fast grow the weeds

On the killing season

September 4, 2010 by El

From the Class of 2010: Peaches (left, a roo) and Eagle (right, a pullet)

The wind is coming in strong puffs, and it’s bringing with it the smell of the lake. I’m not too happy about the task at hand. I am dry-plucking a chicken. A half-grown chicken, actually, a half-grown bantam…that’s practically no chicken at all as he probably only weighs a pound, a pound and a half. Four and twenty of them, yes, might just fit in a pie: I am holding him by his legs and I believe I have eaten bigger frog’s legs in my lifetime.

I had to put the guy out of his misery, you see. His foot had gotten stuck in the little fence surrounding our back yard garden, and his compatriots had pecked him into a stupor. I seriously doubted he’d recover from his head wound.

Poor guy. I know I am either grimacing or am biting my lip; I try to just relax and do what is needed before my husband and daughter get home. Poultry deaths aren’t easy, unless they’re expected.

It’s been a year of lots of birth and little death around here this year. Six turkey poults followed the original seventeen of this spring. (We kept three.) Twenty-eight chicks have hatched under various chicken mothers; of them, eight of those cute bantam babies died when their idiot bantam mother decided she needed her nest up on top of a box, and the chicks couldn’t reach it, dying of exposure in a 60-degree night. I walked in to the goat shed in the morning gloom and thought, who left these kleenex lying around, when it was little bantam bodies I was seeing on the straw. And then this little death in my hand: we’re left with twenty. Plus the twenty-five meat birds (Freedom Rangers, much overrated) and the five girls whose egg-eating habits have sealed their freezer fate…as you can see, exponentially, the poultry population explodes every summer here. And it recedes in the fall.

We’re keeping two laying hens out of the twenty home-hatched babies that remain. There are three female bantam chicks who might live another year too, depending on how generous I am feeling. All the home-grown chicks are amazingly colorful, but all the bantams have their father’s boring white plumage. With all of them, I stare and think “Who’s yer ma,” hearkening back to one of the putative definitions of Hoosier (i.e., one of the thing Indiana residents said in days of yore was this direct question of your parentage: who’s your ma, who’s your pa, who’s your folks?, who’syer, hoosier). Daddy is definitely known: he’s our handsome Black Sex Link boy Mary Ellen, and he’s lent speckles to every baby. All the chicks are named and cared for by our daughter, which is why I was hurrying in my grisly task.

Plucked, gutted, de-headed, de-footed; this little creature is reduced to nearly nothing. He’s crowed his last croaking adolescent crow. I pluck the last of his down off his waxy skin, hose him off and bag him up for the fridge.

Posted in chickens, etc., death | 6 Comments »

On a quick end to the canning season

August 30, 2010 by El

Look at all that empty space! It makes me so happy!

For the first time ever, I have all my major canning* done before 1 September.

And even more importantly, I have done less of it than in years past. What is up with that? Shouldn’t I be, you know, squirreling away as many canned goodies as I am able for the future? The answer I am coming up with is “No, not necessarily.”

I suppose a bit of background needed for this seemingly contrary stand. One, I have assessed with the years what it is exactly we eat out of the canned goods and have adjusted accordingly. Pickles are virtually nonexistent, for one example, and I will never again can beet greens for myself, as I ate them only grudgingly. Two, I began to do a lot more root cellaring of certain vegetables, but even that has waned in the last couple of years to just potatoes, apples and onions. And three, most importantly, I am now growing food year-round. And considering the nutritional superiority of fresh produce over the canned stuff, I feel less compelled to run to the basement for a jar than to grab a basket and go harvest something for dinner.

The majority of the jars you see on those shelves above, then, are convenience items needed to put together a quick meal. The bottom shelf holds stocks and beans and bean soups. The next shelf up holds salsas, chutneys, and mustards: these will continue to be filled as I find the time. All of the second shelf down from the top is tomatoes and tomato products, from juices on the left progressing to sauce to sauce with stuff to ratatouille and glut sauce to barbecue sauce and ketchup. The top shelf is fruits to butters to jam.

And the holes in the shelves? It’s not apple season yet so one of those shelves is destined to hold apple sauce. And, hah, the bottom-most shelf is either going to hold bottles of home-bottled wine(!) or a rack for cheese-curing later this fall. Whee!

*I only use a pressure canner, which is how I can get away with having chicken stock and bean salsas and the like. And, produce-wise, the freezer only holds fruits, chevre and meat now, no veggies at all.

Posted in food, sweat | 23 Comments »

On a certain kind of crazy

August 23, 2010 by El

Dent corn, she sure do grow tall: the girl is 4′-2″…these now-tasseling stalks are easily three times her height.

But the calico and blues top out at 5′ or so.

This time of year, I think having something like A.D.D. or O.C.D. is actually helpful.

I have a dear friend who’s a shrink…a good friend to have, incidentally, much like friends who make their own food or like to repair cars or computer glitches. Our discussions of certain-things-wrong-with-brains include many “disorders” that actually serve some purpose. And it’s at this time of the year when I have exactly eight food-processing functions going on in the kitchen right now that I think having a piece of crazy might be helpful. (I haven’t held up a mirror to myself lately so maybe I am already a bit nuts, and it’s already working.)

Looking for another five-pound weight to throw down on top of the parmesan cheese I am pressing, I realize the half-gallon jar of fermenting beets, sitting nobly off by itself, would do the job. So on it goes, fitting snugly into the press, and lo, those other weights set nicely on its top.

Funky smells, sticky floors, bubbling pots, a full counter of canned jars and a sink full of drying dishes: It’s August all right. Every morning and evening is taken up, somehow, with some form of food preparation. There’s other preparation that is happening daily too: the freezer birds (turkey and chicken) need twice daily care, the egg birds need love, the goat needs milking, the weeds need pulling…and then there’s the harvests. It’s a bit maddening.

For those of you who think I somehow squeeze more in my days than most: I don’t quite know if I do. I know I don’t sit down much except during working hours! And I do go to bed really early (mainly to read) wherein I am in bed by 9:00, then up by 6.

Boundless energy? I doubt it. Just a serious seasonal case of put-it-away-for-later-itis!

Posted in food | 16 Comments »

On working vacations

August 16, 2010 by El

The Mother of All Colanders is holding four pounds of elderberries. Fortuitously, the wine recipe I used had called for exactly four pounds of berries. And yes, it is necessary to wear gloves when harvesting and destemming them; they are messy!

When you read this, my one full week of vacation will have ended and my heinie will be warming my work seat. Sigh.

Of course my vacations involve no vacating, nor really any sitting at all. And I almost never do take a whole week off: I just usually dribble the two-week allotment out over the course of the year, granting myself a three- or four-day weekend here and there or as Tom’s art junkets require. This year was different. We did some structural work to one of our outbuildings and needed a full week to do it.

Pictured with some of its victims

It’s been years since I got out my Sawzall (reciprocating saw). Nothing satisfies more than the polite buzz of that saw tearing through something: without the plaintive whine of the cordless saw, the zip-zip of the chop saw or the quasi-authoritative whir of the table saw, the Sawzall just gets the job done, quietly, with spooky effectiveness. Now I am wondering if it will again be years before it’s put to use.

