Garden/Homestead Updates – June 2013 June 12, 2013

I wanted to spend a bit of time on my garden updates–its been a while since I showed progress.  So here’s what’s happening at the Druid’s Garden (zone 6a, South-East Michigan, USA). Photos were taken about 4 days ago.

Chickens

I’ve had some setbacks in the realm of chickens–two (my two smallest ones, bantams, were killed by hawks while free ranging, and this happened while people were home and around).  When my family kept chickens in PA when I was growing up, we did not have such large amounts of hawks.  My land is also missing tree cover where they usually roamed, so I can see how this happened. So, because of this, and because they were tearing up my mulch and perennial beds, I decided to pen them up.  Two of my friends helped me build this outdoor coop area, attached to the original chicken tractor.  What I like best about the coop is that, aside from the netting, nails, and staples that we used to put it together, all the other materials came from the property–they are mostly cedar posts that we pulled out of the back of the property from the pile that had been cut (discussed in my post here).

New Chook Pen – all repurposed materials

I was also gifted two wonderful new peeps to make up for my lost ones.  Here they are (pics from about a week ago–they grow so fast)!

Peeper in the hand!

New Peeps!

Perennials

This year, I’ve been working to expand my perennials, both in number and kind.  I am finding that this work is as important as seed saving, especially as I move to more perennials in my yard, but also because, from an economic standpoint, perennials are much more expensive, and lots of people want to start gardens using permaculture techniques but don’t have the money for all of them.   A good friend of mine gave me some gooseberry and currant bushes, I also have more raspberries (golden), fennel and other plants from our permaculture meetup’s plant exchange, an expanded strawberry patch, and more.  I’ve been working to develop guilds around each of my fruit trees also!

Strawberry Spiral with Fresh Mulch!

Ripening Strawberry!

Apparently my rhubarb plant is the largest one most people have seen.  I’m thinking that part of it is because I placed it next to a gutter and also because it has shelter and lots of light from being next to my porch.  And composted horse manure.  Anyways, I’ll be canning some rhubarb preserves quite soon!

Monster-rhubarb

The comfrey patch is doing really well.  I should post on what comfrey does soon–its an amazing plant for gardens and medicine alike!  In the meantime, here’s the comfrey patch–I’ve given a ton of this away, and it keeps on going!

Comfrey patch with extra tomato seedlings

Annual Garden Beds

With the help of friends and family, I created two new large garden beds this spring.  I am also helping another family garden behind my main garden–they are doing so well!

Amaranth sprouts in one of the new beds!

Unfortunately, we’ve had a really cold spring.  With snow in late April and a storm that tore open my small hoop houses and knocked over my small greenhouse to a May 30th frost, it has not been an easy season.  My main garden was planted around May 20th.  Then we had a near-frost around the 30th (and had I looked forward in the biodynamic calendar I’m now using, I should have known that…)  Most of the plants lived, however, save some basil which I had extras of.

I’m taking more of a vertical gardening approach this year, which I think will serve me well.  I’ve been building trellises of all sorts, and finding interesting materials to use as trellises (more on that in an upcoming post)–all repurposed and found!

Here are some shots of the garden.

Potatoes, Garlic, and Kale.

Lots of veggies in the garden!

Working on new mulched pathways to keep out unwanted plants.

Mulch!

I have been in desperate need of mulch for some time.  My good friend knew this, and saw a tree service in the area at my neighbor’s house last week.  He asked them to bring the mulch over, which they did, and now I have a mulch mountain.  I’m mulching all of my perennial beds as well as the paths in my annual garden.  I am going to see how much is left, and if I have enough, I’m going to move forward with my plan to build a labyrinth this summer .

Mulch Mountain!

I think that’s the end of the garden/homestead updates for now.  We have a number of exciting projects planned for this summer, including the outdoor kitchen and possible labyrinth.  Stay tuned!

