Posts Tagged ‘stuff I learned’

7 Sep

Hippie Finally gets her Sh*t Together and Does Something

Posted by rakhi in Experiments, Making, Building, and Crafting, Stuff, The Conversion, Upcycling. Tagged: , , , , , .

Lazy rain barrel.

A year-and-a-half ago I bought this beautiful wine barrel on Craigslist, with the idea of making a rain barrel out of it. To be clear, I have tons of interest in making things that are useful to me. The problem is, however, that I have much less interest in ruining cool things because I have tons of interest in making things that are useful to me. And so, the wine barrel sat at the side of our house for six seasons without so much of a glance.

Action shot! Go rain barrel! Woohooooo!

The lack of rain this year finally broke me down, and two hardware store trips later, I have a pretty little rain barrel that I don’t even think I ruined. And, I kid you not, it took no more than fifteen minutes to do it, and $15 (besides for the cost of the wine barrel, which was much more expensive). And that doesn’t even account for the contact high I was rewarded with when the deeply-oaked whiskey fumes escaped holes I drilled.  My tools:

A hand-drill. A drill bit. A faucet. A plug (for the barrel hole).

I’ll be putting a screen over the top to stop the mosquitoes from mak’in babies in it, but for now I’m just pooped from finally having done something. Whew.

28 Aug

Lazy Hippie: Food that Preserves Itself

Posted by rakhi in Cooking, Baking & Making, Experiments, Food. Tagged: , , , , .

Dried mustard seed just harvested from the garden.

I just found out that you can cut up vegetables, throw them in a jar full of water and some salt, wait a few days, and they will have preserved themselves. This seems like magic to me. I can’t believe that this is actually the state of the world, and I have just learned about it.  And, not only do these veggies magically preserve themselves, but afterwards they will be brimming with healthy bacteria and, in some respects, the veggies will be more nutritious than the raw vegetable itself.

Mustard seed, grape leaves, salt, and dill in the pickling jar.

I’ve always loved fresh sauerkraut, and have been making my own for a little while now, but I had no idea that this process could be extended to, well, everything. Guacamole, hot sauce, blueberry soda, salsa, vinegar, pickled carrots, grape leaves, and, of course, pickles. The University of MN Extension has a page on safely making fermented pickles and sauerkraut, which, in my opinion, is a little on the overly-cautious side because their recipes ask that you, after fermenting the pickles, kill the ferment by putting it in a hot water bath to avoid spoilage. I’m more of the “smell it cautiously and eat it ravenously” mentality.

I put grape leaves in my jar, because I read that the tannins can help keep the vegetables crispy, and since I have a grape plant in my backyard, it seemed like an easy thing to try. Not to mention the possibility of making my own stuffed grape leaves from the link above!

Green beans, cucumber, and a hot pepper with the mustard seed, grape leaves, dill, and salt.

A Saint Paul Beer Fest tasting glass holding the veggies under the brine.

A lot of the recipes require the addition of whey or kefir to the brine, but I found that this is just to stack the cards in your favor with a “starter” bacteria. By eliminating the whey, you’re allowing the natural bacteria on the vegetables themselves to run the show. The addition of salt, and keeping the vegetable mass under the brine (away from oxygen) allows the “good” bacteria to happily procreate like bunnies without competition from the bad bacteria.

It’s the time of the season where crazy garden harvests begin, and in this moment, having this discovery, it appears that canning does not have to be the impending nightmare that it is. Time to go crock-shopping!

My current “wild ferments.” Lemons, beans, cucumbers. The middle jar is the furthest along, you can tell by the cloudy brine and the washed out color. I’ve been tasting it along the way, and and once it hits the level of tangy-ness I love, I’ll refrigerate it and eat it at my own pace.

 

7 Aug

Hippie’s Been Had: Sunberries

Posted by rakhi in Experiments, Food, Plant Identification. Tagged: , , , , .