Structural crap aside, I did practically wear out the knees of my work pants while weeding the garden paths. It’s been such a year (you know the ones) wherein one must shuck all unnecessary nonsense in order to simply keep the cogs of the machine well-oiled and turning, and this summer it meant I couldn’t attend to the garden paths as I would like. (Of course, had I had the 25 yards of woodchips required to cover those paths, weeds would not be a problem, but, well, it’s an off-year for the tree-cutting crews around here.) The garden beds themselves, though, of course are weed-free; a girl needs her standards.

Princess of Pigweed, I would say to myself while creeping on those knees. Professor of Plantain, Duchess of Dandelion. Shepherdess of Sheep’s Sorrel, Priestess of Purslane, Lady of Lambs’ Quarters: the irony that the majority of the weeds I was pulling were edible was not lost on me. Bursar of Burdock, Contessa of (inedible) Crabgrass. Luckily, the week had been a wet one, and the weeds came out in clumps, few tools required. And as I pulled, I marveled yet again at how strong my old arms and back remain. I can do this for another fifty years, I thought, which would bring me to 95, sweaty and muddy and happy; more wrinkled, more gray. I am sure lifting beams and wrangling posts and heaving rafters won’t be in my future fifty years from now, but…milking a goat and pulling some path weeds? Not a problem, no sir.

Posted in sweat | 15 Comments »

On almost-tomato-season plus the masonry oven

August 9, 2010 by El

The makings of Glut sauce*(including the first ripe extremely cat-faced Brandywine) plus a bit more for peach salsa

It’s not quite full season yet with the tomatoes: we’ve mostly got the little guys going (I frankly no longer bother with cherry tomatoes) and some plums…but it’s COMING. Goodness is it ever.

Strangely, I am way ahead of the game with the peppers, eggplant and okra. Tomatoes are usually the herald of the family solanaceae, they’re the first ones reddening up and driving me crazy but this is a great year for the peppers and, especially, eggplant. I am beginning to wonder if it’s just a good year all around or if it’s because all of these plants are ones that I have saved from good-looking parent plants over the last couple of years. A mystery.

I wake up ridiculously early on Thursdays (4:00!). Thursdays have become my Cook Everything Possible In Loven And Then Eat It All Until Next Thursday day. It’s a bit of a marathon, but then again, I am cooking for (potentially) a week, and cooking bread loaves to sell…of course it’s arduous. But in the oven, in order of its hotness, goes

Caramelization session in the hot coals: 2 cast-iron skillets with some chopped veg like onions in one pan, zucchini in the other; this requires some frequent stirring. It cooks from the top and the bottom. The veg go into bread salads, or frittatas, or on pasta; whatever, it’s cooked! and with a woodsy flavor punch!
Push the coals back and then bake pizzas/focaccias (2 per session, turned around 3x in front of the hot flames)
The fire burns way down. Tom scrapes it out, mops the floor, closes the door to equalize the oven’s hot spots. About an hour later, I now fill the oven with the massive bread and roast chicken baking (bread takes 1/2 hour, chicken closer to an hour)
Remove the bread, leave the chicken in there and set a skillet full of frittata, individual potatoes (pierced with a fork, set on the floor), soaked/parboiled beans and/or rice and baked dessert (custard, souffle, etc.) and start on roasting things overnight like the glut sauce or juicy peaches. Later in the season I will have 2-3 steam table pans* full of tomatoes cooking overnight (the temp. goes from about 200 down to 150 or so)
Dinner happens (if we’re not too stuffed with pizza) when we pull the chicken out. I made a cold veg salad the day before.
Remove things by doneness, check temperature, and leave the glut sauce and peaches in there to cook overnight. Also overnight, in goes a glass casserole filled with a cultured milk product (buttermilk, kefir) that…cooks all night to become quark or kefir cheese. The heat separates the curds from the whey; this lovely sweet tasting caramelized grainy cheese, then, becomes one of my favorite things to spread on my morning toast.

It’s fun! And…exhausting! But heck, no cooking the rest of the week…unless we’d like to, of course.

* don’t waste your money on buying a spendy turkey roasting pan this year; 4″ or 6″ deep stainless steel steamer pans will work quite well. Buy them thick enough and they completely take the heat of my oven, too. Lasagna, dehydrating veggies, etc. etc. etc.!

Posted in masonry oven | 13 Comments »

On doing what you can, canning what you do

August 2, 2010 by El

The jam convention thusfar: roasted garlic, apricot, strawberry, three berry (strawberry, cherry, raspberry), and some culturing buttermilk on the kitchen counter

Gosh: who knew taxes were the third rail of garden blogging? What social scab shall I pick next: Capital punishment? Religion, maybe?

In all seriousness, these last two posts have been fun? something for me to think about, and I enjoyed your responses to them. All I am really trying to say in both is “do what you can, can what you do,” and hopefully others can benefit from your home-grown goodness too. So many of our problems are beyond our control. Our weeds (mostly) and our own small steps toward self-sufficiency and teaching and wide-eyed learning are definitely in our control. So, in the Hebrew then, amen: meaning, so be it. Do what you can.

And it is with wide-eyed wonderment that my old eyes see things when I go through the gardens or henyard accompanied by a small-ish child. Even without such a companion, the garden world is plenty inspiring. Add a goat in milk and the process of changing that milk into food and I am agog, and pleased. Pleased, and worried, as there is so much! This brand-new month of August hangs heavy with the fecundity of the farm: the babies, the leaves, the weeds, some bugs and all that food!! Do you have enough time to deal with it all and still sleep at night?

There’s wide-eyed, and there’s wild eyed. Unbelievably, our flightiest chicken, Pauline, is now a mom. Her chick brings the chick total to 38 for the year.

Mama Pauline with Jellybean

Granted, it’s new for us, Tomato Season. It’s only Sunday that there were enough tomatoes to harvest for dinner. Most of gardening and farm-type living is doing this exact thing: treading water until the deluge. The weeds can be attended to now, but soon, they can wait. And then, all that canning. And then, it ends.

Amen. And let us feast.

The first tomato dish is probably also the easiest: dump hot pasta atop finely chopped garlic, onions, tomatoes and torn basil. Add olive oil and salt and pepper, splash of Balsamic, then mangia.

Posted in sweat | 17 Comments »

Let’s continue that last blog post conversation, shall we?

July 26, 2010 by El

Is there anything cuter than a bowl full of baby bantams?

Many, many good points and questions were brought up in the comments section of my last post on the cottage industry law that recently took effect in Michigan. The legality of home-baked, home-produced goods was but one facet of the conversation, with bartering, taxes, and general farm-based living issues wrapped up in it too.