A Guide to Composting with Tumblers, Sheet Mulching, Worms, Chickens, and Piles June 8, 2013

Composting is a very easy way to integrate natural processes and nutrients into your garden, flower beds, and life.  While various statistics exist, most commonly, I’ve seen statistics that suggest that up to 50% of what we throw away in the USA is food items or items that are biodegradable.  These are items, like vegetables or stems, that come out of the nutrients in the system.  Americans also like  to rake up/bag up and throw away their lawn clippings, “weeds”, etc.  By sending them into a landfill, we lock those nutrients away and don’t allow them to cycle through the system again.  So composting is an important part of shifting to a more sustainable practice and allows us to build great soils in the process.  By composting, I was able to reduce what I threw away/put on the curb by almost 50%–and now I know how much I was wasting.

Over the last three years, I’ve been experimenting with a number of composting methods.  I currently am the composting site for three families (including my own).  As such, I’ve worked to develop a number of different composting strategies.  All of the strategies that I’ll present here work in combination with each other for different kinds of composting at different speeds.

The final product!

Sheet Mulching – Direct Composting in Garden Beds

Materials you can compost: Fall leaves, yard waste, leftovers from last year’s garden (corn stalks, tomato plants, etc.).  Grass clippings, provided they come from a pesticide-free yard (get them from the one that still has dandelions)!

How to do it: In a previous post, I detailed how sheet mulching (preparing new garden beds or adding nutrients to existing garden beds).  Sheet mulching is a great approach because it really only requites you to move the material once–you just lay it in place and the beds make themselves over time.  I really like this approach and use it throughout my homestead.

Finished sheet mulched beds–planted with potatoes, kale, and garlic!

Compost Tumbling- Keeping the Critters Out and the Nutrients In!

Materials you can compost:  Any food waste (except meats and cheeses), yard waste, garden leftovers.

How to do it:  For compost tumbling, you’ll want to get a compost tumbler.  You can make one relatively cheaply from an old barrel (fill it up and roll it around the yard) or you can purchase a nice one.  I bought one that is insulated, which theoretically allows one to compost in the winter…..or not.  In hindsight, I would have just made one myself out of recycled materials, such as an old 50 gallon pickle barrel.  I find that my compost tumbler takes about 2-3 months to produce a nice compost (and mine has two sides, so you let one compost down while filling the other one).

Leaf pile and compost tumbler!

The Traditional Open Compost Pile

Materials you can compost:  Any food waste (except meats and cheeses), yard waste, garden leftovers.

How to do it: A compost pile is the simplest form of compost.  You just pile stuff up, wait, and if you are feeling really ambitious, turn it over every once in a while.  I started with a compost pile, but my neighbors dog started coming over, eating out of my pile, and then pooping all through my yard.  So I bought a compost tumbler.  You can prevent your neighbor’s dog from engaging in his nefarious behavior by using palates or scrap wood to create a bin that isn’t accessible from the outside.

Traditional open compost pile (about 50% of previous size, composting for 8 months, no turning)

Improved “open pile” with wire cage to keep out neighbor’s dog.

Worm Composting (Vermicomposting)

Materials you can compost: Food scraps, mainly.

How to do it:  In February, our permaculture group had a skill share on vermicomposting (and this is the link to a video). Since I provided the materials for the worm composter, I was able to get it at the end of the skill share.  I placed it in kitchen and  its been working really well.  The best thing about it was that I was able to find all of the materials in my garage, and the worms were donated to me by my friend, so it literally had no upfront cost.  You *can* go out and buy expensive worm bins, or you can just use the methods that are in the video (which consist of two opaque tubs, drilling some holes, adding some wet shredded newspaper, adding some worms, and adding food scraps).  The best thing about it is that you can compost this way year round, and you get AWESOME worm castings.

Vermicompost bin – yes, you can also add cardboard!

The Chicken Method: Let the Birds Do the Work!

Materials: Food scraps, old moldy bread, yard scraps, pretty much anything. We’ve given ours moldy cheese, old sauerkraut, leftovers from going out to eat, even the carcasses and bones of chicken, pork, etc.  They eat it all.

