatively late in the Fertile Crescent beginning 3000BC, were likewise, mostly cured, but with a few remaining green-tinged heads. Since it is a small crop, and many of the head were beginning to lodge (or fall over on the ground), and the birds were beginning to pay it some attention, I harvested a week early and finished curing it indoors. The oats are easy to strip off the stalk, and with a small crop, it can be done quickly and efficiently.

August frost!

2009-08-31T14:44:00.008-04:00

An August frost snuck up on us this year. Not too surprising, we did have a frost warning on July 8th this summer, for goodness sake! With an early June frost in the tally, it seems we were only graced with a full 86 frost-free days this season. That's a pretty big swing from last season's 126 days. Thankfully, not much was damaged in this August frost, so here's hoping for a couple of warm weeks to finish up the season!

It got down to about 4C/39F the morning of August 29. At first glance, it appeared that there was no damage, but we do have one mysteriously frost-prone stretch in the garden. Potatoes were planted there this year. It is only slightly lower than the rest of the garden, maybe 4 inches, but it also gets some of the earliest sunlight in the morning, and it is the action of the sunlight on the ice-crystals that burns the leaves. Plants can be surprisingly tolerant of light frost, as long as the frost melts before the direct sun hits the leaves or fruit. I have seen ice coated squash leaves that suffered no frost damage, because clouds rolled in before the sun came up, allowing the ice to melt without damaging the leaf tissue.

The potatoes in the frost pocket were not burned, but some over-eager winter squash vines had started rambling over the potato patch as the potato tops die-back in preparation for harvest. And these errant squash vines got their tender tips knocked back like naughty fingers reaching for the cookie jar. Besides these frosted vines I only found some frost damage on a few basil plants and poppy leaves. No major loss, just an early surprise!

To keep this spring's tender pepper and tomato transplants warm, we lined the rows with hay bales on either side, and never did move them due to the cool summer temperatures. So they are still there to provide a warm pocket that will hold off early light frosts, such as this one. We provided the peppers with an added heat sink of rocks around the base of the plant. The rocks will help to radiate a bit of heat to keep the nightly temperatures warmer. It might be just enough to get a few red peppers this year, though I'm just as happy with the green ones. The rocks also help support the stems of these heavily-laden pepper plants during hurricane season.

The yearly fall migration has begun, and the frosty mornings remind us that winter is nearing.

Tomato (or Otherwise) Chutney

2009-08-26T12:14:00.005-04:00

I found a most delicious tomato chutney recipe, of East Indian inspiration, in an April 1981 Organic Gardening magazine. I modified it slightly, it's great fresh, served with a summer vegetable curry and cooked grain, and I have no doubt it would be great canned as well.

I do love chutneys because they are so malleable. You can use just about whatever you have on hand. I made an apple, tomato, green pepper and dried blueberry chutney last year that brightened up quite a few plain winter meals. The fruit ingredients in just about any chutney can be altered, the recipe inspiring the concoction above called for sultanas, and I substituted our dried blueberries with delicious results. Just keep the proportions the same and use your own varieties of garden or local produce for your own regionally specific chutney.

Tomato (or Otherwise) Chutney

8 large fresh tomatoes (blight sufferers can substitute tomatillos or ground cherries or other fruit, such as apples, or fruit and green tomatoes equal parts)

1 small medium-heat Hot Pepper

1 medium Sweet Pepper (green or otherwise)

1 medium onion

2-3 cloves garlic

2 Tbsp minced ginger (or 1 tsp dried ginger powder)

1 1/2 tsp whole mustard seed

1 tsp fennugreek seed (can substitute fennel or anise seed)

2 tsp turmeric powder

1 1/2 tsp paprika powder

salt to taste

Quarter or dice tomatoes or fruit, finely chop onion, peppers (remove seeds for milder flavor, or include them for extra heat), garlic and ginger. Set aside.

Heat heavy-bottomed sauce pan with 3 Tablspoons Olive or vegetable oil on high heat. When hot, nearly smoking, add mustard seed and fennugreek seed. Continue to heat until mustard seeds start to pop, remove from heat and add powdered spices (turmeric, paprika and ginger if using powdered). Let the spices heat through, but do not burn (about 1 minute). Return to medium heat and add minced onion, garlic and ginger (if using fresh), stirring frequently until onion is golden brown. Add minced peppers, heat through, stirring to blend flavors. Add tomatoes or fruit and cook until softened. A pure apple chutney may require some liquid like apple juice, cider or cider vinegar, or other fruit or citrus juice. Salt to taste.

This recipe makes about 2 pints. If making larger quantities for preserving, multiply as desired. For conversion, remember 3 Tbsp = 1/4 cup. Oil can be reduced to 1 Tbsp per pint if desired. Process in a boiling water bath, 10 min pints, 15 min quarts.

Fungal diseases in the garden

2009-08-24T14:49:00.005-04:00

With the incredible rainfall we've had here in the east, there's been ample opportunity for fungal diseases in the garden. The late blight epidemic, affecting tomato and potato crops, is an example, although blight is not technically a fungus it responds to the same cool wet conditions. Fortunately, we have no signs of blight in our nightshade crops this year, which led me to ask the question why? What did we do right? In asking this question, I also did some research on a few new (to me) fungal diseases, and what led to their introduction into our garden.

As far as late blight is concerned, I believe the two most important measures of prevention were quality, uninfected seed, and rotation. I've saved my own tomato seed for three generations, and each year I follow the method of fermenting the seed pulp before washing the seed and properly drying it for storage. The fermentation process promotes good germination, but it also destroys potential pathogens that can be harbored by the seed. Our potato seeds are put to the test by coming through a long storage period, proving that they are disease free.

Second to quality seed in disease prevention, is rotation. It is best to maintain a 2-3 year rotation of crops, and whenever you are introduced to a new disease in your garden, it is important to research the alternate hosts of this disease. It can be surprising to find dissimilar crops can host the same disease, and often weeds will harbor and spread disease. Along with rotation, it is necessary to remove any plant residue (leaves, stems, roots) from the garden and properly compost the material before returning it to the soil.

These two important factors certainly contributed to our garden's blight free status, despite the prevalence of blighted potato fields no more than 5 miles from us. Healthy plants will be able to withstand certain thresholds of disease, borne in on the wind and rain, so part of the story is plain good fortune that our crops did not succumb. But keeping the plants from contact with the soil can also prevent or suppress blight. So perhaps the layer of mulch we applied to the crops in mid-June hampered the incubation process, necessary to the spread of the disease.

I always thought of carrots as a rather trouble free crop, once they are thinned and weeded, they generally take care of themselves. We've had some damage from Carrot Root Fly (or Carrot Rust Fly), but again, rotation and fall cultivation is usually enough to keep their numbers under control. This year I have been introduced to a fungal disease that affects the carrot leaves, Alternaria Leaf Blight. It affects older crops, later in the season after the rows have closed in, reducing air flow. Like other fungi, it thrives in cool wet conditions. But where did it come from, how was it introduced to our garden?

Going back to my original statement, about the importance of quality seed, I realized that my first carrot seed saving venture was flawed. I had selected quality storage carrots to grow for seed last summer, but I had not read enough information about preventing the spread of disease through seed. Alternaria is most often transmitted through infected seed. And there is a simple method of treating seed to halt it's spread to the next crop. Many types of seeds, including the Cole family, lettuce, spinach, eggplant and nightshades, as well as carrots, can be treated in a hot water bath, for a specific length of time (see the table on this link for details). I have also read about using a hot water and cider vinegar solution, though it looks as though the temperature and length of exposure is the most effective measure of killing potential pathogens.

The Alternaria leaf blight does not much damage the crop, especially at the later stages when most of the growth is complete. For the most part, it is a problem for mechanical harvesters, as the stems break off easily, leaving roots in the ground. The most damaging effect of this fungus is that is promotes the spread of damping-off in the soil. And I do believe that my last planting of carrots was cut back by damping-off. This could lead to potential problems for direct seeded crops and young seedlings in the future.

Alternaria Leaf Blight of Carrots

Cereal crops have their own biosphere of diseases, including fungi, bacteria and viruses. Most of these disease cycles can be broken by planting non-cereal crops in rotation, but some vegetable and legume crops can host cereal diseases as well. Developing resistant seed in cereal crops is an important and active area of agricultural research. Research labs around the world are constantly responding to new mutations of cereal diseases, breeding crops with genetic resistance, and making these resistant varieties available to many Third World countries whose farmers do not depend on fungicides for healthy crops.

We bought our Vicar Hulless Oat seed from a small independent seed producer, the seed is an heirloom variety, and granted, there are few options for purchasing small quantities of cereal seeds in Canada, so we hoped for the best. The description of the seed said nothing of disease resistance, and in the future, that will be a requirement in my seed purchases. Our Hard Red Spring Wheat is a modern, disease-resistant cultivar, proven in our climate, and it has withstood the variety of cereal diseases this year. The Hulless Oats, on the other hand, are peppered with Septoria or Speckled Leaf Blotch, a fungal disease. It can easily spread to other cereal crops, so our healthy crop of wheat, only 20 feet from the infected oats, has given me first-hand evidence of the necessity of disease resistant cultivars.

Septoria or Speckled Leaf Blotch on Hulless Oats

Too much beauty

2009-08-20T14:49:00.012-04:00

There's just too much beauty in the garden, I simply must share...

Syriphid Fly eating the nectar of a Calendula Flower.

Northern Leopard Frog, Rana Pipiens, this wet and soggy summer has been great for the frogs, never seen so many frogs and toads in the garden. Even found a young Wood Frog in the Zucchini. Plenty of bugs and slugs for them to eat this year.

Syriphid Fly tasting a Red Clover blossom. It's a great year for these Syriphid Flies too, there's dozens in the garden, the larva are predatious, often of aphids and other small soft bodied insects, but the adults are pure nectar eaters. And red clover is one sweet source of nectar. I use it as a natural sweetener in herbal teas.

Unidentified big green caterpillar.

Grass Skipper resting on the Betony blossoms.

Ichneumon wasp tasting the Carrot flower nectar, an important parasitoid in the gallery of natural enemies in the garden.

Marigold bloom.

Skullcap flower spikes. A hardy perennial herb useful to support a good night's sleep, and also a graceful flower in the garden landscape.

Grasshopper in the alfalfa. I've let my alfalfa bushes go to seed, after harvesting an early cut of leaves for herbal teas. The seeds for sprouting will be a great store of live food on our Winter menu. I just love the complement of colors in this image, the lavenders on the grasshopper highlighted by the alfalfa blossoms, the picture is a pallette of pastels.

The mullein flower stalks do not fail to attract the highest concentration of bumble bees, day after day. And the bees sure are stocking up on pollen from this prolific bloomer. Not only do they fill their leg pouches with rich golden pollen, but their fuzzy bums get covered in the stuff. Pollination in action.

Growing small grains and seeds

2009-08-18T15:27:00.006-04:00

We are growing some test plots of small grains and seeds in the garden this year. Mostly, these plots have taught me about the growing conditions of each crop, as well as the pests and diseases specific to each. We started with small seed packets last year, planting roughly a 3' X 3' bed of each grain or seed. The seeds saved from the first plot planted out about 500 row feet this year. Again we would be saving the seed, and would get some moderate harvests, along with enough seed to plant out a full sized crop to supply our needs for a year. That was the plan, of course, before we cemented our plans to move to the West coast next spring. It will be strange, and in some ways wonderful, to not be growing a garden next year, a sabbatical of sorts.

Back to the grains, this year we planted 200' of popcorn (I've found that it makes a nice cornmeal as well as a popping corn); 100' of sunflower (we will be lucky to harvest any seed this year, still no flowers); 300' of amaranth (good mixed with cereals, and we are going to try it as a sprouting grain for winter); 500 row feet of millet (a good rice substitute); 500' of quinoa (an excellent protein and good flavored rice substitute); poppy seed here and there (the cutworms really got to them, so I kept re-planting wherever we had the space); 500' of hulless oats; 250' dry peas; 350' baking beans.

The cutworms preferred the amaranth, quinoa and poppies over the cereals like oats, millet or popcorn, so they may deserve some protection if cutworms are a problem. The next time we grow these grains I would plant them in different soils, in a separate rotation. The cereal type grains (oats, millet, wheat) can be planted in newer ground, with few amendments, such as after turning in a cover crop. Dry peas and baking beans can be treated this way as well, although they do benefit from working a light layer of compost into the soil. The vegetable type grains (amaranth, quinoa, poppy) require fertile loose soil, with a high compost and humus content, and would benefit from the higher water retention in this class of soil as well. Popcorn and sunflower are heavy feeders and require rich composted soil as well.

Golden Amaranth. The grains seeds are the size of sesame seeds with a high protein content of 16%. I am also testing each of these grains as possible feed grains for livestock, so the high protein grains are attractive. Amaranth greens can be eaten as a cooked vegetable when young, so plant thick, and thin the plants out to about 2' spacing (livestock will love the thinnings as well). This variety can reach 6-8' high. The seeds are good cooked in porridge, added to granola, added to breads or baked goods, and can be popped as a snack, or sprouted.

Proso Millet. 12-14% protein content. Good potential for chicken feed, the seed heads are easy to harvest, and can be fed out whole, no milling or threshing required. We also enjoy cooked millet as a rice substitute, often using it in casseroles, or as a base under vegetables or curries. Highly drought tolerant, and ripens quickly in short seasons.

Red Quinoa. At least 16% protein, and a whole protein at that, with all of the amino acids our body requires. It can be tricky to grow, seems to be more susceptible to drought, rust and aphids, and does not have the hardy characteristics of it's cousin Lamb's Quarters, which seems to thrive just about anywhere. It is also a longer season grain, and light frost will burn and kill seedheads.

Vicar Hulless Oats. Easy to grow and thresh for use in the kitchen. Similar growing requirements to regular feed type oats. We chose a heirloom variety, but it is not showing high resistance to rust, so in the future we would choose a more resistant modern variety. Only a few plants are as blighted as these ones, most of the crop will mature despite the rusted leaves, but it is not good practice to allow rust to develop in our garden as it will jeopardize our wheat crop. If we were staying for another season, we would most likely have pulled up all of the rusted plants and removed them from the garden.

"Popcorn" popcorn. Easy to grow, these plants only reach about 3' high, and produce 2-3 6" cobs. The cobs dry quickly in the ears, needing only a few weeks of extra drying time after harvest in northern climates.

But they do need protection from the European Corn Borer. I would like to try putting mesh bags over each ear, in the early stages of development, to prevent the maggot from damaging the kernels. Left as they are, with the biological controls of natural predators, they take about 10% of my crop.

St. Hubert Dry Peas. Well worth growing your own split peas if you have the room. They dry quickly in the pod, and thresh out with ease. These grain peas cook down to a delicately flavored puree, as you would expect from split peas. They can also be ground into a high protein flour. Cracked, they would make an excellent livestock feed at 22-24% protein.

The Pea Moth is the main pest of our pea crops, but they seem to prefer the higher sugar content of the shelling peas, and generally leave the dry peas alone. The dry peas are also more resistant to mildews, because they seem to mature and dry out before the long-fruiting shelling types.

Jacob's Cattle Baking Beans. A decent bush type baking bean. It's not the highest yielding type, but the beans are very good, smooth and flavorful.

Mauve-Flowered Poppy. I snuck a row of poppy seeds in with my flower and herb beds, where a cutworm fence protected them. The flowers are mostly done now, as the cosmos take over blooming. Poppy seed is easy to grow and easy to harvest and thresh, each plant produces 4-6 poppy flowers/seedheads. They dry out well within our short season, but must be watched for mildew in early autumn heavy rains. The stalks tend to fall over and could benefit from trellising or fencing.

Some grains and seeds we did not get around to trying include sesame seed, flax seed, chickpeas, soybeans and lentils. These can also be easily grown in the garden, and harvested for the pantry without the need of specialized machinery or milling.

Fermenting in the garden

2009-08-10T14:05:00.004-04:00

The August garden is a delightful ramble of green. Hunting out the early fruits feels like a daily treasure hunt. Scraping a light layer of soil back, from underneath overgrown potato bushes, to uncover a few of the new crop. Parting the huge squash leaves to see how the winter squash are coming along.

Lifting cucumber vines, anticipating the first crunchy fruits.

Daily visiting the zucchini bushes, never disappointed with a harvest.

Peering into the thick of the massive tomato bushes for a spot of red.

Eyeing the peppers for any signs of color change.

Snapping off the first tight heads of broccoli.

Protecting the newly forming heads of cabbage from worm damage.

There is a variety and abundance on the table that we haven't experienced since last year's fall harvest. Each meal is a celebration of flavor and accomplishment. And for every meal laid on the table, ten are put up for winter. Besides the usual canning of pail after pail of green beans and shelled peas, I am experimenting with lacto-fermented vegetables. Why wait for the cabbages, when really, just about any vegetable can be fermented? Fermented vegetables make a nice addition to the winter fare, still crisp and full of flavor and vitamins and minerals that the pressure canned vegetables lack.

I'm trying peas first, using the recommended salt ratio of 1 pound for every 5 pounds of vegetables. But this really does taste a bit too salty to me, and the bubbling fermentation process has not started yet on the third day, so I'm going to add more peas. As you can read in the link above, the salt slows the fermentation process, and fermentation can be achieved with very little salt. But the less salt you use, the more risk of surface mold. The most important part of fermenting is to keep the vegetables well submerged below the brine. Some vegetables will produce their own brine, such as shredded and packed cabbage. The salted peas did produce some brine, but not enough to cover, so I added brine to the recommended proportion of 1/4 lb salt to a gallon of water.

The peas in their brine are covered with a clean towel, weighted with a plate and mason jar full of water. There's an inch of brine covering the peas.

I'll also be doing a dill and garlic cucumber crock, lacto-fermented pickles are crisp and wonderfully sour, compared to the limp boiled variety.

Meta-predator meta-narrative: The portrait of a lady

2009-08-04T14:55:00.009-04:00

Lady beetles have been breeding like crazy in our garden this summer. It has been an education to observe their life cycle, from larva to adult, and it has been a pleasure to watch them flourish. I can only hope there are enough aphids in the garden to support them in their hundreds. We had a small window of about two weeks in the end of May when aphid infestations could be found in certain crops: in the wheat, quinoa and poppies primarily. But it didn't take long for the Lady Beetles to catch up.

Here is the life cycle of the Seven Spotted Lady Beetle, our most numerous species: Adult, lays eggs in favorable sites.

Larva, roams widely, preying primarily on aphids among other things.
Larva transforms into a pupa, and while attatching itself to a leaf, it does yoga exercises, stretching up to the sun, then down into resting position.

The pupa turn from yellow to this color patterning and stay put, about a week, before emerging as adults.

When pupation is complete, the beetle emerges...

yellow and tender as a newborn.

They seem to hang around the pupa casing until their shell begins to harden, trying out their newly acquired wings.

Just about the time they get their spots and start to turn from yellow to red, they abandon the dried casing, striking out into the garden for food.

Aphids on a wheat stalk.

The balance between predator and prey is never static, population densities are always changing, typically following a pattern of alternating boom and bust. In the biological study of ecological communities, it has been observed that when prey populations spike, it will trigger a population explosion of predators, who will typically over-extend the limits of their food resources. Prey species will dwindle, followed by dwindling predator numbers. It's like a game of tag, predator population density seeming to lag behind. As I've mentioned before, it is this lag time that we, as gardeners, must make up for, keeping pest populations under control until the predators can catch up, and either take over for our job, or more typically, complement our efforts to keep pests in balance. And even trickier a gardener must allow enough pest/prey species to survive in order to encourage and support the lagging predators, without letting pests get out of control, damaging the food crops and exponentially exploding in the next generation. It is this balance that I am learning, and observing as I watch the relationship between the aphids and the Lady beetles in my garden.

Recent biology studies into the relationship between predator and prey have revealed some counter-intuitive interactions. The first study I heard (on a radio science show) on this topic, looked into the re-introduction of wolves into parks where they had been locally eradicated for decades. It was thought previously, as it would seem by my description above of the cyclical tag game, that the predators in any given area were a result of the number and type of prey in that area, and that the prey were a result of the availability and abundance of forage. So it was surprising for biologists to discover that it is the predator who largely shapes the landscape, and not the other way around.

