Potato Harvest

Well I must say I am disappointed at the harvest numbers this first year. But I think I know why, it took us until about late July to truly figure out our watering system. The potatoes grew a ton at the top and a ton at the bottom but not anything in the middle. So all in all we got roughly 60 pounds of German Butter ball and 35 pounds of the fingerling Rose Finn Apple. We may do something a little different next year using tires instead of all this dirt. It really is a lot of earthmoving just to uncover some spuds.

But we did have some major help, this is why Curious the chicken has her name.

Dual Flush Toilet Retrofit

In our efforts to save water we decided to install a dual flush toilet. But we didn't want to replace our newer toilet because that seemed the the farthest thing from environmental! So after some research we found a dual flush toilet retrofit kit! Say that 5 times fast!

Heres the facts: our toilets are "low flow" meaning they only use 1.6 gallons per flush.
With the dual flush kit:
1.) rinse mode or #1 flush - .8 - 1 gallons per flush
2.) full flush or #2 flush - 1.3- 1.6 gallons per flush

Now I am all for the "if it's yellow let mellow" but after a few of those a rinse flush needs to happen. We did have some quirks with the install and getting it just right. But now that we've figured it out and the dual flush works really well!

We got the kit from Dual Flush Kit. It's reasonably priced at $30, compared with some retrofit kits I've seen. However this one has the advantage of being entirely made in the USA, Michigan in fact which they proudly display all over the box. We have 3 toilets in this house, but we only bought 2 to test out. I should have just gotten that third one but oh well, this spring we'll make that 3rd one happen. Jacob my handy man was only able to install one before his shoulder surgery so the second toilet will get done some time in January.

I also haven't started the cloth TP campaign yet. We ended up with too many late fall chores I needed help with before Jacob's surgery so that got pushed to the wayside for a while. But I intend to move to cloth, at least for #1 I'll keep you posted!

Hoverflies

All summer long I've been seeing these "fly bee's" and didn't have any idea what they were. They react like flies when you get close to a plant, by jumping off and moving. Where as bee's don't give a hoot about you and continue on doing whatever they are doing. Also the markings on these fly bee's are similar to an Italian honey bee but they have giant eyes like a fly. I was most confused because I have never noticed them before.

My mother did some sleuthing and found a wonderful website about these guys. They are called hover flies and that is the perfect name for them! Garden Safari has great information and pictures about hover flies. The pictures are even better than Jacob got with our little camera.

They seem like excellent little pollinators hopping from flower to flower. All of the pictures can be clicked on for a bigger image.

Potatos

This is only the surface stuff what I could reach with my fingers under the ground. YIKES!

quickie

I am having the most glorious time on etsy finding all sorts of goodies and gift ideas for the crew. Much of the Yule season gifts will be food and home made yummies. But a few things will be outsourced, by artists only! I am very excited about the finds, foods, and fun!


By the way, happy Autumn!

Strawberry Harvest

Our goal was to keep up with plucking the flowers off the the strawberries the first year, in order to give them adequate root growing time. About late July we gave up because the job of plucking strawberry flowers was over whelming. These are from our ever bearing crop, and boy are they ever!




These pictures were taken on wednesday the 16th. Yesterday I picked at least this much if not more. And even before that we've harvested a small bowl. If this warm weather keeps up we could have fresh strawberries right up to frost! Fresh strawberry yogurt! Local milk, local honey, very local strawberries! Life is good!

Dog Days

Nap time.

Been a while

We've been slammed with all the fall chores that have suddenly jumped up and said "SURPRISE!" So I'll leave you with some pictures of the county fair we went to last weekend. More posts to come...

Towels, Tissues and TP

Some time last week during my surgery down time we watched online a program called EcoTrip. The show covers many topics from salmon, to light bulbs. By the way if you happen to have a Netflix account, which most people do ( I bum off my moms.... thanks mom!) you can watch them instantly on your computer. Which is what we did, owning to the fact we have no TV. I digress...