So again, the obvious. I wouldn’t mind being taxed on my egg money, not at all, which is why my CPA knows about the contents of my farm earnings jar. My point in the last post is that the farm’s output has repeatedly exceeded the consumption pattern of its residents. What to do with this excess? I could bank it against a cold and rainy day, and do. I could give it away to the food shelves, but I have been discouraged from doing so: the ones in town don’t want anything that’s not already in a tin can or box, thanks. I grow and can things for my daughter’s school. I could give it away to friends and relatives and generally, this has been my operational model. But my friends think they’re taking advantage of the bounty, especially now that there’s a high-value, rare item involved (goat’s milk products). Thus, the filling jar.

Let me first make a personal state-of-the-homestead/farmer statement. I am avowedly on the left side of the political spectrum, and I surely do not think I am taxed enough. In my particular worldview, I am taxed little and get little in return. Locally, our property taxes are a pittance, and I suppose that grants us the pittance we receive: our roads are plowed and paved, and we have 911 service if we can afford to have a telephone. One example: Despite the hefty share they receive from local and state funding, the public schools in my area are awful. Every referendum on an increase in millage (basically a percentage increase to pay for school “improvements” based upon property taxes) has gone down in flames. I consider this short-sighted, crass, and anti-community, and really a part of a larger social problem that is frankly beyond the scope of this blog post. (And no, my daughter is not in public school, and won’t be: this in no way affects my opinion on paying for those children who are.) But the (non)value of schools is an illustration of my larger point. If we don’t care for school-aged non-tax-paying children, we’re probably not caring much for many others in my community. But hey! What about them low property taxes?

Bringing this one-sided conversation from this particular person to the general readership. The bigger picture is how do you, dear reader, take the next step in your own little homemade-food world? If you live in Michigan, the steps for putting up a tent in a farmer’s market are now a lot clearer. Those cookies everyone raves about? Wrap them up, list the potential allergens, the ingredients in descending order, your home phone and address and you can legally sell them, if you’re so inclined! Likewise your home-decanted vinegars, dried herbal teas, killer pickles, jewel-toned fruit jams and more can be legally sold. Grow enough vegetables, you can start a CSA along with your Saturday stall. The world is your oyster, or at least your zebra mussel.

If, however, someone were to ask me the course I would chart to, say, move from city to country and make a livable wage off the products of one’s labors, I would snarkily ask to see their trust fund disbursements. It’s more than a gamble, frankly, and there’s a lot of work and head-banging ahead of you. For the foreseeable future, one needs off-farm income to make a go at this kind of life. I feel I am in good company (Wendell Berry, Gene Logsdon, Barbara Kingsolver) when I say this. You can raise as many heirloom vegetables, meat animals, and make as many artisan cheeses and wool products as you would like to sell but it will in all likelihood be a losing venture, economically.

I am still trying to ride the razor of the livelihood/lifestyle that is what it is that I do. I like producing food because I like CONSUMING food. I like to share; so do others, which is why barter is fun. I like the idea that I could be a bigger part of something should the lights go out and my neighborhood worries about its food supply. I like to teach. Money is in no way a motivation for me mainly because I am as yet secure in my off-farm income. This cottage food industry bill that has become law is a boon to me, should I really fire up the Loven more than once a week, or if I should decide to can more veg than we consume.

My point to all of this: For me, it is not about the money, and so far has not been. It’s about the life, and about sharing that life with others. We moved here knowing we’d make a third of our city income. That income still stands, but the quality of our life has vastly improved, of which diet is the first obvious part. Am I saying “follow me”? No, not unless you’re already so inclined.

But hey: those taxes are sure low.

Okay, so it’s not quite a full bowl.

Posted in soapbox | 22 Comments »

On the informal economy

July 19, 2010 by El

Our governor signed a cottage industry farm bill last week! No longer are small food vendors required to be licensed and have commercial kitchens installed in order to produce and sell their home-baked wares: anything that can sit on a counter, basically, like pies, breads, granola, jam, jellies, pickles, etc. can now be legally made in Michigan. I foresee an explosion of home-baked goodness available then for those who can’t or don’t home-bake. The restrictions are simple. Label what’s in it, label where it came from (your home’s name and address), and sell less than $15,000 a year in goods.

Things like dried herbs, teas, and tinctures are likewise covered in this bill. A second bill regarding honey and maple syrup are soon to be passed and signed.

These bills (and now law) make me happy. Granted, I always have been skirting a bit shy of the law in that what baked goods I have sold I sold before this law took effect. Likewise, I illegally sell my milk products to friends. I have made it quite clear to my friends that we’re running afoul of the law, but… the sheer quantity and (frankly) tastiness of the cheeses and kefir and yogurt have been their own kind of advertisement. You have it at my house, you want it, end of story. With hope, Michigan will come around and write a law stating that raw milk products can be sold (outside a herd share agreement, that is).

Money only seems to work with those with nothing to trade

I have been quite paranoid too about this influx of cash. Pin money, egg money, funny money… Yes it sits in a jar. Yes my accountant knows about it. I withdraw cash for things like new animals or delivery of hay or straw…and I leave a tally of what is taken out. In general the goat has paid for herself and (at this point) 75% of her care. Give me another two months and she’s a free animal. The cheese/cultured milk products have paid for the capital outlay of the cheese making equipment and the cultures. And the products of purchasing a pregnant goat: I’ve made a very even trade of three wethers (neutered baby boy goats) for one doeling…our new girl, Cricket.

Standing partially still for a change

This is a more typical picture

The egg chickens, by comparison, have never paid for themselves. (The meat birds are not sold; we consume all of them ourselves…this is far cheaper than purchasing meat chickens of similar quality.) I would expect the turkey I am raising for a friend to pay for himself. And like the bunnies, the 14 surviving turkey poults were all sold or traded.

So I am now into farm barter. I got into a heated discussion recently with the whole idea of barter with a friend of mine. Aren’t you cheating the government? he contended. The sale of, say, a goat is not taxed or frankly worried about by the state of Michigan, I replied; it’s the same as if I sold an ATV or a lawn tractor that I had. I suppose it is considered on-farm income, but then, I don’t list “farm” anywhere on my taxes. But goodness if you think about what we’ve sunk into the living-on-a-farm project…we’re in no way being compensated by any government for living the life that we do. I told him it’s a false way of thinking of things. Indeed, I told him, I don’t give my architectural services away for free: if I do volunteer, I actually fill out a form saying so. So farming is not a professional goal of mine. That money has entered into the equation is…not something that makes me entirely comfortable. It helps the bottom line, surely, and helps my husband come along for the ride but…it was not a goal.

It’s odd. I get requests from friends asking, basically, how much more work would it really be for you to bust up another half acre and supply them with vegetables year-round too? It appears the one CSA that supplies our town friends with victuals has come waaaay down in quantity/quality (and I have seen it and agree). They like what we do here and buy my $5/gal. bags of salad. If I look at things THAT way, the greenhouses have paid for themselves many times over.

I am in no way saying we’re a model for a way to earn a living. But in this post I am saying that with some little effort greater than what you already produce, you might be able to produce for other households too. I think that without even the monetary reward you can feel good enough to grow and to make things for others: talk about appreciation! And even if money doesn’t change hands (it often does not with mine), you may be able to be recompensed with services. I traded four turkeys for horseback riding lessons for the girl. That’s so much more enjoyable than money in a quart jar.