To summarize the study, in the absence of predators, the elk and deer had browsed un-harassed, and therefore had selected feed and feeding areas along waterways and streams, to the point where young willows and other trees were grazed down, and stream banks were beginning to erode, and in some places, even dry up. Without predators, the herds grazed the land in different patterns, effecting the landscape and the flora. When the wolves were re-introduced, herds had to return to grazing in open landscapes where they could remain watchful. They shied away from dense clusters of trees, and only approached more exposed waterways where they could stay alert to the ever present danger, minimizing the sites where they entered the water. In a matter of years, the willows regained the stream banks, held the erosion, and kept the waters cool and flowing for the fish and amphibians. Grassland, and meadows started to open again, and clusters of young trees were allowed to grow into forests, supporting the diversity of birds, each of which depend of a specific variance of habitat.

This first study into the impact of wolves on the ecological community from which they had previously been evicted, led to further studies into the impact of predators on the landscape. A study into the impact of spiders on the flora of pastures and meadows revealed the same counter-intuitive result: the presence of spiders changed the feeding habits of insects, which selected for certain plant species that would otherwise be grazed down by herbivorous insects. So perhaps we have the tag-game inverted, and should rather look at it as predators in the lead, with prey species fitting into the spaces where they can best survive, and the landscape as the result of this interaction.

It is interesting to think upon a gardener as a sort of meta-predator in the garden. The landscape, or garden, is the direct result of the gardener's selection of insects and varieties of plants. All other predators are there as guests and allies, dependent on the gardener for prey and habitat. I can see this type of relationship in my garden, never more so than when I hand-pick certain pest species. Patrolling the garden every day for Colorado Potato Beetles and larva, and Imported Cabbage Moth caterpillars, I feel very much like a predator. These are the two pests in my garden that are both visible and can be easily hand-picked, and both can do a lot of damage to foliage if left unchecked. And because I have daily observations of the pest populations, I am also able to observe the populations of predators, which leads me to learn more about enlisting and encouraging the specific predators. This kind of daily observation also teaches me a lot about the life cycles, and seasonal cycles, of these insects (or avian, amphibious and reptilian predators).

I sometimes see my job in the garden as Ecological Wildlife Management. I try to keep things in balance, using a variety of techniques such as row cover and physical barriers, but the most effective techniques are preventative and supportive. (I find the same is true for our own physical health as is true for the garden health.) Prevention techniques revolve around proper rotation, and often require it, for example, in my second year of gardening, I put row cover over a spring crop of radishes to protect from Flea Beetles, but had not managed my rotations correctly. Not yet understanding the life cycle of Flea Beetles, I quickly found that the first generation of Flea Beetles emerged from the soil, under the row cover. I have never yet used an insecticide, and will continue to view it as a last result. Insecticides, including the Organically acceptable plant derivatives, resemble anti-biotics in their inability to distinguish between harmful pests and beneficial insects. And insecticides work against any supportive measures to encourage an intact biosphere of beneficial predators and their prey.

A garden invites intimate interactions with the garden ecology. While reading a 1977 Organic Gardening and Farming magazine, I came across an article written by a woman who understood this intimate relationship. She had been handpicking Hornworm caterpillars from her tomato plants, and stomping them underfoot, when she came across a parasitized caterpillar. She left this one to hatch out the parasitic wasps inside, but was inspired to collect the rest of the caterpillars into a tall bucket. She left the bucket in the garden, and continued to collect and feed the pests. The parasitic wasps had access to an abundance of hosts, and it did not take long before she was hatching out dozens and then hundreds of beneficial wasps.

When I walk through the potato patch and find more Lady beetles and larvae than I can find Colorado Potato beetles, I look at that as the best crop insurance that money can't buy. The toads and Garter snakes have provided the same invaluable crop insurance against slugs in the market garden this year. With 20 inches of rain between June and July, our garden would be overrun with slugs if not for these hungry predators. And I am happy to report that Lady Beetles will continue to find other sources of food when the aphids run short, including the eggs of moths and other beetles, and small invertebrates, which may explain the dramatic reduction in hatching Colorado Potato Beetles since the Lady Beetle population has exploded. I am beginning to find them in the Brassica plot, hoping they will find the Imported Cabbage Moth eggs to be a tasty treat, between the occasional aphid meal.

Busy as a bee

2009-07-28T12:59:00.008-04:00

Been canning and harvesting for the market garden this week, so I'll leave you with some pictures from the garden.

Bumble bees are in abundance this summer, busy pollinating the garden. This one was snoozing in the Meadow Sweet, beauty rest.

Some of my favorite predators. We have had more aphids this year than normal, never to pest levels, but it has kept the Lady Beetles eating and breeding in the garden. We have about 4 distinct Lady Beetle species, and each look distinct in their larval stage as well.

I think this is the Seven-Spotted Lady Beetle larva, the commonly recognized red beetle with seven black spots.

The blooming of the carrot flowers always seem to hearald the first Tachinid flies of the season. Welcome.

And this is the first Green Lacewing I've seen in our garden, probably due to the attractive numbers of aphids this year.

Syrphid Fly, again in the carrot flowers. A welcome parasatoid.

We also have a family of Garter Snakes in the hay bale shelter, originally left for the toads. Still plenty of toads in the garden, but there was one particularly fat Garter Snake that probably didn't get fat on slugs alone. Hopefully the snakes don't get all the toads! Both the snakes and the toads have been keeping the numerous slugs in check this wet summer.

Our very own Fritillary visited our garden. Too bad it picked a rather ragged looking Cosmo flower for it's close-up shot.

The Hollyhocks are blooming, and were buzzing with Bumble Bees this morning.

As are the poppy flowers. Gorgeous to grow, and delicious seeds for the kitchen as well.

Growing by degrees

2009-07-23T13:42:00.003-04:00

The food cycle has finally reversed flow, there is more food coming into the house than we are able to eat... time to stock the pantry. Without a greenhouse, our stored food supplies need to last until the third week of July. It can be a struggle, and usually means relying on spring greens, grains, eggs and dairy for the better part of June and July after the last of the root crops and potatoes. And I always put away more than enough canned green beans to cover the gaps before those first glorious snow peas are ready in early July.

Although we planted each of these crops about three weeks earlier than last year, our first harvests are no more than a week to a few days earlier. I, of course, had my hopes up for a logical three-week-earlier harvest. But every season is unique. In doing some research, I happened across the phrase "Growing Degree Days". It is a unit used to measure or predict the first bloom or maturity of a crop, or the emergence of an insect or pest. Temperature is one of the most crucial elements in crop growth, and generally triggers most of the cycles of the insect world. And we have had an abnormally cool June and July. Especially July. Our nights have averaged at 10C (50F) instead of the normal 16-18C (60-65F). Only a few crops will continue to thrive with these nighttime lows, such as peas and Cole crops. Roots, onions and potatoes slowed down. And heat lovers: beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash and cucumbers just hung around, waiting.

Growing Degree Days can easily be calculated (go to the link above at Wikipedia), by keeping track of the maximum and minimum temperatures, which I have been doing for years, in my garden records. Each crop or insect has a cumulative requirement of heat, or Growing Degree Units to flower, reach maturity or hatch out. It will be interesting to use this unit in the future, to calculate and predict crop maturity or expected pest emergence, in an ever changing climate.

According to planting dates, we should have had our first new potatoes July 1st, instead of July 22nd, which shows that the cool weather set back the growing season by three weeks. Quite significant. But our first taste of potatoes, since the last wrinkled-ones in mid-June, was well worth the wait: Yukons, one large golden potato snuck out from each plant in a row. Boy they taste good. It's kind of a nice break, not eating potatoes in the gap between the last wrinkled, sprouting aliens, and the new, apple-crisp crop. Like cleaning the palette. After all, we do eat our share of potatoes over the winter. And come June we have an abundance of eggs so I can make all of the pasta I dreamed of making in the winter egg-drought.

Likewise, there is nothing like that first sun-warmed tomato... We savored, half each, on a bed of lettuce and snow peas, with a yogurt-dill-cilantro dressing.
Broccoli won't be far behind... I usually can't resist snapping off the first head and eating it right there in the garden.

The larger carrots can be selectively pulled from the row, making room and giving sunlight to the stragglers from replanting the gaps. I couldn't resist pulling a few early parsnips to go with the feast. The smell of freshly pulled parsnip roots and leaves reminds me of coconut. Didn't have any coconut milk in the house, but this is what the aroma inspired: carrots and parsnips sliced, steamed, cooked in butter, with chopped mint, peppermint and finely chopped dates. New favorite.

Our last carrot planting was later than usual, after the cutworms marched through, taking two May re-plantings with them, I was too discouraged to plant again, until after we put the cutworm fence around the fallowed, cutworm free plot. The first week of July started with a flood and ended with a drought, I planted the carrots between 1" rains, and then the weather turned hot and dry, forming a crust on the surface of the soil. Larger seeds would not be worried by this, but tender carrot seedlings can really struggle with obstructions. And the heat was to continue for a week, so I experimented with laying a fine layer of hay over the beds, aiming for 50% coverage, like shade-cloth, to bring the soil moisture back to the surface and soften the soil, allowing the seeds easy emergence.

It worked beautifully, the carrots poked up between the mulch, and it has worked to suppress some of the early weeds. As the crop emerges, I gently part the mulch and concentrate it between the rows to further suppress weeds.

Chocolate and Collaboration

2009-07-20T18:16:00.005-04:00

For the last three years we have been living in a conservative rural area, where the unemployment/ welfare and illiteracy rates are well over 50% (before the recession even). There's plenty of places like this, all across North America. We both came out here, from large centers of Environmental and Social activism, as an act of going to the "frontlines". At the time, I felt that if all the activists stayed clustered in self-affirming sub-cultures, that we would all end up preaching to the choir, so to speak. I had never lived in a rural area, and I had grown quite cynical about the effectiveness of my urban protests, boycotts and activism through selective consumption. I wanted to become a producer, at least of the majority of my own goods, but our ultimate goal was to start a micro-CSA. We knew that we could keep our costs down in a rural area, and have ultimately outdone our own figures, living comfortably on $100 a month (including rent, utilities, food, transportation, you name it). Granted, it is a very different life than I had once lived, but it is full of rewards I would not have otherwise found.

There is one undoubtedly necessary piece missing: community. I am quite satisfied with the practical aspects of our lifestyle, I would not easily go back to flush toilets, grid power, or anything less than fresh, high-quality, organic food grown by the output of my own physical labor. But I'm simply aching for some creative community outlets. I recently heard an interview with Frances Moore Lappe and she quoted a study done on the physiological effects of collaboration: it stimulates the same brain center as chocolate, a well known pleasure center of the brain. I have proven the inverse of this study, though experience, that social isolation is impoverishing, unhealthy and ultimately depressing. It saps my energy from the work I love to do in the garden. I have grown to realize that what we do out here is ultimately unsustainable without community, and that creatively working in collaboration has always filled my reserve of energy, rather than draining it.

Our original plans for a micro-CSA, growing a variety of vegetables, grains, meats, eggs and dairy products for just one or two families or individuals, would easily have supported our financial needs, and allowed us to make responsible choices in investing in the tools and machinery for growing food in a post-Carbon Climate Change context. In our plans, we gave ourselves two years of building our soil, and providing for our own needs first, while we put the word around in the local communities, mostly having to explain what a CSA is, and why it is a more sustainable model than a market food economy. We also gave our rural neighbors time to get used to us, used to new ideas and ways of doing things, (and there is no doubt that people were curious about us when we moved here), before trying, let alone accepting, these alternatives. We lived by example, and watched as the same cars drove slowly past our raising barns, grazing animals and growing crops of vegetables and grains; very few actually stopped to meet us, they just watched, and definitely talked (we heard some pretty amusing rumors about us, accidentally making their way back to our ears).

In other words, I do not feel that our expectations were unrealistic, we had a solid plan, a realistic idea of the amount of hard work it would require, and had scaled our income requirements to fit a very modest local interest in fresh, organically grown food, available at or below supermarket prices. But I am still at a loss for words to explain the utter lack of interest in what we offer. Anywhere else I have lived, we would have a waiting list. And this lack of interest is intimately tied to our social isolation, we simply have not met people who share our same concerns about the world, and about the future. Individual people have shown us kindness, done us favors (which we have enjoyed returning almost more so than the acceptance), and tried to make us feel welcome, but not one of them has been willing to collaborate with us. And that is the one thing we simply cannot do without, the one thing that makes our life unsustainable.

When I started this blog, it was my attempt to find that sense of community and collaboration over the internet. I wanted to explore the possibility of using virtual spaces to organize and activate, while remaining on the "frontlines", in the communities where alternatives are hard to find. I have found friends, and supporters through this blog and other online platforms, but I need to feel that the work I am doing every day is contributing to a larger social goal, not just maintaining our existence here, and that is hard to do "virtually".

I have only occasionally referred to the social aspect of our life here, partly because I am sometimes at a loss for words about it, partly because it sounds like a bit of a sad story, and I only want to share it publicly if it has some sort of point. And I suppose it is only just recently that I have put the pieces together, and fully understood the power of collaboration. Without community, we are constantly hobbled, unable to reach our potential. And it is really that: constantly striving to reach my ever growing and changing potential, that defines my purpose, my goal, my spiritual practice in life. Being hobbled for too long has begun to trick me into thinking that I cannot go any further.

Which leads me to a decision we have been ruminating over since winter, we're moving on from here. It's difficult to know when it is time to move on, but there's simply too much work to be done for us to be stagnating. I have used our three years here well, getting some serious gardening and animal husbandry under my belt. I have also gained confidence in my resilience, my ability to adapt, and in my great satisfaction in living an agrarian life. The cynicism I once held for the effectiveness of my actions on making a positive social and environmental impact has been transformed into resolution, courage, faith.

Where? We are going West, we are looking at certain areas from Oregon to British Colombia. But most importantly, we are looking for a community in which our skills and desire to work creatively, collaborate, and contribute to building a sustainable local food culture are welcomed, appreciated, and allowed to flourish. When? Next June is the goal. We have our garden and market garden this year to bring us through the winter, and time enough to organize the move, and begin to make contacts. The market garden was our last compromise to try and work within the established market food economy, and possibly influence it from within. The conventional farmers around here are skeptical at best, about organic production methods, and we hoped that our flourishing garden, high-quality produce, and low levels of disease and pests would give them a new impression. But those are mostly pipe dreams, and we mostly knew that already. In reality, the market garden is what we thought it would be, one big gamble. If we hit our luck, we will take the money and run.

Regardless, we are moving under our own steam, by bicycle. It will be a grand adventure, decompression time, a journalistic look into how climate change is affecting the land and agriculture, the best way to travel, and an opportunity that a dairy-maid hardly ever gets: a month of exploration with nary a bleating, clucking mouth to feed.

There is one place we have our eye on, the Slocan Valley in South Eastern British Colombia. They have some very inspiring community initiatives going on there. Including an Integral Forrestry Innitiative that sustainably manages a massive region of the local forest. As well as Canada's first Grain CSA in the Creston Valley. (This is just one of many sites and articles describing the Grain CSA, if the link eventually breaks, simply search under "Grain CSA Creston") This project really got me excited. In it's first year there were 200 shares sold, and 600 plus a waiting list for 2009, for local organic Wheat, Spelt, Kamut, Hulless Oats and Lentils. I have become particularly interested in the question of supplying regional grains, especially as more and more people are growing their own vegetables, but do not have space to grow grains. And in my own experience of growing and hand-harvesting our grains, it is a task more efficiently done with a community investment in small or appropriately scaled machinery.

We will continue to blog about the season of growing and preserving our food this year, but as you can imagine, our focus has shifted in many ways. Our eyes are on a broader horizon. And we invite you to continue following us on our next big adventure.

This summer's crop of organic bread wheat

Nature walk

2009-07-17T13:44:00.005-04:00

My Nana is a special lady, full of character and one tough cookie. She showed me how a woman can do anything she puts her heart into, and my Nana put her full heart into life. And though it seems too early, I'm losing my Nana, and she is heading for a new adventure in that place beyond this life, and we are making our last goodbyes.

Nana was a farm girl in Montana, she tells me stories of her and her sister bringing the Jersey cows home from pasture, out of the valley, up over the ridge in the evening, sometimes even riding the old dears part of the way back. Nana saw in me a kindred spirit, although I grew up in the city, I was always "her nature girl". My favorite times spent with her were on our yearly family reunion camping trip, celebrated every year in August for almost 20 years straight.

Nana and I would take the trail from the campgrounds to the coast together, walking through the filtered light of the pines. The landscape changed gradually over the 2 mile walk, the forest would end, and open up to wild grass and shrub land, getting rockier and more open as we reached the ocean's edge, then up the coast a ways, on the tumbled salt-sprayed boulders of the Northern California coast. And each place held treasures that we would collect. The forest offered Blue Jay feathers, creeping forest flowers, mushrooms, leaves, along with the bubbling brook with a small foot bridge where we could look for fish or frogs, fallen logs where snakes might hide, and always the canopy full of calling Jays and Crows. The grassland offered wildflowers of every hue, along with wispy grass seedheads, and my favorite Lamb's Ears, so soft, I would rub the leaves and think of bunny ears. We walked quiet and alert through the grass land, hoping to spot a grazing deer or elk.

Nana held the treasures that we gathered as we walked. She taught me how to call the ducks with Goose Grass held between our palms. She would hold my hand, or I would walk ahead, leading the way and moving between all of the beauty I found in the natural world around us, so different from rows of houses and lawns, beauty I knew she saw and loved, too. Nana held each unique bouquet of treasures on our walk. As if it were a great work of art, we would arrange it and fill it out with complementary colors and textures from the familiar palette of our nature walk. She made it feel special to me as a girl, these moments that are now incomparably precious to me, looking back.

The coast line held many treasures of rock, shell and seaweed, ocean tossed wood and glass. These treasures were usually pocketed and poured over when we reached our favorite rock, where the rest of the family gathered with food and feast. Nana and I took the walking path together. As Nana settled into the family routine of serving and seating and talk and laughter, I would scamper about the tidepools and rocks. There was always a starfish or hermit crab to bring back and share with her, always a seal bobbing in the waves to point out, always a seagull overhead, nagging for a scrap of the feast. And she always listened and looked, and saw what I showed her. Thank you Nana for showing me life, and sharing in it's discovery with me. I'll always be your nature girl.

Blooming

2009-07-13T16:42:00.005-04:00

I do love vegetable flowers, and watching them unfold gives me more than an aesthetic satisfaction because the edible fruits are soon to follow.

We have potato flowers in varying shades from white to pink to lavender to blue, depending on the variety and corresponding with the color of the potato skin. As soon as these flowers begin to die back, I can begin to excavate some of the treasure trove beneath.
Pea flowers are short lived and delicate creatures. This time of year, the pods seem to grow by inches straight out of the newly opened blossoms.
Bean flowers remind me of orchids, perhaps the homely cousin, but beautiful still. And they continue to flower as young bean pods form, promising a reliable harvest, enough to put away for winter.

Pumpkin and squash flowers glow like lanterns in the bare spring garden, and not surprisingly, they never fail to attract interesting insects for nectar, prey or shelter.

Some flowers are a harvest in themselves, brightening and enlivening salads or garnishing meals. These Nasturtiums have a nearly addictive peppery tang.

And some vegetable flower are only ever seen in the seed saving garden. This globe of tiny onion flowers is wrapped in paper like the bulb below.
But for pure show, no vegetable flower can compete with the infinite variety of plants, bred and shared generation after generation, for the simple delight and surprising complexity of it's flower. Marigolds, Cosmos, Calendula and Hollyhocks have found gaps and corners in our vegetable garden, my selection based on their hardiness and ease of growing.

But nothing brings more insects to the garden than the homely flowers of dill, cilantro, caraway and carrot.

On Safari

2009-07-06T15:09:00.008-04:00

After one entire week without a single ray of sun, we breathed a deep sigh of relief and exhilaration when the clouds and heavy fog finally broke this morning. I could just feel the plants growing, the robins and wood thrushes broke into a loud chorus, and my downcast mood was instantaneously replaced by the same chatter and activity as the birds and the bees. What a difference a little sunshine makes!

And just in time too, the peas were beginning to rot at the tips, due to water-logged roots, the first crop to show water stress in our garden.