I’d like to think that This Hippie was not born yesterday. I do a lot of obsessive research about plants, food, and gardening to make sure that I understand what’s going on. But then things like this happen to invite speculation that, perhaps, I am just a chump. In fairness, I tend to have the same compulsions that many edible gardeners have – to find new exciting plants to grow and new delicious food to eat. And so, last spring when I was in one of my favorite shops, Eggplant Urban Farm Supply, perusing the seeds, and ran into this mystery seed pack labeled “Sunberry” I immediately became intrigued and bought a pack for planting this year. And plant I did.

Cultivated sunberry plants in my front-yard edible garden.

After taking a look-see at these plants, I noticed that they looked suspiciously like a weed growing in my boulevard:

Boulevard (“Wild”) Sunberry Plant. Please notice that it is much more mature than the plants that I cultivated.

And wouldn’t you know it. They are the same damn plant. Although not indicated on the “Sunberry” seed pack, I found out from this book that “Sunberry” is merely a name given to the plant Black Nightshade to distract from its relation to Deadly Nightshade, which is highly poisonous. And black nightshade is a ubiquitous weed that grows prolifically in the Midwest including, for example, the uncultivated section of my boulevard. It’s related to many of the most delicious cultivated garden vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and potatoes.

The sepal of the deadly nightshade berry extends beyond the fruit. So, for the Love of God, don’t eat it. attribution.

After making sure the Boulevard plant (white flowers; bug-eaten leaves; berry clusters; sepal is smaller than the berry) was not deadly nightshade (purple flowers; generally uneaten leaves; single berries; sepal is bigger than the berry; smells of death), I tasted this unexpected treat, and promptly pulled out two of the three plants taking up space in my community garden plot. In flavor it’s very similar to ground cherry, which I don’t get very excited about – at least when compared to tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. And, since it’s in the same family as those other vegetables, it’s competing for the same nutrients as the tomato plants sitting next to it.  I did keep one plant because maybe it will make a unique salsa or something. We’ll see. The one remaining black nightshade plant in my plot is, by far, outperforming all of my tomato, pepper and eggplant plants. So at the very least it is sucking up nutrients which will make lovely compost for a future garden bed.

11 Jul

Japanese Beetles: A List For Destruction

Posted by rakhi in a gardening problem, Bugs in the garden. Tagged: , , , , , .

Japanese beetles in the process of decimating my soybeans. They must be stopped.

For the last couple weeks, Japanese beetles have been making their seasonal appearance, and now they have crashed our party in vast numbers. Boldly strutting into our gardens like they own the place, rudely eating what is not meant for them, and offensively humping on every available surface. It’s like an 80′s coke party except these assholes are stone-cold sober.

The Japanese beetles are an invasive species, and are very capable of destroying many different types of plants. In my gardens they are particular to my grape vine and my soybeans. The beetles start out as grubs that hatch from eggs below the soil surface.

There are a number of things you can do to limit the populations. I am personally against the use of insecticides for the adult beetles that can also harm other insects (not to mention my food), so taking that into account, here is my list, in order of my most preferred, to least preferred:

List for Japanese Beetle Destruction

1. A bucket of soapy water, and knock the beetles in.

My bucket o’ death.

I hate to get all high-tech on you, but the beetles are generally slow to take flight, and in a typical home garden a daily (or every-few-days if you’re like me) walk through will be enough to avoid catastrophe. I keep my bucket of water perpetually on the porch so that I can just grab it quickly when I’m walking by. This was my sole approach last year and was happy with the results. This year I’ve noticed some of the beetles are more willing and able to fly away. Has anyone else noticed this?

2. Parasitic Nematodes.

There are species of nematodes that feed on the grubs. Locally, I’ve known Bachman’s to have nematodes in stock, and suppliers on Amazon.com have nematodes, as well. You apply the nematodes to the soil at night, and then keep the soil moist to keep them alive. Keep in mind you’ll just be reducing the grubs in your yard, and some beetles can (and will) fly in from elsewhere.