The show that directly impacted us the most, or where we felt we could do the most changing was the paper napkin. Which can be subdivided into TP, paper towels, and kleenex. Most of the tree pulp used to make these everyday items is "virgin" wood and contains chemicals like crazy to make it white. So owing to the fact that our trees make up the bulk of the army fighting global warming, we thought it wise to do our part to keep some of them standing in our stead. Which means, when I go out anywhere and wash my hands I use a paper towel to dry them. That must change. When I reach for a kleenex and toss it away. That must change. And the big and scary TP must also change.

This challenge from a blog I follow called Crunchy Chicken couldn't have come at a better time. Helping us with all the information and facts about moving to cloth TP.

Crunchy writes:

According to Charmin, consumers on average use 8.6 sheets per trip to the bathroom. That's a total of 57 sheets per day and an annual total of 20,805 sheets. There are 230 million adults in the U.S., each averaging a roll and a half per week. Since each roll of toilet paper averages about .5 a pound of paper, that's about 40 pounds of TP per year.

That equals 4.6 million tons of TP used each year. And that's just from adults. To take the calculation even further, if all U.S. adults used only Charmin toilet paper or the like (aka "virgin fiber" with 0% recycled content or post-consumer waste), the environmental cost is approximately (not including the issues with Dioxin):

78.2 million trees
1.35 million tons of air pollution
32 trillion gallons of water
2.1 trillion gallons of oil
18.75 trillion Kilowatt hours of energy

Rather scary huh?

So we went to our local thrift store to get some supplies. I got a small towel that I cut into four pieces and sewed the edges against fraying. They measure now about 6x3 inches, which will easily fit into a back pocket or in my purse. Now when I or Jacob wash our hands we will have our towel where ever we go. Next up kleenex, I couldn't find any old handkerchiefs to buy, plus I don't like the idea of them being white for bloody nose reasons. Anyway, we got some well used napkins in that same thin fabric like a hankie and today I am working on cutting them into the more manageable kleenex size.

As for the TP I purchased an old Cotton flannel sheet that will be cut and sewn. I am not sure on the size yet because I have some other supplies to get in the mean time. Such as a container for the used TP before washing. Also I am waiting for our front loader washing machine which should arrive on the 25th of this month. I haven't posted about that but I will. For more info and all the questions you could ever possibly ask visit Crunchy Chicken's blog.

Cover Crops and Chickens

I harvested what little buckwheat we had growing today. Those stupid sparrows! They just don't listen when I yell at them! "BUFFET IS CLOSED!" Sigh...

I am waiting for some inoculant (stuff that you soak seeds in to give them the right signal to sprout) before I plant my biomass peas and cereal rye. With any luck they will both grow right through the winter. Thus keeping weeds from germinating and my soil from erosion during heavy spring rains. I am concerned that the birds will get them, but both these seeds need to be planted deeper in order to start whereas the buckwheat can be surface planted.

The baby chickens are in the garden for the first time and not quite sure what to do with the extra space. Now that the growing season is pretty much over I don't feel bad about letting the girls out into the garden again.

What to do with the front yard grass?

Over this weekend Jake and I have been toying with what to do with the grass in the front yard. We considered doing rows of strawberries with grass clover mix in the walk way. But I've seen how most June bearing strawberries grow and I don't think we could make it work. Plus our next door neighbor is FAR from organic with her turf bright green front lawn. I wouldn't want any ground growing edibles near the property line. Then we would have to build a fence to keep everyone out of our lovely strawberries! Plus the watering system.... right. So we've decided to grow strawberries in the circle cut out's we made for the fruit trees. Like so:
But that still leaves us with the grass problem. My big dilemma with grass is the fact that it doesn't feed anything I own. If I had a goat... I would consider keeping that lawn. Since I don't own any thing that eats grass I want something that feeds me or feeds the bees. We are going to do lawn/clover mix in the back yard so the dog, chickens and bees will benefit. In the front yard we've decided to go with a creeping thyme lawn. It has the best drought and foot traffic tolerance. Once it gets established it needs watering like once a month! It's been on our minds because the neighbor down the road has an almost completely filled in thyme lawn. It flowers purple in the early spring and the bee's were all over it. It NEVER has to be mowed and smells wonderful when walked on.