How to do it.  This last method is now my preferred method of composting! For this, you need Chickens in an enclosed coop.  I had my chickens free ranging, which means they help keep the bug populations down.  However, they were destroying the mulching around my perennial beds and I also lost the two bantams (smaller breed chickens) to hawks.  So I built them a larger coop, and with the advice of a friend, started “chicken composting.”  Basically the way it works  is this–you put whatever you want the chickens to compost in the coop.  Most of this they eat, and in a matter of hours, produce a nitrogen-rich dung (which needs to sit about 6 months or it will burn plants, its so high in nitrogen!)  What they don’t eat attracts flies and worms, which they do eat.  I also throw a ton of unshredded fall leaves in there, especially ones like oaks that are harder to compost down.  What you end up with is a wonderful tilled up hummus, straight from the chickens, with minimal work.

Chickens in their enclosure (note the enclosure was built with 90% repurposed materials!)

Chickens working the compost!

From Consumptive Spaces to Productive Spaces: The Lawn as a Site of Change and Growth May 30, 2013

Front yard wonderland with the rabbit!  I haven’t mowed this or weeded it all year!

In America and many other industrialized nations, one feature dominates the landscape, especially in the suburban areas of the great cities–the green, pristine, velvety lawn.  The lawn is so ubiquitous in American culture that a huge industry of chemicals, tools, and machinery are purchased and used each year to keep it looking nice. The idea of the pristine lawn is embedded into our cultural consciousness–a lawn that is a bit wild is labeled “overgrown” or “out of control”–but is it really?

 

The ecological impacts of the lawn are seriously problematic.  The University of Vermont studied the impact of lawn fertilizer runoff and found that it caused substantial pollution and algae blooms in groundwater and surface water (rivers, lakes, streams). Another researcher examined the issue of where lawns could actually be grown “naturally” in the USA and found that they really can only grow in a few areas without irrigation, further straining our water supplies, especially in water-starved places like the Colorado River basin and surrounding areas). Yet another researcher found that the lawn is the most cultivated plant in the USA–more than all farmlands and gardens combined.  But, by far, the most disturbing thing concerning the lawn is simply to look at the statistics for chemical and fossil fuel use (and I’ll list a few from this site):

 

• 40.5 million acres of lawn in the USA
• $30 billion dollars spent on lawn care each year
• 800 million gallons spent on lawnmower fuel
• Pesticides include known/suspected endocrine disrupters (13%); reproductive toxins (22%), banned/restricted ingredients in other countries (41%), possible carcinogens (53%) and more.

 

Flowers I discovered in the unmowed lawn!

The plants that appear in the lawn are another consideration. The plants labeled “weeds” in the lawn that are often the target of such pesticide/herbicide use are often the most medicinal (plantain, dandelion), delicious (wood sorrel, wild strawberry, dandelion, and lamb’s quarters) and beneficial to the ecosystem (dandelion breaks up compacted soil; clover fixes nitrogen; grasses provide important nutrients to birds if allowed to seed, etc.).

 

Animal habitats and food are rare in the typical lawn–it encourages monocultures rather than polycultures, it doesn’t provide good habitat for birds, bees, and other beneficial insects, not to mention larger animals and wildlife.

 

Lots of medicinals growing in front!

The spiritual side of the “care” of the lawn also needs to be considered.  We are what we surround ourselves with–we reflect our external practices deeply.  If we spend our time outside driving around loud, fossil-fuel guzzling equipment as our primary interaction with nature, what does that do to our relationship?  If we continue to keep the land around our homes in an unnatural, harmed state, what does that promote?  If its more of a chore to go tend the land than simply enjoy it, how does this change our interaction?  If we take the time we would spend investing in mowing the lawn to something else, like the act of gardening, how would that change our interaction with the world? In my experiences, shifting shifting how we view–and tend–our own lawns and lands, we can allow us to change great deal of ourselves in the process. The act of tending goes from tedious to regenerative/transformative.

 

To show this complex relationship with the lawn in action, let me talk about my own evolution and thought processes.  I started with reading Gaia’s Garden several years ago, and got to the part about the history and origins of the lawn (which, for Americans, was a strong desire to emulate rich Europeans).  I had really never thought about the lawn as an agent of consumption nor class, but there it was, clearly laid out for me.  At the time, I was in my first year being in Michigan and living in a condo where the lawn was done by hired professionals.  I remember trying to tuck little pepper plants into the bushes, only to have them ripped out. I watched them “care” for these places by using chemicals on every dandelion, cutting the grasses short, and spending inordinate amounts of time driving heavy machinery over the grass, even when it didn’t seem to need cut. And a curious transformation took place in my mind–I saw that lawn for what it was; a sad attempt to shape and tame nature to an unattainable ideal.  In many ways, the lawn is the antithesis of nature allowed to prosper and flourish.