Not much has been going on in the garden these last few weeks, with little to weed and even less to harvest, I've been going on safari. We walk the garden every day, to watch for signs of insect damage or disease. This is often done in the course of harvesting ripened produce and weeding, but I also keep a close eye on insect diversity, dispersal and populations in the garden as a part of my own experiment on how well beneficial insects are able to control pest insect numbers.

And it's a jungle out there. I have found a number of new and interesting critters, along with familiar allies. And for some reason or another, the most biologically diverse and productive area of the garden has been in the potato patch. I suspect it is the universal allure of the plump and slow-moving Colorado Potato Beetle larvae. The always remind me of the insect world's equivalent of a herd of grazing cows, and what wolf or coyote can resist?

We handpick the adult beetles (from 5-20 a day), and squish the little larvae when we see them, but surprisingly few larvae are either hatching or growing very large due to the numerous predators.
Including this Harvestman (or Daddy Longlegs), they are general predators and scavengers. I think he had his eyes on that plump potato beetle larva through the foliage in the distance.

Even the eggs are being eaten by something or other, it's hard to know who... they do look pretty tasty.

It could be these Long-Legged Flies, numerous in the potato patch, they will eat both eggs and beetle larvae.

Another friend, spotted often resting in the dense foliage of the potato patch, this Slug-Killing Fly or Marsh Fly (of the Tetanocera family). They are parasites of slugs and snails, of which there are plenty due to the wet spring. Adults lay their eggs on slugs and snails, and feed on nectar or pollen, offered by the blooming potato flowers.

Another predator found hunting the potato jungle, an Ichneumonoid Wasp. This rather homely specimen does not compare to the more graceful and colorful Braconid Wasp spotted in the garden, and too elusive to photograph.

Outside of the potato patch, carrot flowers never fail to attract allies. The metallic and pastel shades of this Predatory Stink Bug or Spined Soldier Bug contrast well with the budding carrot flower, rather pretty isn't it? Not only pretty, but a very good ally in the garden, with an appetite for some of the most discouraging pests. "Over 100 species in many families have been reported as prey. Prime targets are immature insects. Reported prey include the larvae of Mexican bean beetle, European corn borer, diamondback moth, corn earworm, beet armyworm, fall armyworm, cabbage looper, imported cabbageworm, Colorado potato beetle, velvetbean caterpillar, and flea beetles."

Everyone loves a Lady Beetle. Even those who are squeamish about bugs cannot find much fault with this Seven-Spotted Lady Beetle. It's probably the absence of any creepy looking legs, antennae, stingers, proboscis, spines or slime that win the hearts of every gardener. We don't have many aphids in our garden, but there's always a Lady Beetle or two around. Mostly these and the Three-Banded Lady Beetle.

Scavenging the ground level of the garden, I can hardly disturb the soil without finding one of these hard-working Ground Beetles. This is the largest, and earliest emerging Ground Beetle species in our garden. But it has been accompanied by two or three other species, including a smaller bronze colored one, and a smaller plain black one.

And this iridescent species. This picture shows off their mouth parts, wouldn't want to be a soft-bodied insect in their way. They have been doing very well this year, feeding on the abundance of cutworms in the soil. I often disturb one dining on a grub, and in one heavily infested bed, where I found 100 cutworms, I disturbed about 25 Ground Beetles. Not a bad predator to prey ratio.

Also numerous and widespread are these mother Wolf Spiders. They are general scavengers, will catch prey or eat insect eggs in the soil, including Grasshopper eggs. From what I've read, dozens of little bitty-spiders will emerge from these egg sacs, and the mother spider will continue to carry them around on her back until they are large enough to fend for themselves. I find about one of these sack-toting mothers about every 100 square foot of garden, so there will likely be hundreds of hungry teenage spiders, scavenging the garden soil this summer.

Another maternal insect, the White-Margined Burrowing Bug. She is not a predator, but caught my attention with the dozen or so nymphs riding around on her back. They are related to the Stink Bug (or True Bug), but burrow in the ground instead of staying in the canopy like their cousins. And they verge on the pest side, as sap suckers, or root eaters, but are not known as a major pest.
And for a finale, the strangest critter found in the garden this spring: Strauzia longipennis, the Sunflower Maggot Fly. Entomologists must have a sense of humor. *giggle* Not surprisingly, it was found on the sunflowers, laying eggs on the undersides of the leaves. The eggs will develop into maggots, eating leaves or seeds, depending on the species. Until I hunted down the identification of this particular insect, I was unaware that sunflowers had a specific pest (besides Blue Jays), so I will be watching for any maggots or leaf damage on my sunflowers.

I hope you have enjoyed this safari tour of hunters and hunted in the garden. Keep prowling around in your own.

Overall, I am each year, impressed with the diversity and population of predators, scavengers and parasites in our garden. And to encourage their cooperation I have been researching their specific life cycles, food and overwintering needs. I have found that all the information I need can be searched on the net, but it is not compiled, all on one site, that I can continue to refer back to when needed. So I am keeping the information I collect on two spreadsheets, one for beneficials and one for pests, specific to my own garden bio-diversity. I am sure they will prove to be handy reference charts while planning, rotating, planting and cultivating the garden.

Included in the pest chart I have a column for each of the following: Taxonomic Family name, Visible Crop Damage, Feeds on as larva, Feeds on as adult, Natural Enemies, Hosts On, Life Cycle, Overwinters As, Control Methods. The beneficials chart includes columns for each of the following: Taxonomic Family name, Feeds on as larva, Feeds on as adult, Hosts On, Life Cycle, Overwinters As, Attracted or Maintained by. In these charts I list my own experiences with controlling or attracting insects, as well as methods established by generations of gardeners. You may find this a helpful tool in your own garden.

Extremes

2009-07-02T17:51:00.006-04:00

All told, out here on the East coast, this June was reported as the darkest June on record, ever. And for all of that cloud cover we accumulated close to 10 inches of rain! I'm back in my muck boots, instead of summer sandals, and we have puddles we haven't seen since the April melt. Not such a great month for growing things. But the garden is, amazingly, holding up pretty well. Although slow to fruit or flower, we are not suffering from any molds, rots or generally water logged problems. Yet, anyway. We do need some sun now, to turn things around.

And we may get an about face for the rest of the summer. The seasonal outlook is calling for a warmer and drier than usual summer, can we say extremes? Extreme weather (too wet, too cold, too dry, or too hot) is putting mounting pressure on established farmers, I hope the legions of fledgling backyard gardeners are taking these extremes in stride. Rather than throwing in the trowel.

We will probably get our sun, and our heat, but it will likely not be in the measure we would desire. The one thing I can count on in all of the Climate Change models, is unpredictable extreme weather. Those are tough conditions for growing food, of any kind, but we do believe that the smaller, more adaptable and hands-on gardens will pull through, and even flourish, while traditional farming methods, relying on specialized machinery, will not be able to withstand these extremes.

So hang in there... keep growing!

A Cutworm Fence: protecting row crops from cutworm damage

2009-06-30T15:29:00.008-04:00

Putting physical barriers, such as tin-foil or paper collars, around transplants is a common method of controlling cutworm damage. As immature larvae, especially in large numbers, the cutworms prefer small emerging seedlings, the kinds of row crops usually directly seeded into the garden. As the cutworms grow larger, they correspondingly prefer larger stems, including transplants which can easily be protected with collars or other physical barriers such as toothpicks or small nails stuck into the soil next to the stem.

To protect our emerging seedlings, such as carrots, parsnips, beets, greens and herbs, we built a cutworm fence as a physical barrier. We dug a 4 inch trench around the area, and drove small posts into the ground every 10-15 feet. A number of different materials could be used for the fence: plastic, feed bags, fabric, anything that will not let the cutworm pass through. We happen to have a large roll of woven fabric, similar to row cover, but in the future we would prefer heavy plastic (like the kind mini-homes are wrapped in, and can be diverted from the waste stream) because it is slick and more durable in the soil. The fabric was stapled to the posts, holding it taut to keep from sagging. It stretches 4 inches below the soil, and 6 inches above.

The cutworms can climb a short way onto the plant, but after observing them in our tin collection can, they cannot climb a vertical surface above 2-3 inches. And although they do burrow in the soil to feed, we have not seen any below 2-3 inches deep, and they do not travel below the soil.

We have observed that the cutworms quickly move from crop to crop within the garden. After we tilled under a heavily damaged crop of beet seedlings infested with cutworms, we noticed, only days later, that no cutworms could be found in the soil where no food was present. Therefore, we can easily exclude them from ground where we intend to sow direct seeded row crops by fallowing the ground in the spring, and constructing a cutworm fence prior to planting.

Since this barrier was erected after planting, we carefully cultivated the area and removed any cutworms we found, including disturbing the soil around the base of each plant by hand. We had been doing this regularly to control the population of cutworms in the garden, but this time, we can be sure that more will not move in from other areas of the garden. Most of the rest of the garden crops are either too large to cut (such as the beans and peas), or protected by nails along the stems (such as the transplants).

Cutworms travel above ground, mostly during the night, and can cover some distance searching for food. Though it does make them vulnerable to predators such as our fat and happy American Toad. We are currently building a small toad pool in the garden to encourage them to breed here.
The morning after we put up the cutworm fence, we were happy to discover very little damage overnight. The herbs were untouched, and only a few carrot and parsnip leaves had been cut, exposing the location of the remaining cutworms. Thank goodness, it seems that my war with the cutworms is drawing to an end. Practicing organic and ecological gardening means out-smarting, and out-maneuvering pests and diseases. I tend to be of the disposition to lock horns and butt heads directly with my pest-sized opponent, but this time it was simply wearing me down. So I learned an important lesson in gardening: to be nimble and adaptable in technique and method, to use my intellect instead of sheer determination and will-power. Determination got me through the steep beginner's learning curve, but now that I've got a few seasons under my belt, it's time to sharpen my tools and think like a gardener!
Other-where's in the garden, the perennial herb garden is flourishing, providing my first cut of Oregano, Thyme, Catnip and Alfalfa to dry for winter use.
We are also welcoming the butterflies back to the North. Including this White Admiral,

and a Monarch look-a-like: the Eastern Viceroy.

Garden Tour

2009-06-26T14:25:00.007-04:00

My how the garden grows! Rainbow after a thunder shower only 10 days ago...

The view from the kitchen table this morning. There's a lot of bare ground in the foreground, that's where the cutworms have done the most damage, even getting into the herb beds. I was pretty surprised to see them cut herbs like savory, dill, cilantro, parsley, fennel, anise, basil, calendula, and poppy flowers seem to be a favorite treat of theirs. I removed all of the onion seedlings from the middle bed and will transplant them back into clean ground. We are working on constructing cutworm fences around the seed beds. They can climb, but not very high on slick vertical surfaces. I'll post more on the fences when we have them constructed and tested.

Here's another angle of the herb, greens and roots beds. We lost all of the beets, turnips, chard, spinach, direct seeded lettuce/mesculun, and a few plantings of carrots and parsnips are still struggling along. I scout the mature lettuce bed regularly, they only cut of the outer leaves of the larger lettuces, revealing their presence. Thank goodness there is only one cycle of cutworms per year, and it is coming to an end in a few weeks. So we will still have time for some later plantings of carrots, beets, greens and herbs.

On the left is the first planting of carrots and parsnips, they emerged before the cutworms, and got a bit of a head start. Still, the patches show the damage they have done. To the right, is the potato patch, and they are doing great this year, just starting to flower. The Potato Beetle damage is down to a minimum this year, we are finding only about 5 adults a day, up to 20 on windy days when they blow in from potato farms. To the right of the potatoes, the mulched area, a row of cukes, zukes, and winter squash beginning to flower. And to the right of the vines, my plot of small grains and seeds: popcorn, sunflower, amaranth, millet, quinoa, poppy seed, hulless oats. The cutworms have been working their way down the grains as well, and we are just starting to weed in there, so I'm self-consciously omitting a picture of them! I plan to do a post on these small grains and seeds as they mature.

This is my wild, overgrown perennial/biennial herb bed. I underestimated the amount of room the perennials would need in their second year. I left some biennials (caraway, parsley, mullein and chicory) to go to seed in the same bed, so next year the nettle, alfalfa and comfrey will have enough room to expand.

A quarter acre plot of Hard Red Spring Wheat for bread baking, and about 1500 row feet of dry peas, to harvest for the chicken's winter feed. On the right you can just see the newly worked ground, 3/4 acre, for planting grains next year, with the market peas and beans moving into this grain plot. To the left of this picture is about 2000 sq ft of millet (not worth picturing as it is just emerging), to be harvested for chicken feed.

In the lower garden, our green beans and baking beans, as well as our dry peas and shelling peas. As well as a row of Naked Seeded Pumpkins between the peas. We got a few inches of rain this week, warm nights, and a hot sunny day today, so everything is growing by inches.

Next to them, the brassicas and ground cherries. The Flea Beetles never did make it down to the transplants, after giving my turnips and radishes a hard time. And now I can hardly find a Flea Beetle in the garden, I'm pretty sure the Soldier Beetles finished them off, their population exploded around the time the Flea Beetles' declined. The cutworms were beginning damage some of the brassicas, so we stuck small nails along side the stems to prevent them cutting the entire stem off, they still climb up and take a leaf here and there, but we scout these areas too, and dig them up.

My first promising tomato on an early ripening Latah variety. These are bare, spindly plants, but they produce plenty of fruit, and always ripen earliest. The bushier Cherry Fox and Roma tomatoes are twice the size, but just starting to produce green fruits.

Hungarian Hot Wax and Carmen Peppers just starting to flower. We spike them with nails as well, to prevent any cutworm damage. We've been babying these peppers along for nearly 4 months now, I don't think I could stand to see one of them toppled.

And our first crop of snow peas in the market garden is about a week away, they started to flower a few days ago. The succession of peas and beans stretches out to the millet and wheat crop. We spaced our successional plantings by 10 days, and in the early spring, those 10 days make a big difference, but our last two plantings are nearly identical in size. It's amazing what a little heat and rain will do!

Going Crackers

2009-06-23T16:44:00.002-04:00

All winter long I have the luxury of baking and cooking throughout the day, since we spend more of our time indoors, than out. Come summer, it's the opposite, and I flee from the house as quickly as I can get the morning chores done (as long as it's not raining, then it's a home-cookin', house-cleanin' laundry day, yes, I do laundry when it rains). It's a good thing then, that our diet changes with summer, and we enjoy simple, fresh meals instead of the heavier winter fare.

And by this time of year, the house get's too unbearably hot (with our wood cookstove still chugging), to bake much yeasted bread. So we go crackers instead. Crackers make great snack food, and pair well with light meals or soups. And of course, like everything else, homemade crackers pop the lid off of the store bought kind.

There are as many cracker recipes as there are ways to enjoy them. You can try almost anything, as long as you end up with a rollable ball of dough. Try some basics, then improvise your own family favorites. There are yeasted crackers that turn out soft and flaky. We tend to like the crisp crackers, either sweet or salty.

Here's my two favorite basic recipes.

Salty Whole Wheat Cracker

2 cups whole wheat (or rye) flour

optional 1/2 cup wheat germ, bran or rolled oats

1/4 cup oil, ghee or softened butter

yogurt, buttermilk or soured milk (add tbsp vinegar to milk to sour)

Mix dry ingredients in bowl (here's where you can add your own flavors like caraway, sesame seed, herbs...)

Blend oil or butter into flour

Add 1/2 cup of yogurt or buttermilk, stir until blended, then knead with your hand, adding extra liquid if needed. You want a medium stiffness, rather like pie crust, something that does not crack when kneaded, or stick to the bowl or hands.

Grease 2 medium cookie sheets. I roll my cracker dough right in the cookie sheet, but you can also roll out on a floured surface. Roll out a 1/4 inch at the thickest, again, you may prefer thin or thicker crackers. Sprinkle with salt to taste. Use a pizza cutter (or knife) to slice the sheet of dough into desired shape, or cut shapes out and transfer to cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 in the middle of the oven until golden brown and crisp, baking time will vary by thickness of dough. If the outside crackers are browning, remove baked crackers and return the rest to the oven.

Graham Cracker

2 cups whole wheat or graham flour

Optional, if using whole wheat add 1/2 cup wheat germ, bran or rolled oats

1-2 Tbsp brown sugar (sugar to taste)

medium to heavy cream (Half and Half or Whipping Cream)

Mix sugar into flour.

Add 1/2 cup cream, blend with spoon, then knead with hand, adding cream until reaching desired consistency (see recipe above).

Roll out directly in greased cookie sheets, or on floured surface, 1/4 inch thick. Optional: sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Cut to desired shape.

Bake at 375 until golden brown. Remove any crackers on the edges that brown before the rest.

Makin' hay while the sun shines

2009-06-22T15:18:00.006-04:00

That's the trick around here, in a humid climate there are short weather windows. The best quality hay, and the highest protein hay, is made from pastures in the pre-bloom and early heading stages. For us that means that we can make the best hay from mid to late June. But typically, the weather is difficult to predict, with thunder showers blowing through that may, or may not, go around us. So we have developed a strategy for making good hay in a short weather window, a strategy that also helps us to improve our tired pastures.

The north hay field, which is not grazed, is primarily Timothy grass. The Clovers don't compete well in this field because it is low-lying and floods in the spring melt. Goldenrod is invading, and slowly out-competing the Timothy, and this field will need to be turned and re-sown to completely revitalize it. When our weather window broke this year, the Timothy was in the early heading stages. Actually the animals pick the Timothy heads out of the hay, the seeds would be high in protein. But there is still a high percentage of leaf compared to stalk in this early heading stage. About 20% of this field is scattered with clover, dandelion and vetch, making it a decent hay, but not high enough in protein to carry a lactating animal or weanlings.

We have two acres in this north field that were planted to grain last year. The grain came up with a self-sown understory of clover. After harvesting the grain, we left the clover to establish itself, and these two acres will provide us with the kind of high-protein hay we need for our lactating does. Again, the clover is at it's highest quality in the pre-bloom stage (meaning that the flower buds are just beginning to form), and fortunately, that is exactly when we were able to cut it.

Our strategy for making hay in short weather windows is to cut it early, while the crop is still light, but high quality, and to cut it high. We cut 6 to 8 inches above the ground, instead of the traditional 1 or 2 inches. What's left in the field is mostly stalk, the least palatable or nutritious portion of the plant, and the young growth. The stubble holds the cut hay above the ground, away from moisture, and allowing air flow underneath the windrow. The combination of a light crop and the added air-flow can cut a day or even two off of the drying period.

The benefit of leaving the stalk and young growth is earlier recovery of the fields. Since practicing this method we have noticed our pastures recover earlier and faster in the spring. The also recover quickly after haying, allowing the possibility of a light grazing, or even a second cut of hay in late July.

Actually the practice of cutting and drying herbs has taught me a lot about making good hay. When harvesting a herb, generally the practice is to cut no more than two-thirds of the plant. Similarly, herbs are harvested before flowering. And the highest quality dried herbs are dried quickly and exposed to as little moisture as possible.

We cut on Wednesday afternoon, there were warnings of thunder showers on Wednesday, but the sky cleared and the forecast was for a hot, windy day Thursday, Friday and Saturday were a bit cooler with part cloud, and Sunday called for a chance of showers with rain on Monday. If we got two good drying days in a row, we could comfortably bale Friday afternoon, but if the humidity rose, or with heavy dews, we would bale Saturday. The forecast looked promising, but when is the forecast ever right?

Well, we lucked out with no dew Wednesday night, and Thursday was a perfect drying day, 28C/82F, sunny and breezy. We let the top dry out Thursday, and again no dew Thursdays night. Although Friday morning dawned with a heavy cloud cover and forecast for showers Friday night, rain on Saturday. Oh the fickle spring weather! We raked the hay Friday morning, flipping the windrows to expose damp underside to the drying breezes, and hoped for a break in the clouds. It did break long enough to dry out the hay, but JUST dry enough to save. After a few hours of sun, the clouds once again advanced and we paced the field, testing the hay here and there, finding a few damp clumps, but overall, it was ready.

Hay that is ready to bale should be dry enough to hear it crinkle when you twist it. But it need not be so dry that the leaf crumbles at the touch, not oven dry. If it is too dry, the nutritious leaf will shatter in the baler and you will be left with stalk.