Bell and Cricket out doing what they do as the resident Poison Ivy and Bramble Eradication Crew. Cricket was born toward the end of April, and Bell is on the big side for an American Alpine. Bell’s coloring is called sundgau and Cricket’s chamoisee.

Posted in dairy goats, fermentation, sweat | 28 Comments »

How exciting! The world thinks I am hard up in Wales!

July 14, 2010 by El

Penny is barking mad!

Sorry all. I am not quite sure what happened but my gmail account has been compromised. I can’t access it and won’t be able to do so for 24 hours or so. Then, well, we’ll see what damage has been done.

Spooky stuff! My apologies. Even when you have high firewalls, I guess it doesn’t always work. I have no contacts in that email account; the virus seems to have contacted everyone through dint of my emailing or replying to people via that account.

Most assuredly, I am still whiling away the days here in Michigan. Here’s our beach two nights ago.

Posted in sweat | 27 Comments »

On new greenhouses, part two

July 12, 2010 by El

The right side rolls up, allowing more ventilation in the summer. The ends are open and will get plastic once it gets cold.

Finally: I got the plastic up on my mom’s greenhouse recently.

I am beginning to question my sanity in late winter. Really. It’s usually in March that I crazily, stupidly commit to all sorts of extracurricular projects, of which my mother’s new greenhouse was but one. Granted of all of them this one taskoid took the least of my time but it hung the heaviest as my mother lives 50 miles away…so it’s not a quick trip to go fix things up for her. Plus, it’s for my mother, and I said I would do it.

It didn’t help that the greenhouse company shipped us the wrong size of plastic. Oops. That was one wasted day.

Drapery, this time with the correct size

Anyway, here it is. She’s a bit of a fool for tomatoes so we have them fairly crowded in there. The soil is topsoil carted in from down the road that’s heavily mixed with mushroom compost. (This is sand we’re building on, after all.)

Using those dipped gloves (clean AND new) really helps get a grip. This is the hold-down system for the plastic. It’s a small channel screwed to the two middle hoops into which I fasten this “wiggle wire.” It helps to have two people do this: one pulls the plastic, the other wrangling the wire. But I did it solo, so… And the two ends have a sandwich of two 1×2 furring strips. These were left to soak in a tarp for a few days (the better to bend and hold their shape) then I tapped the bottom strips to accept the metal-tapping screws. The plastic gets stapled to it, the top strips then screwed to the bottom one with wood screws. Voila. The top one can be unscrewed then to accept the side plastic this fall.

The deer are voracious and bold here too so I put chicken wire over the two open ends and the area below the roll-up side. The ends and side will be open until the nights begin to go frosty. We hope to take down one towering but rather anemic-looking oak in the side yard to give her a lot more sun.

Ta-daaa! One more thing struck off the list.

Posted in greenhouses | 16 Comments »

On rocket stoves

July 5, 2010 by El

The outdoor cooking kitchen is complete! L-R: New built-in table, Loven, rocket stove. Oh, and camera-shy Penny.

I learned many things at the side of my chef friend Catharine. The most important thing I learned is “Heat is heat.”

Sure, we can dream of having zoomy gas-fired indoor ranges with ultimate control. In a past life and if I were a cajillionaire and there was no such thing as global warming (that’s a lot of “ifs”) I might gladly install an Aga or–better–a Lacanche in my kitchen; surely, I would have to reinforce the floor to hold one. But really, heat IS heat. Catharine cooked the most fantastic meals on the humblest of kitchen stoves. And I left my spendy red-knobbed range back in Minneapolis: now I bang pots on a 1967 electric Hotpoint range (maybe $100 when it was new). It’s not the equipment, therefore, it’s the will.

Emilie is terribly curious about the hole I have dug for the slab.

And heat. With experimentation, one can cook everything in our outdoor kitchen. The rocket stove is truly third world technology and likewise was the simplest thing to build: I used 66 bricks, one 24″ long, 4″ diameter stove flue, one 4″ flue elbow, one bag of concrete and one and a half bags of mortar (as I am a horrible mason; a good one would’ve built it with one bag). I already had the grill grate, and for a lid I purchased the 16″x16″ red concrete patio paver…this little stove cost me a whopping $65 with had-boughten materials. Building it stretched two days: concrete slab on day one, oven chimney on day two, about five total hours of my time.

New potatoes coming up

Like the masonry oven, there is a learning curve (where ISN’T there a learning curve) but this isn’t a steep hill to climb. It uses skinny waste wood too like all that stuff that falls from your trees after a storm. Get out your cast-iron skillets, your big boiling pots. Use it like a barbecue. It’s chow time!

And it’s even a fire I can set that stays lit!

Notes in the comments!

Posted in masonry oven | 19 Comments »

On weather gambling

June 28, 2010 by El

I was asked by a far-away friend how the gardening year has been so far. “Four words,” I said. “It’s a no-hose year.”

Not full power but coming close. See this post for what it looked like two months ago.

Wet. Sunny. Hot. Wet. Sunny. Hot. There’s not been much that has been unpredictable, weather-wise, in the late spring/early summer around here.

This certainly isn’t anything to complain about. No, really; the last year we had insane amounts of rain is the last one to which I can directly compare, and I will take this year, thanks. And I am much happier with the garden’s reaction to this rain now. My sweat has turned into equity.

You see, in 2007, we had lots of rain. We’d been here for a year and a half and thus had only two summers’ worth of observation and (more importantly) soil and land improvement under my belt. I lost a whole flotilla of crops that summer due to the unending drip-drop…everything got hit. Badly hit. Drowned roots = dead plants, see; gone were my hopes of complete veg self-sufficiency…that year was my first attempt. So that fall I trenched and installed perforated drain pipe around the garden (300 or so feet of the stuff, and through clay, too) and I have consistently added more and more vegetative matter to the existing outdoor beds. It’s helped, a lot. The plants are healthier and the growing ground is less wet.

Here’s something new: black garbanzo beans

But a little less rain would help things along! Every spring, I do actually till two small areas of my garden: these zones are too big for raised beds but wonderful for the sprawl that is The Winter Squash Vine. This year, though, no dice. Can’t till in wet clay, and it never goes longer than two days without rain. So it looks like I will have to forego another ginormous winter squash harvest…which is just as well considering how unloved that fruit becomes in our household come January. Likewise, I have seeded the outdoor root crops three times now, which are some truly awful gambling odds. I don’t like to gamble with my carrots, man! Luckily, July is around the corner so indoor carrot season is fast approaching.

Purple Peruvian fingerling potato flower

Interestingly, I read a recent article about my extension service’s adoption of greenhouses (high hoops, hoop houses) in my area for…fruit growing. Really. This shouldn’t surprise me as I live in The Fruit Belt but I can definitely see the advantage of growing cherry trees under cover here. Doesn’t that sound…odd? It makes sense though. Wet/Sunny/Hot/Repeat means your cherries are going to explode on the branch, their roots are taking up too much water. Modulate the water, the wind, the bugs, the birds, and the temperature swings and indeed these plastic bubbles will grow fruit just as easily as they grow veg.