See how this is almost grown in. more photos here.
But in order for the thyme to "take" well it must be done in the spring. So come spring of 2010 we will rent that sod cutter again, receive many strange looks from our neighbors and rip out more grass. The clover for the back yard will have to be done in the spring for the same reasons. Hopefully this will solve our barren grass issues. We really have crappy soil here. If you ever wanted to put in a clover lawn mix this is a great article. Establishing White Clover in Lawns.

Late Summer Potato Update

Last week my Mom dug into the potato beds for me, because why not? In about a 1 foot square and only 2 of the 3 boards down she pulled out 1.5 pounds of Rose Fin Apple fingerlings. Based on this fact I think the potato growing up experiment worked! When we actually harvest both beds we are going to get a weight per bed/type of potato. But for now... look how huge these guys have gotten!

Bumble Dinner

Wouldn't it be weird if this looked like dinner?

Today Show features raising chickens in the city

I saw this video on another blog I follow. But I wanted the rest of my family and readers to get the scoop too. Backyard chicken flocks!

Lettuce gone to seed

We had a leftover lettuce plant that volunteered this year. Considering it was planted 2 years ago we decided to water it and let the super thing grow. It is a type of red lettuce similar to butter head. I like most mortals had never seen what a lettuce flower looks like, and wondered how do you get lettuce seeds. Wonder no more.


No it's not a weed but it sure looks like one....

The growth of Chickens

Man they get big quick. Sometimes when they are in the brood box it seems like forever until they go outside. But all the girls have been outside together for a little over 1 week. The RedStars are much more wild than the Buff Orpington girls. Flying is top priority for them, when they were in the brood box I was calling them Raptor Babies! Anyway, we haven't clipped there wings yet probably tonight. As they get bigger Curious looses her hold as dominate chicken, she was never a leader anyway. Red will probably take over the "roo" role in this flock.

It only took them 3 days to figure out the ramp up into the coop. Curious was a really shitty teacher so Jacob had to go out and coax them up the ramp with seeds. It took the BO girls well over a week to "get" the ramp. The RedStars are figuring out how to roost now which will be much better for clean up and the overall care of the coop.

A video of Redstars Vs. Curious and the sunflower seeds. To give you an idea about the size difference.

Old Fashioned Gym

Raspberry Jam

Well it is as promised a recipe for canning stuff. We did this about 2-3 weeks ago I know it's late but here goes. I made 2 different recipes because I have a brother who doesn't eat any processed sugar, so I had to attempt a wholly honey sweetened raspberry jam. Both were delicious! I do favor the sugar one only because honey tends to be a stronger flavor and there was a hint of it in the jam. Ok to the goods.....

bloggers note: For all my jams everything I add is either local or organic all of the fruit I have access to isn't organic accept the raspberries, so truly this is my only organic and local jam. Feels good.


Traditional Raspberry Jam (my way)

11 C. Mashed Raspberries ( I used a potato masher, rather nice for aggressions)
2 C. Honey (local please, don't by that shit from China even if it is cheeper)
1 C. Sugar
Pomona's Universal Pectin which allows for the drastic underuse of sugar to fruit ratio. This pectin is activated by the calcium rather than sugar like traditional recipes.
5 tsp. Calcium water comes with the pectin
5 tsp. Pectin