Another way to test the hay is to scrape the stalk. The field pictures didn't come out, so I took this one of some Alfalfa I'm drying for the tea cabinet. If the skin of the stalk peels back, it is dry enough to bale.

We baled Friday afternoon, only 48 hours after cutting, when the typical drying period for a heavy cut of hay is 3 to 4 or more days, a weather window impossible to find in our early summer. And as you can see, as we finished up, the clouds were thick, and it began to spit on us as we unloaded the wagon. Just in time. But it is some of the best hay we have ever made, and worlds apart from any hay we have been able to buy. We harvested 130 (40lb) bales from 4 acres, which is a pretty poor crop when compared to improved pastures. But each one of our bales compares in nutrition to two or three bales of the kind of hay we can buy locally, which are cut in late July and consist primarily of stalk, and only weigh about 25lbs.

We are certainly the talk of the town in the farming circle, they think we are crazy cutting so early and leaving so much stalk in the field! But we would also need twice the barn to store all that poor-quality hay. Most of the local square bales are cut for sale, not for use, and the primary reason for baling in late July or early August is to get as many bales off the field, therefore as much money off the field, as possible. Our hay is cut with a different motivation, and therefore uses different techniques. It would be nice if there were more out-of-the-box thinkers in rural areas to reintroduce fresh ideas and approaches to agrarian life.

If only I had known the trouble I had sown...

2009-06-18T15:03:00.005-04:00

Organic and Ecological gardening relies heavily on an intact bio-sphere of pests and their natural predators. There are literally hundreds of insects and natural allies to become familiar with, and not just identify, but to learn their habitats and provide the conditions to attract these beneficials. In my first potato patch, while hunting down potato beetles and their voracious larvae, I squished anything that looked remotely like the larvae, only to realize later I had been destroying Lady Beetle larvae as well. The next year I saw with new eyes that every new bug I encountered was a potential ally, and began a practice of keeping a digital camera in my pocket so that I could snap a picture of unknown insects and identify them at my favorite site http://www.bugguide.net/.

I had read about the importance of keeping a wild or overgrown areas around the garden to provide habitat for beneficial insects, birds, toads and snakes. And yes, this is true, but I have learned, only in moderation, and only with specific habitat plants. I left a large strip of weeds grow up along the garden last summer, and with the worst characteristic of an organic gardener, I lazily called "habitat", and left standing. This spring, we are over-run with cutworms, and I know why. The Dart Moth, the adult form of the Cutworm, is a night flying moth that prefers to lay it's eggs in dense stands of weeds, like Lamb's Quarters, and I provided the perfect habitat.

I have not yet discovered a single beneficial that requires a habitat of standing weeds, but many are attracted by the other "real" habitat stands that we leave around the garden, consisting of Tansy, Goldenrod, and Evening Primrose. And of course, most of the flowering plants in the garden attract beneficials, like Dill or Carrot flowers. So don't let that lazy voice get the best of you and call any overgrown area of your garden that you haven't gotten around to, a "habitat".

The Cutworms are not the type I have read about, toppling Tomatoes and Beans like tiny trees. These ones prefer Onions, Carrots, Parsnips, Beets, Chard, Spinach, Lettuce, and even some Radish and Turnips and one Cabbage. I have had to re-plant many of these crops, and I am blown away by the number of Cutworms in the garden this year. They hide just below the surface, and I have found and hand picked no less than 500 Cutworms from a 3,000 square foot area this spring.

Every morning I look for damage, either wilted seedlings or leaves, as they tend to take off stems above ground.

Nine times out of ten, I find one of these an inch or so below the surface near the root of the damaged plant.

I collect them, and take a rough count, to keep track of the population curve so that I know whether I am getting on top of them.

And then they are breakfast for the hens. What takes me an half-hour to collect, disappears in a matter of seconds. And then they look up for more. We let the chickens scratch over the garden in the fall, but we are looking into building chicken runs, and moving them over the garden in the spring, before planting.I'm not the only one searching out the Cutworms. Fortunately we have most of the natural enemies of the Cutworm in the garden this spring.

The Soldier Beetles are breeding like crazy (they are attracted by Comfrey and Mullein), and are a welcome site. They prey on a number of pest larvae in the soil, including Cutworms and the larval stages of Potato, Cucumber and Flea Beetles when they go under ground to pupate. In fact, there are more Soldier Beetles in the potato patch than Potato Beetles this year. Hooray!

Ground Beetles provide a similar service as the Soldier Beetles, but they are less conspicuous and often go unnoticed.

Firefly larvae also eat Cutworms, and I'm sure they are in the soil because the adults reliably emerge and light up the pasture with their flickering lights in July.

Stink bugs, another Natural Enemy, are just emerging. They also prey upon Potato Beetle larvae and were in abundance in the potato patch last year.

Tachinid Flies and Braconid Wasps are also present in the garden. Just this morning I spotted a cutworm inching along the surface of the garden, a rare occurrence in the daytime. But before I could get to it I noticed a beautiful Ichneumonid wasp (of the Braconid family) swoop down to parasitize the worm. The Cutworm curled defensively and the wasp leaped away, touching down momentarily twice. I don't know how quickly they can deliver their eggs into the worm, but it was definitely on the look out for vulnerable Cutworms such as this one.

This friendly toad was spotted earlier in the spring, most have probably retreated to the cool cover of the mulched areas of the garden by now. But they come out at night and feed on nearly anything that moves, including the night flying Dart Moth.

I hope this Garter Snake, also spotted earlier in the spring, has made a nest in the pile of logs atop a mound of sawdust next to the garden that we leave for snake habitat. Last year we hosted an Eastern Smooth Green Snake, a voracious insect eater.

And last, but not least, our garden is visited by Northern Short Tailed Shews, they also, are insect eaters, and feed on earthworms, as well as other invertebrates. And our tireless kitty prefers to feed on them.

So we have plenty of allies to help control our Cutworm infestation, but as usual, there is a lag between the population bloom of pests and the appearance of predators in sufficient numbers to control the pest. And that's where we, as gardeners, come into the picture. So for now, I will continue to scour the soil, around the problem areas, and keep counts of the number of Cutworms found in 100 square feet, and when I begin to see the numbers decreasing, I will know that my allies have found the feast.

What to do when things go wrong?

2009-06-16T11:27:00.005-04:00

Good planning, preparation and preventative measures are the best insurance of good health and success in the garden and in the barn. But, especially in the first years when the learning curve is steep, things do go wrong and disease, pests or parasites can spread quickly and reach a critical level surprisingly fast. The ability to assess the symptoms and diagnose the problem is crucial to being able to react within time to save the crop, flock or herd.

So what elements are necessary to being able to diagnose a problem or illness, especially when encountering it for the first time? An observant and knowledgeable gardener or animal husbander is generally the most qualified to diagnose a problem because that individual knows the history of the soil or animal, and is familiar with the expected state of health in her garden or herd. The subtle first symptoms of dis-ease provide the best opportunity to address a developing issue before it gets out of hand. In the garden, these symptoms will include discoloration, spots, holes, wilt, etc, and usually accompany a period of stress, including temperature extremes, dry soil, wet soil, mineral deficiency or other soil imbalance. With animals the first symptoms include lack of appetite, listlessness, dull eyes or coat, runny nose or eyes, change in stool consistency, drop in production, etc, and again usually accompany an external stressor such as change in diet, transportation or change of location within the farm (i.e. barn to pasture), temperature extremes, exposure, lack of access to fresh, clean water, isolation from the herd/flock, or introduction of un-quarantined animal to herd/flock. As with our own health, stress decreases immunity to disease or infestation.

When I observe one of these primary symptoms, my first priority is to apply a first-aid measure where appropriate, to relieve the immediate stress. These responses can range anywhere from watering a wilting crop to giving an animal a homeopathic treatment for fever. (Remember to take notes of the treatments you give, the quantity and the time applied so that you can assess the responses to treatments, and more importantly, repeat your successes in the future.) Once I have contained the situation as best as possible, and this may include removing diseased plants from the garden or isolating an animal from the herd/flock, I then begin to investigate the originating cause of these symptoms. This is where observation, knowledge and health records are put to the test. If you are an absolute novice then you will be particularly dependent on books, forums, websites and more experienced individuals to help you diagnose the problem, but every one of these situations is an opportunity to increase your knowledge, so pay attention and keep records.

Begin by making notes, in detail, of anything you notice as "out of the ordinary", and use all of your senses. In the garden this will mean noting not only the condition of the crop/plant, but also the condition of the soil, the condition of surrounding plants (including weeds), any insects you see in close proximity to the affected crop (don't forget to look at the insects at ground level or just below the soil), even a nearby soil disturbance can be a clue. I find a digital camera useful in identifying diseases or pests in the garden. In the herd or flock, these kinds of observations can be somewhat subjective, and not nearly as obvious. But from daily interaction with domestic animals you get to know each individual's particular habits, appetites and behaviors. An animal who usually meets you at the gate, but stays in the barn that morning, is not feeling well. When an animal lays down more than usual, or doesn't eat or drink quite as much or as readily, or doesn't vocalize as much as usual, or stays a bit apart from the other animals, that animal is more than likely showing primary symptoms of illness. The more obvious symptoms will include quantifiable differences in temperature, bodily fluids, discharges, loss of hair, skin eruptions, or drop in production levels. Again, use all of your senses, listen, smell, feel and watch (well, maybe not taste!), and take notes or pictures. And be sure to look for anything out of the ordinary in the yard, pasture or barn, anything the animal may have eaten or been exposed to.

Now that you have all of this observational data, it's time to hit the books, forums, your own records, or experienced individuals who are familiar with your own bio-regional conditions. Sometimes the cause of disease or infestation is obvious, and sometimes it takes a bit of investigation. More often than not, the problem is compound, not just a simple or primary cause, so I will give a few examples of conditions we have experienced this spring, one in the garden and one in the herd.

I chose this example, of diagnosing a problem in the garden, because it begins with generic symptoms that could point to any number of causes, and shows our process of elimination to reveal the root causes of the issue. About a week ago we noticed that our bush beans were a bit discolored. There was some yellowing along the veins of the leaf, and around the edges, and a few speckles of brown that we recognized as insect damage (which would be a secondary symptom, the insects being attracted to the plants sending out chemical signals of stress). The plants had slowed their growth, but were not wilting, curling or browning. This kind of discoloring usually points to a few possibilities: mineral deficiency (perhaps as result of pH imbalance), or some kind of leaf burn (UV, chemical, acid rain, frost). We could rule out a chemical burn and frost, but suspected acid rain and/or UV burn. We are in an area that receives a lot of acid rain, and we have been noticing more frequent warnings of high UVs in the weather forecasts. Three days prior to the appearance of the discolored bean leaves, we had a sunny day that rated 8 on the UV index, followed by two days of rain. After this, the beans did not look so good. There's not much we can do to protect against UV damage, but like a frost, if the plants survived the burn, they would recover. And we already do what we can to prevent over-acidification in our soil due to acid rain by applying limestone and adding humus. Calcium is also necessary for the soil to be able to maintain a neutral pH, and to prevent the soil nutrients from becoming chemically locked up as happens in acidic soil.

It seemed clear to us that our bean crop was suffering from a mineral deficiency, but the cause was still unclear. A mineral deficiency can be a problem inherent in the soil, meaning that a mineral is actually missing. Certain crops are more susceptible to certain deficiencies, but most likely, other legume crops would show similar symptoms, and the peas were unaffected. Or it can be a result of a pH imbalance, essentially making necessary minerals inaccessible to the plants. Or it can be a problem of the plant's metabolism, not being able to absorb the minerals in the soil, due to stressors such as temperature extremes or wet/dry soil. So besides the possible causes of UV burn and acid rain, (both of which, beans are sensitive to) we had also been experiencing a cool spring with overnight temperatures remaining below 10C (50F). Tropical plants like beans do not grow/metabolize below this temperature, so it could also be possible that the plants are simply too cold. But more than likely, the true cause is a combination of these factors.

As we watched the crop over the next few days, we also watched for similar signs in nearby crops, and other legumes. None appeared, and a section of the bean crop started to recover. We had put a hay-bale wind break around our transplanted tomatoes and peppers, as it had been cool. The row of beans on the other side of this wind break were looking green and beginning to grow again, before the rest of the crop. This was a sure sign that the cool overnight temperatures had played a major role in the slowed growth and discoloration of our bush beans. And as the temperatures finally begin to warm, the rest of the crop shows signs of recovery. Had we not taken the precautions of protecting our soil from acidification, a simple stressor such as cool nights could have been compounded, possibly causing a crop failure. This is why it is so important not to spare your efforts in keeping your soil healthy and balanced, much like your own immune system, so that your crops will be able to withstand the inevitable environmental stressors that occur throughout the growing season.

Again, I will choose an example of diagnosing a problem in the herd that is difficult to diagnose because of the vague symptoms and the range of possibilities they point to. Our goat herd consists of one milking doe, one meat doe (not lactating or pregnant), and two bucklings. Each of these animals has different dietary requirements, the lactating doe requiring the highest amount and quality of proteins and minerals, the bucklings requiring moderate levels to support growth, and the meat doe requiring the least, but a sufficient amount to put on weight. Likewise, our milking doe will be the animal in the herd to show signs of illness first, the bucklings second, and the meat doe being the most resistant because of the fewer demands placed on her system.

When spring broke and the goats were out on pasture, our milker started to put on more condition and began also to increase her production of milk. The whole herd showed signs of vigor and health, frisking about in the pasture. One fine spring day, while out in the garden, I watched Juniper (the meat doe), bleat and gallop, three-legged, back to the barn. She held up one of her hind legs as if it had been injured. Of course, the rest of the herd followed her in. I followed to the barn to investigate, but could not find anything wrong with her leg or foot, and she was walking just fine. Then I heard it, the drone of a Horsefly. Juniper heard it too, and again, raced for the barn. She had apparently been bit by one of these inch-and-a-half long prehistoric nightmares (which, by the way, may have been one of the contributing factors to the extinction of the dinosaurs). They take a pretty good chunk out, and it does hurt.

Penelope, who had already been spending more time in the barn to escape the blackflies and the mosquitoes, simply went on strike. She would not graze, at least not much, and not in the daytime. I assumed that she would be grazing at night, as this is what the horse and our milk cow always did. But she began to loose some of that condition, and dropped back down in milk production. So we cut some tree branches and picked buckets of raspberry leaves and evening primrose, some of her favorites that are not available in the pasture. She wasn't picking up, but she wasn't getting poorer, for two days. Then on the morning of the third day, she looked absolutely hollow, had not eaten any of the hay or forages brought into the barn, and her milk was nearly half of normal. She was listless, lethargic, breathing faster, stools were firmer and pelleted (instead of the normal softer stool of lactating animals on pasture), she was laying down in the sun, and had no appetite for grains or her favorite treats of raspberry leaves. Her lack of appetite, and absence of chewing cud told me that a good first-aid response would be to give her a homeopathic treatment for colic (it has a blend of a few ingredients used in digestive disorders). And to make sure that she has enough liquids, as dehydration would compound the issue. She responded well to a mixture of warm water, molasses and apple cider vinegar, about a tablespoon of molasses and 2 tablespoons cider vinegar for every Quart of water. I gave her as much as she would drink.

Next I hit the books, most useful to me are my homeopathic veterinary books. They give very good clinical descriptions of the illness and help me to accurately diagnose. Her symptoms matched up well with simple indigestion. Rapid breathing, sub-normal temperature (hence laying down in the sun on a hot day, when normally she would be laying in the shade), lack of appetite, listless, and the rumen would feel doughy and be inactive. I went back to the barn, and felt her rumen. It was indeed doughy, feeling like an under-kneeded ball of dough that does not spring back. There was no accumulation of gas, or tympany, which would make the rumen distended and sound hollow like a drum. This was at least good. Simple Indigestion, untreated, can compound into Acute Indigestion with toxemia (blood poisoning), or Bloat. I now had two priorities, to get Penelope's digestion working properly again, and to figure out what caused the indigestion so as not to repeat the conditions.

I felt the rumens in the rest of the herd, each feeling slightly doughy, but still somewhat active (meaning noticeable rumbling and movement in the digestive system). We watched them closely, and noticed one of the bucklings laying down, often in the sun, the next day. At noon, he was laying with his head on the ground, not a good sign. We got him up, gave him a half dose of the Colic remedy, and as much molasses, apple cider vinegar water as he would drink. He too responded well, but we were at the tipping point. If we did not get on top of this, it could easily develop into a critical stage and as I've learned from watching a healthy cow go down with milk fever, animals can deteriorate rapidly.

Penelope's appetite had responded to the treatments we gave her as a first-aid response, so we made sure she had high quality forages in front of her, in the barn, at all times. She was still on strike as to going out in the pasture, terrified by every buzzing insect (granted, she had a huge welt on one teat where a horsefly had bitten her, nasty buggers!). We scythed pasture, brambles, comfrey and primrose, and fed her in the manger. And kept up the molasses and apple cider vinegar. But we were also cautious as to what we fed her, as to avoid compounding the indigestion into bloat. Rich pastures heavy in clover can cause bloat, so we scythed mostly grassy pasture. And we were suspicious of the tree leaves, causing the indigestion. Earlier this spring, we had given them plenty of poplar, and some maple, but brought down some birch leaves on the day the horseflies came out. Was there something in the birch leaves, or something in young spring birch leaves, that is indigestible? Or was it the fact that they ate too many of the birch leaves, prefering the convenience of eating them, over going out on pasture amongst the bugs, therefore getting a high concentration of a chemical or toxin in the birch leaves, that would otherwise be harmless in small amounts?

This seemed to us the most likely cause of indigestion. So our next trip to the Internet Access Center included a session researching the toxicity of birch leaves, and indeed, there is a concentration of phenolic compounds in winter growth. These phenolic compounds have been found to depress or inhibit digestion in ruminants. See study here.

It is important to watch for signs of recovery in sick animals, if they are not responding to treatments, do not simply wait and hope they will get better eventually. If they do not respond, then most likely, the problem is not diagnosed properly, or the treatment is not being applied at the right level and frequency. Both Penelope and the buckling showed a quick response to treatments. Every dose of molasses, and apple cider vinegar, would stimulate their appetite, readily taking mouthfuls of forages instead of nibbling and nudging at the feed. The buckling's rumen was back to normal the next day, and he was resting in a cool corner of the barn at noon, chewing his cud. Penelope took a few days to recover, but each day looked less hollow, more active, had a more active appetite and rumen, and began to recover her milk production as well. On the third day since the illness she went out for a bit of a graze on the pasture, and a strong morning breeze blew the bugs away long enough for her to get a belly full. Now, a week since, the herd is back on pasture, but we still bring buckets of pasture, primrose and raspberry when the bugs are particularly thick, to the point of harassing the herd. Penelope is back up to a normal level of milk production, and putting condition back on. And we are keeping young birch leaves out of reach from now on.

It is much easier to research an appropriate treatment for a problem in the garden or the herd/flock once you understand the cause, or at the very least, can identify the symptoms. With these clues and bits of observation you can begin to diagnose the problem. Many remedies and treatments are easy to find and easy to apply, and most conditions, if not all, can be prevented in some measure. Do not neglect to research the preventative measure to avoid repeating the conditions in the future. But if you suspect or have identified a virulent pathogen or disease in your garden or herd/flock, do not hesitate to contact a professional (farmer, vet, agronomist), and maintain good hygiene to prevent spreading the disease.

The market garden

2009-06-08T15:52:00.002-04:00

We are growing a 1/4 acre market garden this year, specializing in peas and beans. It is a good crop for us to grow in new ground, with limited compost. And it is a crop that fits well into our local food system. We met with the one local vegetable farmer, who goes to a few Farmer's Markets and transports a lot of produce in a hundred mile radius. He does not grow peas and beans, but they are always a good seller at a market stall, and he would be more than happy to buy as much as we can grow and sell them at the market. Mutually beneficial.