Anyway, I look back at 2007 and realize it too was the year we put up our first greenhouse. With that greenhouse went my worries about weather extremes…and up shot my odds for veg self-sufficiency. You wanna improve your own odds?

You know what I am going to say, don’t you?

It’s great for drying things, for extending your seed-saving efforts, and of course for many different kinds of veggies and herbs

Posted in greenhouses, weather | 19 Comments »

On milk season

June 16, 2010 by El

Cheese: Milk’s leap toward immortality –Clifton Fadiman

Post-milking, pre-gardening, wake-up-and-take-the-edge-off early breakfast: coffee and camembert on a toasted oatmeal/flaxseed sourdough ciabatta

I have detected a pattern with every new project I take on: I go through a period of anticipatory excitement, then of intense freak-out, then I relax somewhat, and then I wonder what I did before said project entered my life.

The most obvious project in my life that follows this pattern–and one that would be familiar to many of you–is parenthood. Owning a milking animal is neither as hard nor as long-term, but indeed, I went through these exact same steps. I’m happy to let you know I am in the “what did I do (with all my time, mainly) before I had a goat?” Freak-out moments aside, it’s been a fun endeavor.

It’s true what they say about dairy folk. We are early to bed and early to rise…the first time in my life that I have ever been so inclined. And I get up excited and fresh and ready to start the day! Highly annoying, it’s true; luckily, I wake up a good two hours before anyone else does so I don’t have anyone to offend. But a part of every one of my days is devoted to milk and its management.

Lovely fluff in the strainer: our dog is the lucky recipient of the foam

Making cheese has been a huge part of the “fun” of this new project. I make cheese about three days* a week. I devote one day of these three to take on one new aged and/or procedurally difficult cheese. The other two days’ cheesemaking are usually devoted to making feta (our daughter is a Feta Fool) or to the easy-peasy kinds like a chevre, an unaged pressed cheese, or ricotta or paneer/queso fresco. Ricotta and paneer and queso fresco aren’t technically cheeses** (did you know that?) but still, that’s what I make. And I make a weekly rotation of buttermilk and yogurt and sour cream…the first two can also be used as cultures for the above cheeses and the last one is because I selfishly love sour cream. And what with all the eggs around here, ice cream, custards, puddings are happening. Let’s just say I am not getting thinner with my new hobby.

Haloumi atop salt at left and feta at right: time these things well, and you’ll have a new cheese per week

Most cheeses excepting the fresh kinds require a long aging process. In other words, for many of them, it will be months (months!!) before one can even taste them. Talk about slow food! Some are much slower than others. Parmesan will take a year. Blue cheese, up to a year. Cheddar, brick, and colby, six months plus. Brie and Camembert, six weeks. Feta, a month. This is not a hobby for those bent on instant gratification. Gratification, though, why yes.

Our goat, however: Having triplets and then producing all this wonderful white stuff has taken quite a lot out of her. I do remember this with my own breast-feeding days: I could eat for three, and often did, yet the pounds kept coming off…let’s just say that’s not a good thing if you’re a skinny goat. So I am slowly stepping back the milking to once a day. This is a win-win: she’s not stressed and can put the weight back on, I am not stressed and I’ve got more time to weed those gardens. The milk quantity should reduce further too. At the top, I was getting almost two gallons a day. I would be quite happy with 3/4 of a gallon. Considering that she potentially can be milked for a year and a half or longer, that’s still a lot of milk. Lucky us.

*Not all day obviously. The process starts with the morning’s milk and usually ends around dinnertime, say, for a chevre. They’re pressed or hung to dry. Some are heated somewhere in there; some are inoculated with other molds and good beasties, some require lots more of your time and some require nearly none. It’s a big world, cheese.

**Cheese snobs tend to categorize according to technique. It’s a cheese if the milk has been subjected to an enzymatic action and/or lactic acid fermentation; it’s not if it’s made by simply acidifying (via vinegar or lemon juice) the milk as these three are. The most common enzymatic action used to make cheese is by using rennet, a derivative found in one of the four stomachs of nursing ruminants (calves, kids or lambs) which contains the enzyme protease that helps a nursling break down and digest milk solids. There are other non-stomach rennets out there, some derived from plants or molds with coagulant properties. There’s even a genetically engineered rennet available. Me, I use both vegetative and stomach-based rennets, both work, but there’s a taste difference in some cheesses. And lactic acid fermentation: quickly, this is the aging process all milk and milk products and even pickles and kimchi and sauerkraut undergo with time.

Blue cheese, molding up nicely

Posted in dairy goats, fermentation | 10 Comments »

All hail Prometheus!

June 14, 2010 by El

It’s so warm!

It is with much rejoicing and carrying-on that I announce the maiden burning of our Loven (wood-fired masonry oven).

Whee! Of course I paid homage to Prometheus, Hestia, Brigid and Haphaestos: mortal and immortal tenders of flame. The patron saint of bricklayers and masons (St. Stephen) and architects (the apostle Thomas) got their due. While I was at it I thanked the patron saints of bakers (St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Nicholas), winemakers (St. Martin of Tours) and farmers (St. Isidore) and gardeners (St. Fiacre). It was quite a crowd: I invoked them all by tossing my flour onto the hot floor of the oven and saying a simple “thanks a lot!” to the whole lot. Grazie!

In reality, it was just my family here to celebrate. First out of the oven: two pizzas, with our cheese and herbs and veg. Followed quickly by four loaves of sourdough bread (I have a new levain and love it), then in went one small pot of lentils with homemade chix sausage/sage and one roasting chicken, cooked simultaneously. The oven cooled and I set in it a quick clafouti with local sweet cherries (our milk and eggs) and then, overnight, I let the oven cool completely and roast out some of our new fresh garlic for future garlic jelly.

Watch the smoke! As you can see, it’s still a construction zone, but…we’ve got a certificate of occupancy so we’re fired up and functional

I can tell I am going to have a LOT of fun with my new toy.

Posted in masonry oven | 22 Comments »

On garlic

June 7, 2010 by El

German Hardy garlic from bulbs purchased (ostensibly as food) from NYC’s Union Square Farmer’s Market about 3 years ago. Yes, my suitcase was fairly stinky. This is what I look for when it’s nearing harvest: bottom 3-5 leaves browned and an overall “weary” look to the plant. I should note, though, that not all my plants have reached this stage, even if I planted them at the same time last November. The New Year’s Day cloves for example won’t be ready for another month or more. I dry them for a week or two on screens spanning the beds in the greenhouses.

What is it about this home-grown crop that makes a gardener foolishly go on a quest of The Perfect Bulb? It turns us otherwise carefree folk into obsessive Mother Hens, clucking and agonizing amongst the fronds as to is it big yet? is it as big as it will get? what if I pick it too early?

That portion of the garden is somehow sacrosanct, stored-food-wise. Such flavor packed into these husk-wrapped clumps, such promise of future meals changed from “meh” to “heeeyyy!” And most gardeners, once they try growing garlic, do realize that The Perfect(ly Large) Bulb is really just a goal, not a year-to-year reality. Or if they do grow plenty of large ones, they realize there’s no way they’ll use them up before they go sprouty and sulfurous and gross. In other words, most gardeners who grow garlic are pursuing an idea.

