Cheater's Sourdough Bread

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.

Harvesting grains

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.

Fungal diseases in the garden

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

Growing small grains and seeds

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.

Chocolate and Collaboration

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

Garden Tour

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!

Writing a new story on the land

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.

Fiddleheads and other wild symphonies

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.

The golden egg

Eggs! Back on the menu! Our older layers quit mid-December, and our young flock would be ready to start laying eggs this spring. There are no other small farms around us who raise natural eggs, and instead of buying organic eggs from the grocery store, we figured we could go a few months without them. At first it challenged me in the baking department. Most of my dessert recipes call for at least one egg. But in my short life as a vegan, I ate plenty of delicious vegan cookies, so I knew it could be done. I tried my pumpkin cookie recipe without eggs, and they came out just fine, and I continued to experiment with substitutions like applesauce, and adding ingredients like poppy seed and dried blueberries, and spices such as corriander and cinnamon to give the desserts a more distinct flavor, and not just flour, sugar and fat. We missed eggs for breakfast, but oatmeal porridge is our favorite winter breakfast. After a few weeks, eggs were just a pleasant memory that we knew would reappear, like flowers and fresh greens. And the day finally came, two days in a row, an egg in the nesting box!

I cannot do justice to the flavor and savor of our fried egg breakfast this morning. The creamy texture of the yolk... yum, I love my eggs right on top of the toast.


The two hens that layed these eggs are 8 months old, we could have encouraged them to lay earlier with a light in the barn, but it is a cold time of year to start laying eggs, so we let them concentrate their feed on keeping warm and growing to full size, and knew that they would start laying when the light approaches 12 hours. There is another batch of hens just now 6 months old who should start laying eggs this month as well.

This picture was taken a few months ago, they are now grown to full size. This is our first home-incubated brood, we crossed a Plymouth Barred Rock rooster over the commercial laying hen, called Isa Brown, which is a cross between Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White. They came out with four distinct coloring, some more attractive than others, and had the vigour of hybrid crosses.

This rooster shows the characteristics of both parents, and even has some iridescent green feathers in his tail like the Rhode Island Red. The hens that look like the Barred Rock are just that, and do not have the red and green feathers. And there is a kind of White Barred Rock hen, the one who layed the first egg, who, to be honest, is not the most attractive of the bunch and looks a bit sooty. But she is the biggest hen, and won the prize for the golden egg.

We have been feeding our chickens our own wheat and rye, without any other protein supplement. Last year we ran into problems feeding soy to our chickens, they had underdeveloped organs, and did not gain weight. After doing some research, we decided to cut the soy out of the feed. The wheat and rye are 13-14% protein, and the pullets are growing well. With this mix, we may not get an egg a day on a pure grain diet, but when they are out on pasture, the protein will be supplemented in a more digestible form. This summer we will also be growing more peas and amaranth to add to the winter ration.

So, with eggs and milk back on the menu, I am revisiting old favorite recipes with a greater appreciation. I am also glad to know first-hand that resource rich foods like dairy, eggs and meat can be incorporated as seasonal foods, with a bit of substitution and creativity in the kitchen.