The Snow Peas, Shelling Peas and Green Beans are planted in new ground, turned from pasture last fall. We rock picked the field, then marked out our rows and laid down a light layer of well rotted compost, the peas in rows 30 inches apart,
and the beans in beds, with rows 12 inches apart. We tilled the compost in, and planted succession crops 10 days apart, with the first harvest coinciding with the opening of the market in the first week of July.
We till the rows a few times to work up the weed seeds and grass rhizomes, and allow the crops to get about 4 inches tall before mulching.
The beans were spaced to allow us to run the tiller over the row. The gap between the two sets of rotating tines is 4 inches wide, and these tines are well worn. With new tines, we would take the two inside tines off for cultivation. There is enough clearance below the tiller to do a few close cultivations while the beans are in 2 and 4 leaf stage. After that, we mulch and the beans are off to a good start. The other benefit of cultivating legumes in early growth, instead of smothering with mulch, is that cultivation aerates the soil, and legumes fix nitrogen from the air. We always notice an inch of growth after cultivating.

For mulch, we are using leftover green leafy hay. We are not too worried about spreading weed seeds, as they are easy to cultivate out of the soil, and the majority of the seeds will rot as the mulch decomposes this summer. The benefit of using hay, over using straw, is the protein contained in the clover, dandelion, vetch and grass leaves. Protein is broken down into nitrogen, enriching our soil, and at the same time adding humus. When we lay down the hay, we shake out the "flakes" to spread it evenly, and the protein rich, fine leaf chaff settles against the soil, while the stalky stems stay on top, retaining moisture and smothering weeds. When I lifted the mulch to check the moisture retention, I found lots of worms already working on the mulch, as you can see the worm casting in the middle of the picture below.

Hand Weeding

2009-06-04T17:09:00.004-04:00

Hand weeding can be a big chore in the early garden. In my first few gardens, the weeds always got away on me, and I have since learned that weeding is more effective when done at the right times. Slow germinating seeds like carrots, parsnips, onions and herbs need the most hands-on weeding to give the crop a good start. Once they are up and going, they will out-grow and shade out the competing weeds, requiring only a minimum of maintenance through the season.

The first between-row weeding should be done after the crops emerge from the soil, especially with carrots and other root crops, they do not like to be disturbed or buried when they are just emerging. I use a blade hoe and run down the rows, just to knock back the majority of the weeds, careful not to cultivate out the crops.

The first hand weeding should be done when the crops are established, and if the weed pressure is not too bad, wait until the root crops have their first true leaves. This bed of parsnips had some established grasses the previous year, so I did my best to cultivate out all of the rhizomes and established weeds like clover, daisy and chickweed, before planting. But there's always some left behind. I waited for a good rain to soften the soil and hand picked the grasses, pulling up rhizome and all. This is the only kind of hand weeding I do in wet soil, or on cloudy damp days.

In a well cultivated bed of humus rich, moist soil, you can sink your hand right down, next to the grass, and pull up the rhizome without disturbing the crop.
Collect the rhizomes in a bucket, or something similar, and remove them from the garden. If they are left on the pathways they will re-root themselves, at least in our climate, we don't get enough dry, hot days in a row to kill grass rhizomes. The annual weeds are still small and can wait a week or so before hand weeding, but the rhizomes were just beginning to establish themselves, and would have been more difficult to remove completely a week later. So I went through and quickly pulled all the rhizomes while they still come easily out of the soil. Weeding at the right time, saves time.

This bed of onions was picked for rhizomes a week earlier, and the between-row cultivation done just after emergence of the crop. It is time for hand-weeding the annuals, so I waited for a sunny, warm, windy day. Annual weeds will wilt and be killed by exposure to a few hours of hot sun, and will not be able to re-root themselves on the surface of dry soil. Also, if you pull annual weeds from wet soil, you will notice that the soil sticks to the root ball, potentially disturbing your crop. This will happen less in dry soil.

I work down one row at a time, using both hands, looking ahead for the next onion in the row, pulling weeds to either side around it, and clearing the weeds between the next onion "blind" while my eyes scan for the next onion... In this way, I can move down a row quickly, and make short work of a job usually done in the height of mosquito season.

While weeding, I kept noticing these cut onion stems. I couldn't think of a cut-worm that would bother onions, so I speculated that I had somehow sliced them in cultivation, or that they had gotten a light frost in emergence and the frosted part died back. But it certainly did look like cut-worm damage to me, as there would be many in a row cut, and then none. Then I started to find the culprits.

It's a little guy, only 1/2 inch long. Our usual cutworms are much bigger, June beetle larvae, and they would not bother with onions, going for the bigger stems like beans or tomato transplants. But again and again, when disturbing the soil around cut onions, I would find these small caterpillars. Fortunately, the onions mostly recover from the cut, unlike beans and tomatoes, so they only set the crop back a bit.

The only moth I can remember seeing in any number in the garden yet are these small iridescent purple moths. And while I was weeding, one flew right down at my feet, allowing me to get a good look at it. Still hunting down it's name.

Ed: The cutworm is of the family Lepidoptera Noctuinae, cutworm or Dart moths. The moth below is not the culprit after all, but instead a rather plain looking moth that we have just recently begun to see. The cutworm larvae overwinter in the soil, emerge in spring as cutworms, then transform into the first generation of adult moths of the season. They can produce up to 3 generations in our climate. Cultivating the garden in the fall will disturb the larvae, but would also disturb the beneficial insect larvae such as Soldier Beetles. Allowing the chickens into the fall garden would help reduce the numbers, but we would need a much larger flock of chickens to do the job properly in a garden our size. The most promising predator of the cutworm looks to be Beneficial Nematodes which infest and feed on cutworms, killing them within 2 days. They can be purchased and applied, but we are looking into the conditions required in the soil to encourage our own native beneficial Nematodes such as Steinernema carpocapsae and Steinernema feltiae. Beneficial Nematodes also prey upon Flea Beetles (among many other insects).

Just a pretty little butterfly, anyone know it's name or family?

The fencing myth or Fencing the mythical beast

2009-06-02T17:22:00.003-04:00

We read all the books and heard all the stories about how notorious goats are at getting out of fences, and into gardens. We were planning to tether the goats, and had a complicated system of portable shelters, tethers and rotations. But come early spring, there was hardly enough grass to warrant a tether, and no garden to break into, so we let the does graze with Pilgrim in the big pasture, and they generally respected the single wire electric fence we had up around the perimeter. So we decided to try a double wire electric fence and see how well the goats respect it, before the garden gets going.

First, we measured the goats. The top strand needs to be high enough to discourage jumping, and the bottom strand needs to be low enough to prevent crawling under, and the two strands need to be close enough to prevent climbing through. I won't give exact measurements, because this spacing would depend on the breed and height of your goats. With a mixed herd, including young kids, a three-strand electric wire fence may be better.

It worked out that we hung the top strand roughly at eye level of the does, with their heads up. This gives them a strong visual barrier, once they are trained to respect an electric fence. And it is high enough (about 3 1/2 feet) to discourage jumping over. The bottom strand was hung at about brisket level. When the does are on their knees, as they are wont to do when reaching under a fence, the bottom strand will contact their shoulders, so it is low enough to prevent crawling under. But being at brisket level, it would contact brisket and belly if trying to crawl through. And for the most unlikely feat of trying to leap through the fence, the top strand would contact with their backs. So two stands should do it...

But the other side of the equation is a good zap in the fence, and animals who are trained to respect that fence. Fortunately for us, I don't think the goats had been introduced to electric fencing. Animals will sense when an electric fence is shorting out, and will learn to ignore a light tingle on the way through to the elusive Other Side of the Fence. So a well maintained fence is as important as the spacing of the strands of wire.

Once the fence was up, we hooked up the fencer, and left the does to work it out, watching them for their reactions. You don't want to lead an animal up to a fence and "zap" them, they will associate the shock with you and not the fence. It was Juniper who first sniffed at the wire. Goats, like horses, are sensitive to electric fencing, and just one shock, once they figure out where it is coming from, should be enough to educate them. For Juniper, who is not the brightest button, and has more enthusiasm for adventure than her mother, it took two shocks. Just to be sure that it was the fence that bit her and not a bee. The first one made her jump and buck around, not sure where it came from. The second one made her jump back and take a double-take at the fence, this time sure. Penelope, wisely learned by observing, and I have never seen her touch the fence.

Another test came when we incorporated the 3 month old kids into the grazing herd. The lower strand was at shoulder height for them, and should keep them in as well. Again, we let them out into the pasture and generally walked over to the fence line, since they still follow me around, and let them sniff the fence out for themselves. They each got a shock, right on the nose, and have never wandered too close to the fence line since.

From Coop Poop to Compost

2009-06-02T16:24:00.002-04:00

When we muck out the barns in the spring, after a winter of layering bedding, we have a mixture of well composted manure on the bottom and fresh uncomposted manure on top. The fresh layer gets scraped off and moved into one pile, and the composted manure to another. We use the composted manure for top-dressing or working into fine seed beds. But we use the fresher manure in transplanting beds, after speeding up the decomposition process.

Fresh Chicken Manure and Bedding

This compost was at the bottom, and very rich. It is from last summer when we bedded the chicks with Poplar sawdust. It is well rotted and can be used as top-dressing, or worked into carrot, lettuce, herb, or other small seed beds. We moved it directly to the seed beds, if it is not going to be used right away, it should be covered to prevent leeching of nutrients.

This is some of the medium aged compost. The bedding was leftover wheat and rye straw from their shocks of winter grain, after they peck out all the seed heads, so it breaks down slowly.

To break down the straw compost, we begin by spreading the pile into a foot thick windrow, and tilling it a few times. This is best done when the pile is somewhat moist. Do this as early in the season as you can, and till it once a week until it begins to look like compost. If there is a lot of straw in the compost, it will naturally shed rain, minimizing leeching. But when the straw breaks down, that's when it needs to be moved onto the bed (or covered), so that the nutrients will be captured by the soil.

At least a week before you are ready to transplant, spread the compost onto the bed. This is going to be a Tomato bed, so we spread the chicken-manure-and-straw compost 2-3 inches thick. Till the compost in the soil right away, again this is done best when the soil and compost are moist, but just ready to work. Let the bed sit for a week, the worms and bacteria will continue to break down the compost, and any "hot" spots will have a chance to mellow. If the compost incorporates into the soil, as in the picture above, after a week, you are ready to plant.

Writing a new story on the land

2009-05-27T13:53:00.004-04:00

Our pastures are pretty tired. Before we started renting, they had been cut for hay, but not grazed or amended, for 20 years. The last time they were turned for agriculture purposes, they were planted into Brussels Sprouts and farmed with the usual heavy use of chemicals Brassicas receive. The farming venture only lasted a few years, then the fields were sown to Timothy and Red Clover and annually cut for hay. When we turned the first bit of sod for a garden, we could read the story of abuse and neglect in the soil. And we could read the same story in the pastures as the grass and clover reluctantly and without vigor, push through the moss and race to send up seeds. So we are writing a new story on the land.

In our first Fall on this land, we ploughed and worked up about three acres of the poorest pasture, areas that were overtaken by Goldenrod. We planted Rye that fall, and Wheat and Oats the following spring, as well as a half-acre of improved pasture. The mix included Perennial Ryegrass, Fescue, Timothy and Alsike Clover. Last summer, we let it grow and go to seed, and this spring it is out-doing the rest. It is thicker, greener and more vigorous, and we plan to cut it for hay this summer, as it will make a fine, leafy, nutritious hay for does in lactation and kids, in comparison to the stalkier hay in the tired pastures.

Our organic grain fields came up with a self-sown understory of red clover last summer. It did not bother the grain crops, and we had no problem harvesting the grains. Instead of being a "weed problem", it was beneficial, keeping the soil moist and loose, and providing a cover crop after harvest. We turned some new ground last fall, for grains this summer, so instead of turning the old grain fields under and planting them down to pasture, we decided to leave them come up in Red Clover and either graze or cut for hay this summer. This picture is of the Rye field we harvested last fall, with the old stalks intact. The cover crop of Red Clover overwintered, and to our surprise, the bits of Rye we left behind after harvest self-seeded this spring. We plan to cut this for hay as well, and would be able to graze it in the late fall as well.

Here is the emerging Oat field this spring, I just love looking out at our grain fields around us, they are a beautiful crop.

The same sad story of abuse and neglect can be read in the forest on this land. Again, it was clear-cut 20 years ago, and left to re-grow into a thick mass of tangled pioneer species. At this stage in it's growth, it is primarily young Poplar and Fir (80% of which is standing-dead or dying with dry-rot from overcrowding), with scattered young Maple, Birch, Spruce, Pine, and Ash. We burn a lot of Poplar, thinning out the crowded trees to make room for the hardwoods and longer-living Red and White Pines that used to dominate this area. In the process of cutting a logging road into the woods, we get a few cords of summer cord wood. Poplar is actually a great summer wood because it leaves no coals behind, allowing the stove, and the house, to cool down after the morning's cooking fire.

It take a lot of work to re-write the story in this land, but each spring we return to the thinned and tended forest, amazed at how the maples and birch seem to have doubled in size. Our new story is a story of rejuvenation.

No nonsense noodles

2009-05-25T17:28:00.003-04:00

I love homemade noodles, but have not invested in a noodle maker, and I found the process of rolling out, slicing, and separating the noodles a time-consuming process, and not fit for busy summer meals. So the day I came across this recipe, I was hooked.

Make your favorite pasta dough, or follow this basic recipe below. My recipe will make a meal and leftovers for two hungry adults.
3 cups whole wheat flour
tsp salt
Mix and make a well in the center.
Lightly beat 3 eggs and pour into the flour.
Blend and add a tablespoon ghee, melted butter or oil.

Gather into a ball and start to kneed with the heal of your hand. If the dough is still stiff or does not stick together, add a tablespoon of water at a time. (If you are using sifted white flour, you can use milk instead of water, but I find water works best with whole wheat). Continue to kneed adding liquid until a stiff dough that does not crumble is achieved. Cut dough into four quarters, shape each quarter into a ball. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.

Grate each fist-sized ball of dough on the large holes of a hand-held grater onto a floured surface. Keep grating onto a freshly floured surface so that the "noodles" do not pile up, but lay in a single layer. Lightly dust the "noodles" with flour and gently roll or wiggle them with your fingertips to separate any clumps.

The noodles can be boiled immediately, but I find better results when they are allowed to dry for an hour or more. I grate them onto floured cookie sheets and put them in the warming oven of my cook stove. Bring 4 quarts of water to a rolling boil, and slowly add the noodles, making sure the water stays at a boil. These noodles cook very quickly, about 2-5 minutes, depending on how long they were allowed to dry. Do not over cook them, they will return to a ball of mush!

Drain in a colander, and allow them to stand in the colander, making sure all liquid is completely drained. Stir in a tablespoon or two of ghee or oil to prevent sticking. They can be moved to a covered baking dish and kept warm in the oven until serving, or served fresh.

The uncooked noodles can also be used in noodle casseroles or soups, following your favorite recipe.

No nonsense noodles with tomato meat sauce and green beans

Dandelion Wine: out to pasture

2009-05-25T16:46:00.005-04:00

There's nothing like a good pasture. The grazers and chickens have all gained a bit of weight and upped the production since the pastures have come up. Penelope, the milking goat, only gets a handful of grain to keep her busy while milking, and the chickens only need about half of their winter ration of grain, to produce twice the eggs. We are able to graze, with no supplement of hay or grain from mid-May to about the end of October here.

The kids are 3 months old now, and have been trained to the electric fence, and introduced into the herd. They are slowly integrating into the herd order, which takes a few weeks, and we had to watch that the does don't bully the kids around too much for the first few days. The two specks on the left of the picture below are the kids, then the two does, and of course Pilgrim, "the big goat", and the movable chicken tractor on the right.
The chickens are also much happier on pasture, they have bugs and greens to peck all day, and I think they are healthier, being moved every day onto clean ground, than they are in the barn with heavy bedding. I even have some extra milk or whey to give them, and the five hens often lay five eggs a day. If you look closely at the hen in the center, you can see some glossy green feather tips. The Rhode Island Red heritage is starting to show on the hens as they mature. Two of them look like straight Barred Rock, and two have green tints, and the white hen has thrown to the Rhode Island White heritage of the original ISA Brown commercial hens.

Roosty shows the most coloring, with red feathers and some long green tail feathers too.

There are some excellent Dandelion patches in the hay fields, it makes great hay too, more nutrition than either the Timothy or Red Clover it was sown to. The Dandelion is in full bloom, which means it's time for Dandelion Wine! Last summer I made some Red Clover and Daisy Blossom Wine. It was good, but I think I will like the Dandelion better. I might make a straight Red Clover wine later this summer, the Daisy added a bitter to the wine.

It didn't take long to gather 6 or so quarts of Dandelion flowers. I followed a simple recipe. Pour 6 quarts boiling water over the flowers. Cover and let steep for 24 hours. Strain the flowers out, pressing the liquid through a muslin cloth. Add 3 lbs organic sugar or honey, the grated rind and juice of a lemon and an orange (I don't have fresh citrus, so I use dried orange and lemon peel, and a dozen cardamom pods), and a pound of Golden Raisins. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Dissolve one package yeast in a cup of warm water and a teaspoon of sugar, add to the liquid mixture. Set crock or jar in a warm spot, away from drafts or direct sunlight. Cover loosely, and stir every day for three weeks. Pour into bottles, corking loosely to let excess gas escape, and store in a dark cool room. When fermentation is complete, cork tightly. Ready to enjoy in 6 months.

For those aching muscles

2009-05-20T16:24:00.004-04:00

Coming out of winter, and into the physical work of preparing ground, planting and weeding in the spring garden, we use muscles that lay dormant all winter. After the long dark, it feels great to be working outside and using all those muscles again. But they do sometimes ache at the end of a particularly productive day.

I have been slowly starting a medicinal herb garden, so this spring, I have some herbs to make my first herbal remedies, other than teas, teas, teas.

Comfrey Salve

Comfrey Liniment

I looked through my herbal books for what to use on sore muscles. Really, sore muscles need rest, but there is also tissue to heal, inflammation to reduce, and pain to relieve. Comfrey does the job very well of aiding the healing of muscles, as well as bones. Mullein can help reduce swelling, and relieve joint pain. Mint is a muscle relaxant, as well as having a pleasing aroma. Rosemary reduces inflammation. And Clove relieves pain. Sounds good to me.

To make the salve I started with a base of 8 ounces high-quality home rendered lard (although most prefer to use high quality olive oil or other vegetable oil). While the lard warmed on the stove, I finely chopped 1 1/2 ounces fresh Comfrey leaf, 1/2 ounce fresh Mullein leaf, 1/2 ounce fresh Mint leaf, and added the fresh herbs to the oil, along a heaping tablespoon dried Rosemary, and a dozen whole Cloves. To release the volatile oils of the herbs, mash the herbs with the back of a spoon every few minutes, and keep the pot covered in between, so that the oils do not escape. Keep a close eye on the hot oil, and gently cook it over a low heat for two hours. Cover and let cool for 8 hours. In the case of vegetable oil, you will be able to filter the herbs through a muslin cloth, being sure to squeeze every last drop of oil from the herbs. In the case of lard, re-melt the fat, just to the liquid stage, then filter as above into a wide mouth half-pint glass jar. In the case of vegetable oil, re-heat the filtered oil to 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and add 1/2 ounce of melted beeswax, stir well, and pour into your jar. The salve is ready to use as soon as it has cooled. Massage it well into the skin for deep tissue relief. It provides relief for about 6 hours, and can be applied 3 or more times a day. For extra pain relief, we use it in combination with Arnica cream.

8 ounces of fresh herbs were used to make the liniment. I used 5 ounces finely chopped Comfrey leaf, 2 ounces finely chopped Mullein leaf, and 1 ounce finely chopped Mint. Place the herbs in a jar with a well-fitting lid (like a wide mouth quart mason jar), and fill just to cover with Apple Cider Vinegar, about 1 1/2 cups. Liniments can also be made with alcohol, but Apple Cider vinegar has it's own benefits for sore or fatigued muscles. It is basically a herb vinegar, allowing the herbs to soak in the vinegar for at least a week, or up to a month. Place the jar in a dark place, like a cupboard or cabinet where the temperature will be consistent, and shake the jar vigorously twice a day. When you are ready to use your liniment, filter the herbs, and if desired, add a tablespoon of vegetable oil for a softer, massage oil consistency. If you add the oil, be sure to shake the liniment before each use. We use the liniment as a preventative, before doing heavy work or exercise. Apply it directly to the major muscle groups and rub it into the skin, it absorbs quickly. It also provides a more instant relief to sore muscles, working in combination with the deep tissue salve to rejuvenate and regenerate sore, strained muscles.