 

New Peeps enjoying the tall grass!

When I purchased the land here a few years ago, I had TONS of lawn space–almost 2 full acres if I wanted to mow everything.  I decided on a series of paths in the spaces behind the house and then still mowed the front yard so that the house looked lived in.  As I went, I converted the sections closest to the house to gardens–herb gardens, butterfly gardens, and so much more. I also converted a ton of the backyard into my organic vegetable garden.  This work is ongoing, but at this point, I am quite pleased with my progress, probably converting close to 2500 square feet into garden spaces, walkways, and other more permanent features that require very little maintenance when planted with perennials and well mulched.  This year, I’ve decided that I’m only mowing paths for walking (and some of these will be done with a hand mower) and I’m going to put up some signage explaining my lawn philosophy to curious neighbors.  Luckilly I live on a dirt road with no homeowners association or pesky city ordinances (there have been numerous attacks on front-yard vegetable gardens and other attempts to remove lawns in more urban areas).

 

When I stopped mowing entirely, a magical process began to occur.  The lawn grew more and more wild and more and more beautiful!  Flower I never saw before peeked out; grasses grew tall and bent in the breeze, and medicinal plants grew larger and more vibrant.  And as this was happening, I was undergoing a parallel transformation in regards to my own healing work.   The photos in the blog are photos I took recently of the beautiful lawn–and it really is a thing of beauty, of growth, and benefits everyone much more than before.

 

If you are interested in converting your lawn, realize that it will be a long process, but the benefits are worth the work!  And remember that many hands make light work.  The sheet mulching techniques that I described in depth a few years back on this blog are particularly well suited to quickly getting rid of lawn quickly.  I’ve also found that asking around to friends and neighbors can yield a wealth of good plants in fairly short time.  This year alone, I’ve been given or traded for many plants including: french sorrel, fennel, mints, perennial garlic and onions, blue vervain, rue, Valerian, strawberries, hazelnuts, gooseberries, currants, and much more.  A lot of this has been due to our efforts to exchange plants and seeds among our Permaculture meetup members.  I’ve also done some trades and offered plants of my own–its a wonderful way to get plants to replace the consumptive lawn!  You can usually find free materials if you look around–from leaves in the fall on the street corner to municipalities giving away free compost and wood chips.

Awesome grasses!

 

You might also see if you can join a group to learn more about the process of converting your lawn.  In a broader move away from the lawn, in our Permaculture Meetup, we are starting an event called the 100-Yarden Dash.  We are asking 100 people in the area to sign up their “yard” and turn the yard into a garden or expand their current garden–hence, the “yarden” name.  At this point, we have over 200 people signed up to do just that, and we are excited to see how far this idea can go!  I hope that as we educate others, we can begin to shift our cultural consciousness and our ideals of what a beautiful outdoor space can be!

Historical Reenactment and Reskilling – Learning from our past May 27, 2013

A great deal of discussion exists within the sustainability/transition movement concerning the loss of “old” and sustainable skills and the importance of reskilling to help preserve the future and live comfortably in it.  The concept of reskilling is a simple one–you learn older skills that allow you some degree of independence and possibly supplemental income, skills such as learning home brewing, seed saving, community-building, maple syurping, weaving textiles, soapmaking, herbalism, papermaking, organic gardening, foraging, hunting, etc., with the understanding that these skills will most likely be quite useful as we enter the long descent in a post-peak oil world. (And regular blog readers will note that I devote a lot of this blog to such skills).  Much of the discussion I’ve encountered on reskilling, however, deals with where to learn skills and the lament at the general loss of most of these skills in only a few generations.

Our “camp” at the Feast of Ste. Claire. I stayed in the tent on the far left.

