Busy Days in the Garden

October 9th, 2006

There is a lot to do in the garden at the moment: more seeds to start, seedlings to transplant, new garden beds to be dug, and trellises and other supports to put together. I’ve just finished digging a new bed for some globe artichoke seedlings. Today we also planted the first curcurbits of the season — an heirloom zucchini called “black beauty.” I hope we are not planting them out too early. To judge by how warm the soil feels on my fingers, they should do just fine.

When we look around us now, the whole world is covered in the bright green of spring. Our pasture seems to be growing faster than the cows can eat it. The grape vines are covered in leaves, and bumble bees are visiting the flowering fava (broad) beans. Readers of Cryptogon might remember the garlic that we planted back at mid-winter on top of a big batch of fish carcasses. The garlic seems to like its diet of fish, and has really taken off now that the weather has warmed up.


Broad beans

Garlic

As well as being busy in the garden, I’ve been working on a drawing, which is to be a thank you gift for some people who have been extremely kind and generous to Kevin and me. It’s been a long time since I did any drawing! It feels good to have pencils and crayons in my hands again after so long, and it’s nice to be able to give a gift that we’ve made ourselves.

I guess it’s time for an update on the batch of bok choi kimchi that I wrote about a while back. I’m afraid the news is not good. That batch of kimchi looks fine, and it fermented well, but (alas!) it tastes disgustingly salty. I must have become muddled and added the salt twice or something. Yuck. The cows have eaten some of it. Kevin put it out with their salt and kelp rations. (Kikuyu grass, which makes up the bulk of our pasture, doesn’t do a very good job of pulling sodium out of the soil. Animals on a kikuyu-based diet need plenty of supplemental salt rations.) That kimchi tasted like one big monster salt ration to me, so I hope it does our animals some good. The other batches of kimchi that I’ve made recently have turned out fine, including one that contains more of the bok choi from the garden. So, despite one failure, we still have plenty of kimchi to eat.

Posted in Cows, Garden | Comments Closed

Spring Rain On Our Garden

October 4th, 2006

Our garden is drinking up the warm spring rain that has been falling over the past few days. The young tomato plants (just transplanted into the garden) have perked up, and the peas seem to be growing even as we watch. We are now picking all the collard greens we can eat, plus a few more to give away. We are also harvesting a good deal of lacinto kale, and a few leaves of a beautiful plant called red orach. Red orach can be used like spinach, but its tender leaves are a stunning shade of pink. So far, it seems to be growing well, and has been untroubled by pests. Kevin and I have never grown red orach before, but we may well be planting more of it in seasons to come.

Today, I slipped outside between showers of rain and constructed a frame out of bamboo and twine for the runner beans to climb up. After that, it was time to plant the bean seedlings in the damp earth next to the new structure. The variety of runner beans we’ve chosen is an heirloom with the colourful name, “painted lady.” The flowers should be two-tone red and white. We hope that they will make a beautiful and tasty display next to the path that leads to our front door.


Lacinto kale and red orach picked fresh for lunch

Just planted: painted lady runner bean seedling

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Rain, Glorious Rain

October 1st, 2006

As the Northern Hemisphere heads into Fall, down here on the Farmlet, Spring is heating up.

And drying everything out.

The weird, early dry weather seemed to increasingly creep into conversations no matter where we went in recent days. People would comment on how nice the clear, sunny days were, and then follow up with something like, “I hope we get some rain soon.”

It’s somewhat ominous that the lack of rain is pervading the collective consciousness around here this early in the season. The dairy farmers in the area were starting to twitch a bit.

Thankfully, this morning, the heavens opened up and we have received a decent soaking. The rain has continued, on and off, throughout the day, and has been very heavy at times. Water tables are rising, streams are flowing and tanks are topping up.

Our spring sourced, gravity fed water supply should be ok as it is now, but we want to overbuild our “infrastructure” to ensure that we will have more than ample capacity to irrigate our garden and water our stock. There is a small area, at the base of a very steep part of our pasture, that becomes quite boggy when it rains. As soon as we can afford it, Becky and I want to hire an earth mover to construct a dam/pond in this area. With a little assistance from us, this naturally occurring bog would make a beautiful pond based microclimate while providing a bit of water insurance for the Farmlet.

Posted in Water | Comments Closed

Toothpaste

September 29th, 2006

In our quest to become more self reliant, we are always on the lookout for ways to make things for ourselves rather than buying them ready-made. Often the results are healthier for us and kinder to the planet — as well as costing less.