The Sanctuary and the Sting

2009-05-20T15:43:00.003-04:00

The Flea Beetles are out and devouring. We have a hard time with Flea Beetles, especially the brassica eating variety. This area used to be a Brussels Sprouts growing region, and the last agricultural use these fields were put to was 15 years ago, growing Brussels Sprouts. And of course, they used lots of sprays to combat the flea beetles and cabbage moths. And of course, all that did was to proliferate the most resistant individuals. So even 15 years of these fields being sown to pasture, and cropped for hay, we still have a mighty infestation of flea beetles at the slightest hint of something good for them to eat.

The over wintered kale that had survived under mulch was just beginning to sprout. The flea beetles took care of them, no more sprouts. They mowed down an entire row of radish just germinating. I have only one organic method that seems to work. A 50/50 mixture of molasses and warm water sprayed on all surfaces of the plants will keep the flea beetles off, but it must be applied after each rain. I use it to get crops like radish, beets, chard and turnips up and going strong enough to handle some flea beetle damage, but it takes too long to spray all of my larger transplants of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and Brussels sprouts because you have to cover the bottom sides of the leaves as well as the top. So I have decided to starve them out. These transplants can wait until mid-June before we put them in the ground. Last year, I put them out at about this stage, then covered them with row cover. But the flea beetles must have hatched under the row cover and managed to finish off a few of them before I noticed they were inside. So this year, they have a Brassica sanctuary in one of the Freezer Cold Frames. By the time they go in the ground, they will be strong enough to withstand the Flea Beetles.

The stinging nettle is growing like gangbusters, so we tried a recipe from a wild edible plant book for Creamed Nettles. I harvested these with scissors to avoid a lot of stings, but a few stings never hurt. Once they are steamed, they do not sting. Let them cool slightly and dice them on a cutting board. Make a basic white sauce, with any variation of herb or spice you enjoy, and mix with the cooked nettles.

I like to use yellow pea flower to make the cream sauce, and spiced with nutmeg and black pepper.

Served with Roasted Purple Potatoes with Creamy Tomato Sauce, and Whole Wheat Caraway Bread and Goat's Butter. They were just delicious, very much like spinach, and also full of vitamins and minerals. And nettles grow like weeds!

To admire the flowers

2009-05-14T15:38:00.007-04:00

We paid a visit to our neighboring small farmer. He keeps a small flock of goats and sheep, a variety of bantam and heritage chickens, and provides all of his own produce from a large garden and dozen fruit trees he planted 20 years ago when he started his small farm. Now in his mid-sixties, he is still going strong, but he values our help during haying season to put up 2000 square bales for his herd. And in exchange we use his tractor gear to put up our own 250 bales, and to work up our two acres for grain and garden. And at the same time we have developed a friendship, sympathizing with one another's success and struggles in the garden and around the farm.

Every spring, he has a profuse explosion of daffodils and crocuses and lilies and all kinds of beautiful spring flowers, and every spring, we admire them.

Found a few critters that I would like to find out more about. I have seen this very same species of spider on our potato plants. It is some kind of crab spider. It hunts rather than build a nest, waiting patiently for an unsuspecting herbivorous insect, which makes them a good beneficial insect in the garden.
Flower Crab Spider

And this one is new to me, some sort of nectar eating fly. It is not a bee, for lack of antennae, and it has quite a long proboscis to reach the nectar. Interesting critter, this one.

Greater Bee Fly

Our neighbor is also an amateur naturalist and birder, so he has dozens of birdhouses, bird feeders, bird baths, frog ponds, and trees planted especially to feed the birds. We always see a large flock of about a dozen Tree Swallows at his place, and I was lucky enough to catch the picture below.
His plum, apple and pear trees are just beginning to bud, when they are in full bloom, it is a beautiful sight.

Making Ghee

2009-05-11T16:48:00.004-04:00

Ghee is a clarified form of butter, traditionally used in Indian cuisine and culture. But ghee has some advantages over butter, it has a higher heat tolerance, and can be stored at room temperature for months. We store our extra butter as ghee. For the most part, we use it like oil for frying, it does not burn at high temperatures like butter does. But it can be used in any recipe that calls for butter.
To make ghee, melt the butter on low heat. The best quality ghee is clarified slowly.

The butter will separate into pure fat, and milk solids. Most of the milk solids floating on the surface will eventually sink to the bottom, and what remains floating will be separated out of the final product.

Bring the butter to a very gentle simmer. All of the water must be evaporated out of the fat in order for it to store for long periods of time. I have kept pure ghee for up to six months without any deterioration of the product. Be careful not to burn the butter while it slowly simmers for up to an hour. This is best done in a double boiler. When the fat does not bubble any more, the water is cooked out, and the ghee is ready to be strained.

Pour the hot ghee through a fine-mesh sieve, or a few layers of cheesecloth. The best quality ghee is at the top, above the sediment line, so if you are planning to store your ghee for longer than a week, be sure it is free of sediment. I pour off the best ghee first, then pour the rest at the bottom into my "greasing pot", and use it like bacon drippings to grease cake pans, etc. Ghee stays in a semi-solid state at room temperature, somewhat like olive oil when kept in the refrigerator, but melts into liquid gold when heated.

To get a taste of the slightly nutty, buttery flavor of ghee, try simply frying eggs in ghee. It is a great cast iron seasoner, ever since using ghee, my cast iron pan doesn't stick, no matter what I throw in it. Or try popping popcorn in ghee, and drizzling some on the popcorn as well. No popcorn like it!

The goats have made fast friends with Pilgrim, grazing together as a herd. Juniper even stood in his barn, eating hay out of his mouth because she couldn't reach his manger!

Fiddleheads and other wild symphonies

2009-05-06T15:12:00.013-04:00

The Fiddleheads are bursting out of the ground this week. These are my "wild asparagus". When picked young, they are a delicious spring vegetable. Of course, when picking anything wild, be sure to positively identify the plant first. Fiddleheads are a distinct wild food, and once you know where to find them, they are as reliable as spring rains.

Collect the fiddleheads as soon as they emerge from the ground, and snap them off. Like asparagus, the stem will snap at the point where it is still crisp and fiberless. The trick to removing the fuzz is to rub it off dry. Once they are wet, the fuzz does not come off easily. To prepare them, I prefer steaming rather than boiling. Bring the water to boil first, then place the steaming basket and vegetables over the water and cover. Fiddleheads will discolor if placed over low heat while the water comes to a boil. Steam them until crisp-tender.

They can be enjoyed with any number of sauces. Simply butter, garlic and salt. Hollandaise or cream sauce. Even as a cold vegetable in salads with vinaigrette dressing.

This is our favorite time of year to take long evening walks with the dogs. We wander through old logging roads to get front row seats at the nightly chorus of Spring Peepers, Robins, Sparrows, and Thrushes, their flutes and whistles syncopated by the drumbeat of breeding Ruffed Grouse and the windy whooshy wing beat of breeding Common Snipes. We even caught sight of two bear cubs dutifully waiting in a couple of birch trees about 1/4 mile off. Mama Black Bear eventually returned to her cubs, and we moved off to leave them undisturbed.

But not before I took a few video clips of the Peeper chorus. I was determined to catch sight of one of them, they were so close, but they were too well disguised. But you can see the rippling in the water, this pond was teeming with them.

Back on the farm, we have planted out most of the feed grains. One half acre of wheat, and one half acre of oats. We will also be planting about 1000 row feet of peas, as well as millet and amaranth for feed crops.

And I brought a bit of the wild into my herb garden this spring. We have a few patches of wild caraway around the pastures, and last fall, (after studying the plants at various stages of growth for over a year to be sure it was caraway and not poison hemlock), I collected what I could of the seed heads, giving me a few ounces to use in the kitchen, and some seed to start in the spring. But when I saw these second year roots popping up along the pasture this spring, I decided to try transplanting some of the roots into a prepared garden bed. Wild caraway is a biennial, so it only produces seed in it's second year. There is a cultivated annual variety, but like fennel and anise, it is a long-season crop, and frost usually threatens my nearly ripened seed heads. But these second year roots, which took quite well to the uprooting and transplanting, will produce early and hopefully prolific seed heads.

Minutiae

2009-05-04T15:25:00.004-04:00

Keeping an eye on the minute things. Like the first flower blossom of the season. Violets gone wild in the garden. And the daily emergence of all manner of insects in the soil and in the air.

This is a ground beetle, pretty fascinating creatures, without the ability to fly, they "bomb" their potential predators with a noxious gas. They are also carnivorous predators, and will eat up all manner of pests in larval stages.

Like this grub. I haven't positively identified it, but I suspect that it is the caterpillar stage of the pea moth.
This smallest of bees is now out with the wild honey bees.

Keep your eye on the little things that inhabit your garden. You will often find more allies than foes.

The Resourceful Re-purposed Sock

2009-04-29T16:54:00.004-04:00

We were offered a spot to Guest Post over at Not Dabbling in Normal today. I re-posted a New and Improved version of making Sweater Socks, experimenting with materials for making great summer socks. Check it out, and be sure to explore the great resources and team of writers over at Not Dabbling.

The wild honey bee and my coffee Chicory

2009-04-29T15:09:00.006-04:00

The wild bees must have been out and about yesterday, I didn't see any working, but at the end of the day, this little guy must have taken refuge in my nearly empty bucket of potato seeds. It was 70F, sunny and very windy yesterday, unusually warm for April here. But then back down to freezing overnight. I found the bee in the bucket next morning, gone dormant and flightless from the cold, so I set him in the partially covered cold frame to warm up. Within a few minutes he was gone.

This is a true wild honey bee, not a domesticated bee gone feral. They are about 30% smaller than the domesticated bees. These guys are to domestic bees what a wild ox is to a Holstein milker. Domestic bees were bred to be larger so they could carry more pollen, and produce more honey. Many beekeepers are breeding their bees back to the original smaller size, as a protection against varroa mites, Small Cell Beekeeping. The smaller bees hatch out one day earlier, and the mites need that one extra day in order to hatch out with the bee. The smaller bees are also said to be more active, and keep their hives cleaner. We would like one day to start beekeeping, until then, I keep my eyes on the wild bees.

We also had our first glorious salad yesterday, as a noonday reward after a morning of planting seeds under the sun. It is a mixture of Mesculn greens, Mizuna mustard greens, and Dandelion greens. And a salad dressing of homemade goat ghee, homemade apple cider vinegar, apple butter, salt, coriander and a touch of cayenne. We certainly relished it, spreading a blanket in the shade to further enjoy the delight of spring.

I always leave some Dandelions in the garden after the fall harvest, so that I can dig them up in the spring for the nutritious early greens, as well as the nutritious roots. I planted some coffee Chicory last spring as well. I left most of the crop to go to seed, but had to try some Chicory and Dandelion coffee. The coffee Chicory roots are much larger than I expected, and are a crop well worth planting. I scrubbed the roots and trimmed off the fine root hairs from the Dandelions,

chopped the roots, no more than 1/4 inch thick,
and roasted them in a 200 degree oven until crisp and golden brown.

The ground roots smell slightly of chocolate cake.

It makes a surprisingly dark brew, I expected something more like black tea. I used one rounded teaspoon per cup. With honey and milk, irresistible. It has a distinct flavor, and cannot pretend to be coffee, but unless I am really tired, caffeine overstimulates me, giving me the jitters. But I do love to wake up to a warm, sweet, milky beverage, and I cannot imagine the point of importing coffee or tea just to drink it decaffeinated! In contrast to true coffee, chicory is calming to the nerves, is a natural detoxifier, and is said to be a Prebiotic, promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria in the digestive system. Three cheers for Chicory coffee!

Watching the signs

2009-04-27T14:27:00.003-04:00

Salad greens are ready to harvest in the freezer-cold frames, and the soil is ready to be worked, despite the lingering snow-pack along the tree-line and in the woods. Our garden is situated on the driest part of the property, there are still ponds in low-lying spots in the pastures and grain fields, but the garden soil is ready.

All signs pointed to an early spring, and they have not disappointed, we are working ground and planting seeds at least two weeks earlier than last spring. And we are taking full advantage of the time. All signs are pointing to a dry season as well, so we are planting in time to catch the generous spring rains, and then mulching over much of the garden to hold that precious rainfall in the soil. We cannot count out a late snow fall yet, but a bit of snow wouldn't hurt the crops we have planted: potatoes, carrots, parsnip and peas so far. The onions, beets, turnips and grains will follow next. I also re-planted the biennial seed saving crop of onions, carrots, beets, and turnips, as well as the solitary leek that overwintered under mulch in the garden.

We are amazed at how quickly the snow melt has been absorbed into the ground this spring, the ground seemed thirsty, and our well had dropped quite low over the winter. Our cumulative snowfall for the winter of 2008/9 came to 13'4", just under last winter's at 14'2", but if I hadn't kept records, I would have thought this past winter had half the snow as 2007/8, judging by the ground moisture.

An early spring has also meant an early re-appearance of Spring Peepers, as well as the migratory birds. Although the Peepers sounded their first herald of spring with gusto on Saturday evening, the migratory birds have not shown up in their usual numbers. Last spring we could not count the dozens of Robins, Grackles, Red-Winged Blackbirds and Starlings that flooded the sodden pastures, overturning manure for the treasure trove of earthworms. This spring, only a modest 4 dozen Grackles, a handful of Blackbirds, no Starlings as of yet, and perhaps 6 dozen Robins. Again, last spring the view out my kitchen windows was hopping with pairs of a half-dozen species of Sparrows, scooping up weed-seeds and flitting back and forth to the trees. This spring, only a single pair of Song Sparrows have graced my view. Not to mention the song, last spring it was a cacophony, and this spring it is a mere twitter.

We were aware of the decline of the swallow, flycatcher, and wood thrush populations locally, and have greatly desired their healthy return, to contend with the abundance of biting and blood-sucking insects. But there seems to be a decline in even the heartiest little bird fellows. Birds can be an invaluable ally in the organic garden, and I am learning more about how to create habitat, here in their summer breeding grounds, but if they simply do not return, it is a sad loss.

The return of the birds, the emergence of the peepers and the awakening of the bees are the three crucial signs of ecological health I watch closely. The bees are yet to appear, although this past weekend, sunny and 60F, should have brought them out, searching for pollen. And there is a source of pollen awaiting them in the trees. Dandelions and clover blooms are still a month away, but the hungry little bees make their first honey from an unlikely source.

This poplar bud has burst into long catkins, covered with minuscule flowers, all dusted with pollen.
Maple flowers are starting to open, revealing their nectar.

And the furry pussy willow has transformed into a bristle of delicate yellow stamens.

Making goat's butter and yogurt

2009-04-20T13:53:00.004-04:00

The kids are weaned off milk, we started weaning them at 8 weeks old, and completed the transition to warm water in the end of their 9th week. They are grass burners now, and they are doing quite well on a few bales of the best hay in the barn. Watching their condition closely for signs of dropping weight, we have been ready to feed them some grain, but their condition has held and even started to gain again in the last few days, and we would prefer not to feed them any grain as it changes the bacteria and pH balance in their rumens.

Now that the milk is all ours, I have been rubbing my hands together with all of my dairy desires. Butter and yogurt are on the top of the list. I have a mid 20th century cream separator, designed for the home dairy in mind, but that would be the home cow dairy. It is inefficient to put less than a gallon through the separator, so I saved up milk for two days, so that I would have a gallon and a half. When we were milking a Jersey cow, I separated the cream twice a day, and also had to wash the darn thing twice a day. So I am quite happy to reduce that chore to once every two days.

The milk must be warm to separate, between 95-105F, so I warmed it on top of a pan of boiling water, double-boiler style, to be sure that the milk did not scald.

The cream separator works just as well for the goat's cream as it did for the cow's cream. In fact, I think it separated better with the temperature of the milk above 100F. Cream is more viscous when it is warm, and does not stick to the discs inside of the separator as much. My pail of fresh cow's milk, after being filtered, would likely have cooled down to 85 to 95F by the time it made it to the separator. When I took the cream separator apart after the first run with the goat's milk, I noticed that very little cream had been left inside.

One perk of using a cream separator is that it makes perfect cappuccinos! I worked as a barrista at a fancy restaurant in my city days, and in my prime could hardly have made such perfect peaks as these.

I collected cream for 6 days, until I had a quart. It took about 4 gallons of milk to make a quart of cream, which would work out to 4% butterfat. The cream is perfectly white, instead of the rich creamy color of Jersey cream, but it has a delicate and mild flavor, and it kept well without going sour. I actually think that the goat's cream has a more mild flavor than the Jersey cream, and I had more problems with cream spoilage. I could usually only keep the Jersey cream for 4-5 days max before it would start to sour and make off-flavored butter. But not so with the goat's cream, it was still sweet and fresh on the sixth day.

Again, my butter churn is designed for the home cow dairy, and can fit up to 2.5 quarts of cream, but one quart is the minimum. It came with a small hand-crank, and I used to turn that handle for at least 20 minutes before churning the butter out, but Mr. Fritillary, always looking to improve designs, fitted the drill onto the shaft that the handle was screwed onto, and made churning butter into a 3 minute job.

For an excellent tutorial on making butter at home, head on over to Throwback at Trapper Creek's blog and read her post "Butter me up".

The goat's cream behaved just the same as cow's cream, except that it can be worked at a slightly lower temperature, between 55-60F.

The butter is pure white, and again, I would use the word delicate to describe it. Both in texture and in flavor. It was slightly softer than cow's butter when I was working the buttermilk out, due to the factor that it seems to melt at a lower temperature. I made sure to drain off the buttermilk first, it was sweet just like the cream, and great for baking.

The butter is delicious, creamy, mild, and not at all "goaty". Never once, in my home goat dairy experience, have I found either the milk, or any products of it, to be "goaty" in flavor or smell. We did try some goat's milk from the farmer's market before buying our goats, and found it to be slightly tangy, but not off-putting, and figured we would get used to the flavor. But the flavor of the milk, whether cow or goat, is often due to handling, cleanliness and freshness. And our own goat's milk is fresh, clean and from a healthy animal, and that makes all the difference.

One quart of cream makes one pound of butter, so I should be getting one pound of butter every 6 days, along with a quart of yogurt a day, and 1.5 quarts of skimmed milk a day. And that is with a single dairy-cross goat. It is perfect for us, and we would be able to put away plenty of milk and butter for the dry-season, as well as making cheeses, with one more dairy-cross, or with just one pure dairy goat. But with the two dairy-cross does, we will also be able to provide for our own meat as well, from the kids. And two does still consume about 1/3 the amount of one small dairy cow.

I couldn't resist making up some buttermilk pancakes with fresh butter, what a treat!

And with all of that extra skimmed milk, made some yogurt. Dairy heaven! In the past, I have purchased store-bought yogurt, Balkan style, with active acidophilus cultures, as my yogurt starter. But I thought I'd try the freeze-dried packets at the health food store. It has three bacterial cultures, including acidophilus.

The resulting yogurt has a thinner texture than I expected, but creamy and well flavored, slightly-tangy. In my second batch, I used 1/2 cup of yogurt from the previous batch, to culture each quart. I'm not sure that this yogurt will work well for drained-yogurt, a cream-cheese-like spread. If not, then I will try again with the Balkan style yogurt starter.

To mulch or not to mulch

2009-04-17T12:43:00.005-04:00

I'm speaking of winter mulching, I always figured, the more mulch the better, and that mulch over perennial or biennial plants acted like a blanket against the harsh freezing of our Northern winters. But I was surprised this week as I uncovered mulched plants and saw the results. Perhaps in zones 5 and 6 where there are enough mid-winter melts to expose the ground to hard freezing, or in arid zones with little snow cover and damaging sub-zero winds, mulch would be the rule, not the exception. But in our humid zone 4b, we generally have snow cover at least a foot deep, if not usually 3 or 4 feet deep, from December through April. And I have come to appreciate the insulative value of snow. Most years, the snow will fall even before the ground has a chance to freeze more than a few inches down, and the soil will stay soft and dormant all winter, even when we have week-long cold snaps below -20C. In zones where the frost permeates the ground 3 or 4 feet deep, mulch is required to keep the plants or garlic bulbs from being heaved up out of the ground come thaw. But we have not noticed any effects of heaving in the three years we've been farming here, leading us to realize that we live in a unique climate, very humid and cold. A new combination of gardening conditions for us.