If sustainability-focused people, those following druidry or other nature-based spiritual paths, and the like are serious about reskilling and building a more sustainable future, one of the best places to start learning these “lost” skills is with the historical reenactors. Historical reenactment, for those who are unaware, is not just about reskilling, but rather becoming a monument to living history, embodying an earlier time period, learning about the people, the ways of live, the food, the culture, and so much more.  In all of my experiences, I have not found the source of better, well-rounded knowledge about the past than in the hands of historical reenactors.

Playing music from the 1750′s

This past weekend, I did my first reenactment “camp” where I stayed with a group of friends for three days and experienced living in the 1750′s (French and Indian War era) at a local reenactment event called the Feast of Ste. Claire.  At this feast, I learned about so many different kinds of skills, including cooking over a fire using various forms of iron cookware, various crafts such as weaving and spinning, information on map-making and surveying, woodworking and bucket making, lace making, and much more.  I also learned how cold 30 degrees farenheight really is, especially if you are not quite prepared for the cold (my costume, known in the community as “garb” is still in progress and I didn’t have too many period-appropriate cold-weather clothes).  I also learned a thing or two about community building. Beyond what I learned, however, I also brought skills and information to our camp and the public who visited our camp, including information on foraging for wild ingredients and on making plant-based inks and dyes.  Furthermore, I was able to pick up two items that I have been wanting to aid in reskilling–a loom and a butter churn.  I’m going to tell some stories, mainly through pictures, of the skills, and I’ll be blogging in more depth on many of these as I learn more about them in the future.Reenactors preserve and practice a number of skills while at camp; they also prepare a great deal in advance in the way of clothing, food, and craft items.  As you walk about the event, you can see so many different skills being practiced, with people who are more than willing to teach you and share information, answering any questions that you have.

Pottery using a kick wheel

1750′s military medicine demonstration

Inkle loom weaving – this weaves long strips and straps.

Weaving on a peacock loom

Surveying and map-making

Spinning

Wood carving

If you’ll notice, there is an old loom and a butter churn at the bottom left of the photo above.  I ended up purchasing these for $35 from the wood carver here.  He said both were sitting in his barn for the last 50 or so years.  I’m quite excited to learn how to make butter and also use the loom–I’m sure I’ll be posting about these activities in the future!

Some of the activities that we did in our camp, and which the public was able to enter and ask questions about, were as follows:

Painting using natural inks/dyes (there I am!).  Behind me, Pat works on his bow (made entirely with a hatchet).

Flint knapping (to make arrow heads) and bow making (this is flint knapping)

Spinning using drop spindles.  We demonstrated spinning as the public came into our camp and asked questions.

Cooking over the fire – we are making breakfast here, I believe. All cooking takes a really long time over the fire, I’ve discovered.

Foraged tea ingredients

I took some of the knowledge from my foraging classes to teach the kids how to make a locally-harvested tea out of red bud, dandelion flowers, wild violets, and pine needles.  It was quite tasty!

 

I want to conclude my post with a short discussion about the difference in politics and focus of sustainability-minded people with historical reenactors. Usually, I don’t find historical reenactors in the sustainability movement to a large extent.  The reason for this, I believe, is two-fold.  First, reenactors are a bit of a closed community, and unless you know someone, its pretty hard to “break into it” and the terminology and sheer amount of knowledge needed to participate in a meaningful way is not easy to acquire.  Second,  I’ve found that the reenactors have very different kinds of political leanings from the sustainability folks, so I can see why there isn’t a lot of crossover. To give you an example of this, while the Feast of Ste. Claire was going on, a group of anti-GMO protestors staged a rally at the edge of the park and then walked along the edge of the park with their signs.  Most reenactors were confused, at best, or opposed at worst, saying that they didn’t agree with the protestors.  I did my best to educate them about issues of seed saving and heirloom seeds, explaining about the kinds of seeds available in the 1750′s vs. now….but it was still a difficult thing because many reenactors are quite conservative.  I think this example demonstrates  the difference in political leanings and focus of the two groups. The reenactors are very concerned with preserving the past as a general operating mode while the sustainability folks (including many of the GMO protestors, who I had a chance to talk to) were focused on preserving the future.  The same skill sets apply either way, however.

 

And politics aside, this was a weekend well spent in learning a variety of new skills and also gaining the opportunity to share those skills with the public.   I would encourage others interested in reskiling to seek out these kinds of events, attend, and learn!  Not only did I learn many new skills, I came home with the butter churn and the loom, which I am very excited about!