3. Plant geraniums!

Geranium flowers can be deadly to the Japanese beetle. A particular amino acid in a geranium flower that causes paralysis of the Japanese beetle is identified in this study, and you can watch the paralysis here. This blogger has had success controlling Japanese beetles with geraniums.

4. Pheromone traps.

Pheromone traps use scents to attract Japanese beetles from surrounding areas, at which point you drown them as in #1, or kill them some other way. There is much disagreement about this approach, because it does seem that the trap attracts more beetles to your area without being able to trap all of them. However, I am of the opinion that I’d rather attract them from a neighbor who chooses not to control their populations and just control the population myself. This is an example pheromone trap on Amazon.com: Japanese Beetle Trap.

5. Milky Spore Disease.

This is a bacteria that you can introduce to the soil that does not affect beneficial insects, but causes disease in the Japanese beetle grubs. I just saw some at my Ace Hardware store. The U of M Extension and at least one entomologist at Ohio State says that recent trials show milky spore has not been particularly effective.

10 Jul

My Most Harvestable Edible

Posted by rakhi in Gardening, Plant Identification, Weeds. Tagged: , , , , .

It’s entirely possible that the reason why I’m posting so much about weeds right now is because, quite frankly, weeds are the most harvest-able edible in my garden. Take my community garden plot harvest from Sunday in the photo above, for example. On the left you have a single okra pod, a miniature sweet pepper, a gypsy pepper, and various delightful radishes. On the right you have purslane (pig weed). A succulent weed.

So cute.

Back when my front yard garden was merely *shudder* a yard, I used to have oodles of purslane growing everywhere because my yard was dry. Because purslane grows particularly deep roots to get moisture, it was able to flourish where other plants dare not take root. Now that my front yard is an oasis, the purslane is nowhere to be found, and other weeds have taken its place.

I am pleased that this year purslane has made a strong showing in my community garden plot, which is sandy and dry. This magical little weed is so fascinating – not to mention really, really healthy to eat. Purslane is eaten all over the world and has the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy green (in fact, it has the same amount as lake trout!), has six times the Vitamin E of spinach, and 7 times more beta carotene than carrots. I did put some of the purslane in my salad the other night, and it tasted exactly like a delicious salad green.

Wikipedia even mentions that purslane can be a good companion plant to help the roots of other plants reach moisture.

The foodies among us will be pleased the epicurious has a number of purslane recipes that might be worth a gander. Also, the Sierra Club just posted some awesome “Wild Greens” recipes including dandelion currant pasta, purslane salad, nettles pizza, and lambsquarter crostini!

1 Jul

Plant Identification in My Yard

Posted by rakhi in Gardening, Plant Identification, Pretty non-edibles. Tagged: .

At the West End Garden Tour, there were some plants in my yard that I didn’t know the names of, but with the help of visitors and some research on my part I can tell you what they are, now:

Salsify – an edible plant, especially grown for the roots

Verbascum – Mullein – related to the weed, Common Mullein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coral Bells (Heuchera)

Coreopsis (Tickseed) on the left and Rudbeckia hirta (Black-Eyed Susan) on the right

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both are Rudbeckia hirta (Gloriosa Daisies)

29 Jun

Lactucarium is Gross

Posted by rakhi in Food, Random Thought. Tagged: , , .

Lactucarium seeping out of otherwise-delicious lettuce.

Yesterday I was doing the normal rounds around the garden to collect salad greens for dinner (I still love saying that) and I chopped the top off one of the more mature lettuce heads, causing the milky-white lettuce sap to rush to the wound. What made this particular moment different than most, however, is that in an instant my finger was dabbed into this mystery liquid and onto my tongue. Trauma ensued. It was gross. A horrible, bitter mess that lingered on my tongue way longer than necessary for me to get the point.

This white, gross, crap is called lactucarium and actually is kind of interesting.  Historically it has been used as a substitute opium and for medicinal purposes, although recent studies seem to suggest that it probably isn’t very effective for either. It coagulates upon exposure to air (such as, for example, when a hippie cuts a chunk off her lettuce plant for dinner), which makes it technically a latex. The primary purpose of lactucarium appears to be keeping hippies and herbivores from eating it. Mission, accomplished, my dear lettuce.