The hardiest of our perennials and biennials are left un-mulched, and completely un-bothered by the snow and cold. I am always amazed to see green leaves appear from under all of that snow. Thyme and oregano are some tough little herbs.

This mullein plant was started last spring, and needed no mulching. The spine covered leaves are like a fur coat.

Parsley is another hardy herb, it is a delight to see this bright shade of green poke out of the snow.

The comfrey, also started last spring, is another new perennial in the garden. It's profuse leaves died back and left their own mulch around the plant, and it is still alive and well and ready to grow. The stinging nettle and alfalfa did equally well. I chose most of these herbs as my introduction to caring for perennials and biennials specifically for their hardiness, as well as their usefulness.

One herb that I experimented mulching was sage. It comes out of spring a little less green than the other herbs, so I lightly mulched over one bush in the row. Surprisingly, the mulch may have killed it, encouraging decomposition instead of protecting it from the cold. It may still come back, but the un-mulched sage bushes will certainly be ahead of the one I mulched.

I left a few tender biennial vegetables heavily mulched in the garden, as an experiment to get both early greens and to produce seeds. I used spoiled hay, propping the compressed biscuits around the plants, with at least 2-4 inches of insulation from all directions. When the snow melted this week, exposing my mulched plots, I found a lot of mold on they hay, not surprising, but unfortunately, again encouraging the decomposition of the plants. The kale stems are rotted, and not likely to sprout. We used our wheat straw over the garlic, which to be honest, I don't think really needs to be mulched in our climate. But the straw did not promote decomposition and mold, like the spoiled hay did, so next winter I will try both an un-mulched plot of late planted kale, and a plot mulched with straw.

I also mulched around four leeks with the spoiled hay biscuits, with not much success. One of them still has a firm crown, and looks like it will sprout. Again, I will try the straw and see if that makes the difference.

I also covered a row of chard with biscuits of spoiled hay, with better success. It is perhaps the low growing habit of the chard that made a difference. The kale and leeks are tall and awkward to mulch, but with the chard I could simply lay the biscuits of hay over the row, like a tipi, and not surround the stem with the moldering hay, which encouraged the stalky plants to rot. The leaves of the chard died back, but the crown is still alive, and will probably provide us with our first vegetable greens of the season.

I also had a pleasant surprise when we walked over our newly uncovered garden. I tried planting some two year old parsnip seed last spring, and it did not germinate well, by the time I got around to re-planting it, I knew it was a little too late, but decided to re-plant anyway. They did germinate, in their own slow fashion, but the little seedlings were then overshadowed by the exuberant carrots in the neighboring row, and never grew past the 4 to 6 leaf stage. When I dug up the carrots in the fall, I left these little parsnip seedlings in the ground, curious to see if they would survive the winter, but not expecting much. Well, they are all there, a whole row of parsnips, already a month of growth on them, and a month ahead of our usual planting date. My parsnip disappointment of last year has turned into a lucky accident. This year we are going to plant a late crop of carrots, parsnips and perhaps turnips, beets, and even onions, let them get a month of growth, and then put them to bed under a blanket of snow. We have a short, cool and wet growing season, leaving us about 120 days to grow as much as we can, but we are learning how to take advantage of the heavy snow fall over the winter, and it's ability to protect the ground from freezing.

And of course, we couldn't tour the garden without digging our hands into the soil. The garden soil is really beginning to show qualities of health, humus and vitality. The small plot we turned our first year will be going into it's third season, and is shown in the left hand below. The clump on the right is what we started with, and the soil we are growing our grains in, as the vegetable garden expands in the 2 and 3 year old ground. The soil shown below was heavily amended last year with compost from the horse's barn, and still had plenty of sawdust, stalky hay, and straw when we turned it in the soil. Every bit of that compost has been broken down and turned into humus as can be seen by the dark color and crumbly texture. We also amend the soil with crushed egg shells for calcium and wood ashes for potash.

Spring is in the air

2009-04-15T15:00:00.006-04:00

The kids are out on their training tethers, enjoying the sun. I tried to show them some early fresh grass, but they just spit and sneezed at it, preferring their hay. They had a good head-butting frolic before settling down to chew their cuds.

And the does are nibbling on poplar buds and bark. The tannins in the poplar bark have a de-worming property, along with pumpkin or squash seeds, parsley and wormwood, we are treating them for worms. Neither looks to be infested, along with their general condition, we check the color of the inside of their eyelids. Pink-red means very healthy and shades of pale pink mean that the animal is anemic. They are both on the pink-red scale, but spring is a good time to treat for worms.

Pilgrim finally had his first good bucking romp in the field this Saturday (before we got another foot of snow on Sunday, still melting). He started with a good series of bucks, which I of course missed with the camera, except the very last one, he is in mid-buck when this little clip starts. Not bad for a 13 year old ex-racetrack horse. The dogs got pretty excited about the whole thing too.

What came first, the carton or the egg?

2009-04-15T13:34:00.009-04:00

Mr. Fritillary asked me a pair of thought provoking questions, and my answers were all the more genuine because he asked them without context or prompting. He handed me an egg from the basket of freshly collected eggs on the kitchen counter, and asked me to describe my thoughts and feelings as I held this egg. Knowing that he must be working on an essay, I dredged for both immediate as well as the deeper responses, and began to sort through the flood of personal and specific stories and feelings that his question provoked. The weight of the egg in my hand communicated the feeling of good, nutritious food to my body. I thought of all the things I had recently made with eggs, and what I could make in the future. I thought back to the previous few months when we were without eggs, and again of the celebratory occasion of our first omelets this spring, of pudding and meringue. But my thoughts were also specific to that egg, I knew it was from one of the young pullets that had just started laying. I thought back to last summer when we incubated the eggs from our old hens, watched the chicks hatch, brooded them, and brought them through winter, into their first spring when we finally start to receive the rewards for our work and our attention. This egg also reminded me of the future potential it contains, to hatch out and ensure the continuation of our flock, and our egg production. I even started to think of the connected stories of growing and harvesting our own grain by hand last summer, and the accomplishment of providing feed for our chicken flock all winter. And even on to the manure we have been moving out of the chicken coop that will provide the fertility to grow another year's worth of food for ourselves. All these stories in one little egg. I also noticed that my feelings were centered around contentment, accomplishment, resilience, celebration, and the security of being able to put nutritious food on our table.

At this point, I began to wonder where this all was going, when Mr. Fritillary handed me an egg carton, and asked how it made me feel, and what it made me think. Now I could appreciate the direction this was going. I was immediately confused, in a subtle way: was this food? Doubt: Where did these eggs come from? How were they produced? How fresh are they? How far have they traveled? And then there was driving to town, supermarkets, prices, organic or omega-3, fat and cholesterol. These feelings hit me like a brick in my stomach. How long would this carton last? How many meals could I get out of it? When would I be able to get to town again? (We do not have the option around here of buying eggs from a local small farm.) Scarcity and anxiety tugged at me on one end, and on the other end over-production and waste from our own past market egg production: How big is our local market? How much do we charge? Are we covering the cost of producing the eggs? What do we do with the surplus? Are we providing the best, highest quality product, or do we have to cut corners in order to cover the costs because quality food is not valued in the local food-culture? Food is expected to be cheap, and we could not contend with the ethical compromises of producing cheap food. And worse yet, if we did compromise, producing and selling cheap food would only perpetuate the cycle because we could only afford to buy cheap food on those wages. There are quite a few stories in that egg carton. Among them, the story of our becoming primarily subsistence farmers, on a self-reliant scale, each year trying to keep our interaction with the market economy contained and under our control, so that it does not contaminate our entire lives in the way that this single egg carton demonstrated.

I have been reading recently about the concept of Resilience in the Transition Handbook over at Appropedia. Resilience is the concept I have been reaching for, without knowing what to call it, always aware that there is something stronger and more necessary than self-reliance or sustainability. Resilience describes a network, more complex than a closed-loop self-reliant principle. Out here, we are forced to be self-reliant because our neighboring "community" does not share our values, or our view of what needs to be done now, in order to ensure a future on this planet. So for the most part, we act on our own, and rely upon ourselves. This is not a model of strength, it is vulnerable and open to shocks, and at the very least, restrictive because it closes us out of the full resources of a community and a local economy. But on our little homestead island, we have moments and pieces of resilience. I will never look at an egg in the same way again.

Speaking of eggs, forget frugal for now, this is the season when we splurge! Eggs are a wonderful spring food, easily digested protein for spring work, like mucking out barns and starting on this winter's supply of firewood. I've had my eye on this Yorkshire Pudding recipe all winter, and couldn't wait to try it. You may know them as pop-overs. They can be made plain, and spread with jam, but I opted for the savory version, making what some may know as Toad in a Hole. I never grew up with any of these recipes, but they are a new found favorite. If you are awash with your hens' idea of spring fever, and have some extra eggs to spare, then these are quite a frugal delight.

Batter: 3 eggs lightly beaten, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup whole milk or light cream. The batter will be runny. You can pour this batter plain, into a greased muffin pan, filling each cup half way. Or you can add a tablespoon of sugar and fruit (dried or fresh). Or for Toad in a Hole, add half a teaspoon salt, your favorite herbs, and one small onion, diced and sauteed until beginning to brown, mix into batter. For the Toad part, make marble sized meatballs (a la breakfast sausage patties) and brown them in a frying pan, or use slices of dried or cooked sausage. Drop your choice of meat in the bottom of each greased muffin cup, and pour batter over, just to cover or half-full. Bake in moderately hot oven (375F), until fluffy and browned, about 15 minutes. Best enjoyed steaming hot!

I never was a fan of meringue pies, at least not the store bought kind. But I'm digging up all kinds of egg recipes, and gave it a try. The recipe was for a basic vanilla pudding, and press-in crumb crust. I used oat flour in place of 3/4 of the whole wheat flour, making a soft textured pie crust. And I added some dried blueberries and chopped dried apples, along with a dash of cardamom and nutmeg to the pudding (in place of the vanilla). The pie didn't last long, but my favorite part was the pudding, and I am quite happy with this oat pie crust, it held together very well. It went something like this: 1 cup oat flour, 1/4 cup whole wheat flour, 1 tablespoon lard (or softened butter), mix, then add spoon fulls of water (I tried milk too, but it made the crust too crumbly) until the mixture holds together and is slightly sticky. Press into lightly greased pan and bake 10 minutes at 350. Pour pudding (using your preference of thickener, flour, cornstarch or arrowroot) into baked pie crust. Beat egg whites, adding a teaspoon of sugar, a sprinkle at a time, until frothy. Spread evenly on pudding, bake 5 minutes at 350 until browned. Cool to room temperature before cutting.

The Melt

2009-04-08T16:35:00.003-04:00

It began with the mist. It was like living in a rain forest, without the heat. The evaporation of the snow has been hanging around in the atmosphere and coming back down as rain showers. March was cold and sunny, and so far in April, we've barely seen the sun for all of the moisture. It's been a quick melt, staying above freezing for almost a week, and our last few feet of snow has finally been reduced to slush and water. Lots of water.

Our water garden... under a foot of water by the time the sun poked out in the afternoon yesterday. I could see my stinging nettles in the perennial herb bed just loving the flood, and I'm anxious to see how the kale, chard, leeks and of course garlic, have overwintered under the heavy mulch. Hopefully the kale and chard will produce some early greens before going to seed, and I'm also hoping for some seed from the wintered leeks.

Water was gathering in the fields and around the house and barns like we have never seen it, running in streams, searching for the lowest point. Our manure piles along the garden became dikes, and for a few hours, we had a pond at the front door. Don't fret, no basement to flood, and we are safely on blocks 3 feet above ground.

The barn became an island by evening, our first year we realized that we needed to dig a mote around the front of the barn, we had not expected spring melts like this. So now there is a channel for the water to run around behind the barns and out into the low spot in our Northern pasture.

It was great to finally see the sun after so many days of mist and rain.

By morning, most of the moisture had been soaked up by the thawing ground, except our usual spring ponds. This one in the north pasture and grain fields is a favorite of Canada Geese and American Black Ducks. A pair of geese flew in this morning, 12 days earlier than last spring, gleaning the remains of last year's rye and wheat fields. We had up to nine geese and five ducks last year, the pond sticks around through April, into mid-May even. Looking forward to seeing who shows up this year.

My frugal kitchen

2009-04-06T14:11:00.007-04:00

This winter I have been focused on cooking frugally. For us, this means creatively using what we have grown and preserved, as well as stretching the ever elusive dollar in the kitchen. We have squirreled our grocery bill down to $50 (or less) a month, for two adults. This includes organic coffee, tea and sugar, salt and spices (not herbs), and bulk dry goods. But I've also learned the old Depression or War Ration Era art of stretching the more expensive or difficult to grow ingredients. Now, when I look at some basic recipes in modern cookbooks, they look over-extravagant and too rich when it comes to items like meat, fats and sugar especially. We had both been accustomed to a rich diet, we were up to our eyeballs in butter, and full-cream milk when we kept a Jersey cow, and ate up to 2 dozen eggs a week when we kept a larger flock of chickens. But feed bills were getting high, and we cut down to a dairy goat and 6 hens, which we can feed with grain and hay from our own homestead. Since making that switch last fall, we have both become healthier, lost that 15 lbs of extra weight that hangs on through the winter, and cut our food bills. And by gradually shifting our tastes, have come to prefer our frugal diet.

As omnivores, our diets are incredibly flexible, the most stubborn part of our foodculture is the culture. We become accustomed to certain foods, tastes and textures, but we can also acclimate our taste buds to a new custom. Temporal diets don't work because food is culture, and we cannot easily stick to an imposed foodculture for a period of time, any more than we can pretend to be from a different ethnic culture for a short time. But we can adopt a new culture over time. My three years of homesteading has gradually acculturated me to a very different relationship to food than I ever had, an inherently intimate relationship to food and it's proportions.

A frugal diet makes sense, not only in the kitchen, but in the garden and barnyard as well. We have been shifting our diet to the types of foods we can easily grow ourselves, even if we are not growing them yet. Meats, fat, eggs and diary are the most resource intense foods to raise, so we use them frugally and seasonally. Grains, storage vegetables and fruits make up the bulk of our diet. Fresh greens are abundant in season, but we are working on keeping a small supply of greens coming most of the year. When fresh greens are not available, we rely on a good dose of herbal tea, including dried alfalfa, stinging nettle and mullein, to provide us with a spectrum of vitamins and minerals. Even common culinary herbs and spices provide the body with various vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals. Food is life, it is the best preventative medicine.

So here's some of the frugal cooking techniques I have been practicing in the kitchen. First it helps to buy in bulk, and ration your usage. I don't mean to the point of deprivation, just have an idea of how much you use in a month, watch your use throughout the month, and stick to it. Experiment with cutting expensive ingredients or substituting ingredients that are difficult or impossible to grow locally.

In deserts, I cut the sugar and fat in half, sometimes only using 1/4 of the amount. I usually use one egg in a desert recipe, substituting for the rest with applesauce, pumpkin puree, or milk. I often substitute oats for part of the flour, oats are generally less expensive than flour, they add sweetness to the desert as well as texture and bran. Dried fruits, applesauce, pumpkin puree, milk and oats have a certain amount of natural sweetness, and replace some of the sugar I cut out of the recipe. Even chocolate cake tastes great with oats, by pouring boiling water over a cup of rolled oats, and mixing in a tablespoon of butter, fat or oil, you can replace a couple of eggs in a cake recipe, and maintain the moist texture. You can even cut the amount of cocoa to 3/4 or 1/2, and add up to a tablespoon of cinnamon (depending on the recipe), along with your favorite spices like ground clove, cardamom or even coriander (one of my favorite desert spices), or if you love spice, a dash of cayenne goes great with chocolate. The spices add complexity to the desert, and you wont miss the reduction in cocoa. Fiddling with desert recipes takes some experimentation, but even if they are not the perfect cookies the first time, you can't go too wrong with flour, oats, sugar, fat, egg, milk and dried fruit, no matter the proportions. If you cut the sugar too far, spread with jam. If you make something with a truly inedible texture, break it up and toss with cubed bread and make a bread pudding out of it.

Meat: We can our meat, which I find to be a surprisingly versatile way to preserve meat. It is also easy to ration. If you are keeping meat in the freezer, either wrap it in small portions, or keep a strict practice of only serving your pre-determined ration once the meat is cooked, reserving the rest for leftovers and subsequent meals. We keep our meat consumption to 10 lbs a month, excepting a few feasts at butchering time. This comes to 1/3 lb a day, between the two of us. Meat is never the main course on our plates (except those few exceptions which can be planned for holidays or family celebrations). I often make a meat sauce or gravy to accompany grains and vegetables. Use a small amount of meat with a good meat stock in a soup, the flavor is rich and intense, as well as nourishing. I make meatballs with the canned meat, flaked like tuna, and mixed with rolled oats, sauteed onion, a bit of flour and milk and/or egg, and spices/herbs. Try some vegetarian meatloaf recipes, with a bit of meat in addition. Pastry or shepherds pies are another frugal use of meat. Frugal meatballs on a bed of Faux Carrot Kraut.

Grains: The least expensive grains (at least in our area) are barley, oats and peas and we incorporate a lot of these three grains in our diet, they are also easy for us to grow and do not require a lot of fertility. Next comes wheat and beans, followed by lentils, millet, rice and quinoa. We are growing more and more of our grains at home each year, but we still purchase what we don't grow in bulk. When poor populations go hungry, it is usually due to grain prices being too high, the manipulation of grain prices in the commodities market is a criminal action. Purchasing your grains locally, from small farms or mills who buy from local farmers is the next best thing to growing them yourself. If you have the space for a large potato patch, you probably have room to grow some of your grains, they require less fertility than potatoes, and in my experience, one pound of cooked grains replaces 3 pounds of potatoes, and provides higher protein and nutrition. For a few reasons, one being that we cannot grow rice, another being the strong impression that last summer's food riots made on us over the doubling of rice prices, we decided to stop buying rice, and have found two substitutes, both at half the cost. Whole oat groats cook up to a similar consistency of rice, and goes nicely with stir-fries. Barley makes a great pilaf substitute. A great way to prepare it is to toast one pound of pot barley in oil, fat or butter until beginning to brown, then covering with water as you would rice, boil until water is absorbed and grain is tender. At this point you can add herbs, spices, onion, garlic, and even vegetables (diced or grated carrot, green beans, etc.), and your frugal portion of meat. Mix all the ingredients, cover and put into a hot oven to finish cooking, this way the barley does not burn on the bottom, and the whole dish has a chance to steam together. It is delicious, can be eaten with a tomato sauce and bread, or you can keep the vegetables for a side dish. Millet can also be prepared like this. Peas, beans and lentils are of course high in protein, and can substitute meat for the day. Toasted pot barley and green beans.

Toasted millet and green peas.

Fruits and Vegetables: Frugal is homegrown and preserved. If you have a foodculture that does not match your climate in this department, than perhaps your most frugal option would be to adjust your diet to the types of vegetables and fruit that you can grow yourself, and then start planning the garden to fulfill those needs.

Dairy, eggs, fats and oils: Use sparingly and seasonally. Be creative.

The trick is to find a balance, being frugal and sticking to your food budget, but also leaving room for creativity and celebrations. Plan celebrations at certain times of year. I always keep a treat for us during the months of March, April and May especially, after living out of the pantry for 4-6 months and before the garden is even planted. We have a few great feasts, celebrating our harvests in the fall. We splurge on each food when it is in season, getting our fill of fresh blueberries in July and broccoli in September, then bidding our time for the next season, nibbling on dried blueberries to remind us of summer's flavor.

For inspiration, here's a few of our spring meals, inspired by Mr Fritillary. He comes into the kitchen when I get into a rut, and spices things up (not because he's not willing the rest of the time, but because I keep the key to the kitchen and pantry, it's MY space! If you've ever lived in 300 sq ft with another human being through 5 months of lock-down winter, you'll appreciate our little islands of space).

Organic Tater-tots: 5 medium potatoes grated fine (Yukon Gold is especially nice), mix with 1/4 cup yellow pea flour (or substitute with whole wheat flour, but the pea flour adds a great flavor, as well as protein), salt and curry spice (or spice to your liking). Form into small patties and fry in 1/4 inch of high-temperature oil or fat in a cast iron skillet until browned on both sides. Could be baked, but these were intended as a treat, comfort food.