They also probably have long memories. Many are the February days when I am stuck peeling the tiniest of cloves for our meals from the tiniest of heads, those heads that I *saved* for this purpose. Yes, it’s then I get wistful for the “idea” of Perfect Bulb garlic.

But back to this quest. There is nothing at all wrong with wanting large, beautiful heads of garlic grown on your own patch of earth. And those in the know do know it often takes years to procure, cultivate, and harvest those varieties that will perform the best for their portion of the planet. It’s a fun quest, actually; where would we be without garlic?

She’s going on a snipe scape hunt. She’s 4′-2″ so this gives you an indication about how tall the plants can get in the greenhouses. They’re planted in rows of 6, 6″ apart, in rows 6″ apart so…72 bulbs per bed

My problem with this pursuit is that like all noble journeys (think Odysseus, think Jason, think Captain Ahab) sometimes the pilgrim brooks no detours, and more’s the pity. There is something rather…unattractive about single-mindedness in pursuit of a goal, after all. Life is a journey; so, too, should your garlic-growing be. Don’t reserve them ALL for a final harvest. Green garlic is a gorgeous, fleeting thing: before forming a bulb, the stem and end can be eaten like a gigantic scallion, only better. It’s not bitter, it slices easily, and you can use most of the neck right up to the leaves. Scapes of course are the fun pre-harvest benefit of growing hard-neck garlic: these topset stalks are a great addition to any item in a wok or a saute pan, and I often use the smaller ones coined into the bottom of a bowl of salad, topping a soup, or boiled in with some of the last potatoes for a final mash. Terribly versatile, said scapes. It’s a gardener’s reparation for the fact that hardneck garlic does not store well.

Scapes are pretty, too.

But don’t get all snooty and think you can’t plant the smaller cloves of garlic. I often plant the end of a bed with them in very early spring. Using them green or even all bulbed up: this is the bed I raid when making my own version of green goddess or ranch/buttermilk dressing. Who cares how big they are when it’s their flavor you are after.

Outside, I have a bed of those small annoyingly sprouted cloves. I planted these in late February. The center clump, however, has been in this bed for years.

All I am saying is that garlic should be a fun crop, not an anxiety-prone one. Granted, I sometimes grow close to The Perfect Bulb but I also grow a whole bunch of little ones. I also have these greenhouses, which certainly help on my quest. But honestly, I like to see myself more as a wandering pilgrim than one suffering from monomania: all garlic is good.

Posted in seeds | 15 Comments »

On summer vacation

June 1, 2010 by El

Ripe for the picking

It requires a pair of scissors…

…and an excited and toothless child to harvest and then eat it

Get out the sunscreen, beach chair and the trashy novels! I will be taking a break from blogging for the summer. Expect maybe one post a week from me, hopefully every Monday. (Psst: put this blog in a reader if you don’t wanna miss anything.)

Of course I realize this is a bad time to quit the blah-blah if you might be in the beginning stages of making your own masonry oven, making your own cheese or making your own booze, as these are all things that are happening in real time at this little farm. Having one’s own backyard greenhouse, chicken coop, and vegetable garden: continue to consider me your biggest cheerleader! Really, shortening the food supply chain to “you” and “yard” means lightening your carbon footprint considerably…and it’s fun. Trust me on this.

I will leave you with a few favorites from the (yipes! 900-odd post deep) catalog. As ever, if there’s something you wish to learn about I have probably covered it in some form or another so make good use of the “Search” box up above. Make free use of my email as well as I do love hearing from you and am more than happy to answer any burning questions you might have. But otherwise, have a fun summer!

On fear of food

On life without the had-boughtens

I am the bridge

Call me a peasant

This I believe

Posted in sweat | 17 Comments »

On new cute fluffy things

May 28, 2010 by El

First goats, then bunnies, then turkeys…now chicks!

Here’s the first chick conceived and hatched on our farm. Congratulations go to the bantam for sitting so patiently. This is a half Araucana, half black sex link (Barred Rock/Rhode Island Red) so…s/he’s quite a mutt, chicken-wise. So tiny!

Small packages don’t get much cuter than this. Cheepcheep! Happy Friday….

Posted in chickens, etc. | 7 Comments »

On constant battles

May 26, 2010 by El

About 90% of vegetable gardening is merely keeping your eyes open. I’d say another 5% is actual “work” and 5% is harvesting and storing but really, all that “puttering around in the garden”? It’s entirely necessary. It’s field work! It’s direct observation! Even with a glass of wine in my hand, I am WORKING, people.

And it is through direct observation that I realize my darned greenhouse seedlings are never ever gonna grow past the stubby 2″ phase unless I do something to stop the munching damage caused by the sowbugs. I can’t do anything about the sowbugs barring absolute war so…I employ a simpler strategy. In this instance, entrapment.

The caramel-colored blob is this year’s barrier method. And “OB” = “Orange Banana,” a delectable paste tomato.

Last year I mounted an office-supplies war with indifferent results (the greenhouse was open-ended thus wind-riven; these collars up and flew away if not simply apart). This year, I applied the stuff normally applied to tree whips (sapling fruit trees) to prevent girdling by other, equally hungry insects. [It's called Tanglefoot; it's a gooey waterproof paste of wax/oil; used to be made in Grand Rapids but like so many Michigan companies it's up and gone away.] Can’t say it won’t stop the bugs from decapitating the seedlings below the point of the goo, but it’s something. Now, I stand back and watch. And sip. And watch some more.

Posted in sweat | 9 Comments »

On being heat wimps

May 24, 2010 by El

I have to remember that warm weather has an upside

The mercury in the non-greenhouse thermometer reached 86 degrees F. yesterday. You’d think it hit 106 the way we were carrying on around here.

I will readily, easily admit I prefer cool weather. We didn’t get to 90 all last summer and that was quite fine by me: canning was still a sticky endeavor (and considering I was canning food for 135 schoolchildren as well as our own needs perhaps “endeavor” is an apt term) but otherwise it was an enjoyable year. And now, well, now our blood is still thick and our entire aspect is crabby.

Case in point: Five hens are sitting on eggs and, when they come out for their daily water, food, dustbath and, er, bowel clearing session they create QUITE the ruckus in the yard. They cluck mightily and pick fights (!!) with everyone, and it appears to be catching. When not molested by broody hens, our other chickens stand droopily with heads lowered and wings out, trying to take advantage of any breeze. But once one gets a-squawking the others remember past grudges and the feathers then fly. This heat and humidity has caught them off guard too.

T-bell the goat stomps her feet on the milkstand. We got actual tears yesterday when our daughter realized her kiddie pool (six year old kiddie pool) had a hole, and her mood was only lifted when I told her she could spray ME with the hose. The dog keeps losing fur and I saw one cat wrapped around the base of a toilet at one point in the afternoon. And who wants to cook in this kind of weather, much less garden?

I suppose if we’d been eased into it instead of thrown in the boiling pot we’d have been less upset by how hot it was. Go ahead and laugh: we’re complete hot-weather wimps!