*Thank you to my friend Debbie for taking so many great pictures and allowing me to use them here.*

Making Dandelion Wine – Photos and Step by Step Instructions May 23, 2013

Yard full of dandelions!

I’ve decided to learn how to make wine from  the dandelions in my yard! Why? When John Michael Greer was here a month ago, he suggested various kinds of reskilling to help us transition to post industrialism. One of his suggestions was to learn how to brew something because everyone always wants a good brew–and so, I am.  I figured that now is as good of a time as any to learn to make some wine!  Lucky for me, one of my good friends brews beer often, so he helped walk me through the process.

 

Additionally, dandelions get a bad rap in our society–Americans and other industrialized nations spend millions of dollars and dump millions of petrochemical weed killers on getting rid of dandelions. But as the book Gaia’s Garden: A Home-Scale Guide to Permaculture describes, the dandelion is an incredibly important plant. Its deep tap root breaks up compacted soil, it is full of nutrients, and it works to heal the lawn. To me, if we are going to shift to more sustainable practices and a more spiritual way of interacting with the land, we need to start seeing dandelions as allies, not enemies.  And allies they are, providing us with nutrition, medicine, beauty, whimsy, and yes…wine.

 

So, in this blog post, I wanted to talk a bit about the wine-making process from the perspective of someone completely new to home brewing.  I’ll talk about our process, the terminology, etc.  Let’s start with a few initial considerations:

 

1. Find a brewing mentor.

Honestly, the brewing process for the first time is a bit overwhelming.  I read and read online, and it was hard to understand the recipes because of the unfamiliar terms.  I think if I had bought a wine making book, maybe this wouldn’t have been quite the case.  Regardless,  I mitigated the problem by asking a good friend, Paul, who had years of brewing experience to help me through the process.  Since my friend did not have wine-making experience (but extensive beer/cider brewing) he was excited to learn about wine too (and of course, he’ll be getting quite a few bottles of the end product!)

 

2. Find a good recipe.

You’ll also need a good recipe.  I’m using Dandelion recipe #1 from a winemaking site.  I decided I was going to brew a 5 gallon batch so that my friend could have some.  Brewing a larger batch involved some simple mathematics to take the recipe from 1 to 5 gallons.  My friend also read online about the recipes and found forums where people discussed their experiences–this is also a good thing to do prior to starting.

 

3. Get your brewing supplies.

Lovely, sunny dandelions!

You want to get some supplies for brewing–its good to go to a local home brewing business and you can ask questions, get a kit, etc.  I purchased a 5 gallon glass “carboy” (which is just a big jug), a siphon to help remove (“rack”) liquid, some equipment for straining, a big funnel, some sanitizing agents, yeast, and yeast nutrient (and cheesecloth, which I forgot).  I purchased these supplies from a place in Ann Arbor, MI, called “Adventures in Home Brewing.”   I paid about $50 for everything including two glass “carboys” of 5 gallons each.  Most of this stuff is entirely reusable–the whole process is cheaper than I thought it would be. The staff were knowledgeable and very friendly. If you don’t have a local supply store, they have reasonable rates for online purchases.

 

4. Get your recipe supplies.

I also had to purchase the food materials for my recipe, which included 10 lemons, 5 oranges, 15 lbs of sugar and 5 lbs of golden raisins.

The process (so far)

Picking dandelions!

We spent a lovely, sunny hour and a half or so picking 60 cups of dandelions in my organic garden and yard.  You want to pick from an area that is not sprayed with chemicals.  Pick them when they are in full bloom (in Michigan, this is in early May).  We were able to pick enough dandelions for our brew in one day; people with smaller yards or less dandelion bounty may need to pick for a few days. This is better with friends and chickens to keep you company!

 

The brewing process

I’m now going to go through the basic process for this recipe using step by step photos.  I have to wait over a year to know if this is ultimately successful, but I’ll occasionally update the blog (this post) to let you know how things stand!

This is what 60 cups of dandelions looks like!

I boiled a little under 5 gallons of water and poured it over the dandelions.  Then it sat covered in my kitchen for two days before the process continued on.