 

30 May

Inadvertent Oyster Mushrooms

Posted by rakhi in A Happy Accident, Experiments. Tagged: , , , .

I grew a couple of rounds of oyster mushrooms from my oyster mushroom kit, and even harvested some spores from the Second-Round Mushrooms to try to inoculate my own substrate (which may or may not be a fail, I’m not yet willing to admit defeat). The mushrooms that were growing were drying out a bit, so I put a plastic bag around the kit to retain some of the moisture. I then proceeded to ignore the kit in preparation for, and through, my trip to Bolivia, mainly just assuming that the mushrooming had run it’s course. Imagine my gluttonous delight when I’m neatening up my shelving around the mushroom kit and find this:

I think the only thing tastier than oyster mushrooms are surprise oyster mushrooms.

16 Apr

Tomatoes!

Posted by rakhi in a gardening problem, Food, Gardening, Local Food, The environment. Tagged: , , , , , .

Last June Fresh Air aired an interview with Barry Estabrook based on Barry Estabrook‘s book Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit.  I meant to write a post about it back then, but laziness got the best of me. Don’t judge.

I have not read the book, but the interview with Estabrook was endlessly fascinating.  I guess anyone who has made the mistake of purchasing a tomato in the winter from a big box grocery store knows how actual garden tomatoes don’t even compare, but it sounds like his book tells us why this is the case.  Much of the reason is through breeding and development that favors ship-ability, volume, and attractiveness of the fruit rather than nutrition and taste, and another reason is inhospitable climates that the tomatoes are grown in.  He also delves into the horrendous labor practices in the tomato industry, and how some growers have been successfully prosecuted for having slaves.  I learned a bunch of other stuff, too, but I’m trying to keep this post to a palatable length.

I had always assumed that tomatoes are grown in Florida because the climate is perfect for them, but apparently this is not the case.  The humidity is actually really bad for the tomato plants, and so the farmers are resigned to constantly spraying their crops so as to prevent mildew and disease problems that would naturally arise.  Estabrook has identified 100 different herbicides and pesticides that are recommended for farmers in Florida to use on one crop of tomatoes.

Thinking back to my own experience with tomatoes, it makes sense that Florida is not ideal.  Our summers here are much shorter than Florida, but it still gets very humid.  By the end of the 2010 summer year all my tomato plants were a pretty sad sight from the powdery mildew that I was unable to control.  Last year it was less of a problem because I did a few things differently:

1. watered early in the day.

2. avoided water on the leaves of the plants while watering.

3. spaced the plants properly.

4. Got lucky.

6 Apr

Hippie Experiments with Shrooms. *Yawn* (What Else is New)

Posted by rakhi in A Happy Accident, Experiments, Gardening. Tagged: , , , , .

Amanita muscaria A magic mushroom I ran into in Alaska

My front yard does not get enormous amounts of sunlight, which I found out last year after planting ten tomato plants, four pepper plants, three okra plants, and two eggplants. Yeah. It was an educational – and depressing – summer. So this year I’m holding back on planting uncontrolled amounts of those delightful treats and experimenting with less sunshine-sucking plants. One of these experiments is mushrooms.

Okay, not those kind of mushrooms.

After doing some research, I figured out that it’s really hard to find mushroom spawn around here. Eventually I found this kit from Eggplant Supply (great for kids and Hippies alike!).

I didn’t have any idea how quickly mushrooms grew, but check this out, and keep in mind that two photos were taken each day (except the first):

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So cool! My local Co-op sells Oyster mushrooms for 29.99/lb. The kit promises around 1-1.5 lbs of mushrooms, so at $20 a kit, it’s a pretty decent deal. Not as good a deal, however, as foraging in your local Nature and finding one for free.

« Older Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 32 other followers