Heat mashed raspberries and calcium until bubbly. In a separate bowl mix pectin with sugar/honey this helps the pectin dissolve in the raspberries when you add it. Once it's bubbly add the pectin/sweets mix and re-bubbly it. Have your sterilized jars/lids/rings ready to go and the water bath boiling. To test if the jam is "set" to your liking I put a small dish in the freezer before I begin. After the jam has everything in it and is bubbling away, I take a spoonful and dump it on the freezer dish and put it back in the freezer for about 1 minute. This just brings the bubbly jam down to room temp quickly so you can see if you like how thick or runny it is. It was perfect so we moved onto the packing jars, lids, rings and get them in the water bath! We boiled ours for 12 minutes. Adding 1 minute for every 1,000 feet above sea level you are. I didn't write down how many 1/2 pints it made but I think it was around 12.


Jason's Raspberry Jam

This is the only honey recipe and it is a very small batch. It yielded 5 half pints.

4 C. Mashed Raspberries
1 3/4 C. Honey
2 tsp. Calcium
2 tsp. Pectin

Everything to process is the same as above, only I would have cheated and added about 3 Tbl. of sugar to help the pectin dissolve. It wouldn't blend with the honey and I ended up with pectin clumps that I had to squish. It slowed the process down considerably.

Seed thieves

This would be why are buckwheat hasn't filled out.

Surgery and Farm Update

I've been gone I know. I had surgery for a Hysterectomy on Tuesday. This has been a LONG time coming surgery with many alternatives attempted before the actual removal. Some people I am sure gasp at the idea of Hysterectomy at the age of 30. But I have had "issues" with the girl parts since "FOREVER". The thought of this 2 week, 1 time recovery, pain process is thrilling, compared to the once monthly week of incapacitation. For me the pain one week per month was worth this horrifying surgery. I don't come out of anesthetic well. Think roller-coaster dizziness/nausea. For having the abdomen cut into, looking forward to that outcome was not fun for me. But for the most part I am over the hump so to speak. It's been 5 days now and I have actually made it upstairs to the land of the living.

All my animals were sure I'd abandoned them. The cat and dog have since learned of my recovery, the chickens however are unsure that it's me. Since I can only wave and call to them from the basement door. Not allowed to go outside do to the dizziness factor. We have united the baby hens with Curious the one BO hen we have left. Our cover crops are coming up well and the potatoes seem to be doing better now that we've figured out the water system. The grapes have taken off now that they have something to climb. Raspberries are also taking off due to the figured out water system. All is well on this urban farm thanks to Mr. Sustainability who has been a champion this last week. I owe all my recovery and overall running of this operation to him. Thanks baby!

I'll try to get some posts out of the things I did before surgery, like raspberry jam..... but that will be later for now I need to lay back down.

The Completed Garden fence

Which looks far better than rebar. Plus it will hold another grape plant.

Pesto

This year I wanted to make more pesto than I saved for last year. Mostly because I want to give it as gifts. Plus I under valued it's greens in winter potential and didn't make enough. I get the magazine organic gardening, they had a contest about pesto reciepes. Send in the reciepe and Maria at Maria's Farm Country Kitchen, will test them and decide a clear winner.

She devised that the secret to great green pesto is blanching the basil. Last year I didn't do this and my pesto did turn brown. It still tasted fine but I wanted it to stay perfect summer green. So this year I tried blanching it. Some leaves turned brown all though those may have been the ones I couldn't get out of the boiling water so fast. Regardless, it is a bright beautiful green. I packaged it in 1/3 cup and 1/2 cup sizes inside ziplock bags. I flattened the bags like I did with the veggie soup stock to save more room in the freezer. Now I have small very flat baggies of pesto for gifts and winter greens.

The Pesto Recipe

2 c. (packed) blanched basil
1/2. c. parmesan or favorite hard white cheese
1/2 c. olive oil
1/3 c. nuts (I used walnuts but pine, almond, cashews... whatever works you may toast them if you like)
3 medium garlic cloves (however hot you want them... some asian varieties get very spicy!)
dash of salt/pepper
dash of fruit fresh

I layered all ingredients in my food processor basil, everything else, basil. Then I processed it for about 1 minute. Scooped it out into level 1/3 or 1/2 bags then into the freezer. I decided this amount would be perfect for meal sizes. I didn't want to just freeze the whole thing and then chip off pesto from the large block when needed as some websites suggested. Voila!