Recently, I decided we should start making our own toothpaste. I have seen various recipies for toothpastes and tooth powders in books and on the Internet. This one, which I found on Path to Freedom, appeals to us because it consists of just a few easily obtained ingredients.

Toothpaste

6 teaspoons baking soda

1/3 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons vegetable glycerin

15 drops natural peppermint essence (optional)
Combine all ingredients, mix well, and store in an airtight container.

Note: Kevin and I like a thicker toothpaste, and don’t mind if it’s not very sweet tasting, so we halve the quantity of glycerin in each batch. Also, we like to make at least a double mixture, since the quantity this recipe makes is pretty small.

We get a lot of satisfaction from this toothpaste. It contains no saccharin, no artificial flavourings or colourings, no flouride, no sodium laurel sulphate, no sodium laureth sulphate. . . to name just a few of the less desirable ingredients that can lurk in commercial toothpastes. It’s easy to make, and our teeth feel shiny and clean after using it.

But what say we ran out of vegetable glycerin, or even baking soda? Or what if we wanted to buy even fewer ingredients? Then what? Well, we could always clean our teeth with salt and sage leaves. We bought a tiny sage plant at the market last Saturday, so perhaps we’ll be able to try this before too long.

Posted in Household | 8 Comments »

Kimchi

September 26th, 2006

Ever since we planted the first bok choi seeds, I’ve been thinking about how good it would be to make some bok choi kimchi (kimchi is a Korean-style sauerkraut). Finally, our bok choi is ready to harvest, and we are engaged in our much-anticipated bok choi kimchi experiment.


Bok choi, ready to harvest

Kevin and I are very fond of lactic fermented vegetables, which have become a regular part of our diet since we moved here. Lactic fermented foods contain lots of health-giving enzymes and vitamins. Lactic fermentation is a simple traditional way to preserve food without losing nutritional value. Actually, the process adds nutritional value to the food — like making yoghurt out of milk. They also taste delicious — less acidic and more mellow/complex than vinegar pickles.

In case you are interested, the recipe book, Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon, has some good recipes and guidance for making lactic pickles. It really helped us get started. If I’d known it was that easy to make your own fermented vegetable pickles, I’d have started doing it much sooner. Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz, might be another good book to look at. This book is on my wish list, as I think it might give us more interesting ideas and recipes to work with. Maybe we’ll get it next time we are putting in an order with Amazon.

We’ve made various different kinds of lactic pickles in our little kitchen here, but this is the first time we have produce from our own garden to ferment. It feels like a small milestone!

I’ve never tried to make kimchi out of bok choi before, so let’s hope it works ok. I’ll post the outcome in a few days!

Here’s the recipe:

Bok Choi Kimchi
7 heads of bok choi, cut into quarters lengthwise
1 1/2 tablespoons of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon of chile flakes
2 tablespoons of fresh ginger, finely chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tablespoons of whey (You can get whey by putting some live natural yoghurt in a cloth, and collecting the liquid that drains out of it.)

Method: Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl. Pound and crush the bok choi to release some of the juices — without completely pulverising it. Leave the mixture to sit for a few minutes to draw out a bit more moisture. Now put the mixture into a large preserving jar, pressing it down to pack it in, and so that the liquid comes up to cover the vegetables. Leave about 3cm of space at the top of the jar, since the kimchi will expand a bit as it ferments. Close the lid firmly, and keep at room temperature for 3 days. Now it should be ready to eat.


Kimchi

You can now store the kimchi in the fridge or root cellar, where it will keep for several months. The taste is good immediately, but improves as the kimchi matures.

Slug Update

You might remember that we were having a problem with slugs devouring our bok choi plants. Somehow, with my nightly slug hunts and our beer traps, the slugs have been kept under control, and we will get to eat most of the bok choi. Farmlet reader, DR, has suggested using coffee as a slug and snail repellent. We are keen to try this trick. Also, BB suggested using khaki campbell ducks to eat the slugs. We like this idea too. Khaki campbell ducks are supposed to be wholly carniverous, so would not eat the seedlings. I’m still a bit worried that the ducks might kill seedlings by standing or sitting on them, though. Has anyone out there had experience with khaki campbell ducks in a vegetable patch?

Posted in Fermentation, Food and Recipes | 5 Comments »

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