Posted in weather | 25 Comments »

On leaving the nest

May 20, 2010 by El

It’s a somewhat sad day around here because the goat kids are going to their new home. The family who is taking all three are also taking all the turkey poults that we’re not keeping. Lots, lots of babies going away, flying the nest…it’s freeing but still slightly heartbreaking, especially regarding the kids.

I/we fed Chip, the bottle baby, four bottles a day then three bottles a day then two bottles a day then one bottle a day until just this morning. Mama goat has mostly weaned the other two but sometimes they ambush her at night. Considering they’re all the size of your average Dalmatian, it’s hard for her to constantly fight them off. They’re all old enough and big enough to be completely weaned, so this move will only be a physical shift for them to make.

Of course for me this means my chore list has shortened and all that creamy white milk is mineminemine. And I have been a cheesemaking fool, going a bit nutty with my (no kidding) 6 gallons of milk a week. What’s another gallon or two now that I don’t have to feed Chip, or that T-bell’s not feeding the other kids? I’ll tell you what: two more gallons means 1.5 more pounds of cheese, added to the other 4 or so pounds. Yum cheese yum.

I will miss my bottle baby though. He was ONE creature in the extended farm family who was always glad to eat what I brought him.

Posted in dairy goats | 8 Comments »

On the outdoor classroom

May 18, 2010 by El

Yesterday was a conference day at our daughter’s school so she got to spend the day at home with her dad. It was a self-described Nature Day.

Armed with a magnifying glass, they went to watch the ant colony at the Old Sitting Stump.

Tom kicked over part of the stump to better see more of the carpenter ants, and disturbed a nest of voles*.They’re very tiny as you can see. And our daughter told me they were especially fun to see under a magnifying glass.So they put them in a jar to better watch them. And, while they were at it, they found some wild asparagus.And later in the day, Little Edie the fearless feline flushed out a baby wild bunny. We tried to find its burrow but failed. Poor little thing. The little dot on its head says it’s still a nursling.

*Voles are my greenhouse nemesis as they loves themselves some seedings. They also are incredibly prolific. Sure, these little ones probably won’t make it but their mother will go on to have as many as 7 more litters in 2010.

Posted in nature | 9 Comments »

On a quick, cheesy opportunity

May 15, 2010 by El

Pizza with goat cheese, green garlic coins, herbs and asparagus

Today’s Friday, one of my work-at-the-office days, but we’ll still manage to eat dinner at the usual time. How do I do this? While making toast this morning, my daughter and I mixed up pizza dough to rise all day is how. In other words, “forethought.”

I made two batches of pressed cheese this week. What the heck is that? It’s like chevre with more rennet and all the liquid squeezed out. Think “cheese curd squeak” with a mild, firm, unaged cheese, and you’re almost there. The first batch was herb-laden (chives, garlic, marjoram, thyme) and the second plain (just salt). Half of this latter batch went to school with my daughter for her to share with her class in the look-what-we-can-do category of school eats…it was mostly a hit. It’s goat’s milk cheese, after all, and thus it’s different than the bovine variety; I don’t expect children raised on the commercial kind to leap quickly into the homemade camp. But the bowl came home empty, so what do I know.

The other half melts well on the home-made pizza! I shredded it on my daughter’s pizza and left it chunky on mine. Asparagus, green garlic, some pepper…what could be better. (Oh yeah: outdoor masonry-oven pizza would be better. (Soon.))

Feta’s next!

Posted in fermentation | 12 Comments »

On broody hens

May 14, 2010 by El

Chicken Patty is sitting again. And she’s cluckingly, spittingly mad. Doesn’t she look tough?

Amanda asked what one does with a broody hen determined to sit on unfertilized eggs. I had been hoping at least one of our 25 hens would get the urge: the clock is ticking as we do want some chicken in the freezer this year. This is our first year with roosters, too, so with hope the eggs, should someone decide to sit them, would be fertile. I had even gone so far as to secure the lease of an incubator when blammo! Everyone has the urge to sit.

Last year we had no roosters but Chicken Patty (our lone meat bird) went broody. Not willing to miss an opportunity, I let her sit on some duds for a week and THEN I stuck six day-old chicks under her, one at a time, substituting chick for egg. This worked! Jerusha and Johanna and Nice Rose are clucking around the barnyard today and their three brothers went to Freezerville. But I know this plan only works if you actually want more birds.

I have no direct answer for you, Amanda, but I am sure others will tell you in the comments. Eventually, this too shall pass…perhaps harvesting the eggs while wearing gardening gloves is an option. I have heard extremes like sticking the girl in a wire dog kennel, off the ground, and she’ll come out of her broodiness in a day or two. Me? I wouldn’t go that far, but then again I want a broody bird or three. Like most of chicken-keeping, it’s a matter of adjusting to their quirks (“Hey, my chickens are digging up my garden!” “Well then get them out of your garden!”) that I have found to be both fun and somewhat frustrating about having them around.

I suppose they could say the same thing about me. We’ve certainly got each other very well trained.

Posted in chickens, etc. | 10 Comments »

On the birds

May 12, 2010 by El

The bantams, true to their reputation, are broody little birds. Here, a Golden Sebright and a Mille Fleur d’Uccles patiently wait out their confinement in an old dog kennel. They’re sitting on about 2 dozen chicken and wild mallard (!!) eggs.

Chicken Patty says she wants to be the first meal coming out of the masonry oven.

And who in the world could take care of 17 children? I don’t wish it on Ruby so the majority of them are now under lights. She gets to raise the three we intend to keep.

And this little fellow has been living in and around my garden the last two weeks. Very shy, you gotta wonder how he got where he is. I explained it to my daughter this way: “Do you remember when you lost your first balloon when we were at the county fair when you were 3? Well, that’s probably what happened to this family when their little bird flew out the window. There’s nothing you can do but cry and watch it fly away.”

Posted in chickens, etc. | 13 Comments »

Happy Mother’s Day

May 9, 2010 by El

Last year, Mama Ruby the Turkey surprised us by hatching out one turkey poult and one gosling on Mother’s Day.

This year, we were surprised by how many: seventeen!

They all hatched on Thursday. This poult is still wet from the egg.

Happy Mother’s Day to all…it’s hard work!

Posted in nature | 14 Comments »

On hard cheeses

May 7, 2010 by El

Just because I am brave, I decided to make a pressed, aged cheese for my third attempt at home cheese making.

I had help with the selection, though. When asked, my daughter said “Either feta or cheddah,” laughing. I told her the cheddar had “delayed gratification” written all over it, as it should age at least 4 weeks before cutting into it. And I chose to make cheddar because, unlike feta, I had all necessary ingredients.

A pressed cheese requires a press, of course. I have a somewhat thrown-together setup made mostly with things found around the house, including weights from Tom’s fitness area and some pans from the kitchen. The mold itself is entirely easy to make at home except for the small fact that PVC pipe (which is what mine is made from) is sold in 10′ lengths and there is no way I would ever need that much. Of course you can use anything else, too: an empty BPA-free can, say, with both ends cut out. The follower is simply a piece of maple 1x wood cut to fit inside the pipe. (I purchased both this press and a larger one from Caprine Supply as even I am known to throw the rare dollar at convenience.) And I punched a pie tin (downward, no sharp ends inside) to drain the resultant whey. There’s another pie tin below it that holds the punched tin aloft by four mason jar rings.