The dandelions in a huge pressure cooker, ready to cook.

After the 2 days, we boiled the dandelions with sugar and the lemon/orange rinds (no white pith).  We added in the juice at the end of the boiling process. After boiling, we waited till it cooled to about 75 degrees (which took about 4 hours) and then added the yeast (this is special wine-making yeast).

Yeast!

The whole mixture sat for three days covered, fermenting.  It remained surprisingly warm, and bubbled and made little popping noises when you got up close.  Here’s a picture of the canner with the cloth cover.

Sitting for 3 days in an open brew!

After three days, we uncovered it.  The photo below is of my friend, Paul, taking a big whiff of the brew.  It already tastes and smells like wonderful awesomeness.

Smells like booze!

To extract the liquid and begin the first “racking” process, we began by using this cool siphon thing that Paul told me to buy to pull the liquid out of the bottom of the pressure canner and into our “carboy” (that’s the 5 gallon glass jug).  This process was really easy and fast–so I would definitely suggest the $12 investment in this little tool.  The liquid was a lovely yellow color and smelled awesome!

Siphoning the liquid into the carboy under Paul’s careful supervision.

I did forget to buy a cheesecloth, but we sanitized a clean cotton pillowcase and used that to strain out the remaining liquid from the dandelions.

Straining the dandelion brew

We added the raisins using the funnel. Once everything was done, we put this neat little cap on it that allows the jug to breathe without adding in any spores from the atmosphere.  Now I just wait till the wine “clears” before racking it a second time.

Neato thing I forgot the name of.

We put it in a warm spot upstairs. This is how it looked this morning, about 12 hours after the process was complete.  Its bubbling and going crazy, and you can literally see the yeast eating away at the rasins.

“Racked” dandelion wine!

The next step is to wait till the wine “clears” then strain it again, transferring it into another clean, sanitized vessel.  Then we wait more time before bottling it.  After bottling, I have to wait at least six months, but preferably, a full year, before drinking it.

 

So far, this process has been fun and exciting.  I’m certainly glad to have friends who have done this before, however, because wine making can be quite intimidating when you are first starting out!  But I’m very excited to put these dandelions to use and make my first brew .

Wild Food Profile: Ramps May 17, 2013

I’m going to be doing a series of posts on wild foods, especially those that I’ve been gathering for a long time.  Why wild foods?  Wild foods are just that–they grow without cultivation, are delicious, and allow you to experience different kinds of flavors.  When gathering wild foods, you want to make sure you are gathering in a sustainable way (in other words, don’t over-harvest and make sure you have permission–of all kinds–to harvest).  My good friend Mark put together this awesome guide on ethical foraging–please read it before harvesting any wild foods!

The first wild food I’ll be discussing is: RAMPS!

Ramps (with wild nettle and other plants). The ramps are the green ones bending over slightly.

What: Ramps are a plant native to North America (specifically, the eastern seaboard and Midwest regions).  They taste like a cross between garlic and onion, and as the season goes on, Ramps take on stronger and stronger flavor.   Ramps have a single bulb (which smells of onion/garlic and is quite unmistakable), two broad green leaves coming up from the bulb (the greens are also edible).  Later in the season, the ramps will turn yellow and eventually produce a seed head (which produces black seeds and looks a lot like a chive head).  Apparently, they have become commercially available in recent years, which I guess is a testament to their awesome flavor.

Where: Ramps can be found in wet forest areas.  They especially like to grow in valleys where spring rains cause small springs to pop up–this is where I always find them.  Look also along riverbeds and on the edge of marshes.  They are a full shade, deep forest plant.

Typical place to find ramps. Note: the druid has been here before and left a shrine!

When: Ramps come into season usually in late April or early May.  Depending on the warmth of the soil, they might come in a bit early (as was the case last year) or a bit later (as was the case this year–they were at their peak in the 2nd week of May this year) depending on spring weather.

What to harvest: The entire plant can be harvested anytime before it goes to seed.  Once the plant is in seed (known as “bolting”) the energy of the plant shifts from the leaves and bulb to the seed production, so the flavor suffers.

Ramps chopped up and ready for eating!