I still have 3 basil plants in the garden 1-2 is for dried basil and the other is for pasta sauce when the tomatoes start rolling us over.

Solar Dehydrator Project: Part 3 Finishing Up

Now that the cover is built and the main box is put together, it's time to put the wheels on and the 2 x 2 legs. Here are the drawings.



I cut a 4 x 4 at a 45 degree angle for the blocks that will be used to attach the wheels. This way, the surface that the wheel attaches to will be level when the whole box is at a 45 degree angle. I attached the the blocks to the main box by screwing through the main box from the inside of it. This wasn't easy but we managed after a few tries.



After the 2 blocks for the wheels were attached, we attached the wheels to the blocks. Since the provided holes in the wheels were to big for my drywall screws, I had to drill out smaller holes.




Now to attach the legs so the box will stand on it's own. There are a few variables here that will determine the length to cut the two legs. One is how deep the 1 x 2's were placed on the cover and the second is the size of the wheels that were put on. So this is what I did to figure out how long to cut the legs. First, I placed the cover on the box. The top of the leg has to be low enough as to not interfere with the cover. So with the cover on, I drew a line on the outside of the main box at the bottom of the cover. Then I took the cover off. Jen held the main box up at about a 45 degree angle. Putting the main box at a 45 degree angle makes the 1 x 2's that hold the trays on the inside of the box level. I put a level on one of the 1 x 2's used to hold the trays and Jen adjusted the main box until it was level. At this point, I took a 2 x 2, placed it against the box towards the top, leveled it vertically. Then I marked the 2 x 2 about 1 inch below the line that marks where the cover rests. Also, I drew a line where the 2 x 2 meets the main box (vertical) so I could put it back in the same spot after I cut it. I then cut two 2 x 2's exactly the same with the top of the 2 x 2 at a 45 degree angle. I then attached the 2 x 2 to the main box on one side. I measured out the placement of this board so I could attach the other board on the opposite side in the same position. Here is a picture.



After this was done, we painted the the main box and all the pieces for the cover. Now, we used a leftover black paint that we had used for another project so we wouldn't waste it. I admit it probably wasn't the best because it stunk pretty bad. I believe it was a Rustolium paint. Because of this, we let the box dry and air out really well. It just happened to be about 3-4 weeks before we needed to use it and by that time it didn't smell anymore. Looking back, I probably would have used an exterior latex paint or something like that. With a little research, you could probably come up with what's best to use.

So while the paint was drying, we moved onto building the four trays that hold the fruit. Here's the drawing for these.



I made the mistake of only giving 1/8" of play on both sides of the tray. This was too snug of a fit for the tray when placing it into the dehydrator. Especially after putting the screen on. I'd strongly recommend making one tray, see if it works, and then making the final three. This saved me from having to redo all of them. I used the miter saw to cut all the pieces. We set the pieces together on a flat surface, nailed them together with the brad gun, and then put the corner braces in each corner to add strength. I predrilled the holes for the corner brace screws because I was worried about the wood splitting. I just used a drill bit that was smaller than the width of the actual screw so it would still thread into the wood. After this, Jen attached the metal screen.






Now the trays were done.

When everything that was painted was dry, we finished making the cover. We removed the protective plastic on the plexiglass, put it into the cover, and used the brad gun to attach the final cover boards that hold the plexiglass in. Also, we stapled the bug screen over the two ventilation holes on the inside of the main box.

Solar Dehydrator FINISHED!!!! YEAH!!!

Here are some final pictures and a video of the finished product with some final thoughts. Please feel free to ask questions!!!