I told you it looks thrown together: the drainage system, left, and the final pressing, right, w/ 30 lbs. in the pot. That’s another mason jar acting as a plunger. The white thing is the mold, and you can’t see the follower, and yes, those are washcloths soaking up the resultant whey.

You won’t need the jar rings after the first pressing. Towels will do. And: anything you can do to stabilize the weights is helpful. I did the first pressings on the floor in case the darned thing wanted to tip over (and it did) but…now that we’re on the last pressing the weights are safe in their pot atop the counter.

This cheese did take a good part of my day to make, but it was more busy work (checking temperatures, etc.) than active work. It gets pressed under different weights for a total of 28 hours, then it gets to dry (covering the outside with salt), then waxed, then aged in the cellar. Sounds like a lot of work but…good things take time.

Posted in fermentation | 11 Comments »

On greenhouse thanks

May 5, 2010 by El

Time to stop and smell the wisteria

I’ve come to like this time of year. Sure; it’s spring and there’s much to love in terms of all the natural and botanical shows going on…the weather is fine, the breezes ruffle the curtains and the mosquitoes are not yet out. Why in world would I ever have a problem with spring, then?

I think you know the answer: it’s called PlantItNowItis.

With the Mother’s Day holiday looming, most northern gardeners have task lists as long as their arms, and they’re plenty frazzled. (Everyone not in the north: Mother’s Day is the unofficial/official Start Gardening day.) How many times have YOU lost your planting shovel this year? (Me: twice.) But I am somehow less flappable, more sanguine about spring. I can pick and choose my tasks, with some being of course more front-burner than back-. What’s my secret? The season extension offered by the greenhouses, of course. It’s taken away a lot of my seasonal panic by giving me, frankly, a longer growing season.

(people! remember, I am a greenhouse/hoophouse evangelist, so…buy my snake oil or not as you see fit!)

Anyway, I have had time to attend to other things, like cleaning OUT the greenhouses of their winter contents and general tidying-up…all tasks that have eluded me on previous May 5ths.

Behold the reconstituted mailbox, for example, and the netting covering the now-open ends of the new greenhouse. Always, a dry place for gloves, tools and lettuce-bags.

And no tomato hornworms this year, I swear, nor any cabbage butterflies! (One makes such oaths and it becomes more realistic if one installs netting, you see, as the holes are too big for the adult moths to fly in and lay their eggs on my precious ‘maters and broccoli.)

It’s these little things, and taking (finding, making) time to do them, that make me most grateful. If I find I have time, then what better place to spend it than puttering around the gardens with my family? Thanks, greenhouses, for adding to our quality of life as well as our diet.

Posted in greenhouses, sweat | 15 Comments »

On garden time

May 3, 2010 by El

It’s 2:40 behind…

I’ve figured out the secret to getting more time in the garden!

It’s simple: let your garden clock get blown down in a rainstorm and let its back fill with rain.

Way back when I felt that every minute spent away from our toddler was a huge motherhood sin, I installed a cheap kitchen clock on the garage wall within full view of the gardens. And it’s been a wonderful clock. Thriftily, it uses one double-A battery per year, and its time has been reliably accurate (to my dismay: when I needed more time it didn’t give it to me, of course). I noticed it had wound down last week so I took it down (I can jump to reach it), replaced the battery, then I never bothered to find a ladder to reinstall it. (I didn’t have time to, you see.) So of course at the first puff of wind it fell off the sill where I had placed it and then got drenched.

Now, it keeps completely wild time! When I took this photo, it was noon. Garden time, right? Too bad nobody else lives by it.

Posted in weather | 5 Comments »

On this week’s goat milk adventure

April 30, 2010 by El

I bring you fudge!

Of the two books I have on using the products of one’s home dairy, I have teed off fairly roundly on the one, but I haven’t said anything about the other. “The other” would be a slim spiral-bound book called, crazily, Goats Produce Too: The Udder Real Thing, Cheese Making And More Volume II by Mary Jane Toth. Once I got beyond the utter church-ladies-recipe-book style of the thing in both format, tone and (frankly) badly written instructions, I have decided that the late Mary Jane Toth is my hero in all things dairy. (Deep bow.)

The fudge was a start.

Don’t judge a book by its cover says the nag in my head. Surely, there’s plenty of appeal to Ricki Carroll’s book: it’s glossy, there are 75 recipes in it, plenty of pictures and how-to’s and it’s gone through the hands of an editor and a graphic designer but goodness you get to a recipe, get all excited to make it and realize DUH you don’t have the one thing needed to make the cheese happen: and in 74 of 75 cases that one thing is something she’s glad to sell you. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It just means 1. I should really read the recipe closely and 2. I should continue the idea that my cheese will continue to cost me money in terms of ordering the stuff to make it.

But Ms Toth’s book is refreshing, despite its lack of panache. It’s totally commonsensical. And: you don’t need to pay her a dime to make cheese, or anything else dairy-related. In point of fact, you can get many of her recipes for free on the internet, and most of the needed ingredients right out of your refrigerator (yogurt as thermophilic starter, buttermilk as mesophilic).

Incidentally, I have never made fudge before. It was tasty, and chewy…or I should say “is” because I am sure it will take us weeks to eat it all!

Posted in books, dairy goats | 12 Comments »

On spring’s progress

April 28, 2010 by El

Yes I realize that ancillary farm concerns like goats, bunnies, and winemaking have hijacked this erstwhile gardening blog of late. And I do apologize to all who check in to, you know, talk plants! It’s been fairly boring blogging lately on that score.

Not much to see out here

And, walking around the gardens today over lunch, I realize the outdoor gardens are going to be pretty boring this year too. Unlike in past years, I am all caught up with my plantings for the end of April, and so everything planted is “up”. It’s fun saying “it’s all up,” at least to myself…it’s gratifying to see the favas and peas break the soil, and the hopeful, strong spurts of greenery from the potatoes. But boring! Easily a third of the beds are dedicated JUST to peas, favas, onions, and potatoes…I would say 20% of all the beds out there are potatoes alone. Potatoes, at least after their early shoots, are decidedly unsexy garden plants.

Am I expressing a bias? “SUBSISTENCE FARMING IS NOT SEX-AY.” The high calorie foods like potatoes, corn and carrots really aren’t traffic-stopping beauties when found in your garden beds. Sorry. It’s true.

Lots to see in here

Maybe you just need flowers to be sexy. There aren’t many flowers from edible plants at this time of year, but at our place plenty of horticultural eyecandy can be found going to seed in the greenhouses. The low-calorie foods (lettuces, kales, onions) are putting on quite a show! And, considering that so few of them will be allowed to complete the seed cycle yet still have high value as goat and rabbit food, they’re allowed to go ahead and look their blushing best.