Samosa and spicy apple mint sauce.

Samosas: Dice 3 medium potatoes and 2 medium carrots, steam until tender, drain. Heat 2 Tbsp fat, oil or butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan, add tsp each of cumin seed, caraway seed and anise seed, 1 tbsp curry spice, and mix until the spices are heated through and just beginning to brown (do not burn!). Combine mixture with cooked vegetables and 1 cup canned or frozen (or fresh, lucky you:) green peas, and 1 tbsp salt. Set aside. Mix your favorite pastry recipe, enough for 2 double-crust pies. Roll out as for pie crust (1/8 inch) and cut out 6 inch rounds (I used the lid of a small sauce pan to cut the shapes). Make at least 12. Wet the outer edge of pastry, 1" wide, with water and spoon vegetables into the center of the pastry (not too full). Fold over, keeping the vegetables in the pocket, and press edges together with a fork, pierce tops. Place each pastry on a greased cookie sheet, when all are filled, brush tops with butter, oil or fat and bake in middle rack of oven, 325 for 25-30 minutes until browned.

Samosa filling in pastry.

Sauce: I made apple mint butter last fall, and it made into a delicious sauce atop the samosas. Empty one pint into sauce pan (or use applesauce and dried mint or other fruit sauce, local fresh fruit etc), heat and add cayenne pepper to your own taste, and a touch of sugar or honey to balance the heat if needed.

A rare visitor

2009-04-03T12:04:00.005-04:00

Update on the Freezer Cold Frames. They are working out splendidly. Last evening, we put the lids on just as the sun was setting, and the temp inside the glass was still at 20C (70F). The outside temp overnight was just above freezing, but when we opened the lids in the morning, the freezer had held at 12C (54C) all night. The soil is deliciously warm for these little transplants of spinach and lettuce.

We had a rare visitor this week as well. A Bald Eagle. They are considered regionally endangered in our are, mostly due to the destruction of habitat (i.e. the almost exclusive practice of clear-cutting to harvest lumber primarily for the pulp and paper industry). On top of that, we are a bit out of their range, too far from the coast and any major rivers or lakes. So it was a treat to see this one perched atop a dead fir tree right near the road. It stayed around long enough to snap this photo, but it was shy and flew further from the road, landing in a big white pine. They often nest in white pines, but it would be surprising to see a bald eagle make a nest here, the only nearby body of water is really just a seasonal bog.

Here it is flying, they are really amazing to watch, and such a wide wingspan! It took flight once more, and we got to watch it glide and soar away over the treetops before it disappeared from our sight. It truly is a beautiful bird.

Note April 6: A more common visitor, the first robins showed up today! Look forward to some more bird posts this spring, I get a bit bird obsessed. There was also some sort of thrush or warbler in the woods, it is a thrill to hear birdsong again, besides of course, our winter companions of twittering Chickadees, a pair of skwaking Blue Jays, and a hand full of giant Ravens who have claimed the tallest Spruce trees surrounding the fields as long as we have been here, and harass and hound any hawks who try and hunt their fields in the summer.

Appropedia Needs You

2009-04-01T14:56:00.003-04:00

Staying connected to the internet is a challenge in rural areas. Services are limited and expensive, and often the perfect site for a homestead is not necessarily provisioned with all of the services easily accessed by city-dwellers. In our case, we are far from agribusiness and the drift of gmo pollens or chemical sprays, which was a priority for us, and we are in an area with relatively affordable land. But the power and phone lines end 500 feet down the road. It was our intention to live off-grid, so this was not a hindrance, but it has been a challenge for us to find an affordable solution to connecting to the internet. Our only option for internet at home is satellite, which is really too expensive to justify itself, and we prefer to search for more community minded solutions. Gratefully, we found affordable public access at a local community center, only 7 miles from our home. We have been members here for over a year, and do all of our blogging and browsing (mostly downloading to read at home) and research from the community center. But with a busy gardening season, weather (we ride our bikes here), and various projects at home, our time online is limited, and it sometimes takes us a while to find all the great sites, blogs, wikis and projects that are springing up all over the net.

In January, we started to brainstorm about the wealth of information related to homesteading, city-steading, and low-impact living solutions we see on the net, and wanted to see it collected into a reference site, something like a wiki site where the various plurality of solutions to issues such as energy and food in a post-carbon world, could be compiled, and easily researched. We thought of starting a wiki site with our own skeletal topics, under the Creative Commons License, and inviting others to contribute their blogs and experiences. But I wondered whether there was a project like this already going, because I know how crucial the internet has been, as a research tool, in my own journey from an agriculturally ignorant city-dweller, and I know I'm not the only one. Well, this week I found that site. Appropedia! And it is set up as a wiki, completely open to editing and contributions. I have only begun to dig in, and have downloaded much to read at home. It looks like there are still plenty of gaps to be filled in, and it looks as though there is a very active team working hard on this site. I am looking forward to contributing our own little golden nuggets of survival skills in a post-carbon world, and I hope you do too!

Turn your freezers into cold-frames

2009-03-31T14:57:00.005-04:00

Ever since we ditched our fridge and freezer for food preservation, we have found some excellent uses for the well insulated and sealed boxes. See last December's post on our Freezer Incubator and Brooder, along with some other ideas. This spring, we are testing them out as cold frames for some early greens. The sealed lids are a bonus for this time of year, when the snow is blowing, we can seal them up out of the cold wind.

First we built a false-bottom, 7 inches from the top. We left 4 inches for soil and 3 inches for growing room. The soil will settle a bit, but we didn't want to put the plants too far below the lip otherwise they would get shaded out too much in the morning and afternoon. This one is intended for mesculn and spinach, so they don't have to get very tall before they are harvested.

We lined the false bottom with the ever useful feed-bags. It is semi-permeable, and will allow excess moisture to drain away. We are hoping that the insulated air cavity below the plants will act as a thermal sink, heating up in the daytime, and holding some heat over through the nights.

We put a layer of fresh horse-manure down first, like a hot-bed, to provide a bit of heat and some extra fertility when the roots reach that depth.

Then dressed the top with a layer of well composted goat and sheep manure and potting soil.

This size freezer allows space for three rows of greens, 9 row feet in total. We planted two rows of zesty mesculn mix and one row of mizuna mustard greens. We have too many flea beetles in the garden come spring to plant these kinds of mustards, their favorites it seems. Even with row covers, the flea beetles come up out of the soil underneath, and really give our brassicas a hard time. But there's no flea beetles out now! I am even beginning to think that I could use the freezers as brassica sanctuaries in May. We usually transplant our brassicas to the garden in mid-May, but the tender transplants are quite vulnerable to flea beetle damage. If the flea beetles come out of the ground and have nothing much to eat, then they won't breed as rapidly. So I may try transplanting the young brassicas into the freezers mid-May, and let them grow a bit stronger, and past the prime flea beetle season, and put them into the ground as bigger plants in early to mid June. Too much transplanting can put a lot of stress on the plants, but if it is less stress than the pest damage, it may work out in our favor.

Finally a few sheets of glass on top to complete the cold-frames. Under a clear sky, it easily got to 35C (100F), and the temp can be regulated by sliding the glass sheets to leave vents. The day after planting, we got a snowstorm (another foot of snow!), and simply put the freezer lids over the top. It was holding at 3C (35F) with the lid on.

Harnessing the dogs

2009-03-27T12:02:00.003-04:00

It was a glorious +8C (45F) and sunny yesterday. The snow is slowly melting, and then freezing over at night, which makes it pretty easy to get around on top of the snow. So we got outside and took a tour around, searching for signs of spring.

Grass is amazing stuff, it's started growing under the snow, on top of the compost piles which are just beginning to peak out. Our first sighting of bonafide dirt and vegetation since December!

This is as close as we get to flowers this time of year, last year's evening primrose pods. But they are beautiful in their own way.

The larch are beginning to show some of the bright spring green of new growth.

Still, the most beautiful feature of the landscape is the snow itself. We had some light snow and wind this week, and it left ripples in the snow like sand on a beach. The melting snow even felt like wet sand under our feet, we could close our eyes with the bright sun and reflecting snow in our faces and take a no-hassle, zero-impact and entirely free vacation.
This one reminds me of an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture.

And then I couldn't help myself, I had to see how far away the garden is, so we got out the shovel. In the lowest spot, we have less than 2 feet to go! And and there's double digits and rain in the forecast for tomorrow! (50F) The soil is only frozen in chunks, so the frost has already started to come out of the ground.

To prolong our beautiful day outside, we got the dogs out to pull the sleigh around. We made some harnesses for them, and have been training them to pull a light sleigh. Partly to teach them to work, as they are the right age, and partly because they have so much energy, they pull our arms out on our longer walks. It took them a few times in the harnesses, pulling the empty sleigh to get the idea of pulling, but once they got used to it, the were jogging along, tails up and dog-grins on their faces. Animals like to know their purpose.

We had to get them in the right order too. First we tried the alpha male in the lead, and the female, who is second in dominance, in the rear. But the alpha male kept turning around, in mid run, to nip at the other dogs, and the female, in the rear, was pulling most of the weight. So we switched them around, and our female, Ruby, is an excellent lead dog, she leaps into the harness to get the sleigh going when I call her. And the alpha male, Blackie, is an excellent rear dog because he has the strongest herding instincts of the three and loves to keep the others in front of him, nipping at their heels. Buster, the middle dog, is the good natured follower, and would follow either of them around.
And now they are ready to pull a load, we gave them a couple of logs to pull down to the house. With the surface of the snow still fairly hard, they could easily pull a load of about 100 lbs, 500 feet down the field. Harnessing the dogs this time of year has been good for them, it settles them down and gives them something to learn. Next winter we hope to have some second-hand cross country skis, and harness the dogs up for skijoring. Ruby and Buster will no doubt be thrilled at this, but it will take some training to keep Blackie out in front of us, and not in the rear, herding us home!

Breaking open

2009-03-25T14:54:00.007-04:00

The world is not ending.
I do not see an end,
I see that we have destroyed
our way of life, and our home
is changing, beyond prediction or recognition.
The only curse upon us
is that we must watch it collapse,
watch the life support systems fail.
I watched my mother die
not of cancer,
but of the treatment of cancer,
though the tumor would have overwhelmed her,
in it's own time.
In trying to save her, we subtracted,
until her organs, or what remained,
could not possibly perform all of the functions
her body required.
In the end, I believe,
she died of a loss of hope,
finding no other way to escape death,
with pain and kidney failure
snapping at her heels, she let go.
Maybe it was the graceful ending,
maybe we will all die of broken hopes.

One thing I regretted, after she died,
after the flowers faded and the memorials
were spoken, I found that I did not know
who she was, deep inside of herself,
this woman who birthed me into the world.
There were so many pages of her story
ripped out, kept private, never spoken
aloud. Before it was too late
I never asked, and she never told,
what, above all, did she desire for her life,
what, above all, did she regret?
From that clear-sighted precipice before death, still
we lacked the courage
to unburden the artifacts of her life's work,
and stitch the unfinished pieces together, the things that she learned,
the life that she lived and left
behind her, whatever the end result. Instead
we let it lie, sequestered in her body, we let it die
with her, locked and encoded in her blood.
Her story was a key I regret
not seeking.

Who will come
to our collective bedside, as the oceans like kidneys
collapse, and what remains of the forest lungs
succumb to disease and fire? Here too,
we have subtracted, to claim another day, another year.
What desperate and futile measures
will we attempt, sequestering the truth,
bioengineering the manipulated results of our industrial experiment,
to preserve ourselves, to salvage our way of life
for the few? Should we not
gracefully break upon the hard kernel
of our hopes, and let go of this earth
for ourselves? Is this not
the time to turn within, to dredge
our hearts, revive our spirits,
and confess to the next generation,
to those who will inherit the consequences
of our cumulative actions, our mistakes,
our deepest unfulfilled desires,
the simple truths we all knew as children,
but denied for fear, greed or fame?

Otherwise, what will remain
of another civilization fallen to ruins?
If we leave this part of the story untold,
will there be enough left behind,
scattered among abandoned artifacts
for the future generations of an unrecognizable
earth to pick up, rethread, and carry
forward the tapestry of our human inheritance?
Not what we accumulated,
but what we learned,
and how we loved.

by Freija Fritillary

Promises

2009-03-21T15:25:00.003-04:00

We celebrate the re-appearance of
small things:
rain,
fresh milk steaming in a pail,
a perfectly formed rose-brown egg
in the nesting box,
robins and dark-eyed juncos,
spring's first sunrise
clear and bright,
melting frost through the eastward
faces of the kitchen windows.
This is the direction
spring comes
stealing quietly over morning's
hard frozen snow,
leaving small gifts
on the doorstep of our waking,
promises, still tightly wrapped buds,
patiently bidding their time.

by Freija Fritillary

Local resources

2009-03-20T14:50:00.004-04:00

We were graciously gifted this week with some treasures, to us anyway, another's throw-aways. We have been looking for a stationary bike like this, to experiment with bicycle-power generation. There's countless uses for a sturdy stationary bike like this, grinding flour, threshing grain, spinning butter... But the way that we currently do these chores is pretty efficient, and the bike would not necessarily be a great improvement in these areas. The most valuable part of this bike is the heavy wheel, it acts like a flywheel once the bike is in motion, and would work great as a generator. So we are on the lookout for a 15amp alternator and regulator, like you would find in a ride-on lawn mower. Our solar panel generates enough power when the sun is out, but on cloudy days, we run a gas generator for 30 minutes to charge up the batteries. So the pedal-power generator could conceivably be used to supplement our solar panel, and eliminate the gas generator, and the monthly cost of the gas. Usually, on sunny days, we are outside doing plenty of physical labor, but on cloudy/rainy days and in the winter, 30 minutes on the stationary bike would be welcome. So we'll post more when we get some parts to play with...

And from another neighbor came a collection of Mother Earth News from 1977-81, the good juicy peak years before all the adds. So you can guess what I've been doing this week...

There's an article with Helen and Scott Nearing in each magazine...

And oddities like this steam powered bicycle.... hmmm, well we've got plans for a wind-powered electric bike....

And we've been brainstorming about a solar oven, for the summer months when the wood cookstove is unbearable... of course, there's dozens of designs that Mother Earth tested and trialed through the years. This one looks good, we are going to modify it a bit, but we definitely need something that will focus the light up here, we really only have strong sun and heat for a few weeks in late July, early August.

And of course there's piles of recipes and interesting tidbits, lots of solar heat collectors and solar hot water designs... It's the original blogosphere. But to be honest, I find a lot more relevant and useful tips, designs, news and stories on my favorite blogs. But we are grateful for the gifts.

Out in the sun

2009-03-16T15:48:00.004-04:00

Everyone got out in the sun today. We have had some gorgeous sunny days this week, but it's just hanging at the freezing point in the daytime, and darn cold at night, -15 to -20C, so the snow is still not melting, 3 feet to go. I get a bit antsy for the snow to melt this time of year. Drives Mr. Fritillary crazy. I even went so far as digging a hole in the snow over the garden last spring, and measuring how deep it was every time it melted a bit! Good thing the birds start to show up again in April, and keep me busy. I started identifying the birds last spring with my Peterson guide and a spyglass. A birding pirate at the kitchen window! Mr. Fritillary keeps himself busy writing (besides fetching wood and carrying water), working on some essays on Postmodern Agrarianism. Patience is the name of the game now, soon enough the busy growing season will sweep aside all other pursuits.

The goats and horse stick to the packed snow in front of the barn. Pilgrim tested the snow a week ago, but he can't go far. You can tell it is Pilgrim's usual hang-out, that's not dirt you see! It is a bit of a sun catch, out of the wind, and he likes the company of the goats.

Check out that bag! Pretty good balance too. :)
Juniper has absolutely no fear of Pilgrim, even though this is the first horse she has ever hung around. She treats him like a big goat, and walks right underneath him, Pilgrim is a gentle giant with the goats. Poor fella can't wait to have a proper roll and romp out in the pasture.

Even miss kitty found a warm spot out of the wind for a snooze. Up in the bay window where the seedlings will be moving, hopefully she is not troublesome, we may have to put up a little electric fence to keep her out. She is cute, but not very smart. Promptly after this picture, and the bit of attention it got her, she rolled over to strike another pose and fell off! Wish I got that picture, hanging by one paw to the wood. Giggle. She did the same thing off the front steps this morning, not the brightest button.

Even the bikes got some sun... Winter is hard on them too, salty roads and rusty chains and all.
Snow bank at the end of the driveway is still about 6 feet tall. Mr. Fritillary cuts some stairs into the bank for access.
Sorry I haven't gotten many pics of the kids up here, they don't stay still long enough for a decent shot! Only when they are drinking milk. We got them drinking out of the bucket this week. Not something they take to on their own, always preferring the nipple. We don't like to starve them into drinking out of the bucket, so we submerge the nipple into the milk and they drink through it like a straw. Once they get the idea that there's milk down there, they figure out the rest.

Unfurling their leaves like banners

2009-03-13T11:52:00.004-04:00

It's that time of year for us. The sun is high in the sky, and the season is upon us, even if there is still three feet of snow on the ground, and -20C last night! I love watching the seedlings elbow up out of the soil. It is such a hopeful time of year. It is especially gratifying as I do more of my own seed saving. I am really impressed with the germination rate of my tomato and tomatillo seeds, just about all of them started nosing up on the morning of the 6th day.

I've yet to successfully save my own brassica seeds. There's a cabbage in cold storage to put back in the ground this spring, and some Winterbor kale heavily mulched under the snow, and I am just plain determined to beat the frost this year for some broccoli seeds. The red cabbage on the right is seed from 2005, they are a bit reluctant to wake up, time for some new seed.
These are our own spinach and lettuce seeds, and they came rocketing out of the soil on the 3rd day after planting, some of them got a bit leggy, they grow so fast! We don't use any lights for seed starting, so they get germinated behind the wood stove, and the moved up into the bay window we built for the seedlings. But some of the lettuces got up so fast, and I was still trying to germinate the rest behind the stove. Nothing stops them from racing toward the light, lessons in determination and resilience.

Every 3 Seconds

2009-03-09T15:04:00.007-04:00

Well, among today's international radio news headlines, after the news of Japan's lowest stock market level since 1983, and China's skyrocketing unemployment rate, and the Canadian Auto worker's concessions to avoid bankruptcy at GM, Barbie's 50th birthday made it as international news. It's pretty dire out there, and I think most of us are re-evaluating our plans and household economies to pull through the next few years. We are more grateful than ever that we have the ability and opportunity to grow our food and keep the pantry stocked. With our minds and hearts usually swimming with reports on the spike of world poverty and hunger, we would not normally give Barbie more than a passing thought. But a statistic caught my attention With one Barbie(R) doll sold every 3 seconds somewhere in the world, Barbie(R) remains the world's most popular doll and a powerhouse brand among girls of all ages.

I found it sadly ironic that Barbie's sales match the rate at which a child dies of poverty in our world. One child receives a toy, and one child dies for want.

"Sometimes, it breaks your heart, but you realize your guilt is only futile since you see the tear stain on her face, not your own. You look at the image you've made, and it breaks your heart again. You know that nearly half of all kids in this country are malnourished and stunted, but you, yourself remain nicely cushioned around the bones. You come from a country where people worry about getting fat, not malnutrition. So you stay. You want to help. The guilt remains, even after more than a year in this country. But the guilt soon begins to blur with responsibility. And then responsibility begins to blur with action." -quote from the photographer Wen-Yan King

It does break your heart, it breaks ours. But I love what this photographer says, guilt blurs into responsibility, and responsibility blurs into action. We try to take this responsibility into our hearts, and make decisions about the way that we live that can, we believe, make the world a better place for children to be born.

As much as the "bad news" crowds for space in our minds, we also see much talk and action around Social Responsibility. There are a lot of people working on these issues, and we are reaching out to make connections with them. Our little homestead has been a necessary step along that path, because we believe it is the strongest base from which to act. We are trying to reach a scale of subsistence that buys us back our time and resources, so that we can contribute more to resolving the devastating, heartbreaking state of our world. This is our approach, and there are as many paths and solutions, as there are beating hearts.

Sorry about the sad blog. Keep hope alive. Plant seeds. Encourage friends. Grow.