How to Preserve: I’ve only attempted one preservation method, which is drying ramps in a dehydrator.  They dry very quickly (4 or so hours) and break up into neat little rings.  I highly suspect that they would store decently well in a root cellar.  I’m also told they freeze well!

Jar of dried ramps

How to Eat:  You can use the green leaves in any way you would a green onion.  You can use the bulb like an onion or garlic. The photo below shows a wonderful fried rice dish that we made from wild woodland nettles (post on that soon), ramps, rice, and egg.  It was divine!

 

Ramp stir fry with fresh asparagus and fish.

Climate Change and Growing Food: Creating Resilient Polyculture Crops for Spring Weather May 12, 2013

In Michigan, last spring (2012) was one of the warmest on record.  By early April, I had beautiful spinach and lettuce crops; the crops were bolting by mid-May.  The warm weather took its serious toll on our fruit crops—most berry bushes and fruit trees bloomed and then had their blooms killed by an early April hard frost; this meant that most of South East Michigan had very little fruit or limited berries last year. Maple sugar/syrup production also was at a standstill in 2012 because the sap didn’t run long—the trees budded out very quickly after the warm weather hit. Farmers, especially those in orcharding or syrup production, had an incredibly difficult year. Our local cider mills had to import nearly all of their apples (luckily, they could do so from the western side of the state, which didn’t get hit with frost as badly).

 

This year, 2013, was very much the opposite. The jet stream shift caused by the melting Arctic ice brought cold air to us for most of February, March, and April (and there are likely a host of factors causing this, but this seems to be one that most agree upon).  In fact, we had three snowstorms in April and several nights of 25 and below–and a hard frost in May (tonight, actually). We’ve had very severe winds (which ripped apart my hoop houses and dropped my greenhouse with seedlings inside!) In the 2nd week of may, we are only now beginning to see buds on our trees. This means we had a most excellent maple syrup harvest (which I’ve blogged about earlier this year) and we should have excellent fruit and berries.  But this also means that our greens are barely growing and many cold-weather crops that can be started in April aren’t yet larger than an inch or two out of the ground in mid-May.  Farmers in the area complain about how they are now 3 weeks or more behind where they need to be in their planting because the ground remained frozen for so long.

 

The national data supports my local observations – the following graphic is a description of March temperatures for 2012 vs. 2013 put out by Climate Central.

Extreme heat vs. extreme cold in March.

When I look at these last two years, I see quite a few lessons in terms of resiliency. Resiliency is a concept used within the permaculture and sustainability movements that describes one’s ability to endure. In the case of our spring weather, a diversity of crops, from greens to fruit to herbs and so on, is critical to provide a good harvest.  This year, I’ve been attempting to grow greens nearly in futility, starting things like lettuce and chard indoors rather than try to grow them outside. But more importantly, I’m staying away from monocropping and from depending too much upon any one crop, because that crop may or may not be here and doing well in the coming years. So rather than planting six cherry trees (or having a dozen different fruit trees) which are susceptible to frost and weather shifts, I’m planting hazelnuts, gooseberries, cranberries, blueberries, beach plums, and currants, all of which bud at slightly different times and which have different cold and drought tolerance.

 

Even within a single crop, I am also testing out the limits.  I did an experiment with some of my tomato seedlings to see which ones are more resilient to drought conditions (which we also experienced in the summer 2012).  I pulled a number of different tomatoes that I was planing this year — Yellow Pear, Black Krim, Amish Paste, Cherry Roma, and Green Zebra–and purposely didn’t water a set of seedlings very much at all, stimulating drought conditions.  And the results were quick and obvious–the Yellow pear tomatoes are by far the least drought tolerant, and the Black Krim and Amish paste are more so.   We’ll see how these tomatoes fare when I plant them in the garden next week!  This also supports Greer’s earlier argument that druids need to take up science, learn how to conduct science, and engage in citizen-research (more on this soon!)

 

So in this way, I’m seeking to build diversity within my own crops, which builds resilience.  I don’t think we can expect “normal” weather patterns from here on out–we have to deal with abnormal weather conditions, be it too much rain or too little, too much heat or too little, and find crops and plants that can function well under a variety of unknown and unforeseen conditions.